The PrUn discord has become a mass of comments, so I’ll copy all of CUOP’s press releases here.
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Oh noes! A super evil Corp is establishing a monopoly!
What’s the go, GDP?
We are running a test to see:
- Whether aggressive corporate actions can be countered using in-game mechanics
- Whether a corporation can establish a monopoly over an individual raw material
- Whether the community can cross corporate lines and rally to a cause
- Whether a corporation can hold a monopoly
Why CUO?
CUO is a material that is used in T3 production and consumables. It is a resource that is very important to wealthy and established players. It is also not used by less-wealthy players. CUO underpins a lot of the high level production stuff. We chose CUO as our target because
- There are only 9 planets to target
- Much lower impact on new and early game players
- Galactic stockpiles are high, and could likely weather a brief monopoly
- It is a very important resource, so a monopoly should not be tolerated
The devs are going to fix you up, GDP
This project was cleared with the developers prior to its commencement. All planning has been done openly, under developer observation. We have not taken advantage of any bugs or exploits.
How much did this cost?
With its current incarnation, this project has cost around 11,000,000 currency units to implement. We’ve built 9 ADM and a lot of CM. It’s been in planning for 2 months.
What’s the end game?
If the community can rally together to defeat us, we’ll gladly call the test complete and concede the monopoly. We all expect a hard fight, but it’s the only way to test the mechanics and learn how we can fight this sort of thing if an actually malicious Corp does it.
No hard feelings?
Not from us.
Have fun guys! We’ll play fair, let’s test this thing together.
CUOP press release #2
We consider that the first phase of Operation Typhoon has been completed.
Over the next day or so, pending login opportunities, all production categories, with the exception of Resource Extraction, on CUOP controlled planets will be reduced to 50.
PWH and LM fees will remain in place.
Why didn’t you do this from the start?
As part of our goals is to rally the community to cooperate against us, we felt that “threats” of high taxes would not sufficiently galvanise the community. There needed to be no doubt that we were serious in playing our role.
I’m still not giving you money!
We’re not after your money. The primary goal is establishing and defending a cartel.
Why don’t you reduce RE fees too?
It wouldn’t be a cartel if we didn’t impact the price of CUO.
Don’t cartels still produce stuff?
Yeah, we will. The galaxy has enough CUO in storage that any impact on price due to CUOP won’t be felt until after we win the next elections.
What is the projected impact on pricing?
Depending on the planet, CUO cost to produce will only rise by 350-500 per unit at the maximum tax rate.
That’s huge!
Not at all. SCN and HMS are the primary uses for CUO.
A rise of 500 on CUO adds 750 to the price of SCN - 0.75 per technician.
A rise of 500 on CUO adds 84 to the price of HMS - 0.42 per technician.
Oh wow, that’s not much at all.
That’s right. If we only raised RE production fees at the start, we’d likely very easily hold the cartel.
Wouldn’t that mean you’d have completed the test anyway?
Yes, absolutely. However GDP projects are complex, with multiple layers of goals. Every one of our projects has a strong focus on getting people to work together. In this case, we need to test how the community is able to respond TOGETHER to defeat a hostile takeover.
I don’t think a super-evil corp could survive in PrUn anyway.
Any corp with a sufficient number of players will be able to do the same thing. What happens if a Something Awful group lands in PrUn and 50-60 players who are used to working together try to take us all on? Right now, I think they have a good chance of winning.
In this test, we’re playing the role of a “super evil cartel” and the counter team is “our only hope” as a galaxy. This is honestly the most cooperation I’ve seen in this galaxy so far. Great job so far, don’t give up.
Go away Prdgi, you jerky mcjerkface!
No.
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