Dynamic MM Proposal

1

After all the chatting on the discord today, I think I may have an idea that would help “fix” our current T1 MMs (still want worthy higher tier ones, but that is a separate topic that Rain has covered nicely).

Simply put, I would like to suggest a mechanism by which each CXs T1 MMs move (independently, slowly and with the bid & ask moving in the same direction each time). The details will be below, but first the benefits.
-Regional trade, right now shipping SF from BEN to MOR is marginal at best, but if the regional price for SF is higher in MOR, fantastic.
-Similarly, you invest in the boom, but the market bust, the MM will lower, but slowly. This allows you to either become better at it, or shift away.
-Currency control. Start of the game, everyone is buying BSE, it moves up. Slows down the cash burn and gets more people making it. Ditto, deflation, we still pump money in the system, but all the cash taps should balance out.

Now the mechanism. Each product has a specified price range. So FF right now has a range of 15. That stays the same. But each day a fraction is determined: amount bought/sold from the MM vs open market. That number is divided by the 14 day average. The closer to 100% MM it is, the MM is moved by that fraction of 1%. The opposite MM would also move with it (that way, if the market quickly oversaturates, the people getting in can get some money out before the equilibrium is found).

For straight buy MMs (say HE or ALO), I would suggest the same dropping mechanism, but a natural float back up of 0.5% for each day no sales to MM occur. This would nicely allow a high HE MM at the start of the game that would slowly wither away to a reasonable value.

Of course, there are lots of tweaks possible. What the average time, max step per day, maybe the opposite MM only moves ½ the amount the first one does. But the key here is that the MMs are known and T1 markets will swing, but slowly enough that no one gets thrown off in a market swing.

2 Likes
2

I feel like with enough participants that this would be hard to game… but then again, what would stop people from hoarding huge volumes to cash in on high MM values and then just produce while the value builds back up?

The idea is good… but the implementation is questionable at best.

3

I think another interesting idea for higher tier MMs would be to have MMs with limited demand that doesn’t regenerate or regenerates slowly. This would support the market for certain goods until player demand picks back up, or allow the first few to produce something to have some guaranteed demand.

4

That’s where I’m hoping for the super slow part to help. Max 1% (or whatever value is used) would make it a pretty slow change.

5

My only worry with limited numbers is that is more of a boon for the first to market. Whereas is it just slowly drops, the first people still get a bonus (which is ok as they had to maybe make the scientists or techs), but over time the price would get reasonable. Even WRs or NV1s could be given a higher value to spur the market and slowly become reasonable for ship building.

6

The first people to market already get a bonus, in that they can charge what they like. Just look at the price history of any product.

The reality is that the people who were in the game from the start have a massive advantage. I remember regularly selling OVE for 150. These days the OVE price is more like 75. So any new players trying to be manufacturers will take longer to get started. Meanwhile, those early players have moved on to charging high prices for settler luxuries or tech consumables, allowing them to keep up their advanced rate of growth. So new players look at the profit margins available to them, and feel like they can never catch up.

I think that any kind of dynamic MM should, at the very least, not exacerbate this issue. Having MMs that shift with demand will result in MM prices dropping as supply increases. So in practice you’d be decreasing the safety net for new players once we reach the point where experienced players don’t need a safety net any more. This seems backwards.

7

Eventually MM will not be a thing.
So any dev time put into the current MM system is ‘wasted’.

Ideas as good as they sound are just not worth it.

Adjusting prices, adding new MM all that is done with little effort.

My 2 cents.

2 Likes
8

Agreed fully with Gladi. Ideally, there aren’t any MMs (or if there are, they’re completely unnecessary thanks to player market)