This is just a quick update of the game world, so no big change log this time.
As some of you know (or suspected): the market makers are currently a cash sink and thus the global money supply shrinks. While the effect is only minimal at the moment and we think the current state of the economy is healthy we still decided to raise the prices market makers will pay for commodities.
Do you mean, the prices that market makers will charge for commodities? As it seems, market makers seem to be only setup as currency sinks / resource faucets.
No, I mean the prices that market makers pay for the players’ commodities.
I see, there are in fact some buy orders as well.
A comment on the market makers generally, is it an intended side effect to reduce the incentive for trade? For example, only Promitor (IC1) has sell orders from player activity (CXOB RAT.CI1, CXOB RAT.IC1,
CXOB RAT.NC1). I was hoping that the natural imbalanced distribution around the starter planets would create a natural trade route, but the infinite demand & supply of basic rations in all starter hubs pretty much eliminates any incentive to ship items from one hub to another. Specifically, I’d expect that players would need to be ferrying food from Promitor to the other planets.
Wondering if these are intended consequences?
Yes, these consequences are intended. In the first alphas we didn’t have MM and life was pretty rough. Prices for basic consumables would explode and make it nearly impossible to survive as a beginner. The market makers provide an upper limit to to prices in the early game and ensure that every faction can provide basic consumables. As players progress and produce the consumables more efficiently, more and more supplies will be shipped from Promitor to other planets.
In the future do you guys plan on adjusting market markers over the course of time? There could be a system / equation for that!
Right now, there are no concrete plans for that. However, the topic come up several times recently, and it’s possible that something about Market Makers will change. The only thing we’ve done so far is adjust prices manually as the need arose. Suggestions for the future include making MMs inaccessible to players whose company has existed for x days, or to have MMs sell ever higher and buy ever lower depending on the player company’s age. I’ll let you know if there are concrete plans!