RAT market maker pricing (please raise it)

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The supply side of the order book for RAT on three exchanges is frequently empty sitting at the MM (market maker) price if 175 credits.

The agri prices are nudging upwards ever so slowly, but they’re still going up. The Cost of Good Manufactured (CoGM) for HYF based agri is around 250.

At 550 average CX price for agri, it is no longer profitable to run FPs to make RAT… and that sets up the stage for some chaos. If FP is no longer profitable from market priced agri, that sets up for some wild rebalancing of agri for the carbs for burnables for carbon and herbs for FIM production.

Ultimately, the maximum price that agri can be sold for is capped by the MM price for RAT. It can’t go up because if it does, its no longer profitable for it to be used for its main use of RAT production.

While the PCI (Pioneer Consumable Index - FIO) is tracking up, the danger is that when these hit MM prices that production is no longer profitable when compared to buying from the MM

To that end, please consider raising the MM price for RAT by 5 credits per month (on the first of the month) for the next 5 months to allow RAT to establish a new baseline and make it so that it is viable to have food production something that doesn’t become a “it only works if you’re self supplying agri and even then, you’re better off making other things.”

Increasing the MM by less than 3% per month over several months gives the opportunity stop it if prices and profits appear to get unstable.

Increasing the MM also allows HYFs to become more viable as a source along with encouraging outward expansion to other fertile worlds and their increased logistics challenges (Pyrgos CH-771a, Demeter KI-446b, Saladin PG-899b, Poseidon HM-049b, and Cantium HM-910c).

Yes, this ultimately increases the prices for everything. As it is, the MMs don’t track inflation in the game. Using the RAT MM as a deflationary tool (people buying RAT from the MM are having money leave the game) endangers the industries that currently produce it when the CoGM makes it unprofitable to produce in that material chain. We see this already with “don’t become a constructor - there’s no money in the PP1” and that’s right. When the basics of production are cheaper when game supplied, new players entering those areas have difficulty being profitable and established players with those production chains move out to things that have profitable returns putting increased pressure on higher end MMs and the inflation that creates in the game.

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I haven’t made the connection to PP1 goods, but that’s a very good point! I think it’s admirable that a lot of early and low tech items in the game have MMs, but the danger is that those are the same items that new players are often manufacturing. FP goods are one of them, PP1s another, and though I can’t think of any others off the top of my head, it would be good to remain watchful of goods being introduced that new players can produce, that suddenly don’t become become viable as starters.

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This happens all the time in all sorts of goods in the game. Inputs rise in cost, so the output becomes less profitable and more of the “production chain profit” is put into the earlier steps of the process. This simply means the inputs are overpriced.

Right now HYF has quite reasonable profits across most of its outputs. The way I think of this is that profits have shifted “from” the FP “to” the HYF.

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The problem you’re talking about here is the economic deadweight loss imposed by ALL mm’s. This is not unique to RAT. It’s present in bfabs, DW, MCG, SF and FF. These are functioning as currency sinks, countering the inflation seen on the high end marketmakers (LOG, IDC, CCD, etc).

Because of these mm’s, it will always be advantageous to purchase these items from the marketmaker because that is the economic model the dev’s have decided upon. This will be true as long as the T1 mm’s selling these basic items are priced lower than the profitability per 500 area that is introduced by the high-end mm’s. In a GTO system, all items will stabilize at the same profit per 500 area baseline level at all steps in the production process. However, with the price ceiling of the T1 MM’s, this won’t happen, they aren’t allowed to be expensive enough and you will always be better off producing something else. Thus, you should always buy from the MM’s.

The downside is this fucks over the new players to the game who start out producing these items and have stunted profitability and growth. If you think it’s bad for RAT, it way worse for bfabs. Its been a concern that’s been raised for years but, as of now, there is no pending change to this system.

That’s not a good inflation tracker. Here’s a better one:

It is my belief that while some of this is CPI increase we’ve seen over the last two years is a result of inflation, that force is tertiary to two primary forces:

  1. Gateway construction. Over $5 billion worth of materials were used in the construction of the systems that are in place, with still more to be deployed. This creates a highly inflationary environment driven by supply shortages. Commodity production that would otherwise drive prices down are instead being consumed to deploy gateways.

  2. Items were incorrectly for years because the profit per 500 area model was not widely used. We are just now starting to normalize how things “should be” using this profit per 500 area model, within the economic system the devs have built.

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So is this an argument in favor of dynamic MMs? Seems to make sense that MM prices should rise/fall based in some way on supply/demand, market activity, etc.

As for new players being “stuck” making T1 items that have a low profit per 500 area here are two reasons why I think that isn’t a problem.

1 - When I started playing several years ago it would take 1-2 months before a new player could afford a second base. Currently, even when producing the least profitable items, it can be done in 1-2 months.

2 - Back then the initial slow growth had to be done with very little help. These days there are lots of loan options that any new player can take advantage of. They can give their empire a sizable kick-start and not even bother with T1 production.

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If I can parse stuff down - I think the overriding issue is going to be ANY increase to the MM will just wash out by increasing inflation and increasing profitability on higher level things - and the early players will just jump up to those items.

The only REAL way to fix this issue is to try to tackle inflation - but there is no real economic theory that can fix that. As people work on maximizing the efficiency of their outputs (ie the 500 area mentioned above) - then people will pile into recipes that provide the biggest band for the buck.

If you want to increase profitability of RAT - instead of increasing the MM I think the better thing is to adjust the recipe to make it more productive - maybe take 15 minutes off the run or increase the output by 1 count.

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I would like to see the price of RAT go up so that fertile worlds with increased logistical challenges or hydroponics worlds can better compete as producers for the raw agricultural components which would (hopefully) encourage further outward expansion.

For example, if is cheaper to buy RAT at 176 from the MM and ship it out than it is to set up HYF and FPs then there is no outward pressure on food production. Or the flip side - if its less practical to ship agri from Pyrgos to make RAT than it is to buy it from the MM, there is little reason / no economic pressure to do so. Saladin may be a great agri world next to a CX, but there’s little reason to colonize there other than local supply (which is very low).

I believe that allowing RAT price to increase encourages growth on those logistically challenged fertile worlds and makes hydroponics a more competitive alternative to producing the agri for RAT production.

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SF was screwed by price cap. It became less profitable. It is basically how every real economy collapses - price controls create supply problems.

Fortunatelly, MM/NPC sells infinite amount :o)

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to 1: The reason is that the main part of the cosst of the base, bfabs, are sold below value. This makes bases cheap to build but PP1 are almost completely useless with it.
I even import bfabs to HUB by now as it is cheaper to run fly one week and produce something better than just producing them locally.

And to dynamic MMs: just remove the static ask MMs and have the faction gov being able to have a WAR on the CX and being able to use the CX to buy and sell goods so that they can provide their own “dynamic ask MM” through buying RAT and then keeping it as a reserve to sell it during spikes.
(The MM should be removed with some delay so that the faction fov is able to build up inventory)

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Agreed, faction gov should 1000% be able to run MMs.

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As a side effect this would also take the “Balancing chore” away from the devs.
(And players can complain about their faction when the MM prices are wrong instead of the devs)

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Manual MM fixes will wash out but they are better than nothing.

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Agreed,Using dynamic MM

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I am currently implementing dynamic market makers.

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