The game still tells new players that they should start in CX systems, and most new players choose to do so. This is leading to huge problems in the economy, especially in the Benten system.
However the fact of the matter is that starting within a few jumps of a CX system is at least as easy as starting in one. In fact in many cases starting within a jump can actually be better than starting in the system itself.
The hint telling new players that starting in a CX system really really needs to go as soon as possible. This is a very easy hint to remove. Also, don’t warn players about being far away from a CX unless they’re at least 3 or more jumps away, and make it a mild warning about travel times.
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Completely agree with this. Being 1 jump out might actually even be a good thing since you will have very constant travel times independent of orbits.
What huge problems in the economy are a result of new players starting in CX systems?
The different regions have different specializations in the CX and surrounding systems. Benten, for example, has a good ammonia, gallarite, and hydrogen in the CX system. Its limestone, iron ore, and water come from the surrounding systems. By having a larger proportion of players starting inside the CX system, rather that distributed throughout the region, resources that are produced inside the CX system are overproduced and the resources that are produced elsewhere are underproduced.
This leads to an unsustainable economy as the people inside Benten keep underselling one another more and more desperately trying to get at the ever dwindling supply of goods that are undersupplied. This is only fixed when the base distribution is either fixed or there’s a sufficient amount of trade from outside the CX to counteract the effects.
It’s really bad for both existing players who have their economies completely upended whenever there’s a new player wave, and it’s really bad for new players because they get a horrible impression of the game due to having joined industries that are noncompetitive. We even ended up with the current market distrubutions in the galaxy because Moria and Hortus’s systems are so much better than the Antares I and Benten systems. Purely off the back of more new players joining the CX systems.
Molp has said in the Discord chat this will be addressed in the release.
I’m not saying this would be a bad change, I’m just not convinced by the argument for it.
You say that Moria and Hortus’s CX systems are much better than Antares and Benten, and yet the only thing Hortus is good at is RAT/DW production on Promitor. It’s actually one of the least diverse regions, so how could it have a strong economy, by your argument?
I expect the real reason that Hortus does well is because of trading with Moria. That suggests to me that the problem isn’t “not enough players starting in non-CX systems”, it’s that the advantages and disadvantages of each region aren’t balanced. It turns out that everyone wants cheap food and cheap construction materials, but nobody cares that much about cheap fuel - they just fly slowly and conserve it instead.
Besides fuel, the only other thing Benten has going for it is H, but that’s available on Vallis, and now on Hortus-F too, which just further strengthens Hortus-Moria trade, especially since they are only 6 jumps apart.
Perhaps if Hortus and Antares switched places, then the result would be more even trading, as the Hortus-Moria traders would have to pass by the other CX’s. But I guess that can’t happen until the next universe.
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