Before i jump in to explain what is economica, i have to explain…
(somehow the briefest TL;DR i can provvide compared to what the doc does)
Frontier Dystopia is one of the proposal that Me and @kit_Katz Concocted with the purpose to radically change what beestation is and split from the Space Station 13 mainstream, handing priority to have the players to be more in control rather to be at the mercy of antagonists and Heads/Security by providing the intrinsic (where survival/basilary needs is at it’s core) and extrinsic( toward any opportunistic chance) necessities, with goals and desires to:
- The station as a whole and all of command.
- Individual departements and their Heads.
- The individual crewmember and the (user’s) ambitions and needs for the round.
By doing so, we hope a different game loop is formed, Alongside a deeper RP, Story and Gameplay situations emerging naturally and dynamically.
Economica is the first step in the Frontier dystopia to a total overhaul of how the economy works, but aside just tweaking some adjustments, it cuts deeper by also overhauling how the relations between the station and outside, between the departements, and between the people that inhabits the station.
The focus of economica is to introduce some kind of pressure to make it so that something can happen around the station at any time.
Now while writing all of Economica and Frontier Dystopia would be impossible, and knowing well that Economica has been meme’d to death as a “NEVER EVER” project, I hope to shed some light on how this idea that spawned a couple of years ago can spearhead some real, substantial changes to the game.
2 Likes
should really grammar check it to make it more readable
Needs a plan to properly deal with money too, for example the point on you can’t sell nanotrasen goods for personal gain completely fails since anything is freely printable. An economy system that tries to work around items in the current system is fundamentally flawed and will not work, instead inter-department things need to be like paying energy bills from engineering. I’ve always wanted to do something like that, but I have to question how big of an impact something like that will actually make since alone it doesn’t really add a whole lot.
What’s funny is that 70% of economica is stuff is something that I’ve already done before but never made it to production, to be honest the core of most ideas are usually the same and its the ‘sprinkles’ on top that make it different. The most radical thing in economica is the meta-currency which I still think isn’t the best idea since it has some inherent issues:
- Meta currency alone doesn’t really incentivise caring about how much money you have
- If meta currency has good items to counter point 1, then it instead becomes highly abusable.
- Cross-round things are exceptionally vulnerable to issues that destroy the entire system.
- Cross-round things either take too long to get that people don’t spend their money since the value of the money is percieved as greater than the items you can buy (like beecoins now), or it’s quick to get which at that point is a meta-currency even the right thing? Just give it to players based on job role or randomly assign it since randomness is more fun.
https://github.com/BeeStation/BeeStation-Hornet/pull/7004
https://github.com/BeeStation/BeeStation-Hornet/pull/6625
These 2 PRs added traders, NPC ships, flyable cargo shuttles and outposts which you buy/sell from. One of my earlier PRs that is too old to find had dynamic pricing for resources which functioned cross-round and cross-server
1 Like
I did grammar check it as hard as possible, probably a good chunk of lines are still screwed, but i’ll go probably another time to be sure what i’ve missed and whatnot.
Regarding the money part, check the Economica docs, where as a TL;DR, in the midway economica part, the focus is to activeley prevent any infinite source of… anything really; however your concern on printable stuff, is addressed by making everything that’s printed by a departement it’s that departement’s property, otherwise it’s NT’s property, therefore the value greatly diminished (unless it’s artisanal with the implementation of Material science and some other bells and whistles).
Regarding metacurrency, it’s complicated, and therefore needs to be HEAVLY discussed, however we think it’s the only valid way to make an economy with a value behind it instead of being flavour.
regarding the point of
“Cross-round things are exceptionally vulnerable to issues that destroy the entire system.” and the point bellow it… whom i recon are the same point in two parts
“Cross-round things either take too long to get that people don’t spend their money since the value of the money is percieved as greater than the items you can buy (like beecoins now),”
meta-value(MV the meta currency)'s primary value is in the “cross-round things”. that’s its whole point grant money value by exchanging endgame money
(and other factors that force players to care for their character’s “life” past the end of the round
for meta-value).
now a concern for meta-value overshadowing the use of credits during a round in exchange for saving em till round end is a much more valid point. and it is to considered.
meta-value’s goods are meant to be priced in such a way that.
higher tier usefull stuff you cant just buy on the daily just so you can have it… you gotta have a good reason to get it as it will cost you a lot (but durring A round the same products are several orders of magnitude cheaper in IC credits)
the only things that would probably have a parity between their meta and IC prices would probably be bitch basic lowtier maintloot and cosmetics
now the highest tier meta-value’s value is the exotic things that need real big saving up stuff players are highly unlikely to absenthy themselves form usefull inround goods and services just so they progress towards it 6% faster rather than 4% faster
if balanced properly it would resemble proper life to a degree where people dont starve themselves in a homeless shelter just so they can buy a sports car 3 weeks sooner than they would anyway
(also beecoins are not comparable at all to anything at all… they are empty fluff. no details needed)
in the end… credits and meta-value. are two sides of the same coin. (for individual crew that is)
means to get what you want…
be it IC - goods,services,bribes,dodging jail,power
be it OOC - goods,slightly more credits,round altering perks,round changing perks
once the players get that feel subconsciously… the tool will work as its meant to work it just matters what each player desires
I do feel Vanderlin nailed some of the vibe you guys are trying to go for, i’ll try to detail more later but you’ve seen a bit yourself
1 Like
I did try Vanderlin, while it has kiiinda the vibe we should have (and thank fuck there’re respawn mechanics, altought I would seek a different way if we ever get that, after all they get 4+ hours rounds), their economy starts and dies within the same round really, the objective is to make it so that the economy REALLY matters.
How is the process of getting money fun? I hate to say it, but the entire document is completely irrelevant if the process of gathering money isn’t something that is fun. It doesn’t matter if you give them cross-round rewards and punishments, that’s not what gets players to interact with a system. What will promote conflict is if there are fun systems and mechanics for promoting conflict. Without that, all you get is at best “give me your money” then an awkard situation as nobody responds to it.
1 Like
“getting money” is NOT THE primary goal.
having a functioning dynamic economy with valuable money where stories can develop naturally and dynamically is… money being valuable is just a NECESSARY component for that. when the lowest rung (the individual crew) dont give a flying shit about money… it all falls apart
if anything the real core of economica is to simulate a functional station with a PROPER task at hand. its just the crew are now out for their own sake. doing their job and wharever else fits them not because THE ADMIN DECREED YOU MUST BE A PATRIOT OF NT but because they are people employed. allowing natural stories and conflicts to develop alongside the crew working foward to the common goal. independant of antags
promotions, demotions, inter crew/depratments conflict of interests, fraud, legal trade, illegal trade, loyalists, decenters, tyranny, REVOLUTION and more
besides… the process of making money CAN be fun due to its extremely open ended nature. in context of all of economica’s additions. you can do so much more than just mug people
(something that could still be interesting. wow a hostile crew interaction that doesnt end in murder lets go)