There's money, because Frontier had money.

If you'd read even some of the most recent posts on the forum, you'd know that the economy of Pioneer is pretty much virgin ground, with absolutely nothing you see there being in its final form. That said, swapping money for some other system would make Pioneer a different game - I'm not sure that something so fundamental will change.

The Venus Project itself fails utterly to take the extremely aggressive nature of the human animal into account. Humans will not live in harmony, either with each other or their environment. Living in harmony doesn't elevate a species above nature; we're never more inventive than when we're at war. Those cultures which tried to live in balance with what was around them have pretty much been vanquished.

At the moment its only money because that's what Frontier had, and perhaps also because that's what we have the most real-world experience with. The economic system is however awaiting a redesign/rewrite so if you can put up a plausible spec for an alternative system then maybe we'll make a go of it. Triple points if you offer working code 😉

Literary speaking, because Pioneer is space opera, not futurism.

economically speaking, because any economy is resource based. Money is simply a convenient way to distribute resources.

Name it money or credits It is not relevant for now according to construct a plausible model based on commerce.

For now, apart the polished graphics Economics are the only thing Xseries are superior to Pioneer/Frontier saga. And they are based in money or "credits"

I consider that If i game a product has a valour, it wouldn´t be too hard to implement the hybrid system of buying things with a similar valor product. Something simpler than those systems in the traditional roleplaying games. If not in each commerce, in new coded markets based in resource commerce, black market perhaps?. I am attracted with the idea.

I have Faith one day Pioneer will have a robust economic system like The system in Patrician or X reunion etc..., will not it? 🙂

Greetings

Well the venus project or resource based economic emphasizes the elimination of war, disease and greed with the implementation of free and intelligent use of technologies and information to end scarcity as the cause of bad human behavior. Its really a bit more complicated than that but you get the idea.

In space obviously there is enough resources to sustain everyone and with technology human labor would be rendered obsolete (for the most part lol). But to make a game fun lets assume that there would still be necessary the need of people to pilot spaceships (even though machines can do it better than anyone ). To motivate you to work well that is where credits could be used or some kind of incentive. Obviously most planets population have all the resources they need but some could be still needed like an software update (may need a ship to transport it since distances are large enough to not get it in time) water (desert or space stations need this very bad) pre fabricated machinery, AI's, etc etc. Also about war well that could be completely eliminated in space even skirmishes and terrorism. But to make it fun we can say that some people still get desperate for late resources that may attack other ships to get what they need or they are motivated by religion, bad ideas, etc to coexist in this type of utopia. In star trek there is no monetary system but there are still problems a person can resolve to make a game fun

I could go on and on about possible ideas for this game and since im not a programer (i wish) that's all I can do.

Vero! l'economia del gioco è un pò povera di contenuti.

in futuro probabilmente il denaro esisterà ancora.

Credo anche che la cultura e l'esperienza avranno un ruolo sempre dominante in ogni civiltà.

Nella civiltà di Pioneer per adesso si ricalca il passato Frontier.

Mi diverte pensare ad un gioco che oltre all'economia basata sui crediti potrebbe implementare un economia basata sull'esperienza. Ogni sistema visitato per la prima volta, ogni missione riuscita, ogni atterraggio manuale, una richiesta di merci specifiche da un sistema all'altro, ecc, potrebbero fruttare in "esperienza" un tot. da poter spendere in cabine extra, supporti vitali, ed equipaggiamenti per una più gradevole navigazione. Sarebbe interessante poter scegliere il colore della nave per esempio. Non sono programmatore ma penso che queste cose spingano all'esplorazione più che al commercio, rendendo il gioco più interssante.

Realistically it does not matter what you call it, money, credits, some resource, CBills. That is just it's name and in the end whatever name it is called does not matter as there will always be economy, trade and bartering in existence.

To say one day we Humans will reach some sort of utopian existence where war and money, even human exertion has been eliminated well, it just won't happen.

I mean take resources as the idea for money, so resources will be the traded currency, yet technology will evolve to the point where we use such limited resources, and make resources so easy to mine etc that resources as a form of currency just does not make sense.

But it does not matter anyhow, call the economy units whatever you like it represents the same thing.

Here's Google's translation of Uruboros' post - because he didn't do it himself. hint hint 😉

I think interssante is interesting.

I propose an economy based solely around the exchange and breeding of rabid bobcats! It would guarantee that no-one ever wanted very much for anything! They might even want to pay you for their services! The rich would be miserable! The poor would be rabies free! And eBay feedback would be much more exciting! http://xkcd.com/325/ 😆

I enjoy trading in this type of game and try to see if I can do a good job of making a profit, not just so that I can buy new ships and upgrades but just for the challenge. When I started playing I looked at the commodities and thought great I'll buy some precious metals as they are a major export in this system, I could not find a nearby system or even one further away that had precious metals as an import (minor or major). I find that with other items too, or is it just me and I haven't looked around enough?.

At first, the economy should be more detailed. At least on planet/moon level instead of solar system. I mean instead of "outdoor solar system"s there should be "high security prison planet"(and there is a good mission type: transfer of criminals - can be even hot(!), or "radioactive waste dump moon" - interstellar trade - buy radioactive waste elsewhere, sell here...

And the type and population of the planet should determinate the amount and type of the buildings of the city. Wast of the skyscrapers on Phobos is already ridiculous, but in case of a radioactive waste dump planet a simple spaceport with some special building would be perfect...

Well ive started another thread requesting atomospheric and planetary material breakdowns ie minerals atmosphere and how these might affect trade goods as well. Perhaps a more detailed trade good system could be implemented i guess it comes down to a lack of programmers.

No it's probably a flaw in the current system, it's not been looked at into enough detail.

This doesn't really require a lot of programming time to fix (I say this slightly optimistically) but the actual mechanism for determining what a planet regards as major/minor imports and exports needs some thought by brainy people.

Look at it this way:

1) we generate a system - star, then planets,

2) generate info about the planets - type, atmosphere etc all based on a model of planetary formation,

3) that gives us the type of planet, and from that we can decide if it's populated and whether its industrial/agriculture/tourist,

4) and from that we can finally work out what it might be importing or exporting.

The trouble is that you don't know about anything other than the randomly generated numbers which created that single system/planet. There's no information about your neighbours, no concept of a political centre to your current volume of space, or what "trade routes" might exist or where.

These are nebulous concepts that we bandy around and understand but no-one has rally tried to explain, or to describe in a way that brings them together into a single useful system that someone can then program or expose to Lua in some way to make it possible for others to weave together.

I've looked into some of this before and it's quite hard 😆

What would help is people actually trying to figure this stuff out and discussing it here, rather than requesting that "a coder implements it" where the "it" hasn't really been hashed out. If someone actually sat down and though about how they might want these systems to work then would might be able to put some meat to these bony concepts. 💡

Andy

PS: this wasn't meant to be directed at you Skodyn I was just replying to your post and got a bit ranty, sorry, no offense is meant!

No offence taken fluffyfreak, I don't think I'd been playing for long when I made that comment anyway. I wish I was brainy enough to take a good look at the economy myself, unfortunately though I'm not. I understand it's something that just hasn't been worked on yet, but will be in due course along with factions/ political system etc.

if its such a problem well lets eliminate money and the economy system entirely.

My idea that in the future would exist a automatic bartering system where goods are transported by computers and machines

based on demand and supply. Money does not exist, if you need food take it, if you need fuel take it, if you need housing go to

the nearest empty room and sleep. of course things could go wrong but this system could have emergency systems built upon it

for those kinds of emergency. what about labor? 95% of the population would not need to work since everything is automated.

what about the other 5%? well work would be a privilege and those people, including the other 95%, would volunteer to make society

and its system even better. what about crime? since there is no scarcity and there is a high education, crime would not exist.

Probably some of you say that it will not happen. My answer is it is happening right now 🙂 . Technology is replacing humanity work.

As an example 60 year ago it was like 75% hand labor, and the rest service, now its like 85% service and 10% labor and at the same time its more efficient

and less waste. The economic problem were having its because of this trend and mark my words it will get worse unless we accept this

and redesign our entire social economic complex.

wow I deviated from the main game problem lol. Well lets make a reputation system instead of a credit based one. the more jobs you make in the game

the more prestige and recognition you will get and better access of spaceships but making fuel and other resources free.

Sure, thinking that trading and stuff will be done automagically in the future sounds vaguely reasonable. But the problem is, trading is one of the main gameplay mechanisms of Pioneer/Frontier. Eliminating money from the universe would have for main impact to cripple the game, you don't want that to happen, do you ? 😉

You can't possiblly be talking about the human race? As long as there is a population there will develop inequality. Even if everything is free people will find status in something else. Crime will still exist because of this. Someone will be jealous of someone else for some reason, perhaps because they have a better looking wife! Human nature will only be this way.

By the way the money should stay cos its a Frontier remake 😀

Quite right, and a big part of the game for me, and the part I enjoy the most is trading (second to exploring) 🙂

@fluffyfreak

am i wrong if i say inter-system it's impossible to have a real economy with procedural generated stuff, perhaps some noise that's all?

but systems do have a economy type no? i mean it gets determined already, e.g. industrial, mining, agricultural.

further am i wrong if i assume it needs only a little tweaking?

of course that still has strong limits, like no real trading routes and such, else it must get scripted, which is good and not so good.

i never came off with such, but surely i have made my thoughts to that, i always have seen this as something not yet important and like i said "only a little tweak".

what i've recognized since i know pioneer at all, is a not very typical economy for the already existing types. means i'm not satisfied with what is export and what is import for the economy types we have already.

i always thought also that i'm not the only one who had such thoughts and that's also why i never came off with such, i'm a troublemaker without that already 😆

if you ask me,it would help already a lot, if the existing economy types we have get a little worked out better.

a simple sketch,

a agricultural system, must stand in need for machines in general it will output only cheap food and is perhaps a source for slaves (that agricultural/tourist systems need robots in FE2, i allways disliked a bit, it didn't makes really sense, vice versa, to avoid problems between humans and machines they will be used only where our skin get peeled off because of hard radiation i.e.).

a mining system must stand in need for robots/slaves, food, in general any kind of supplyment, it will output minerals and metals, gem stones (something i never understood in FE2, agricultural systems have cheap gem stones? ok, scattered randomly betwween all types i guess).

a industrial system must stand in need for food, raw materials, robots and/or slaves, it will output machines and robots (argh, i never liked FE2's cheap slaves in industrial systems, very unlogical imo)

i guess thats nothing new i told now

actually it's only that all is still a bit a mess, isn't it?

further i guess the distinction politcs / economy, give enough room to vary a lot for each economy type.

e.g. in a federal system slaves are forbidden to trade while in a federal colony it might be allowed.

or a federal ruled industrial system needs perhaps more luxury goods (not ment as special good to trade, more things as medicines or such) rather a corporative (i imagined corporative system always as systems with no or little social lifeguards actually the decision is different but to me it's reasonably, industry and corporations don't care if you live or die as long as they earn enough money, look at what we have already, big concerns buy already fresh water wells (foremost a well known one from switzerland*) because they see this as a future superbusiness and it's ideal to press the last drop out of us, no joke MADMAX is reality, "hand me my rifle, dammit").

*yes swiss is rich, damned rich, but only a part of it imo

i already think about to emmigrate to india, why? because i rather like to learn a old craft like "model stamping", instead to stay here unemployed and disrespected.

unless u give planets their own trade market and decouple it from the system market ie within one system agricultural and mining planets trade with each other howevre trade prices and profit margins might be low. The other option is to vastly expand the trade goods say 200 types of food, all mineral types in the known periodic tables, technology levels and goods and expand it, have palnets produce certain ship items and others not and allow trade in those.

Id say it would require someone to do it in stages, perhaps exand the agricultural trade goods firs break food down into say wheat, corn, and a few other mainstream plant types and then different types of domestic animals ( and it would make sense as we expand into space that we would take our economic system with us - even with technological breakthroughs only some colonies would have that backward colony frontier worlds would be less developed) a development system based on say 1 to 50 with a scaled up technolog system this would require alot of work so i guess it can be chipped away at the edges. We need specific threads with specific ideas on all the subgroups going forward i might start some data work suggestions and see where it goes from there

the idea is good, but sounds complicated, i would appreciate something simple, we got stuck already with what we have i guess.

let's sort that out first, and later you can think about fine tuning. (perhaps that was your idea?)

There is no such thing as human nature there is only human behavior. I have studied all I could about behavior, economics (degree), trading, nature, political systems, military, history, etc. and I found that we really don't have human nature but what we have is defined by the experiences of the time and environment we are living in. it don't surprise me what you say because you are living in one society, one economy and one set of morals and are conditioned to accept this bubble that society have created. I have also found the more educated the society the more healthy it becomes so this becomes the number one priority above anything else (well besides the basic necessities of course). You accept money only because society accepts money and if society don't accept money it becomes worthless. If you are not part of society then you are a deviant which in itself is pure stupidity, like for example 100 years ago women were not allowed to vote and now its the norm, why? because a small group of "deviants" said so and slowly society changed itself.

We are not born greedy the environment makes us like that. So to change human behavior we have to change the environment (social and natural) and to do that that's were technology comes. Before someone can strive to realize one's potential, one must ensure one's survival that logical. Everything in society changes (religion, political, morals, etc) and so we have to understand this and adapt.

I could go on and on but his is a game forum lol, so in regards to pioneer having a money based system well its ok for me after all is just a game but I would really like how we can change the economy of the game itself to make it a bit futuristic.

Human behaviour is mostly determined by millions of years of evolution. Survival and reproduction govern far more of a human's day to day behaviours than most of us would like to admit. A heck of a lot of justification after the fact is made, too.

We're self aware enough, at this point, to attempt to overcome some of the traits we share with the rest of the animals, but deep down, we're motivated by some extremely simple evolved programming. Humans are extremely aggressive, and make extremely simple ("optimised") judgements about many things. We're adaptive and shrewd. These things have served us well - we're the first and only species of Earth to deliberately leave Earth's atmosphere.

You are completely true about evolution but human behavior is not mostly determined is just small determined by evolution.

I recommend you see this guy presentation it explains it way better than me

(part 1)

(part 2)