[Duodecimal]

(1/3)
Gear:

There should be a hierarchy of items in the game similar to what we have now, except more strictly defined and simplified.

• Ore / Scrap (wreckage)
• Refined Materials
• Components
• Equipment
• Ships/Stations

These items progress in a serial fashion -- equipment is made only of components, components only of refined materials, and so on.

All equipment in the game has a small number of stats - mass, output/efficiency, thrust, regen, deflect, and so on. Each stat that a piece of gear has would be tied directly to components. Shield regen would be tied to energy capacitors, shield deflection would be tied to magnetic components, and so on. Different types of lasers or engines or shields may use different components for the same stat. Gravitic drives might not use the same component for the Thrust stat as an Ion drive, for example.

Now comes the question of 'why' Engine A is better than Engine B if they're all made of more or less the same stuff.

Right now, there is an unnecessary disparity between low end gear and high end gear within the same size grade. Take size 2 powerplants as an example. From lowest to highest, the mass varies by over 100%, and the output varies by 67%. In terms of usage, there are at most two viable models for each size class, and more than twice as many no one would ever use if they had a choice.

It's a general rule of thumb that humans need a 2% variance to notice a difference between two conditions. The difference between low-end and high-end between two technology generations should be something like 5%. And in order for a piece of equipment to be 5% better than another, one of its components will need to be of the next technology generation. That shield regeneration stat mentioned above is set by the capacitor component. A 2nd generation shield containing a 2nd generation capacitor would have 5% higher regen.

Technology generations work slightly differently for components and equipment. The generation level of a laser limits how advanced the components it uses can be. All the first generation lasers have to use first generation components. A second generation laser can have a single 2nd generation component, with the rest still being 1st generation. A third generation laser can have two 2nd generation components or one 3rd generation components. And so on.

The generation level of a component indicates how many steps of 5% that component will improve a stat in a piece of equipment. A player may have a 5th generation capacitor, but he won't be able to use it to build a 5th generation laser until he's able to make those, too. A 4th generation radar can use 3 upgrade steps - either three 2nd generation components, a 3rd and a 2nd generation component, or one 4th generation component (with all the remainder being baseline 1st generation components). These components will either boost the range, the efficiency, or the strength of the sensor by 5% for each generation above the first.

Technology advancement:

Fabricators are highly specific factories that are only able to make the item they are designed to build. The opposite of a fabricator is a disassembler, which reduces equipment into components, and components into refined materials. If the disassembler is at the same or higher technology generation as the item it is disassembling, it allows the owner to know how to make a fabricator to build that item (up to the maxium generation level the player is already at). Making a fabricator would be a significant effort, with material costs tied to the size, mass, and technology generation of the item to be made by it.

Players have a chance of being able to discover a new generation of an item each time they fabricate it. Using that knowledge requires building a new fabricator for that design.

The chance of discovery is tied to the current generation cap and the generation of the item being fabricated. If the laser technology generation cap is the 4th generation, fabricating a 2nd generation laser will likely let the player figure out how to build a 3rd generation laser. But fabricating a 3rd generation laser has a low chance of the player figuring out how to make a 4th generation laser.

Generations are capped for each category of equipment and components, and are periodically lifted by an announcement from the developers of some kind of 'major discovery' at a 'research center'. Factions might have varied caps in technology levels to preserve factional differences.

I would imagine that, internally, the generation level of each component in a piece of equipment would be tracked in such a way that different versions of the same item would stack separately in the markets. Or when the equipment is manufactured, the tech level of its components are arranged into a type of model number (with a position for each component, like AABBCCDDEEFF). It'd be handy to be able to search model numbers via filters.

As the tech generation of a component increases, its composition moves from common refined materials to rarer ones (gold instead of copper, etc), or the proportion of ingredients shift from majority cheap to majority expensive. This would be needed if higher technology items are to be considered more expensive than lower tech items (and would be part of the developer interaction in raising the generation cap).

The higher the tech level of a piece of equipment, the more combinations there will be of components making it up. Since the AI will only be making stock gear, automatically generated equipment would have a rudimentary naming scheme like what we have now.

Since a component or piece of equipment being made by players requires a specific fabricator to be created, the players should probably be able to compose unique names and schemes for the gear they manufacture, with some hardcoded parts ([Company/Player name] [Stock Item Name] [Freeform Type Name]). So, my corporation, FartCorp, would produce the FartCorp Thorn Rapidfire II, a 3rd generation laser with primarily rate-of-fire upgrades. The abbreviated name would be the freeform name (Rapidfire II). The player would know it's a Thorn-type heavy laser because it has the same icon and size class, and would be sorted among them in the market filter. As described in the "Economy" section below, different players' products of the same model number will stack together on the market display.

[Duodecimal]

(2/3)
Hauling:

Players will no longer haul the actual cargo from station to station. Instead, they'll purchase casimir gates (or whatever it'll be called) at the market. Each casimir gate can transmit a certain amount of mass. Players will have the cargo placed and phase-locked into one casimir gate, and they will then transport the other paired gate to the destination (players are, in effect, creating a wormhole at the origin, and bringing the wormhole destination to somewhere else). Once they arrive, the cargo is teleported from the origin,
which causes the wormhole to immediately collapse (rendering the gates unusable until they are re-initialized for a different cargo run). They will then be reimbursed for the cost of the gates brought to the station as well as any profit on the cargo itself.

Pairs of casimir gates will have varying grades of mass, depending on the size of the cargo to be transmitted. Maybe gate models come in varieties based on cargo mass order of magnitude - 1kg gates, 10kg gates, 100kg gates, and so on. By amazing coincidence, a casimir gate that can transmit 1 kg happens to weigh 1 kg. The gate packages can be adjusted to the volume of the cargo -- the only important factor is mass. Maybe more expensive versions are more efficient - a 100kg gate can transmit 110kg of cargo.

Anyhow, massive loads will still cause onerous thrust requirements on heavy haulers, and light loads will still be light. However, the economic losses caused by piracy will be limited to however many gates they can scavenge. The destruction of a destination gate causes the original cargo to become available on the market again, since it is no longer phase-locked to the destination gate. Players will have their funds returned for cargo that re-appears on the origin market, but they lose their deposit on the casimir gates destroyed.

The phase lock on items in a casimir gate dissipates after a certain amount of time, since the wormhole linking them isn't permanently stable. Not reaching the destination before this happens (or just picking up cargo and holding it off the market) will cause the wormhole to eventually collapse, putting the cargo back on the market. Haulers can land at other stations, have the cargo transmitted, and create new casimir gate links for the 2nd leg of a prolonged run.

Haulers won't always be carrying just gates -- mined and scavenged materials will still need to be brought in from their deep-space points of origin. Station-to-station cargo, however, will be protected from the vagaries of space flight thanks to this miraculous technology. Faction stations may require the use (and expense) of casimir gates, but other
stations may allow cargo to be physically transported (with all the risks of accident and economic warfare that entails).

Gameplay Availability:

Due to their vast matter reclamation and conversion resources, faction stations always have enough equipment available to outfit ships with items at the base technology generation. I would probably put this stock gear no more than three generations behind the cap for the faction. Stock gear is tied to faction, and each faction would upgrade certain stats ahead of others.

Factions and (nonplayer) Corporations always have stock ships with stock equipment available for use. Members of the faction will be assigned a ship to use on missions, with the ship type tied to mission type. Non-military mission players may rent ships from friendly factions for economic play tied to mining, transport, and cargo missions. Rental deposits are refunded on successful landing, but mission payouts depend on mission success. Military players are not penalized for losing their ships (no deposits), only if they failed their mission. Mission successes bring promotions, promotions bring higher level missions, and higher level missions bring better ships. However, they will only be able to fly ships for missions. These ships can not be kept, upgraded, or sold. Going beyond mission parameters might cause them to recall the ship's pod.

Once a player has amassed enough money, they can go independent, and take on the freedom and responsibility that that entails. That would be more or less classic Jumpgate gameplay.

Alternately, a highly advanced mission player may be granted ranks within an AI corporation to be allowed to play 'at will' with company/faction ships, so long as certain broad rules are followed (maintaining faction/corporation reputation level, not losing too many ships, etc). The price of staying within a faction or corporation is being limited to the ships and equipment they let you play with.

The benefit of this is that there will be a mode of play (mission oriented) that will introduce players to Jumpgate while at the same time keeping you jerks from scaring them off by destroying everything they worked for in 5 seconds. You'll still get to blow them the hell up, but the punishment for not being in the top 10% of combat pilots isn't going to eradicate the player base again.

Economy:

Faction stations are able to provide for themselves. They will buy any refined or raw materials for small amounts of cash, but they will not sell them. Since the factions and non-player corporations always provide ships for mission runners, and those ships can not be upgraded with new gear, there is no AI market for equipment.

Outside of luxuries unrelated to production, the only mass-marketable good produced by faction stations would probably be the kits for pairs of casimir gates. I would imagine a small fleet of AI-controlled miners and a network of matter reclamators would cause a token number to be available on the market, with purchases of ore or materials from players on missions boosting the supply. The activity of AI gatherers would decline as player activity increases, and vice versa. Popular export stations would require replacement casimir gates, while backwater stations would have a higher supply for export. The AI market for casimir gates and luxury goods would mimic somewhat the Jumpgate economy we have now: narrow price ranges based more or less on supply. The game would track the average rate of overall commerce on stations (amount purchased vs. amount sold) by mass, and would calibrate the prices of casimir gates around that average so that players have incentive to move casimir gates from backwater stations to market centers. Luxury goods would also have artificially set prices based on what stations produce them and what stations consume them. This is the make-believe market for players who like to have crap to haul just for the sake of hauling crap, who have decided to try their hand at hauling outside of the mission-based game.

The real economy is in next-generation equipment produced by player-owned fabricators. It would be isolated from the AI economy since it does not consume any luxury goods, disassemblers have no way of receiving faction-produced gear to disassemble, and Factions/AI Corps will not buy next-generation items since they're fine with the lowest generation used in their stock equipment.

Players won't be selling their goods to stations, but they will be using station markets for selling their goods to other players. They'd place items on the market, set a price for it, and hope players will buy it at that price. The market will show all sales of an item from all players as a single stack with an average price. As players increase the quantity of items, the price rises as he buys up more and more of the least expensive items until only the more expensive ones are left.

Consider this market with three sellers and one buyer.

• Seller Abe puts 100 units of copper up for 200 credits (2 each)
• Seller Bob puts 200 units of copper up for 500 credits (2.5 each)
• Seller Cam puts 50 units of copper up for 200 credits (4 each)

The market shows 350 units available at an average price of 2.57 credits each. Buyer Dan clicks on the Copper market and gets a table of all the prices of copper at this station.

Dan clicks the increment button and sees that 1 load of copper will cost 2 credits; the "all" button shows 350 will cost 900 credits. A request for 200 gets a total cost at 450 credits. If he buys at this point, all of Abe's copper is sold for 200 credits, and half of Bob's is sold for 250 credits. Both sellers have a small percentage deducted from his earnings for storage costs (the percentage increments for each day the goods sat on the market). The market automatically sells the cheapest copper first, and the most expensive copper last, and automatically directs payments to the seller's account from the buyer's account.

The market shows 150 units still available for an average of 3 credits each -- 100 left of Bob's at 2.5 each, and all of Cam's 50 at 4 each.

In order to sell goods, they have to be produced. Station factories produce the fabricators and disassemblers mentioned earlier. These would either be installed into rental spaces or as modules on player owned stations. Disassemblers are super-advanced refineries that take in equipment, figure out how they're made, and take them apart into their separate components. It can then take components and separate them into their original refined goods. Raw ore and scrap materials will need to be fed into a refinery to turn them into refined goods.

Component fabricators produce a specific component, and are fed refined materials. Equipment fabricators take in components and produce a specific piece of equipment. Each takes a certain amount of time to do their job, depending on the type of item and the technology generation. One equipment fabricator may require half a dozen component fabricators, which in turn would need one refinery (and an optional disassembler if you're scavenging equipment/components to figure out how to make them).

[Duodecimal]

(3/3)
Technology nitty-gritty:

- I haven't decided if each component slot for each equipment type should be totally unique, or if components should be shared between equipment types. For example, the capacitor for handling shield regeneration could also be used to make the capacitor for handling laser rate-of-fire. The upside is streamlining production lines. The downside is a chain-reaction from lifting a technology generation cap. In this case, making capacitors more efficient lead to more resilient shields, faster laser refire, and more durable constant laser fire time.

- Mass conservation: All equipment would have a component that acts as the framework or casing. Since all components have "mass", increasing the tech level for the casing component would, on the face of things, only decrease its mass by 5%, leaving all other components the same, leading to a total mass reduction of less than 5%. To remedy this without causing mass to simply disappear, when someone uses a next-generation Casing component to fabricate something, the piece of equipment will weigh 5% less, and that 5% of

mass will be the "scrap" raw material, which can be sent into the refinery to recover the refined materials that went into it. "Scrap" would have a set mineral distribution, always producing some percentage of carbon, silicon, iron, titanium, copper, etc., but half the mass being lost as unrecoverable slag garbage. Scrap (whether from fabrication or recovered from ship destruction) is the only material that produces slag waste.


Misc PvP stuff:

• Low chance (single-digit %) per item of surviving ship explosion for lootability. You won't likely get the nifty gun someone was using, but, say, 250 of 50,000 casimir gates will survive. The rest will be refinable wreckage based on a fraction of the ship's mass (the "scrap" ore type).
• In core faction sectors, Beacons are protected by powerful faction AI vessels. Beacons scramble attempts to target non-flagged ships. A serious incursion by an opposing faction squad will be required to shift the Beacon gaurds in order to scramble the beacon, lifting faction protection in a sector. Faction sector beacons can only be scrambled; they can not be retuned to another faction simply because they are hardwired. The requirements for jamming a beacon would be stupendous enough to require a vessel dedicated to electronic warfare.
• Jumpgates emit significant interference that prevents locking onto objects within X km, X being higher than the range of fast weaponry. Nothing inside can lock on targets outside, and vice versa. Jumpgate pedals should be lit according to the beacon status of the sector on the other side. People will know what kind of sector they're jumping into before jumping (faction core, faction, scrambled faction, unreg, scrambled unreg).
• When a beacon is scrambled, a squad of extremely powerful cruisers will eventually be launched from the core station of each faction, but they're slow and will take some time to reach the lost sector to re-enforce the border. In the mean time, it's open season in that sector. Once the cruisers reach the invaded sector, they'll proceed to the beacon, re-establish control, and launch another beacon gaurd force, and slowly make their way back to the core sector or the next scrambled beacon, which ever is closer. Factions can dispatch only a certain number of cruisers, and will only send out cruisers to a scrambled beacon if the core sector is closer than any free cruiser squads.
• Scrambling a beacon in faction space is an act of war. If the two factions are not already at war, the entity responsible for scrambling the beacon will be designated as outlaws by both.
• Beacons in non-faction space can be tuned to certain factions to allow tracking of outlawed players and hostile aliens. Beacons can be de-tuned to turn a sector completely lawless. Holding beacons affect your standing with your faction, and factions on good relations with each other share beacon data on outlaws.

[Jump]

That is a well written and all encompassing piece. I will have to read this one a few times for my aging brain to grasp it. Thanks for the submission. I hope you don't mind but I added Jumpgate Evolution to the title. I know, I'm a search engine geek but I can't help myself.

[Ikeprof]

It took you long enough to post this!!!!!!!!!!

LOL just kidding. I remember reading your posts back in the old days and always thought they were well thought out and well written.

Though I may not agree 100% with some of your non-economy related points, I always loved your economy/trade documents.

[Wild_Bill]

Wow!

[Duodecimal]

I thought I'd bump this since it didn't get the kind of response I was hoping for. I'd like more critiques and improvements so I can make a good post on the new official forums.

[Jonboy]

I have comments, but I'm not ready to make em yet.

Can u give us examples of different lasers from you scheme?
Do you realise that ND are looking at making the economy completely different from that of Jumpgate Classic - i.e. markets won't work the same at all?
Are you saying people will haul 'casimir gates' in place of the real commodity? So it will take the same time to haul the material, but in a more protected form?

[Duodecimal]

In terms of hauling, there'd be little difference between carrying a load of power plants or a load of casimir gates paired with gates back at the station containing power plants. Each kilogram of mass that needs to be transported requires about a kilogram of gadgetry to make a casimir destination gate.

So, a huge load of iridium will be just as heavy whether you're transporting the iridium itself or gates locked to a load of iridium. The difference is that when you splash a petal you just lose the gates you've bought/rented and not the iridium you spent hours collecting (unless pirates stole some of your gates at some point).

I'm not sure how different markets can be from some theoretical baseline. Even if it's modeled off of the Warcraft auction house, the same basic things will still apply. Goods will have to be moved between stations, and priced by the seller. The interface and mechanics can be wildly different, but if those two basic elements are present it won't make much difference.

As for laser examples - the statistics that would be tied to laser components are:

Damage - laser comps - 361.3k
Delay - capacitors - 0.9s
Energy Use - power converters - 663k
Confinement - optics - 1.6s
Mass - casings - 100%

I'm guessing from the original Jumpgate Classic design that the developers would prefer to have ammunition velocity be a constant -- 10k for lasers, and a set slower speed for projectiles. In either case, there could be a separately manufactured element that determines speed for ammo, which I think is how EVE handled it if I'm remembering correctly.

The delay statistic would be converted to "shots per second", in this case 1.11 (I'm pretty sure they'll be redoing all the actual statistics regardless, I'm just using Jumpgate Classic stats for these examples). A TL2 Calefactor "Rapidfire" that uses a TL2 capacitor would fire 1.17 shots per second, a refire rate of 0.86. If it used a TL2 power converter, energy use would drop to (1-0.05)*663K, or 630K.

The confinement statistic defines range (it could be taken over by something like EVE's laser crystals, so that both the range and speed of ammunition are handled separately from the weapon firing it). The base calefactor can keep the beam confined for 1.6 seconds, or 1600 meters (I'm going off of memory). TL2 Optics in a TL2 Calefactor would gain 80 meters in range. a TL5 calefactor with TL5 optics would have 20% more range, a confinement duration of 1.92 seconds for 1,920 meters.

The baseline Needle might have different stats for each component. The variety of lasers and guns would each start with a different stat being their strong point.

I've gone ahead and posted on the official forums, dividing this one thread up into several separate ones. I fleshed out how something like the 'casing' component works, to make equipment lighter when it's improved.