Suggestions to fix the economy.

[Xaphod]

1. FLS should check to see which items are not listed on any auction houses and seed them at a high but reasonable markup (eg 190% of manufacture price).
Right now players are sufferring because there simply aren't enough people selling things, so only people in closed-loop societies can create finished items.
If FLS artificially made more products available then people would have the option of purchasing things.

2. If some items aren't selling, then FLS should occasionally purchase them from the auction house at a low markup (eg 105% of manufacture price).
This has two benefits.. firstly it incentivises people to list things on the auction house because they have a greater chance of selling at at least some markup, and secondly it would prevent prices from lowering to below the manufacture price, as happens with items that frequently drop as loot (small arms for example).
The markup would be kept low and the system should be set to ensure that fewer doubloons enter the system through this than leave through suggestion 1.

These two things should both happen completely transparently. Nobody should actively know that their item was bought or sold by FLS.
Edit - I'm really only talking about Raw Materials, Manufactured Goods and Shipwright Materials here, not end products.

3. FLS should implement buy orders to allow people to buy up to a set number of items as soon as they are placed on the auction house at or below a set price. Any items placed on the AH higher than this price remain on the AH as normal. Buy orders available at a given port should be visible to other players.
This would greatly improve the interaction between sellers and frequent buyers. Right now if I want to buy lots of something but there aren't any on the AH I have to post on a forum or ask in /nation.

4a. Default selling prices should be implemented. Options should be (a) the minimum production cost for an item; (b,c,d) the port, regional, and caribbean average selling prices for the past 30 days.
People would still be able to list for less than that if they wanted.
4b. The AH selling interface should warn a player when selling for less than the minimum production cost.
Players shouldn't have to get out a calculator to work out how much something costs to make. Players trying to sell craftable items they've received as loot should be guided towards a sensible price.

5. Loot tables should be adjusted dynamically.
Expensive craftable items should only be dropped by the high level ships.
Craftable items that drop should dynamically change so that items that have not been listed on AHs in the past few days have a greater chance of dropping compared to items that are listed but are not selling.
Items that have been selling at close to or less than their production cost should be prevented from dropping whatsoever.

[ArmEagle]

I, from I Say Yo, say yo!

[mpire]

here's one.

Allow 3 or 4 structures per toon, after the initial ten, but these can only produce raw materials.

[Xaphod]

To be honest I'm not 100% sold on the idea of extra lots - after all if people can make more stuff themselves then they have to buy less from other players.
However, considering all characters on a server have to be in the same nation and share the same lot total, I don't really see any issue with allowing people to access their lots with all of their characters.. or at the very least allowing them to transfer buildings from one to another.
I also think it should be easier to change what buildings you have once you have them. Moving from one sector to another is currently a very intensive task.

[DantoLarkin]

Originally Posted by Xaphod To be honest I'm not 100% sold on the idea of extra lots.. However, considering all characters on a server have to be in the same nation and share the same lot total, I don't really see any issue with allowing people to access their lots with all of their characters.. or at the very least allowing them to transfer buildings from one to another.

Not to argue the point the issue of allowing people to access their lots with all of their characters nullify the cost of additional warehouse at different ports. 1st port cost 200 2nd port 1600 3rd port outragious (not sure just never wanted to pay it think it is like 32k) If you let all char access structures then additional ports would have to extend to all char. The cost of using an ALT to post a structure under the current system is lower warehouse cost but harder to get materials to main. If you let all char access any warehouse then you would have to tie warehouses to login not characters so 3rd warehouse per account would cost 32k even if for the character it was his first.

PS.
I do like just about all the suggestions in the OP thread. I might add just for sake of arguing that ports under raid or martial law should have all non player items locked up. Just to add to the fun.

[Schneemann]

Originally Posted by Xaphod 1. FLS should check to see which items are not listed on any auction houses and seed them at a high but reasonable markup (eg 190% of manufacture price). Right now players are suffering because there simply aren't enough people selling things, so only people in closed-loop societies can create finished items. If FLS artificially made more products available then people would have the option of purchasing things.

Maybe make it more easy and just simply put all raw materials and manufactured goods to a individual markup (higher than your suggested 90% to some labor intensive goods like hemp, less on mass goods like wood) in the nations capital and for rats in Oranje (Tortuga is a bit to near to MT).
This would make it more easy to get the needed goods, and would additional offer some more circumstances for "commerce raiders".

Originally Posted by Xaphod 2. If some items aren't selling, then FLS should occasionally purchase them from the auction house at a low markup (eg 105% of manufacture price). This has two benefits.. firstly it incentivises people to list things on the auction house because they have a greater chance of selling at at least some markup, and secondly it would prevent prices from lowering to below the manufacture price, as happens with items that frequently drop as loot (small arms for example). The markup would be kept low and the system should be set to ensure that fewer doubloons enter the system through this than leave through suggestion 1.

Don't like the Idea, because if everything sells with profit there is always the danger, that the eco becomes in general less effective. No need any more to find your own market niche to fill, just push something out and take your (small) profit home.

Originally Posted by Xaphod 3. FLS should implement buy orders to allow people to buy up to a set number of items as soon as they are placed on the auction house at or below a set price. ... 4a. Default selling prices should be implemented. ... 4b. The AH selling interface should warn a player when selling for less than the minimum production cost. ... 5. Loot tables should be adjusted dynamically. ...

/signed

[Cesshawk172]

I don't like FLS being the ones to jump in and play the game, but even at that your suggestions still aren't bad for us. Anything to get the blasted AH's up and running again and eliminate the societies only econ.

I would also like to see ports that aren't used much spawn random items for sale at a fair markup to encourage people to visit them. I think that seeding the items nobody puts up for sale in less visited ports fits into your idea as well.

I posted a suggestion a while back to produce items for only the cost of labor and tax and instead of sinking the money into bitbuckets feed it back to the producer. Not a popular one though but I still believe it would help.

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39030

[Nariko]

Originally Posted by Cesshawk172 I don't like FLS being the ones to jump in and play the game http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39030

lol love that, who else is there to play the game, if you look at it there isnt a lot of players in game at present, its the same old faces still.

If societys are keeping an in game economy because they are scared they arent going to get a good enough profit or going to lose money by placing their goods on the auction house due to lack of players in the game not going to buy them.

I think a major problem is there isnt enough available goods to buy, and if they are available then they could be 200-400% above production cost, which makes ships and outfitting more expensive so no wonder societys are keeping their economy inside it.

There needs to be something drastic happen, only if it ment putting low end outfitting and generals on the auction house, at least some outfitting is better than none....

this could work, for example

Huge speed rig 1 - FLS puts on autcion house at 50% above cost always
HUge speed rig 2 - FLS puts on auction house at 75% above cost always
Huge speed rig 3 - FLS doesnt place on the auction house only players can.

would this not bring prices down in the auction house?

if this didnt then go for raw materials...

Oak Logs- cost is around 7-10 doubloons.

Place them always on the auction house for 35 doubloons.... so they are available, but if players wish to do their economy then they can get it for cheaper....

But only place them on the auction house where the items are available in that port. so the ones i can remember, grenville- oak logs, Belle isle- sulphur, so cayo doesnt have oak logs placed by FLS....

i sort of have an idea on how it would work, but it needs more thoght on the actual matter on how the economy can be fixed, maybe an urgent issue for the boarding party to arrange a meeting over, or FLS to send a questionaire out to every email address they have on their database...

This may bring players back aswel, i mean its not like FLS have a news letter or anything to show to old players who have left now that things have changed....

what an idea...

???

[Redcoat22]

This is exaclty what we predicted just after the Daily missions were implemented.

The Db is worthless

It isnt worth the time to produce or sell goods

Capping profit % would eliminate any remaining capitalists who sell on the market

The market is a true reflection of an items' worth. Cost has nothing to do with it unless you are a communist.

Eliminate the stupid amounts of cash floating around and make productoin a viable source of income again. Offset the fear of expensive ships by increasing ship Durability by some factor.

[Jean Gris]

Originally Posted by Redcoat22 This is exaclty what we predicted just after the Daily missions were implemented. The Db is worthless It isnt worth the time to produce or sell goods Capping profit % would eliminate any remaining capitalists who sell on the market The market is a true reflection of an items' worth. Cost has nothing to do with it unless you are a communist. Eliminate the stupid amounts of cash floating around and make productoin a viable source of income again. Offset the fear of expensive ships by increasing ship Durability by some factor.

The doubloon isn't worthless at all. Its just not as limited as it was before insurance, so its artificially inflated value has lessened through abundance.

There have been alot of positive effects from the inflated db supply, namely that more people can actually turn a profit on simple manufactured or raw materials production lines.

Before insurance db's were so scarce that many people couldn't afford to keep up full production on many lines LOL. The AH was in bad shape not because of inflated prices, but because nothing was selling outside of outfittings (even ship deeds weren't doing so well). That's why folks turned to missions like JOMT.

I like the inflated AH better than the deflated one.

However, I do agree that its probably swung too far away from scarcity to abundance. I wish FLS had not insuranced bundleboats. There could be a much better balance, but FLS doesn't seem interested in tweaking anything (what else is new).

Also, trading on the AH is not a source of db production, it simply transfers db from one person to another. Instead of increasing durability, it might be better to lower it at this point