A
Andy
05 Oct 2011 15:16
Link
1. Direct Trading - Service Oriented Products
The direct Trading feature is extended with the trading of all service oriented products.
This group of products was until today only traded on all world markets. The group includes some of the most important products in Simcountry, including Services, High Tech Services and Electric power.
These products cannot be put into a cargo shuttle to be shipped away. Buying these products means in fact, that you are contracting the services to be delivered to your countries or corporations.
They also include sport, recreation, vacation, air transport, etc.
The addition of these products to the direct trading market includes the following functions:
1. You can instantly move products from any of your countries or enterprises to the portal and store these products on your account.
2. You can instantly move products from your account to any of your countries and enterprises.
These two functions mean that these products can be moved freely within all your empires on any of the planets. There is no physical transport involved and the movement of products means that obligation to deliver services can be reassigned easily anywhere within your account.
3. You can offer these service oriented products for sale on the direct trading market and exchange them directly into gold coins.
4. You can purchase products that are offered on the direct trading market and receive them immediately, paying with gold coins.
This is very similar to the way game money is being exchanged on the direct trading market. Once you have bought the products, you can easily move them to any of your countries or enterprises.
The new functions will have far reaching effects on the world markets where the same products are traded. Shortages in one world could easily be eliminated if there is oversupply on another world.
This is already possible and is being practiced with products that are trading on space stations and can be moved by cargo shuttles.
It is even simpler with the trading of service oriented products on the direct trading market.
2. Low cash levels
Some countries have very low cash levels and are unable to function. These countries are unable to purchase materials and are in fact out of the control of the player.
Currently, countries are falling into this category if their cash level is lower then -20T. The countries are in fact close to bankruptcy.
Bankrupting such countries will not solve the problem because their debt will be inherited by another country in the empire and can lead to the fall of more countries.
To prevent such bankruptcy, a last ditch effort takes place to try and save the country.
Loans are automatically reduced; tax levels in corporations are increased. If unemployment is high, new corporations are created and workers are moved more easily between groups to enable easier hiring, reducing unemployment and improving the income of the country.
In addition to these measures that are aimed at increasing income, the army of such countries will be deactivated. All weapons will be moved to the reserves and the cost of the army will decline.
We expect that with all these measure, countries will become profitable. If they do and cash levels begin to increase, the countries will come out of this de facto bankruptcy and start to function normally. The correction measures will stop but salary levels, taxes etc. will not move back to previous values.
The president will regain control of the country and will hopefully keep it solvent.
All such measures can be prevented if the countries with low cash receive cash injections and their cash level is increased above the current limit.
The current limit of -20T will increase gradually. We expect it to be halved to -10T within the next weeks.
3. New Players war capabilities
The army of new players now also includes some offensive units that make it possible to start a war and win against a low level C3 country.
4. Smaller Military units
A next update of the military units will take place next week, October 11. Al units will be reduced in size by about 12%. As before, all weapons that are not needed in the units as a result of this change will be moved to the country stock. They can be moved into the reserves or sold to reduce the cost of defense or you can decide to create new military units.
The direct Trading feature is extended with the trading of all service oriented products.
This group of products was until today only traded on all world markets. The group includes some of the most important products in Simcountry, including Services, High Tech Services and Electric power.
These products cannot be put into a cargo shuttle to be shipped away. Buying these products means in fact, that you are contracting the services to be delivered to your countries or corporations.
They also include sport, recreation, vacation, air transport, etc.
The addition of these products to the direct trading market includes the following functions:
1. You can instantly move products from any of your countries or enterprises to the portal and store these products on your account.
2. You can instantly move products from your account to any of your countries and enterprises.
These two functions mean that these products can be moved freely within all your empires on any of the planets. There is no physical transport involved and the movement of products means that obligation to deliver services can be reassigned easily anywhere within your account.
3. You can offer these service oriented products for sale on the direct trading market and exchange them directly into gold coins.
4. You can purchase products that are offered on the direct trading market and receive them immediately, paying with gold coins.
This is very similar to the way game money is being exchanged on the direct trading market. Once you have bought the products, you can easily move them to any of your countries or enterprises.
The new functions will have far reaching effects on the world markets where the same products are traded. Shortages in one world could easily be eliminated if there is oversupply on another world.
This is already possible and is being practiced with products that are trading on space stations and can be moved by cargo shuttles.
It is even simpler with the trading of service oriented products on the direct trading market.
2. Low cash levels
Some countries have very low cash levels and are unable to function. These countries are unable to purchase materials and are in fact out of the control of the player.
Currently, countries are falling into this category if their cash level is lower then -20T. The countries are in fact close to bankruptcy.
Bankrupting such countries will not solve the problem because their debt will be inherited by another country in the empire and can lead to the fall of more countries.
To prevent such bankruptcy, a last ditch effort takes place to try and save the country.
Loans are automatically reduced; tax levels in corporations are increased. If unemployment is high, new corporations are created and workers are moved more easily between groups to enable easier hiring, reducing unemployment and improving the income of the country.
In addition to these measures that are aimed at increasing income, the army of such countries will be deactivated. All weapons will be moved to the reserves and the cost of the army will decline.
We expect that with all these measure, countries will become profitable. If they do and cash levels begin to increase, the countries will come out of this de facto bankruptcy and start to function normally. The correction measures will stop but salary levels, taxes etc. will not move back to previous values.
The president will regain control of the country and will hopefully keep it solvent.
All such measures can be prevented if the countries with low cash receive cash injections and their cash level is increased above the current limit.
The current limit of -20T will increase gradually. We expect it to be halved to -10T within the next weeks.
3. New Players war capabilities
The army of new players now also includes some offensive units that make it possible to start a war and win against a low level C3 country.
4. Smaller Military units
A next update of the military units will take place next week, October 11. Al units will be reduced in size by about 12%. As before, all weapons that are not needed in the units as a result of this change will be moved to the country stock. They can be moved into the reserves or sold to reduce the cost of defense or you can decide to create new military units.