W3C - Some news, preannouncement

The next update of Simcountry will include a change in the trading of: Weapon Grade Uranium.

The trading of Weapon Grade Uranium is moving to the space station Carina only.

Trading on carina was possible for a long time but as of the next update (May 24 or 25), it will be traded on the space station only.

There will be no trading of Weapon Grade Uranium on the world markets. Contracts between countries and direct sales of the product remain possible.

Spacecraft maintenance unit

Spacecraft maintenance unit will be introduced as well. As of the next patch, each shuttle flight will cost 1 Spacecraft maintenance unit. When a flight is done without one, the shuttle will age faster than the normal rate.



Selenium

Selenium will be added as a new product in Simcountry.

Selenium will be used first in the production of Glass but will be added as component to more products in the future.

Selenium will be produced on White Giant only and trading will take place on the Gemini space station.

The addition of Selenium will take place by the end of may.

Looking forward to seeing some world unique stand alone luxury products added to the game.

Thanks for letting us know in advance Jonni. The more the GMs can do this, the easier it will be for the players to prepare for changes which, dependent on the nature of the change, sometimes takes a long time.

Hugs and respect

Jo

Over the years, I've slowly been changing my position towards a more sympathetic view of the introduction of natural resources. While the previous perfect competition market allowed everyone to excel freely, introduction of natural resources has the appeal of creating discrepancies in the market, which gives an opportunity for profit thus stimulating activity.

I don't know how much selenium each shuttle will transport, what it's price will be and how much will be needed by glass factories, but I have to give a word of caution. One thing is to limit production to a world of a weapon with low usage, another is to limit production of necessary supplies to the world market. It is very possible that no one will move selenium to other worlds, or that very little trading will take place, if it isn't profitable enough, when all costs are taken into account, or because there's a lack of shuttles, or players hoard it themselves or few will care at all to move it all. In any of theses cases, there will be a disruption of the world market as selenium disappears, followed by glass and then by household products.

If the game pumps selenium into the world market to avoid disrupting shortages, then there really isn't a problem at all. But, if the opportunity is always there to make a buck by selling selenium, it isn't an engaging one; it defeats the purpose of introducing natural resources. This is boring mercantilism.

If this Space Travel limitation is going to be our version of "natural resources", it is a very barren one.

i have to agree with LG. the thought to limit certain products to one world... ok, but which ones? the concept that a vital supply is avaible on only one world, makes me think that all the other worlds will suffer. like LG said, if selenium is a required resource, available on only WG, AND, several large space trading players do their duty to move the product to other worlds... then your average player wont loose out. how ever, if players are more interested in moving around their military (such as myself,) or just aren't interested... then LU will quickly have ZERO glass corps...

further, isolating one type of nuke to fb, cool, but isolating a vital military weapon such as fighters... well, i can see a problem their.

to offer well, a new thought, on world specific products, why not make a fighter/interceptor, that can only be built on WG. or attack/defensive helis? you see what i'm getting at? you can combine light and heavy tanks, MRMB and DMB, ... and so on, and so forth... on all worlds you'd still be able to build and buy fighters or interceptors that would allow you the basic combat features, but only on WG would you be able to build a fighter/interceptor corp.

It could get even worse. Imagine you have some highly desirable product, being made only on one world. Imagine it only goes through one space station, and one or two people own all the docking stations. So then, if it had been a few months (real), and that product was used in making a lot of much used products, say weapons, then those one or two people could close the bottleneck and limit it to a single world. Then a much needed product would be cut off on four out of five planets, and the economies would suffer greatly. On five out of five planets, possibly.

I agree that there should be some sort of world-restricted product, but they should just be new products, not existing.

Something like selenium which is required in glass, all well and good, but if there is a GM supply, it really isn't restricted, and if there isn't, 4 words will have a crippled glass industry.

The new products should be SUPER products. I have no idea what this could be. Perhaps new GOVT buildings, like Vocational Schools, which don't contribute to EDU Index (not essential), but increase the rate low level workers move to medium, and then to high. It isn't essential for industry, but it would be pretty advantageous.

Another would be like a unit. Like a Fighter/Bomber, not as good as an interceptor, not as good as a bomber, but it can attack both.

One more could be biofuel or something. When you purchase it, it can turn into either aircraft fuel or gasoline at your choice. Like nuclear power.

Or a strategic weapon like thermobaric weapon, which is a strategic weapon, does not use nuclear material, but about as powerful as a nuke. Make that FB only.

See, things like this, it isn't essential to the game, and it does retain that exclusivity.

@warfreak - Some good ideas there

On a side note, will this space trading effectively turn the 5 worlds into 5 continents?
Just my gut feeling on the subject.


I'm still waiting for more automation. Charge me a fee to move products from one world to another. Let the gamemaster run the shuttle business and make the vig on the trade.

I've already closed all my household products corps, and I suspect others did too. There was a dip in the numbers of those corps briefly.

I mean, I get the concept that something like a new essential resource to promote space. But the logistics.

If the GM only supplied Q100 Selenium on all other worlds to keep industry going, and only Q100+ was available on WG, then it's ok, those who do shuttle runs will make profit.

The fact is, space is sort of flawed. A lot of the people, including C3s, who will end up producing Selenium, won't be able to launch them into space since it is more or less a member's feature.

For this to work, there needs to be a GM space feature. You build the space center, but hire a GM shuttle. Has to be a set cost. Set cost will be maintenance+value of shuttle depreciation+profit.

Allow enterprises to do this as well. Allow them to own the shuttles and send them on trade missions. Let them make money off this. I think, the more ways people can play the game, the better.

The expansion of space I see will lead to either one of the two, or even both. First, it will allow for empires across worlds, or allow to build new empires on asteroids, etc. Otherwise, what on earth would you be fighting for on space wars?

I want my own asteroid...

also lg, on another thing you said, before, about this being a hobby, your right. it is hobby.

Nice ideas "warfreak".

The idea to include CEOs in space is an excellent one.

There will be more new natural resources and other products added to Simcountry that will be produced on 1 or 2 worlds but traded on space stations only.

it means that if you want to use the resource, you will have to purchase it on a space station or, someone else will purchase it on a space station, transport it to the world where you reside and sell it to you in a direct contract.

Natural resources are on our plan for a log time, you can find references in older game news.

Corporations producing coal, oil etc. will exhaust the location at some time and will close. search for resources will deliver new location in all worlds to setup new corporations.

countries will issue (sell) the right to mine to CEOs.

In addition, we now decided to add asteroids where specific natural resources can be mined and these materials will have a very high quality.

the use of such materials will allow the production of much higher quality products.

these resources, can be picked up by players with their own cargo shuttles or they can either just ignore these products or purchase them in direct contracts on their own world.

We think that such asteroids, in combination with space war features will add interesting functions to Simcountry.

GM space services will increase the intervention of the GM in the game while we are trying to reduce it.

Don't forget that all products can be sold player to player by one time sales or by long running contracts on all worlds.

This means that everyone who produces selenium or any other product that is traded on a space station, will be able to sell the products to another player who will transport them to the market.

Essential products will of course remain on all the worlds. both production and sales will remain unchanged.

some existing products, some weapons and some new products will be traded on space markets only.

If space trading grows, we will either add more docking stations on space stations or add more markets where the same products can be traded.

also, if the total size of our galaxy grows, trading might become more local to prevent long missions to far away markets.

Space trading and inflated pricing

Please make sure you check the price requested for products on space stations.

we have seen a tactical nuclear weapons offered for 2 gold coins per unit.

The production price is between 10B and 30B for a top quality unit.

2 gold coins is currently 540B. This is 17 times the max price. more like 40 times the average price.

GM will start offering some products at a reasonable price to create a roof and prevent cheating of unsuspecting players.

The core problem is: you have no guarantee that those resources will be supplied, with so few players.

How is selenium not essential, when it is required for glass, which is required for household products? Are you expecting the game to supply glass out of nothing?

For once I agree with Laguna, glass is an essential product since its used in household products, which is used by a great number of other corp types like FMU, which has the highest $ demand of any product in simcountry. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. A better idea would have selenium be tied to new products that you are planning to introduce.
Ah, just read Warfreak's post. Nice post!

We will not guarantee the supply of Selenium.
it will be profitable and we expect players to produce and supply it.

in the mean time, we will not allow the glass production to collapse with all consequences but will, as we do with services, make sure we supply some without changing the shortage into an oversupply.

if Selenium price goes very very high and glass too, at some point someone will do it.

FMUs are doing great and some players are making a lot of money out of them.

You need to take a customer service class, Tom. Misleading customers and /or making unannounced changes is not a good business practice, and you have a track record of doing so. What is the real reason, are you trying to nerf FMU's and Household Products like you did product quality a few years ago? You are correct about someone making Selenium if the price goes high enough, but you said no changes to essential products.

You think just because selenium's price will be high (compared to base), we will move it? That selenium really better have a high base price.

And question is if not one player will do it, it's if enough players will do it at a scale large enough. And even then, that is still not good enough because:

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

If the game pumps selenium [or glass] into the world market to avoid disrupting shortages, then there really isn't a problem at all. But, if the opportunity is always there to make a buck by selling selenium, it isn't an engaging one; it defeats the purpose of introducing natural resources. This is boring mercantilism.<!-/Quote-!>

We're just moving stuff around...

The one positive thing about what was posted is:

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Corporations producing coal, oil etc. will exhaust the location at some time and will close. search for resources will deliver new location in all worlds to setup new corporations.

countries will issue (sell) the right to mine to CEOs.<!-/Quote-!>

This puts players in contact with eachother and it allows a player to influence a market through work and crazy schemes. As we are not in a shortage of crazy people, this will work well. Moving stuff around to satisfy essential product isn't crazy, it's boring.

I don't really have an opinion on this, except I love the fighter/bomber idea from above. Since all wars are now against the computer, this would be quite handy.

Rejecting any change we make will get you nowhere.
We have added many products in the past, and saw similar messages.

nothing happened.

Selenium is a first new product for now.
there will be many more.
we have added raw materials to the production process of existing products before and we have taken measures to prevent any problem in the markets.

some time ago, we did not have factory maintenance units and today it is the largest product.

glass will be unaffected and house hold products too. we have no interest in disruption of any market.

there will be new products, new quality levels and new opportunities for players who are interested.

anyone who likes the current situation will continue to play the current functions.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

anyone who likes the current situation will continue to play the current functions.
<!-/Quote-!>

How is this true Tom? It is a total contradiction to what Jonni says in his first post and indeed what has been said to be your plan all along. Products are going to be tradeable only on space stations in effect forcing me to use the space system which I currently have no interest in.

Can I have the option to play within the current functions please, or can you not state outright falsehoods.

I agree with Crafty in this thread also. Not to mention click, click, click, click. Endless, boring, clickity clicking. Just to move commodities around. Utterly dull.