Jumpgate Evolution: Ecomomy Tweaks

In another thread, Fido posted:

[i]Jumpgate provides a "Dynamic supply/demand driven economy". Perhaps in the near future a GM would care to comment on current ideas being developed to improve this?

[/i]
I'm going to try to avoid making this a long post. Really.

I acknowledge there has been a lot of positive player discussion about ways to improve the economy, dating from beta until the present. I'm familiar with many of the older ideas, but fewer of the most recent ones simply because I can't keep up with the volume of posts.

I started with the impression that the existing Jumpgate economy needs to be completely rewritten. As I've become more immersed in my job as a developer, however, I've moved away from that position. In part, it's because I've had a chance to look at the way the economy we have really works, and in part it's because there are so many other pressing needs that I don't want me or anyone else to devote the time it would take to redo the Jumpgate economy from the ground up. Sometimes it's better to be practical than idealistic.

A few months ago, I posted a list of things I was trying to do, in small steps, to improve the Jumpgate economy. Here's most of that list:

[li]Match JOSSH production info with the way the game produces things
[li]Increase the yield ratios of commodities produced by mining
[li]Reduce production in stations of minable commodities
[li]Decrease production efficiencies by raising commodity usage in 2nd/3rd tier goods

Steps have now been taken to do all of the above, though I would like to move further still with the last three. A problem, of course, is that as we push the economy toward being dependent on mining, we need players online willing to do that mining. I am proceeding cautiously while our online numbers remain low.

Now, the changes described above are only part of what needs to be done. Most other changes are much more ambitious, and begin to really change things players are accustomed to. Doing this is dangerous and risks upsetting a lot of people.

Here's a short list of things I am thinking about - but have not committed to do:

[li]Add a provision for station "memory" or otherwise place a limit on what a station will buy - to prevent free dumping of tow-load after tow-load of goods a station does not need.
[li]Revise how prices adjust so there is a greater dependence on whether a station produces, consumes, or is indifferent to a commodity.
[li]Adjust the controls GMs have available for production settings. Part of our "oversupply" problem is because the lowest possible settings are quite high compared to usage by the current US player numbers.
[li]Create a method for better measuring demand, to include a record of actual purchases. The Jumpgate economy presently is a "supply" economy, in which prices move based mainly on supplies present. Not all sources of demand are able to be taken into account, and some are difficult to measure in a MMOG.
[li]Make a radical change to pricing of all commodities and equipment. Commodity pricing would be established on a foundation of the rarity of that commodity in minable ratios. Equipment pricing would be established on the basis of the commodities used to build the equipment, and the functional usefulness of the equipment as compared to other equipment of the same type.
[li]Evaluate all sources of currency-making available to players (all types of missions, fluxing, mining, and bpc runs) and try to adjust them for balance per unit time.

I have not had the leisure to do serious thinking about our economic problems lately, because my time is being demanded to work on other things. Ever since I was a player during beta, the Jumpgate economy has been a major topic of interest to me, so I doubt I will stop thinking about how to improve it just because I am busy. Hopefully, players will see some motion on the economic front soon, depending upon how reckless I get or if I find I just have to put the bug list down to prevent psychosis.

Fido, thanks for asking.