Topic: Finance and Relation needs more options.

Alright, some people might think this is weird, but for Perpetuum, I decided to try a different approach and play the market only without any combats specs.

Been fun so far, if not very challenging, but I wish there would be more options for players like me. So far, the Finance extensions are quite unimportant. It's easy enough to make money that insurance isn't "that" needed and also, it only benefits people who put themselves in harms way with changes of losing their Mech, in which case it shouldn't even be in the  Finance extensions.

And besides that, there is only the buy/sell extension that is worth getting up to a certain point at which having more space isn't necessary.

I was thinking of trying to find a few options that could be implanted for players who wish to specialize into that domain and I have a few.

- With a very deep, and I mean very deep like you need to spend EP in Finance to a very high level, you get to be able use the market of different terminals without being there physical and without having the item you want to sell there physically either. Kind of like a long distance provider, you can move your goods more, at a faster rate. I know some of you might think it would be too good, but I'm talking here like 50k+ EP to get that kind of extension, very difficult.

- Another option, would be that, again with alot of EP involved, you get notified when you get outbidded on items. So that it's easier to track and that you can react accordingly. And again, it might sound a bit too good, but I'm also talking about a very hard extension to get.

That's all I have for now but I'll try to get a few more ideas. Also, making the Relation extension better would be great too. There should be an extra benefit at having good relation with all Corp. and not just a few specific ones.

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

wall of text: give the politic/economic tree more extensions with higher complexity ?

3 (edited by auster 2010-12-27 19:36:47)

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

Your first point: The problem is that you are probably buying/selling larger amounts of items. Granted, it would be very convenient to do this without having to actually move the items from one point to another. But just like in RL, someone has to do the dirty work. Someone actually has to move the goods. I would reject a solution that would require you to pay some additional fee so that your goods will be moved by some miraculous entity.

I would welcome if the devs added some assignments set up by players. You could then set up a "transport assignment" and move the goods. After all, this is a PVP game and you can't skip the combat PVP part.

@Annihilator: too lazy to read? that bit of text?
Actually the title sais it all, doesn't it? wink

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

An idea for finance: the ability to create document objects. A document object has some text (e.g. "pays 100k NIC to bearer") and an unforgeable signature (e.g. "Niem"), possibly with a corp role as well (e.g. "Niem, Sachs treasurer"). A document object can be shown (not transferred) via mail, or transferred via trade.

First, this would allow various (human-mediated) contracts. For example, it would allow shipping contracts, assuming a trusted third party (e.g. Sachs). Suppose Sachs were a trusted financial services corporation. A hauler escrows collateral with Sachs, and Sachs publishes the names of "bonded" haulers, as well as the amount and duration of their collateral. Then the hauler gives a "started job 123" receipt to the shipper in exchange for the goods at the beginning, and gets a "successfully completed job 123" receipt from the shipper in exchange for the goods at the end.

Then if the hauler tried to rip someone off, they could show their "started job" receipt to Sachs, and Sachs would ask the hauler to show their "completed job" receipt. If actually did rip someone off, then the hauler couldn't show a completed job receipt, and Sachs would give the collateral to the shipper.

After the escrow period is up, Sachs allows the original depositor to withdraw the escrowed collateral.

Second, this could also be used to create new currencies, even discriminatory currencies. The best way to create wealth is to specialize and trade with other specialists to get everything you need, but corps also do not want to enrich their opponents. A corporate scrip would be a currency that as a matter of policy can only be redeemed by corporation members or allies. This could allow corporations to cooperate among themselves, moving NIC to the roles (e.g. manufacturers) where it is required, while preventing wealth from flowing to opponents.

It would create more distinct markets, more interesting / challenging trust issues (corporate scrip can also be used to exploit workers by locking them into buying at monopolistic prices, or can be devalued by hyperinflation), and new roles (e.g. currency trader).

Third, it could be used for stock trading. A stock share is a document entitling the bearer to a cash flow of dividends. A corporation could create stock shares, sell them or give them away, and later announce a dividend payout, and anyone who shows a share at that point will be transferred that quantity of NIC.

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

I have a marketing CEO and I have more thngs to spend points on than I can find them. Finding a utility for your skills is the issue. I split the difference with any insurance I acquire with the insuree and make a little cash that way. Find creative ways to use your skills, they are out there.

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

Though you COULD use the "publicly announce that a payout has occurred, then owners display certificates to get their share of the payout" mechanism I describe above, it would be unpleasant enough that I think nobody would in fact use it.

Two similar ideas and one slightly different one.
1. Cash flow devices. A financial expert can create a "brand" or "printing press" object, labeling it at creation with a small amount of text, signed with the creators identity and possibly (with the correct role) their corporation's identity. From the brand object they can manufacture certificate objects (document objects labeled according to the brand). They can then trade the certificate objects to anyone, and later pay NIC into the brand object, and have it (divided according to the number of certificate objects) arrive in the accounts of the owners of the certificates.

This would greatly simplify administering corporate stock. It would also allow easy administration of various kinds of insurance securities, such as outpost encumbency securities ("pays 100k NIC if RG owns Karapyth at noon on 2211-12-31"), which could be used for insurance or mercenary purposes. Of course, there's still a trust issue - the label says it pays out at such and such a rate but will Artem Blue actually pay out that much?

2. Document flow devices. Just like the cash flow, the financial expert creates a "brand" object containing a short bit of text and their signature, then uses it to manufacture certificates identified with that text and signature, trades the certificates and then feeds stacks of (identical) documents into the brand object to distribute them (divided) to the owners of the certificates.

This would allow for a combinatorically large number of complex financial arrangements. For example, an outpost encumbency security that pays out in corporate scrip or shares.

3. If you have a message in the real world, you can (using XOR and parity) divide it into (for example) 5 chunks, any 3 of which are sufficient to recreate the original document. Another finance verb would allow dividing any object (or if that's too strong, any document) into 5 "quantum" fragments, any 3 of which are sufficient to recreate the original. This is a technique for more-secure freighting. The fragments would each have the same volume as the original, so you have to pay additional hauling fees (plus any cost of the dividing process), but pirates can't steal or destroy your object as easily. On the other hand, it's not a perfect defense, they could still steal a majority of the fragments and put it back together.

This would allow for lower value-density cargo which would lower the stakes of the pvp freight game, making it easier for newbie (uncapitalized) haulers to get into it. It would also create more traffic in general, which should make pirates happy - they get less per target, but more targets (less waiting, more chasing, more fun), and making a special effort to collect a particular "set" is fun.

Re: Finance and Relation needs more options.

Logkeeping - the ability to execute a trade in a trade window but also have the full details (who what when, possibly a memo field) logged in a (semi) publicly visible log. Simply a log of transactions visible from the Finance character's profile would be good, but associating each transaction to a logbook object that could be shown (not transferred) via corp mail, or duplicated and transferred via in-terminal trade would be even better - in order to keep different sets of records separate.

Currently, if one person, Fred, says they paid up in full, and another person, George, says that Fred didn't pay, then a third person cannot really distinguish who is lying (screenshots are something, but they could be faked with Photoshop, and videos are perhaps stronger, but annoying to use and transfer). The reason it's valuable to distinguish who is lying is so the third person can decide who to trust in the future, or to award a security deposit to the original depositor or the aggrieved party.