2/21/2022 - devlog
Learn why there's an excess of NCC in the current universe, and ship modifications are coming soon!
Michi (molp)
Last week, some players in the Discord reminded me that we sometimes (mostly in the weeks and months after a universe restart) share some general stats about the current universe and asked me if we can show some graphs again. The timing couldn't be more on spot, as this universe turns one year old in a couple of days :)
So let's start with the money supply. This graph shows the total amount of each currency that is in the game at the moment. All graphs show the last 20 days.
The graph shows that the amount of NCC in circulation is roughly double that of the other currencies. If we have a look at the amount of currency available to the individual companies, it roughly looks the same:
Where does this money come from? Since there are only a few money sources, the usual suspects are the market makers. Here is what their balances look like:
Again, the NEO market maker has spent way more money than the others, resulting in the excess of NCC in the previous graphs. Market makers have lots of buy orders for various commodities at the commodity exchanges, so the question is: Is there any specific market maker that is responsible for the majority of sum, or is it a combination of market makers?
Last year we added a few market makers that buy a handful of high-tech materials in order to create an incentive for players to tech up. Given the charts, I'd say this was successful. Most of these market makers have a balance between 0¢ and -10M¢, but four are above that, with two even greater than -40M¢. Both of these are from the NEO faction, which explains why there is so much NCC in relation to the other currencies.
What do you make of that? Coincidence that NEO is so strong with the MMs? Would you like us to adjust the bid prices of these market makers a bit? Please let me know, I am very interested in your opinion on that :)
Fabian (Counterpoint)
I jumped between lots of smaller game design topics last week, but one of the more involved and probably most interesting ones was ship upgrades. Many players have been asking for a feature where they could not just build new ships from the ground up but also modify existing ones with new parts. The way we're planning for it to work is that you will select an existing ship and a blueprint at a shipyard and will therefore generate an "upgrade project" to change the ship's blueprint to the newly selected one.
The buildings costs of a ship upgrade will be the difference between the blueprints, i.e. all the materials required for components present in the new blueprint, but not in the existing ship. This will, by the way, also allow for downgrades if you feel like it, although you won't get any materials back in that case (they're "used parts" after all and something has to get lost in all that remodelling).
Nick
Last week, I started another "Name THAT Planet" event on the forums, so if you haven't mentioned your favorite planet that deserves a name, make sure you do so soon! We will continue with a vote for a certain planet and then vote on a name for that planet. Fingers crossed that your planet gets a shiny new name!
I also worked on optimizing the Steam Page since that is going to a very important aspect in acquiring new players and will probably need constant attention so the Steam algorithm promotes the game correctly. It is interesting looking at the all different aspects of the platform and seeing how other games achieved success by tweaking their pages to players' tastes. A lot of it is getting into the mind of the player and understanding what they look for specifically when browsing Steam.
As always: we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!