Market Discussions

[Note: Last night Eino asked for questions we would like to have answered in a Dust Economics Dev Blog, and I offered to eve-mail some to him. Since this exceeds the length of an eve-mail, I am posting it here.]

Eve players have had high expectations for deep market, industry, and economic connections with Dust for years now. Perhaps it dates back to the time when it was thought that Dust and Eve would mainly interact “asynchronously” or maybe Eve players just took the “one universe” idea and ran with it.

Of course the Dust team has been building a FPS game without being too worried about how Eve's industrialists and traders were planning on milking Dust players for isk. While it is pretty clear to me that the current plans for the Dust “economy” are quite different than those early expectations, this awareness has yet to hit the mainstream Eve community.

I think the two most important questions that need to be at least kept in mind, if not actually answered are:

1. How can Eve players make isk from Dust, either directly or indirectly?

2. How can Dust players make isk when not actually fighting?

Eve is a unique game, and while it may not have been entirely planned, the inclusion of a robust industry and market system has led to the development of a full fledged economy inside the game. While it maybe unfair, a large segment of the Eve community will judge Dust based upon its ability to develop its own economy or merge into Eve's economy.

While I understand that the full development of the economy is down the road, my single biggest concern is that decisions have already been made that will prevent the “one universe” concept from being fully implemented. For example, things in Eve have a specific location and the logistics of moving things in Eve is an integral part of the game. You mine ore, move it to station, refine it, manufacture, move to market, sell it, someone buys it and ships it to where they need it. But Dust players don't seem to have an easy way to transport stuff.

Obviously, Dust players would prefer not to worry about logistics. If they own something they want it to be immediately available for use no matter what planet they are going to fight on (with possibly some limitation on the total volume of material a corp could bring into a battle) but wouldn't that make it difficult to merge the game economies at some later point if assets in Dust are not in specific locations as they are in Eve?

So my fundamental question is do you have a road map for how the economy and industry of the two games will merge over time? Let me give a hypothetical example of how this might work.

Phase 1. At launch, Dust players can buy blueprint copies from the store with aurum and isk. The blueprints can be transmitted across space to the location they will be used and manufactured by nanobots on site from materials readily available on the planet.

Phase 2. The cost of the BPC and raw materials are separated. Instead of paying 10 aurum and 10 million isk for the BPC you pay 10 aurum for the BPC and 10 million isk for the materials. If you have salvaged materials on site (same planet?) you can reduce the material cost when you build the item. If you have unused items leftover after a battle you can recover the materials and recover the BPC.

Phase 3. You can buy salvaged/recovered materials from other players at the same planet or buy them from standing NPC sell orders. You can sell leftover materials to standing NPC buy orders.

Phase 4. Eve players are able to produce raw materials needed for Dust players and deliver them to planets and place them on the planetary market.

Phase 5. NPC buy/sell orders are removed. This means that if you are attacking a planet in controlled space, you will probably need to have raw materials delivered ahead of time by a friendly supply fleet.

This might be overly complicated, but I have broken it out into small “baby steps” to show that there are ways to do this without causing major disruptions to the game, and without a major upfront coding effort. (I know the eve market code is ancient and might need a major overhaul before the Dust and Eve markets could ever be merged, as in Phase 4. Maybe the market code could be tested in Dust first, during Phase 3, before being implemented in Eve.)

I think what we really want from you is a vision for the Dust economy. Eve players know that plans will always change, but some sense of where you want to be heading will give us hope for the future even if many are disappointed that their stockpiles of PI materials aren't going to skyrocket in value.

We've been very curious about how the Dusties will be moving their equipment around. If Dust is part of the EVE universe, I would expect them to be coordinated with the general logistics of EVE. I had expected, though it doesn't appear to be the case, that Dusties would essentially move their troops around through a Dust mechanic, but that they'd still need to get supplies, materials, etc in the EVE universe or from a source within Dust that is supplied through EVE. These guys will ultimately control PI and thus starbase fuel and construction. You'd think that Dust would be tied into EVE very closely.

Completely off-topic, but you know what would be cool?


If they made it so reinforcements (if they do it like the BF games, which I hate, but not sure how they are gonna do it) were delivered by a new ship class...Troop Transports.

Now...in order to assault a planet, a transport must drop troops off in it or Reinforcements. This takes times, as they need to be "beamed" or w/e to the planet and the ship must remain uncloaked and unable to move for such and such a time (depending on how many reinforcements are being dropped off) During this time, the transport could be probed down, killed, etc, and whatever reinforcements were left on the ship die with the ship. This can be the same with all items that Dust514 Players will need on a planet.

This would have to be played out for both those on the offense and those defending. Imagine huge fleets fight and defending their reinforcement drop offs. Fun fun.

Anyway, this is some what economy related. New Ship type, need to "hire" the "reinforcements" etc.

Crazy idea i know.

One other thing we need to know is, does Dust, if at all, have any industrial capacity? Is the time players spend playing Dust only going to be pew pew or are there going to be other activities that are not shooting and grinding for whatever currency will be in that game?

If the only activity in Dust is shooting people in the face, then the ties to the Eve economy will have to rather limited as it will end up being a one way flow of wealth, which, cynically, might be the intent.

There's a new video out with an interview and footage that has some of the first hard information I've seen about the effect of Dust on Eve. He says there will be districts on planets and complexes that control those districts. Capture of a complex gives a corporation some control over the industry in that district, presumably PI production.

Up until this point, they have only said "meaningful" interaction at launch. They have said that PI, Sov, and FW will be three areas where Dust and Eve will interact but FW is down the road somewhat and they have been a little vague about when the Sov effect will kick in. They have also said orbital bombardment will happen as soon as possible and as for Dusties shooting back I'm not sure what exactly has been said, but I've at least heard speculation that they may be able to shoot at ships near the POCO.

Not related to you question, but also in this video it has been made more explicit that there will be NPC contracts for 1v1 up to 24v24 battles in addition to player made contracts. Also the date has apparently been pushed back a little. It used to be Summer 2012 release, but now they are more clearly saying the Beta will last through the Summer with full release later in 2012.