John Jacob Astor

Now I think I finally understand your apparent stance on the baseline economics as regarding doubloons and crafting. The game is advertised as hardcore and realistic. Apparently the realism doesn't include merchant activity. At least not at any levels appropriate to the "beautiful age of sail." You apparently want all players engaging in combat at every sailing. Any economically meaningful level of crafting appears to be dependent on it. Yes, merchants playing on the War server should expect some degree of risk. But not need to regularly sail through the middle of Trafalgar. Well it is your game. Time for me to move on.

Whether the doubloon price is astronomical depends on what they are being used for. If for notes, books, and for the component in the line ships, the prices are probably too low. If to buy extra labor, then yes. The prices are astronomical. Getting labor hours out of the same bucket as notes and books simply does not work. If you are going to insist on using Doubloons for this the labor hour yield from a contract would need to be increased by at least a factor of 10 for this to come close to making any economic sense. Probably a good deal more.

Level 3 production buildings and a level 3 shipyard. Labor hour bonus. Using that yields a slightly more optimistic estimate.

Which is what I was doing last spring before the DLC releases pretty much broke the market sector I selling into. In order for this to happen you need quite a few more folks interested in selling resources and crafted ships. Then the price comes down. But for this to happen the baseline resource and crafting math has to actually work. It currently does not. Resource extraction and ship crafting is currently restricted to free labor. Or it has to be subsidized with doubloons from combat. This is not a recipe for a self-sustaining economy. I am currently able to get Doubloons in the free ports for about 110 Reals each. This appears to result in an L3 labor valuation for a fir/fir T-brig (resources + shipyard) of roughly 80,000 Reals. Which pretty much swamps the straight cost in Reals used for the resources. And makes an Admiralty sale pretty much meaningless. I am really quite curious to know what you consider "el dorado" prices. What would you expect to pay for a fir/fir T-brig?

AI yes. Crafting not so much. Unless you stick to free labor. But the economics blow all to hell if you start buying doubloons to get the labor. Don't have my notes handy but I suspect that 3k is in the neighborhood of the resource costs for a baseline build. With NO meaningful allowance for the labor costs for the resources and ship

Won't be waiting around for that. I'm sure this will be a great game. But it's about done holding my interest.

If you notice this site hasn't exactly kept up with game changes. I don't think he's been playing for some time. If he is still active he is free to chime in.

Nothing. Except the folks that put API data on the web tend to be interested in combat mechanics. Not in economics.

This is not exactly "improved trading." Unless you make the information available in a way that the user does not have to be a coder to access. Except that no merchant of any consequence visits every location they do business in. They have people for that.

Final? So no other changes to the economy? Current trading ranges for Doubloons makes them impractical to use for extra labor if selling resources and crafted ships. This throttles contract market activity. Either 1) extra labor needs to be paid for in Reals or 2) merchants need their own way of obtaining extra labor for Reals that is separate from the Admiralty conversion. Given what else Doubloons are used for I am not seeing how they could possibly be balanced so as to make extra labor a practical option. Except for maybe successful combat players who can simply ignore the trading cost.

Possibly. On the other hand I bought this game (US player) because I was intrigued by the age of sail. I got hooked (last spring) by a player-to-player economy. Which is why I am waiting around for the updates. I play games because I like them. I stop playing because I don't. I never went anywhere near user forums for any of them until I had to sort out the mechanics of how to play THIS game. If Steam allows it, the only way to actually know this answer to this question is with actual customer surveys. Self-generated online reviews (weighted toward the crabby customer) and the relatively small numbers that post in these forums aren't really going to give you a meaningful answer to that question.

Do you have this data available for contract sales of resources and crafted ship sales?

The value is whatever what someone is willing to pay you for them in either the Freeports or your national capital. There was a contract to buy posted in Aves this morning at 150 Reals. I'm getting 250 easy in Charleston. I could probably get more, but even profiteers have limits But don't bother trying to sell them anywhere else. This localized stove-piping rather skews the markets and helps blow up the economics of using them for extra labor. Which in-turn throttles baseline ship crafting and resource sales down to what can be done with the free labor allotment. Of course players who are "swimming" in doubloons, as @admin puts it, will simply ignore the labor cost. I don't think it will address the supply problem as it appears to be more attractive to spend them on admiralty goodies than sell them for Reals. But we really DO need global contract visibility of some sort.

If players are swimming in them they are not actually selling them. At least not in any of the markets I use. There are plenty of offers to buy in the 10-20 range. But none of those contracts are moving. To actually get the contracts filled I need to place them in the 70-90 range. Which makes them unusable for labor contracts. But perfect for selling into a national capitol at three and four to one. Seeing as how I appear to be the ONLY serious seller in the US. 10 reals to the doubloon would make labor contracts a realistic option for resource and ship production. It's a week later and I am not seeing anything even close to that price. Again, what is the incentive to sell Doubloons for Reals in the contract markets, as opposed to spending them on Admiralty goodies? I am beginning to think the objective actually IS to force players to do combat and missions. That's the only way this market structure makes any sense.

As a follow-up to last week's tentative observation. No longer tentative. This clearly is not a usable option, either to sell resources, or to sell crafted ships. Unless the intent is to force everybody to do missions and combat to raise the necessary doubloons. If that is NOT the intent, there are simply not enough doubloons entering the markets to bring the price down to usable levels. Increasing the player population won't fix that. That merely translates the imbalance up to larger scales. I can reliably post contracts for doubloons in free ports. But the price yields an extra labor cost for a T-Brig (L3 resource + L3 shipyard) that is approximately seventeen times the cost in Reals for resources. This is a labor valuation more appropriate to pre-robotics assembly lines in Detroit and the United Auto Workers. There are, however, enough plenty of doubloons entering the Free Port markets to enable me to make a killing selling them the national capitol. Which is fine, I suppose. But I would rather be building and selling ships. There clearly is a demand. But not to buy extra labor. If extra labor is being used, it's going directly into ships for a players' own use, and is not any meaningful component of the player economy. In order for labor contracts to be of any meaningful use in the player-to-player economy either: 1) the Doubloon layer in the economy needs to be adjusted so Doubloon earners have plenty of Doubloons but are chronically short of Reals, 2) or extra labor needs to be paid for in Reals instead of Doubloons. 3) or merchants need their own way to generate extra labor, independent of the Admiralty. I don't have an opinion on which of these would work the best. But #3 might augment the economy without disrupting existing balancing in Doubloons. One possibility would be to reintroduce the extra labor building, allow it to be built anywhere and use Reals for input. But control the proliferation of the building by requiring the presence of one or more L2, or L3 buildings in the port as a prerequisite for construction.