Industrial Credit Price Suggestions?

[kittenykat]

So I play regularly on a FTB server where we've recently established storefronts to serve as player shops, and I'm trying to adopt the Industrial Credit as our shop currency. Note that our server has gregtech disabled, so there's only the classic "Iron Credits" available.

Has anyone done this in the past, that can suggest prices for items or even a full IC Price Guide of some sort? Obviously there's no wrong answer here; economies are all somewhat relative, so if you have a thought on the subject please advise! :3

 

[Loufmier]

i personally view economics as something irrelevant in minecraft universe, especially when currency(industrial credits) is so easy to craft.

 

[PeggleFrank]

Give them relatively high value, otherwise you're going to have one hell of an inflation, where everyone's hauling around thousands of industrial credits just to get a few diamonds.

1 IC = 1 iron
8 iron = 1 gold
4 gold = 1 diamond

Use EE3's values from there on out. Avoid a few things (they're heavily unbalanced), like ender pearls, bones, bone meal, blaze rods, and blaze powder.


EDIT: Also, you'll want a plugin of some sort to remove the normal crafting recipe for them. The normal crafting recipe is easily exploitable, as iron is incredibly abundant.

 

[Riuga]

Whoever has an enderman, zPig, iron golem, oreberry farm will dominate the market and cause inflation. Whoever has bees will...

 

[ExusiaProspekt]

First off, disable the crafting recipe for industrial credits to prevent inflation. Second, only spawn/make credits as per the size of the server's playerbase. there is no need to worry about farming causing inflation, all the excessive iron golem, endermen and soul-cage farming will just devalue those goods, resulting in them becoming cheaper due to a larger supply and a smaller demand. When the demand becomes smaller due to everyone having the items, the supply will then become finite due to the farmer's inability to turn a profit, the cycle of supply and demand for this sector of the economy will then repeat as players join and leave the server.

As long as there is a player-provided supply and demand for the items, the economy will literally fix and run itself. I hope any info I have stated has come in handy.

 

[RedBoss]

I noticed, just in my experience, that trying to monetize Minecraft just ruins a server. I know of examples of servers thriving in that system as well. But from a few polls and my personal experience, people just find a way to exploit the monetary system and it changes he game completely.

From my perspective, trading seems to work nicely. The magic people and the tech people will naturally balance each other in goods and services. Even if you set up a monetary system, it will either limit the players that don't want to participate (if you change recipes to be used as currency that people use normally). Or it'll be a race to being Donald Trump on the server. Both situations seems disruptive.

But that's just my 2¢

 

[kittenykat]

Hmm, well there's always the forestry trade stations, but those are a bit complicated for the average joiner to figure out without a handholding session. :/ Hell even I had to re-read the wiki page on it two or three times before I understood it entirely, and I'm still foggy on the stamps as I've not looked them up yet. You would think the wiki would put all the requisite information on the same page, but that's getting off topic xD

Anyways, we're currently using the shop signs plugin (I'm not the admin so I don't know exactly wha it's called xD) but everyone seems to have come up with a different, sometimes even random 'shop currency' they expect everyone to give or get for their items xD Like one's trading in lapis, another was trading in rubies, yet another in iron nuggets, I thought using IC would unify that a bit. As it is, the stores are barely being used because they're so disorganized :/

 

[Loufmier]

the only thing that was able to unify currency to a some degree was EE2`s EMC system. but we dont have it now, and wont be having it for a while(slow EE3 development >_>).

 

[kittenykat]

Sadness. D:

 

[Omicron]

EMC didn't really unify economies, but rather rendered them redundant. If people trade by EMC alone, then the exchange rate is completely fixed. There's no supply or demand involved, no way to generate value, no market mechanics of any kind. It's like a national bank stating "We have decided to abolish money of all kinds. From now on, if you want a loaf of bread, bring the baker four apples. Exactly four. And they better all be exactly 200g heavy and uniformly red. Why? Because that's what we set it at."

(Not to mention that the mere fact that EE2 was installed already made economies redundant by default.)

I'd go with a fiixed, finite supply of coins existing in your game world, like many people above are suggesting. Like, spawn in one iron chest full of stacks of industrial credits. Split them up evenly between all currently active players. Also disable the recipe in the IC2 config.

 

[Loufmier]

having a fixed exchange rate is a decent step towards some sort of a structure in currency, but yes ability to generate EMC out of thin air or by simply digging wasnt so healthy for economy.

 

[Omicron]

having a fixed exchange rate is a decent step towards some sort of a structure in currency

Erm, nope. Currency is given structure by its value. It is either a representative currency (a coin minted from metal that can be melted back down to produce something from it that people want; i.e. money with intrinsic value) or a fiat currency (a slip of paper whoever runs the country wrote "this is worth X" on; i.e. money without intrinsic value). Industrial credits could be a representative currency based on the value of refined iron if there was a reverse-crafting recipe for it. But since there is not, you need to make it a fiat currency with an arbitrary value, and then disable the crafting recipe to prevent inflation - a fiat currency must always be controlled completely by the issuing authority, or else it gets disassembled by the free market in very short order.

The exchange rate then creates itself, based on the ratio of existing supply of goods versus the existing supply of currency. If more goods are generated, but the amount of money remains the same, you have a deflation - money becomes worth more, and you need less money to buy a specific thing. Prices go down. To combat this, the issuing authority of the fiat currency can issue more ("print money", AKA create it out of thin air). However, if the amount of currency available grows faster than the supply of goods (or if the supply of goods is going down), you have inflation - money becomes worth less, and you need more of it to buy a specific thing. Prices go up. To combat this, the issuing authority can attempt to remove currency from circulation, but this is really hard since most of the time the issuing authority does not offer any goods or services with which they could earn money that can be removed. However, most of the time currency will be gradually lost by itself through various factors, so as long as no new currency is being issued, supply will go down over time to combat the inflation.

The goal of any issuing authority IRL is a stable price level, erring slightly on the side of inflation if necessary. This is most convenient for the people and helps drive economic growth. In Minecraft, however, most finite supply currencies will probably experience constant deflation, because most people spend all their time in Minecraft producing for the sake of producing and never consume anything that isn't already free. A potential solution could be a series of admin-controlled shops which buy up an infinite number of produced goods in exchange for a controlled amount of new currency, but at really bad rates. That way this serves as a lower limit for currency, below which it cannot fall, because selling to the admin station is always the best option then - which eliminates goods from circulation and adds currency, both of which counter the constant deflationary pressure.

 

[namiasdf]

For this, you kinda have to let it be a free market. Look at WoW, even Mojang's Scrolls.

It's the only way to account for almost... Everything. That's economics for you. Though you have to put in restrictions to prevent inflation. The free market concept will allow for farms to substantially decrease the cost of certain items. Iron, etc. will become relatively cheap and highly accessible to new players. This is a good thing. It'll reduce start up times, increasing the growth of your server greatly.

It's nice because there can be no monopolies. Play it by ear and adjust things accordingly. Adopt the American style of economics. The less interference, the better. Unless you are absolutely sure something needs balancing, let the 'invisible hand' do its work.

If you put too much work into making things systematic, it will fail. Let shopkeepers decide the price. Overpriced goods will not sell and those wanting to get rid of excess by reducing cost, will also increase supply.

What I'm getting at is, don't control the market at all unless you have to. If some resource is exploitable through farms, the prices will adjust. If some resource is scarce, the prices will adjust. Watch for horders, though they aren't necessarily a bad thing either. It'll help you identify what is valuable and scarce in the server. You can make adjustments accordingly for that (i.e. Have a server-run shop that sells scarce goods at a premium. This will also help with inflation, hopefully for obvious reasons. This is basic economics.)

Additionally, if you do the server-run shop (where it is okay to make goods via creative or whatever. It's a balancing strategy for the server, unless you care about being king of your own servers economy. Seems stupid.) You will cause horders to either match your premium price (preventing inflation) or sell their goods at a reduced cost to compete (just as good).

All in all, there are pretty simple solutions to most problems. If you have any issues feel free to message me, I'll try my best to come up with solutions that are manageable, though I am by no means an economist.

Additionally (I'm just going to keep adding ideas like this as I think of them.) You can use the deflated credits earned by the server-run shop as starting credits for newbies:

1.) It'll help them get started

2.) It'll allow for all the cheap goods to be bought, since they are just starting and may want to spend their free credits that way

3.) It'll help you decide what is fair for a starting amount. If you see a significant increase in credits being spent on premium goods, you can inject a lot more credits back into the system like this.

4.) It'll help you decide when to decrease the price on premium goods.

Personally, I view having an economy as a way to encourage creativity and specialization. Some people might specifically go for creating starter machines (generators, electric furnaces) and supplying them to newbies. Some might specialize in creating GT machines. You can even sell these ready made items for a premium as well.

1.) It'll reduce the demand for crafting specific items that are scares, re-mediating any scarcity problems.

2.) Once again, selling things for a premium reduces inflation

3.) It'll encourage other players to compete by selling those machines cheaper.

I think by simply having your own server-run shop that adds scarce goods into the server (out of thin air, I suppose) you can already begin to manage the servers economy without oppressing the server directly.

Just remember to listen. Listen to what people have to say and don't become ignorant either. This is an active job, since we already as a society have devoted so much resources into something called the "economy". It could be fun though, adding a new dynamic to the server. It'll also assist with growth and encourage new players to the server, since start up times are usually the worst. Nobody really likes that stage in the game, at least I don't.

Lastly, you can also go around to shops and buy their goods, if you feel there is an inflated status on the supply of a particular good, that you'd like to see its price raised. Buy all the shops out and leave it at that. It'll decrease the supply for that good, while still rewarding those who put the time into farming those goods. It's also another way you can invoke the invisible hand. Simply dump those items into NEI and call it a day.

Though be careful. Nothing has linear effects on the economy, so you need to be careful when implementing the above strategy. Only do so when you see an inflation that effects game play. (i.e. 10 stacks of iron going for one credit. That'd make it too easy to start.)

Which adds another point. People should be able to sell stuff to the server-run shop for an extremely low price. As per the example above. If everyone has billions of iron, but want something else, they can sell all their iron to the server-shop for super cheap and turn it into currency, then into something they need. This will help to re-mediate, once again, the problem of inflation.

 

[namiasdf]

Hopefully those help.

 

[Moasseman]

There is no room for economy or "shops" in Minecraft. Period. Everything is so easily gotten there's just no point.

 

[Omicron]

There is no room for economy or "shops" in Minecraft. Period. Everything is so easily gotten there's just no point.

Gotta love it when people mistake their own opinion as facts...