Ways for trading on bigger SMP servers.

[Blood Asp]

I really like playing on bigger modded SMP servers (10+ players online at the same time 100+ online at last once a month).

And the main reason for playing SMP and not SSP is to play together. 2-5 player in a base, many bases helping each other by trading.

The problem is, trading is quite annoying in most cases. You don't want to set up a automatic production for a item you need once in a time but trading it in with other players is not better. Asking around who would sell it,negotiate a price, decide a meeting point and then going there. In most cases, hunting/mining/farming it by hand is faster.

There are some mods that make some of it easier.

I know of: Foresty Letters. Allow sending items to other players somewere on the server for a low fee.

IC2 Trade-O-Mat. Allows setting up shops that work even when offline. But they only allow for one item per machine and are limited to a small storage of times even when extended with a safe.

So, does anyone know of other mods/machines/mechanics to ease trading? Or even ways of automating trades like: Selling energy or fluids constantly? Setting up automatic sales of certain items once the storage is above a set number?

Is there a demand for such a mod?
Should there be enough players/serverowners that would like to have such a mod and there is nothing that can be easily used for that, i might try to make one myself.

Please give me some feedback.

 

[Pyure]

I'd be interested in this.

Simple price management would be a must. As you're aware, inflation is going to be a constant, regular problem for just about any resource.

Do you have ideas on how you'd handle pricing? Would your preference be to introduce a currency somehow, or rely on a barter system ("I'll trade 4 diamonds for 1 tungsten dust", etc).

 

[Blood Asp]

I allready thought about ways and solutions for this and a few other problems. Also allready wrote them down. For now i want to wait for uninfluenced opinions first before posting and discussing them.

 

[Pyure]

Of course.

One thought: Introduce a zero-balance credit system. You don't need physical coins for this. Allow players to run negative balances, but require negative-balance transactions to be approved by the seller. Its simpler than writing a currency system and removes the necessity of creating arbitrary units (like everyone should start with 1000 coins, you know, because.)

* Everyone starts at zero credit balance (don't try the notion of starting all players with X gold; it works terribly)
* Pyure is selling diamonds and wants 500 credits per diamond
* Blood Asp wants diamonds and has zero balance.
* Blood Asp goes to Pyure's market machine, initiates a transaction to buy 2 diamonds. It requires approval.
* Pyure logs on, sees the incomplete transaction, approves it. Pyure's market machine loses 2 diamonds; Pyure gains 1000 credits. Blood Asp has a balance of -1000 credits.
* Blood Asp is selling iridium for 1000 credits. Pyure wants some.
* Pyure goes to Blood Asp's market machine, initiates a transaction to buy 1 iridium. It happens immediately because Pyure has sufficient credits on hand.

This economy operates on the premise that currency-money represents effort. Many players will constantly be running negative balances, and that's OK.

Edit: depending on how tradable resources are stored (on-site or magically in the ether) this would also work fine if "market machines" are universally linked. So that I don't necessarily have to travel to another base to trade.

 

[malicious_bloke]

I've always been very self-sufficient. If I want a ready supply of something i'll set up a system to produce it for me.

The last time I played seriously on a server was back in unleashed and the only things I ended up trading for were nether stars (because I was too lazy to set up a wither-killing apparatus) and oblivion frames to speed up my bee breeding program.

I ended up flogging bee serums for ridiculously inflated prices because I was one of the few people who'd bothered taking bee breeding to that extreme...

But raw materials and standard manufactured goods? Yeah I can make that myself, cheers

 

[Pyure]

I've always been very self-sufficient. If I want a ready supply of something i'll set up a system to produce it for me.

The last time I played seriously on a server was back in unleashed and the only things I ended up trading for were nether stars (because I was too lazy to set up a wither-killing apparatus) and oblivion frames to speed up my bee breeding program.

I ended up flogging bee serums for ridiculously inflated prices because I was one of the few people who'd bothered taking bee breeding to that extreme...

But raw materials and standard manufactured goods? Yeah I can make that myself, cheers

Yeah this is precisely why simple price management and simple currency systems are critical. Mining iron is stupidly easy in most packs. But in some, say a GT pack where I don't simply have a quarry somewhere getting me unlimited quantities of Every Resource Ever, would it be worthwhile for me to spend some credit on a few crates of iron ingots? Yeah, actually, maybe it would: i value my time highly.

 

[Blood Asp]

Yes, i like difficult packs and usually also take many things to the extreme. On my last 5 servers i had an average playtime of 300h, one even 600h before i got bored and started on the next.
And even in that time i did not get to automate everything.

 

[Inaeo]

My server is small and private, thus we have no use for it. That said, I like the idea of a market. A simple "Auction House" block, similar to the OpenBlocks Trading Post would work for me. Each player could set up a few (four or five max, IMO) trades at a time while dictating the price. You physically place your goods to be sold in one side, then set a amount and resource as your asking price. All auction houses are linked, and can be searched by seller, wanted, and sold goods. Maybe a system for automatically resetting the trade as long as the same goods are pumped into the block?

 

[immibis]

IMO a barter system is more Minecrafty, and runs into less problems with changing prices. Resources are naturally fixed to each other; maybe one machine is worth 20 iron ingots (or a range of 15-25 depending on the buyer and seller). But credits would change their value all the time, and people would have to keep adjusting prices.