PJ, and I had a discussion of possibly doing an AAtrade Stock Market - A while back this was discussed as a suggestion and we nixed it due to the fact that there really wasn't a chance to completely wipe a player out once they get so large. With .30 this all changed, so scores can fluctuate quite a bit making a viability of a stock market a little more interesting.

Let me line out the premise to this a little and then everyone can give me their input, likes and dislikes. Please remember everything needs balance and we don't want to create runaways with a simple game option. If I am way off base with my thoughts please feel to pipe in.

Like any stock market you will have the opportunity to buy and sell shares. Each Player in the game once they reach a specific score becomes a "Corporation" per say. Each Team in essence is a Mutual Fund. My basic rules are as follows and are subject to change:

- you can only invest up to 25% of your net worth.
- Investing in teams give you less risk in your investment but your overall yield will be lower because your investment is split equally among each player in that team. Much like a Mutual fund.
- credits put into an investment can not be taken out for 48 hours from the time you put it into the stock market.
- credits withdrawn from the market early is subject to a 30% penalty.
- Once you have bought stock you can sell it and buy another stock once the 48 hour time period has passed.
- Once a player/team has a minimal of 10 planets they will be listed on the stock exchange
- Earnings are calculated on how well a player does. Efficiency, kills, captures, Number of colonists, planets, planet techs, Ships, SHip techs, score.

Things that effect stock price:
player losing a planet -
players building planets +
Alignment flips -
Ship Losses -
Ship Captures +
Efficiency increases +
Planetary disasters -
Planet Independence -
Ship upgrades +
planet upgrades +
Destroying planets -
Fed Bounties -
The more shares that are bought the price will go up depending on the total amount of shares available. +
shares sold will decrease the price of the stock depending on the total number of available shares -

So this is the basic concept so far. Now I'm in a dilemma as to how many shares are available at any one time, and how to set the initial pricing and point system to determine the price of the stock at any given time. So please everyone chime in with your suggestions on how best to make this work, so we can have one more evilly addicting thing in the game

Not to make the game simular to tradewars: Tractor Beams?

I do like the unknown factor with a ship transport... It could be a fun war starter between allies and pirates that attack the transport will make the stockmarket spudder.... fun possiblities.

Thought?????

I have invested in a player that is doing well, but then he trys to bring me down by hurting himself and bringing down his value, which inturns reduces my investment.

Even with the above I think ithas great possibilities.

Amount of shares avaliable depend on the player ranking, higher up, more shares?????
So has a player increases in rankings, then more shares come on the market, but share price also increases????

No one will know what shares are in your portfolio, so that player really won't know they are hurting you.

[qoute]

Amount of shares avaliable depend on the player ranking, higher up, more shares?????
So has a player increases in rankings, then more shares come on the market, but share price also increases????[/quote]

Yup this is where I'm stuck etc. Maybe as players reach a rank the stock splits, but then everyone would race to buy stock no matter who it is, knowing as they raise in rank the stock will split. We are going to have to figure a different method. Keep sending the ideas, please!

Awesome idea, one could buy out another player without them even knowing. Only problem I see is if a person were to put as much cash as possible into stocks i figure it would do one of 2 things. If you kept the value of credits in the stocks as your own networth you could easily safeguard your money or make a killing on your own death, (you put your money into the guy who is attacking you) or if you lose the value then you would make be able to make it impossible to be attacked.

My only idea regarding it right now is your actual score does go down but your bounty goes against your true networth then if you stick all your money in stocks its not going to make you hard to hit. Still not sure what should happen if your money is in your enemy though.

Would you gain credits because they are wiping you out, wouldnt that be hilarious, a no bounty game with big and a bunch of the other attackers in the game, you know they are going to get you so you make money off your destruction, just remember a pod and say thanks after, hahaha.

This is one reason I want to limit how much you can put in. And I may drop the 25% networth to 10%. Means if you have more networth in stock then you better leave it there. Course remeber if someone is killed in an accident that stock value goes away comepletely. So you could lose alot as well.




Yes bounty will be based on your networth and your networth would include
your stock value. Course if your good or evil all bets are off




You would more than likely not gain what you lost. Them attacking an individual is not going to drive your stocks high enough to make up for loosing your big ships or bank planets. This is one of the areas I gotta work on is the point system fir the amount the price of stock will fluctuate. You don't see real stock rocket through the roof on an acquisition, you may get a couple points but thats usualy it. Course the opposite happens if a company looses alot of money thier stock prices will plumet. I'm alos trying to figure out how to benifit the company owner. Do I let them control how much stock they want to put on the market? Do we allow for corporate take overs? Alot of interesting stuff could be done, but I gotta be real careful with the balance

Eh! Just put it in as you planned out. That is what a beta is for...

Throw something in place, watch how it does, correct the problems that crop up, repeat.

Perhaps you could code the stock market module in such a way that you could fiddle with it without having to undergo a complete reset of the game. That would allow you to make several trial and error runs this next code release.

Lastly, try throwing the stock market aspect on only 1 of the official test servers after the next reset.

Well great idea but that why we call it the planning stage. I gotta walk before I run so while I put it to gether its nice to get imput from all

If BIG plays de same server I'd prolly spend all my game currency on him and get rich fast

Won't last, he'll suicide and your fortune is worth nothing

Don't forget... .30 is a completely different animal and Bigs going to have to work ALOT harder

Buy enough stocks in him and his ship is yours, lol

For the amount of stocks each player has to sell it should probably increase over time or right when a player goes on the market everything could be bought up for cheap and leave nothing for you to get, so maybe a person can only buy like 500 or some other number of shares a day or week.
Im still not sure about the specifics of my idea but here it is anyway. To figure out how many total shares a player has to sell, what if as a player grows then his stock is split into different stocks, sort of like a mini mutual fund. And players who already have stakes into the player have first choice, they can either keep all their shares in the first stock or move some to the new one, the new one would be alot more risky since it only exists because the player is so huge, the orignal share would become more like a bluechip. Then the initial number of stocks any player can have to sell can be definite but more come for sale in the form of the new stock.

I know the expiration date..which I must keep an eye. I dont want it to be 1929 all over again .

I think a stock market would be a nice idea, but to make it a part of the game it needs to have the risk of loosing a lot. I think that instead of tying the complete stock value to the player that most of it be tyed to the planet.
for example when a player bases a planet that planets stock gets put on the market. the stock is requested ( not sold for the first 48 hours) to give it a little time to stabalize in price, and avoid a player buying all his own stock. (limits)
the value of the stock should be tyed to the planets production ( which should be expanded along with the port items ) and the overall market of the ports.
So if the planet produces a lot of soybeans and the trading ports within the game trades a lot of soybeans the stock value of the planet goes up. you could also add commodities so that the price of soybeans also goes up with more trades. This will just require a lot more commodities to trade at the ports.
which by the way i think Kwae Zar has a good idea with the gems and minerals.

sorry, lost my train of thought playing with smilies

to continue..
if a planet is not taken care of, the stock price drops, if it is attacked the stock drops. If the planet is destroyed the stock bottoms out and everyone looses! If limits are in place on how much you can own, then most people won't loose too much.
Another idea.. if you can buy as much as you want, then you can do a hostile take over of that planet ?

I think the real money should be in hte commodities market. that can be tied to the amount produced by planets and the amout traded by players. so it can vary by time frame. ( 12 hours maybe, to allow all a chance to trade.)

Hmmm great idea.... I'll have to get back on track with this as I got the tables laid out and started the planning portion, but got a little too busy to move it further It wont be in this release but prob down the line a little... I wanna get .30 out the door asap