Ideas for Trading and Task Systems [Open Discussion]

Now I'm almost certain most people will at least be aware of how trading with npc's in Minecraft works and How trading through Steam with other people works. In my opinion a trade system for multiplayer worlds needs the latter but for Keen to have some say in the economy (Make sure nothing is under or over priced) there should be Npc trade outposts as well. This would allow the possibility of a stock list and potentially the GPS coordinates of trade locations on a Megaserver to show where there are sales happening or where you could get the resources you need from. I'm fully aware that this brings up the arguments on Mega Servers and how much money they would need but let's not dwell on that here. There is a potential for Keen to set up a trade server which handles transactions rather than actually handling a world. This implies the functions of The Grand Exchange in Runescape where players can Sell and Buy items from anyone from any world. The combination of Minecraft Npc Trading, Steam P2P Trading and Runescape's Global Market could lead to the most incredible game economy ever seen. If you throw in an idea that Users could complete tasks for other users (to save time and earn rewards) then we have a massive community feel building behind server life, it could even make Weapon Disabled servers interesting.

Trade outposts:
The outposts would be pre built blueprints for Villages or literal Trading outposts (A single large building or market) which would be implemented into the world by World Gen coding by smoothing a section of the landscape to generate a station grid which the outpost is built on. For anyone who is unaware of Minecraft villages here is an example village:


The village features 2 main structures of importance:

1. Blacksmith - A Building that contains Furnaces (So it could contain a Refinery or an Assembler - To help solo survivalists) and sometimes contains loot (In SE could contain some resources of value or just something simple like hydrogen/oxygen tanks)
2. Wheat Farms - Now this isn't completely applicable to Space Engineers as we don't have food yet but in SE we could replace the food concept with our energy needed to survive and thus this farm could become a building in which there are batteries except there is nothing charging the batteries in the village and in order to make it sustainable you have to create some solar panels with that limited supply of energy. However, that is not to do with trading so we'll just leave that idea for now.

These features would have their equivalents to allow npc's to be a feature. From here I see that trading with npc's would have to be proportional to the village. i.e. A large village will have a large number of resources up for trade but may only trade in bulk. This would mean you would have some grinding to do before you can gain a large reward through trade: perhaps a villager wishes to build a stone house, a viable option on planets, and in return for mining a large volume of stone will deposit some ammo, iron, nickel etc into your designated Trade Enabled Container*. The purpose of the npc outposts would be to help you build large ships or obtain the materials faster. They could potentially sell you vehicle blueprints as well as resources. The village could then have a workshop building where you could project the new blueprint and start your construction. This adds to a single aspect of the game that makes it more enjoyable as an adventure game.

*The Trade Enabled Container (TEC) would simply be a Cargo Container in which you tick a box that says "Make this container tradable". It would allow npc's and players to deposit materials as donations or rewards and would allow you to send a trade request to another player through an additional Tab in the 'K' menu from your ship or terminal.

P2P Trade System:

So Trade Outposts have allowed a user to start from scratch and built a functional and stylish exploration ship with life support systems, solar panels and even an anti-pirate turret but what benefit is this to multiplayer worlds? Surely it would just be easier to find a mate work together and kill some people. You kills them, steal their ship, complete some sort of hacking process (In game, like lock picking in Skyrim) and gain access to all their hard-earned cargo. Well it is certainly an option in a game like this but what would be good for a community is if you could actually just talk to those people, do some work for them and get rewards back (See Task System below). However, a good P2P Trading system normally generates a better economy within a game. So here we refer to the trade windows in Runecape and Steam. If you wish to trade items on Steam it is fairly straightforward:

1. Send a Trade Request and if they accept:
2. Offer your item for theirs
3. Have a little chat in the window provided to make sure you're both happy and you have what you wanted
4. Accept or decline as you wish
5. Either you have a new item or you don't depending on whether you have both accepted the trade or not.

This system is great in terms of social interaction because you get the chance to barter for what your want and can always just disagree with the person if you think they are charging too much.



The runescape system is just a little different. To sell:

1. Set how many of what item you are selling
2. Chose a price you want to sell them for each (You will receive no less than the price you put up but you may receive more - depending on who buys your item/items) - there is also a guide price based on average selling prices.
3. Wait for your whole collection of items or some of your items to sell
4. Collect your money

You can cancel your sale at any stage in the process to get back your items. To buy:

1. Search for the item you want
2. Enter how many you want and how much you are going to pay (You will pay no more than your amount but may end up paying less)
3. Wait for your whole collection of items or some of your items to buy
4. Collect your items

You can also cancel your orders at any time during the process to get back your leftover money.
This system would benefit the MP world because trading could be set up before you go to bed and then you could collect your resources in the morning. However, it does imply that a currency system is needed within the game for it to work properly. Now I don't see why the two can't be combined. You create a new system using the best parts of the other two. Each user can create an active TEC that displays what resources you have available to sell. Using the Trade tab people may search for an active Trader to buy resources from. They then can place an order on your profile requesting a number or a certain resource for an amount of their own. i.e. they want 20kg of Iron so they offer you 5kg of Uranium (or something like that) and then you can send a Chat request back to discuss how much of each you wish to trade until you reach an agreement and you both walk away with 'profit' or you may just simply decline the Order/Request with no comment because they're offering to give you 2.5kg of Uranium in exchange for 50Kg of iron. This system could then be tied into an inter-server trade hub where you can trade across servers. This would allow Community Factions to have their own servers but still trade with other Factions or Freelancers. I haven't mentioned it until now but I'm going to say this now: To qualify for Trading Rights a server must not be using Resource enhancing mods or any mods that would unbalance the vanilla mining process. I say this because otherwise we will have modded mining drills providing vanilla servers with unreasonable amounts of resources. In order to not cluster up the Trade tab I feel there should be automatic time outs and offline options for traders so that they are not crowding the tab.


Task System:
The best example I can think of is that in Megaserver worlds (whether these be keen servers or 3rd party servers) the Sim speed is most likely to to be set to 1x so that a large ship is harder to construct. Ergo, the reward system for doing work. A player wants to build a mothership with several small attack craft (both piloted and drones) but is spending all their time designing the mothership. They hire someone through the server to build them a small craft in a workshop of a nearby outpost (Possibly player built - I'll get to that) and the transaction would go like this:

1. The person building the Mothership broadcasts a task through an in game task system (Accessible by any antenna within range of a Trade Outpost) that request a specific blueprint to be built and delivered to a GPS location on the server. When the person makes the request the resources are taken from the players afore mentioned TEC for both the construction of the Ship, the transport fuel required and the reward for building/transferring the ship.
2. The server logs the resources alongside the Task request and withholds them until the task is complete.
3. Another player accepts the Task from the Trade Tab (in the 'k' menu) which makes the task unlisted.
4. The blueprint is added to the workshop of choice (of the person constructing the ship (It would be great if players could advertise their workshop space within the trade tab as well) ) and the resources are added to the workshop's cargo containers (Set up by attaching them to the TEC and Naming them with the tag @Workshop - Unless people implement a functions drop down menu in the terminal to label your cargo as workshop, trade or private access).
5. Player constructs the Ship and delivers it within the time frame and receives the reward while the person who originally made the task is notified that their ship is ready for collection from their nearest workshop (of required size). [Yes I know this is a complicated system, but a good system was never going to be easy]

However, There would be penalties for people who attempt to steal the resources or accept a task and let the time on the task run out. First and foremost you would have the remaining resources revoked from your Workshop Cargo and returned to the person who hired you. Secondly, you would face a temporary ban (to which you may appeal) from accepting or requesting tasks. In addition to a time ban you may face a Refund ban in which you have to return the amount of material you stole in order to be able to accept or request any more tasks.

Afore Mentioned - Workshops:
Above I mentioned player built workshops. I think these would be one of the best additions to the game. Now I'm not talking about the Steam Workshop to upload blueprints/worlds/etc: I'm talking about labouring workshops where you construct ships from scratch or from blueprints and you spend time tinkering before you take them out for a test flight. I think it would great if players could build themselves a shed (with a projector, a large cargo container and a small TEC) and then advertise their services under a Trade or Tasks tab in the 'K' menu and receive a rating every time they do a task (So good Work Smiths get more work as they get a reputation). They could list their workshop with dimensions of Ships they are capable of building and information on the nearest deposit centre ( Trading outposts) are so that they can be found and used by people in the same area. Systems could also be put in place that a workshop must be airtight and to exit the workshop you must not be carrying any resources from the Workshop Containers or the TEC (with a little red message saying something like 'Access denied. Please empty your inventory.' so that resources can not be stolen.

So in summary: Npc Trading - Lots of admin side traders, P2P Network to allow for Traders to get a reputation and a Task System to allow community assisted projects in survival and some rewards for people who want to help out in the server.