Hideout HQ - Special Buildings - Gold Resource

[Shaydo]

Aye i can understand that, i will simply ask can we expect a good Christmas present ?

Can you provide any other information at this time, will the choice of port make a difference?

[Captain Jack]

Port will play a role within the variables you are already familiar with. Nothing extra for the moment.

[Captain Jack]

We have a problem where we need your help. Prepare for a post that is not at all structured.

We need to decide the production rate of the Goldsmith building. The production rate of this building will define the costs for all hideout buildings. We also want the gold bars resource to immitate the gold price in real world.

At least we need a starting line. Whether or not the Goldsmith will play a dictating role into gold bars resource production or a secondary role.

Things to consider:
-Goldsmith level should define production speed (gold bars per hour).
-Goldsmith level should define gold coins cost per bar (then how much players will sell them, it will be up to the market).
-Market prices will be based on global demand and reserves in combine with local reserves.


Some ideas on how market AI will work:
-Every port will get a reserve rank based on the amount of gold resource they have. The ranks will be 1 to 21 with 1 being the port with the greatest reserves.
-Simply put, the ranked #1 port will offer the best price to buy and the worse price to sell.
-In order for the markets to be as close as each other with other ports, they will update their prices live on every transaction AND even if there is no transaction, they will update per hour.
-The hourly update could be like, every port will get the max and min prices in Avonmora at that moment. Then using a formula, the markets will fluctuate their rates to attract buyers. We will also add reserve caps so the market AI will offer better price when their reserves is at a certain point. For example, an empty market, will offer great prices in order to get some stock. Once the same market reaches, lets say 5000 gold bars, even if it is still the market with the lowest reservesm it will cut the prices. So, special bonuses, which increase or decrease the price according to reserves.

This makes it 4 variables for a market price for Gold Bars:
a)Global Supply-Demand
b)Local Supply-Demand
c)Global Reserves
d)Local Reserves

and updates will happen in two ways:
a)Per transaction
b)Per hour

This hopefully will be good enough for gold bars producers to sell off their gold bars, instead of hoarding them only for their own personal use.

We seek answers in:-
-Optimal gold bars production per day (or hour) in number (ie 10k gold bars). (ie, at level 20 goldsmith, how many gold bars should be generated?)
-Optimal gold bars avg price (cost to build) or best avg price to build (ie at level 20 goldsmith, how much a gold bar should cost?)

To help you here are some facts, thoughts and predictions:

The avg profit per ship is about 20k. (That's not based on an extensive research, it might be really diverse based on each player's playing style and size. Really drop in your own value if you like, or PM it to #1).
We think that the optimal fleet size is 200 ships which in turns have about 20 000 cargo space which means they can on average transport about 225k per day.
We estimate, that futurely every player should have about 3 treasure fleet (each one with its own escort fleet) with avg cargo of 500. This means that about 500 * 3 * 12 = 18000 cargo space, is also a good amount for a daily production.

There is also another detail though, different than current standards. All resources currently, when bought by a port - they vanish. Will this be the case with gold resource too? Or not? How about gold resource is not lost at all. With different price on same port for sale and buy as well as % profits for both the nation and the AI merchant, we can ensure that self cycle recycling will be impossible. Ultimately, ships will need to move the resources around to make profit.

So, good, we have solved the problem eh? Gold bars will start to stock large at ports. Prices will maintain and eventually after a point it will not be profitable to produce more. At one side, this is the best that it can happen and it can easily be corrected by continuing to add uses for gold bars into every day life.

Ultimately, we foresee that we will have various problems with gold resource, till we can implement IC extension and Foot Battle. At first case, professions irrelevant with ship fighting and fighting in general will be available. This will create opportunities to use the gold resource for a lot of extra uses. At foot battle, it will be very expensive to raise and MAINTAIN an army, so all this gold will find an extra way to be spent. Laws can be helpful too.

In other news, the mechanisms are almost ready. We just need final decisions on pricing the buildings which largely depends on the gold resource utilization.

[Captain Jack]

In addition to the above, we want to make it extremely difficult for anyone to be EVERYTHING in the game. Hideout Buildings are meant to provide specialization. So, if anyone wants to be a BANKER and a GOLD BARS producers, it will be EXTREMELY costy.

It should also take a long time, not only gold coins. Therefore, HIDEOUT Buildings that provide specialization will be very costy mainly based on this.

Other buildings, such as a Private Marina, which offer mechanisms and not necessarily a specialization category, will be less costy. Remember, that futurely, players will be able to construct resource production buildings in their hideouts. Most probably, according to the port you selected, the relevant production will be available. The final selling price will play no role on which is better to follow. Production will be the same for any of the resources in order to make you select the port you want based on other needs.

Before you ask, hideout position switch will become available in the future but it will be limited and it will cost credits.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

This a fascinating puzzle - very simply put, gold is made from gold coin - hence, 2000 gold coin should in theory generate a gold bar worth 2000 gold coin.

Therefore, as the market changes, so will the value of a gold bar. Say the market rises to 2200 for a gold bar - a level one goldsmith should still be able to make a gold bar with 2000 gold coin.

The way I see it, is how many coins will it take to make a gold bar? Once that is determined, the market will begin to determine whether one should make gold bars or wait or buy gold bars.

If 2000 gold coins is the starting price for a gold bar, as it stands, a simple solution would be to use 1000 coins to make a gold bar. That would be say, a level one Goldsmith.

How long it takes? I believe the average ship profit is higher, around 35k per day, but I think it should based more on the average fleet cargo capacity, say 500 units of cargo. This fleet will move a total of 12,000 units daily. That's 500 units per hour.

So, perhaps a Level 1 Goldsmith can make 100 gold bars an hour, or 2,400 gold bars a day.

Now, here's how the upgrades might work...

For each level advancement, the number of gold coins needed is reduced by say .5% of the original 1000 coins, and the production per hour goes up by 100 bars an hour.

Here's a quick chart:
Level 1: 1000 coins needed, 100 bars an hour
Level 2: 995 coins needed, 200 bars an hour
Level 3: 990 coins needed, 300 bars an hour
Etc
Level 20. 900 coins needed, 2000 bars an hour

Perhaps as one goes up a level they must chose, either reducing the coins needed or improving the production per hour, but not both, especially at level 10.

This is no means the answer to this puzzle, just one way to start looking at it as we try to help find a viable way to solve it - let's see what we can do to help get 'er done!

[Cdv]

That is a clear analysis from Sir Henry. I have a few comments.

If 2000 gold coins is the starting price for a gold bar, as it stands, a simple solution would be to use 1000 coins to make a gold bar. That would be say, a level one Goldsmith.

If the starting rate for a level one Goldsmith was to be 1000 gold coins per gold bar, it would only make sense for everyone to build their own goldsmiths. It would be basically doubling your money.

For each level advancement, the number of gold coins needed is reduced by say .5% of the original 1000 coins, and the production per hour goes up by 100 bars an hour.

Here's a quick chart:
Level 1: 1000 coins needed, 100 bars an hour
Level 2: 995 coins needed, 200 bars an hour
Level 3: 990 coins needed, 300 bars an hour
Etc
Level 20. 900 coins needed, 2000 bars an hour

Perhaps as one goes up a level they must chose, either reducing the coins needed or improving the production per hour, but not both, especially at level 10.

I find the 0.5% reduction in gold cost too low. I estimate the cost of building a level 20 Goldsmith to be over 500~600 mil in gold and gold bars plus the cost of materials. I doubt anyone would invest that much for a savings of 100 gold coins an hour. And I do not find it necessary to choose between gold cost and production rate.

Imho, gold bar cost for a level 1 Goldsmith could start at higher than 2000. At 2100 or 2200 per gold bar, it would discourage everyone from making gold bars for their own consumption with their own level 1 factory. Anyone who wants to make gold bars for themselves would have to upgrade their goldsmiths a level or two to be cost effective. The gold cost reduction per level could be set at 5% of the previous cost which would mean....

Level 1: 2200 coins needed, 100 bars an hour
Level 2: 2090 coins needed, 200 bars an hour
Level 3: 1986 coins needed, 300 bars an hour
Etc
Level 20. 830 coins needed, 2000 bars an hour

[Most Lee Harmless]

I agree with CDV, low level goldsmiths should not be able to make vast profits from the get-go : there should be a high degree of 'wastage' initially, which gets reduced as the goldsmith levels-up and thus gains skills which reduce that wastage. I think a form of selectable trade-off might be useful : perhaps a slider bar varying coins used v. speed of production : a low-level goldsmith can make bars fast, at high coin cost, or slower but with less waste. This would allow some flexibility in use, even at higher levels : one might want to quickly sweep a big plunder score into bars, which will have advantages in burial cost and security : or on other occasions leave the smith ticking over with some low-cost production when speed is not an issue.

Thus the effect of a level-up is to change the range of the selector bar : higher levels can make bars using even fewer coins or much faster than the previous level. This would also mean the 'average', or optimal, cost of coin/speed used would improve with each level gained.

As for the production rate : I'm wary of over-production, unless a solid market mechanism is in place to make such over-production unprofitable. I'd favor a much smaller initial production rate : initial production for a player should be about making enough bars for their own needs, especially if the capital ships and further hide-out buildings and upgrades are going to require them as part of the build costs : so the trade-off needs to be taking more time per bar to keep coin cost down. For higher levels, then the higher production gained is more for trade purposes.

But we do need to keep bars fairly rare and hard to acquire or produce, other-wise, there is little point in working too hard to plunder them from fleets when you can knock them out in their 10's of 1000's yourself.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

You are right, cdv, on making the coins needed to make a gold bar - from my simple little mind, it makes sense.

Production numbers may need tweaked a bit - perhaps instead of tweak, use the slider idea mentioned by Danik. A level 20 State of Art Gold Forge would be able to produce a gold bar for 830 coins, but only 1000 an hour, or they would be able to produce 2000 gold bars an hour, at a cost of 1660 coins per bar. The slider mechanism would enable one to select a ratio between the two in which indirectly would affect the market.

As the market dynamics go, these should be volatile - much like the real gold market. If there is a glut, then the prices will drop, and the gold forges will go quiet. If it becomes scarce, it the forges will fire up.

Keep in mind there most likely be many low level forges at work where those gold bars won't hit the market - these will be for the own use of the forge owner. Why pay a high price for gold if I can make my own in my little forge for less?

It may be prudent to reduce the production rates and raise coin costs to start. If gold bars are needed in order to upgrade to level 2, the incentive to create high cost gold bars will be there.

Any thoughts or ideas?

[Grapefruit]

Is it gonna be possible to reforge gold bars back into coins?

[Shaydo]

Right you may have to bear with me because this is a little messy.

I also agree with the idea of 2200g being the starting cost per bar and keeping 2000 as the maximum buy price, 12,000 bars a day seems reasonable.

So

If we say that a port sells bars at 25% above the buy price, And if 2000g is the starting buy price for the least stocked port and based on port stock it was reduced by 1.4% per level then in order of port stock the below prices could be used.

Lowest Stock: Buy - 2,000g / Sell - 2,500g
Stock +1: Buy - 1,972g / Sell - 2496g
Stock + 2: Buy - 1,944g / Sell - 9,430g
etc
Full Stock: Buy - 1,509 / Sell - 1,886g

That would mean if a player choose to try and sell gold between ports there could be just over 100g a bar made but it would have to be active trading as the price could change right before you sell, afk trading wouldn't cut it with gold bars.

Now if we say that a gold bar costs 2200g to build at level 1 goldsmith and we reduce that cost by 2.5% per level we would get the below result.

Level 1: 2,200g/bar
Level 2: 2,146g/bar
Level 3: 2,094g/bar
etc
Level 20: 1,376g/bar

It would be just over 800 gold cheaper per bar and using the above prices you could get a return of 624g a bar if you sold to the lowest stock port (more if you include the bonus for 'depleted stocks') Or 133g if you sold it to the most stocked port(will there be a further reduction for 'Over stocked' to oppose depleted?)

Using the above 2 sets of figures for Buy/Sell and Production Cost you wouldn't be able to make a profit selling bars until you got to goldsmith level 5 at which point you would make 7g a bar(This changes when factoring it 'depleted stock'). Also the most stocked port would sell them cheaper(1,886g/bar) than you are able to manufacture them at until level 8 at which point you can build them for 1,851g/bar and it is more cost efficient to make your own than find a fully stocked port to buy from.


If we then take what was preciously suggested of a max production rate of 12,000 bars a day and selling to the best port you can make 624g a bar then you could potentially make 7.5m gold a day or over 2.5b gold a year if you could keep it at peak profit all year round, even selling at the worst price of 1,509g/bar you could still make 580m gold a year with a level 20 goldsmith.

If you go for a max production of 12,000 bars a day then you could start at 600 bars a day and increase it by 600 bars a level until you reach level 20.

As for resources disappearing why not have 25% of all gold sold disappear into various taxes and import charges, so if all the smiths went dark, gold stopped being produced and players continued to buy and sell between ports the overall stocks would deplete.