[Suggestion] Currency

There have been many discussions about improving trading, and setting up a currency system on Alice before, but for one reason or another nothing ever came of it. I'd like to suggest a very basic currency to improve exchange. I came up with a short list of "requirements" for the currency system, and a list of steps to implement it.

Requirements:

1. Low deployment and maintenance cost.
2. Small footprint & simple mechanics.
3. An item of exchange that can not be automated (to avoid runaway inflation).

Implementation:

1. Select an item of exchange that requires silk touch.
2. Disable automated silk touch for that item.
3. Install a basic sign shop mod (like the one we had on Vincent).
4. Place "ATM" or exchange signs at spawn so players can convert items to currency.
5. Allow players to place shop signs, and let them worry about constructing bazaars and markets.

There are a number of ores that would work as an item of exchange. I would suggest nether quarts. It takes some work to get, but is common enough that beginners can start collecting it early in the game. It is used in many mods crafting recipes, and makes a good building material, so consumption should help it keep value.

Edit: Someone pointed out that removing items from the laser drill list might be non-trivial. Amber bearing stone may be a better choice as an item of exchange.

Edit: Fixed item names.

 

We did not even have a market or bazaar on this map because a barter system with trade-o-mates are so limiting.

 

The issue of relative value for the unit of exchange is not important. Currency is just an abstraction of units of work. If an item is not worth a unit of currency the market's typical solution is to sell multiples of that item per credit. There is no need to over complicate the currency system. The KISS principle applies.

P.S. Nether quartz can be automated with MFR's laser drill. That is why I suggested amber bearing stone instead.

 

We have never had a currency on Alice. The bazaar was trade-o-mat based, meaning it used a barter system. Explaining why a currency system is better than a barter system should not be necessary. Given how active the bazaar became, despite being stuck with trade-o-mat bartering, I think a currency system would result in a large economy quickly.

We did not have a bazaar on the last map for one reason: Those of us that built the last one did not want to construct a new one. I for one felt bartering sucked, and to many trades were difficult to make because of items requested in barter.

The whole purpose of this suggestion was to outline a simple, low overhead, way to add a currency system to Alice. Many of the discussions people have had about a currency system in the past were overly complicated, and I think no one on the staff wanted to invest the time. There are several sign shop mods we could use, and implementing them would be fast and easy.

 

Not a lot in theory, but in practice the layer of abstraction makes trade easier. For the same reason we started using paper currency instead of paying for everything with valuables like gold or silver: Currency is convenient. You have to also consider the psychological benefits that money offers. Amber bearing stone has some value, but once players are trading in a currency (regardless of how it's backed) that value will rise and fall based on goods in the market. A currencies value takes on a life of it's own once trade takes off. Convincing players to trade amber for other items is a hard proposition, but giving them money for that amber, and trading from there is easy.

Having a currency also allows the admins to exercise some basic monetary control. Lets consider what would happen if we started using amber for trade, and then a mod was updated or added that made mass producing amber bearing stone easy. The market would collapse, and players would be left holding a lot of worthless amber. With a currency, admins could simply turn off the ATM's and in effect protect the value of the money. They could even change the unit of trade to something else of value, if there was any problem with amber.

With a currency, you only need an item of exchange to "bootstrap" the economy. Once money is flowing most problems in a simple economy will take care of themselves. It would even be possible to switch to a fiat currency once trade is established. Admins could then add or remove currency in any number of ways to keep inflation or deflation at bay. I don't think any of that would be necessary, but with currency admins would have that option.

 

There were more than enough players for the bazaar to work last map. Money is far more efficient than barter, so a much smaller group of players are needed to make it work. As people leave there money is "locked" and the effective money supply decreases, so the overall value will not be hugely effected.

I can't help but think you either have not read, or don't understand why tying the currency to a silk touch only item is important. By using an item like amber bearing stone, that must be manually mined, players won't be able to inflate the market by automated industrial production. That should keep the money supply from growing out of control.

Are you serious? There are hundreds of items to trade, and far to many mods to work through for most players to acquire them all without playing for a few months. Those are exactly the conditions needed to drive trade.

 

The only currency I have dealt with on an SKCraft server was while playing on Vincent. The system was iron-based and used a sign shop mod. Clearly iron would not work on an industrial server like Alice, but with something like amber it would.

That amber bearing stone is reletively hard to get is what makes it a good item to base a currency system on. Players do a ton of manual mining early in the game, and all the amber they collect would serve to seed the money supply. Once currency transactions start, the money starts circulating and you have a working economy. Continued injections of amber are then much less important.

 

Do I have to spell out why bartering sucks compared to money again? In the old bazaar there were tons of trade-o-mats that had stuff I wanted, but that were asking for items in barter I either did not have, or did not want to trade. With money that is not a problem, and a bazaar would see much more player participation.

On the current map no players even tried setting up shops that I know of, despite having trade stands which are better than trade-o-mats. The only reason the bazaar worked was because several active players put a ton of work into making things as easy as possible for traders to setup shops. Even with all that work the bazaar was only partially successful because many of the shops required items most players did not have.

I look forward to the new map, but I'm not going to bother doing any trading or building a bazaar if bartering is the only option. Maybe someone else will take up the slack and make a bazaar, but given the lack of interest on the current map, I doubt it.