Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Proposal: Trading (sort of)

Self-Killed. -Bucky

Adminned at 27 Nov 2014 02:26:09 UTC

If “Shipping” is a rule, add a new rule, “Trading”:

If two Shuttles are in the same Orbit, one (the Trader) can as a daily action Trade one set of Substances that the Trader owns with another that the other Shuttle (the Recipient) owns of equal worth. The Recipient does not have to give their consent to Trade. Worth is calculated as follows:

One tonne of Ice is worth two tonnes of Iron.
One tonne of Iron is worth three tonnes of Sulfur.
One tonne of Ice is worth five tonnes of Sulfur.

If a Substance’s worth is not enumerated, then a Trade involving that Substance cannot be made.

Consent is not necessary because it would make dealing with sleeping players difficult.

posted by Sylphrena at 25 Nov 2014 03:31:00 UTC Comments (8)

Comments

Bucky:

25-11-2014 04:05:20 UTC

Space piracy? I’m not sure what to think about that.

Trade 1 Ice for 2 Iron
Trade 2 Iron for 6 Sulfur
Trade 5 Sulfur for 1 Ice
Repeat over time until the helpless victim runs out of stuff.

I think a better way to handle sleeping players would be to have them activate an offer in a wiki/GNDT column and have the non-sleeping player accept it.

Seventy-Fifth Trombone:

25-11-2014 04:16:20 UTC

First problem: Why is Ice the most valuable Substance? Shouldn’t it be the least?

Second, bigger problem: Not sure how I feel about the possibilities of arbitrage here. Why isn’t 1T Ice worth 6T Sulfur?

Third, biggest problem: If you can’t derive relative values by multiplying other, known values, then adding new Substances requires a combinatorically increasing number of conversion ratios. Furthermore, the rule text talks about tradability when ONE Substance’s worth not being enumerated, but in fact, it seems like EVERY PAIR of Substances’ worths must be enumerated for them to be tradable.

So,  against for now.

Sylphrena:

25-11-2014 05:16:17 UTC

against S/K for Seventy-Fifth’s first and third problems (I personally view the space piracy as a bonus, but I can see where I would be in the minority there). In a future version of this, I’ll probably use Ice as a kind of currency, which eliminates all previously mentioned objections.

Teninten:

25-11-2014 16:16:52 UTC

against

Seventy-Fifth Trombone:

25-11-2014 17:14:07 UTC

(For posterity, I did eventually realize on my own that “combinatorically” is not a word. “Combinatorially” is what I was after.)

Doctor29:

27-11-2014 00:45:04 UTC

against

Doctor29:

27-11-2014 00:45:25 UTC

Oh, sorry, missed the s/k

Bucky:

27-11-2014 02:25:33 UTC

There’s nothing to be sorry about; voting on an already dead proposal is allowed until it actually fails.