Economy

The economy of Ephemeral Respite is a player character (PC)-driven, and non-player character (NPC)-checked dynamic network.

Currencies

The most ubiquitous form of currency is scrap, either inorganic, metal, or organic.

In Ephemeral Respite, other popular denominators for trading are:

* Bullets: Easy to carry and trade hands, durable, and useful... that is if you have a working gun

* Drams of liquor: harder to carry and transfer, but valuable nonetheless.

* InCreds: A digital cryptocurrency that can be used across the Cavewall. It can be obtained through trading or at InCred Exchangers at few sites on Calydon. Like terrestrial cryptocurrencies, the denominations can be very small. Small differences in the InCred prices of individual items may be a rounding error for single purchases, but when items are purchased and sold en masse, these small amounts can add up to a significant sum.

* Microchips: Since they are extremely difficult to manufacture, chips have a limited count and intrinsic value, especially to those who build machines requiring their processing power.

* Scrap: The most rudimentary form of 'value,' which is universally useful for salvage of basic components that underly the basis of crafting.

Economic Growth

NPCs and players generate goods by collection from the environment or by crafting, and goods are consumed by use (equipment that undergoes wear and tear, direct consumption, or scrapping). Because anything can be scrapped, all items bear at least some minimal value, there is no actual "junk."

Checks and Balances

NPCs also participate in the player-driven economy. If a certain product is flooding the Calydonian marketplace, NPCs may try to take advantage of the low prices and buy up items in bulk to resell during periods of scarcity. If there is a specific absence of a common item on the market, NPCs may craft or forage these items to be able to list them at a premium.

Sinks

Players can engage in naval or space combat, which requires a vast amount of resources for construction, repair, fuel, and ammunition for vehicles.

Distribution

Each major population center has at least one NPC who acts as a primary trading hub for most commonly needed and used items. While no NPCs are invincible, however the wealthiest merchants tend to have the best bodyguards. The strength of an NPC merchant's guards are roughly proportional to their physical wealth. If a trading hub NPC is killed, the vacuum will eventually be filled by a new NPC who will tend to have even stronger protection- that is until they grow complacent about their safety...

NPCs will frequently not carry their whole inventory on their person, keeping some inaccesible goods in a location that may be unreachable by PCs.

Valuation

If you want to be a vendor on Calydon, you will need to set a value of goods in your shop. This price can be set as a static number, or with more sophisticated options for characters trained in the passive skill Merchant.

When you start to upload goods into your character's Matrix, if you want to make the goods available for trade over the Cavewall network, you must set a value for the item in units of InCreds. This price can be set as a static number, or with more sophisticated options for characters trained in the passive skill Matrix Merchant.

Saavy players and NPCs can perform arbitrage if noticing a price difference between the same coveted physical market and Matrix item.

Average Market Value

The average market value of an item is an adaptive value that changes hourly for each item. It is influenced by the median average of the previous 10 transactions for the item anywhere on Calydon, or the average of the value of the item during the last 24 hours of transactions, whichever had the most transactions. If the new average is higher or lower than the previous value by more than 10%, the hourly change of the average market value can only change my a maximum of 10% per update. The frequency of the update and cap on the change of the average market value over time will smooth out market fluctuations, to prevent abuse by big players in the market attempting to drive up or down prices quickly with large volume purchases.

Searching for Goods

If a player wants to find a physical item, they can use their Cavelink to search across Calydon for any merchant who has listed such an item for sale. Players can search the marketplace using their Cavelink for items for sale, but they can also look for vendors buying their items and sort by buy price. This can be an option for players looking to make the most revenue selling their loot, but are not interested in taking the Vendor skill. Only players that are online or players that have logged off in neutral territories are searchable and accessible (see Vendor).

Items searched for on Cavelink can be sorted by price and distance. Search parameters can have min/max scrap cost, and/or min/max distance. If the Vendor is in the same settlement, the character can be set to automatically path to the Vendor.

Items in the Cavewall Matrix marketplace can also be searched.

All types of searches, when sorting by the lowest listed price, will randomize the order of the vendors witch matching lowest price to keep visibility of all vendors equal.

Exchange of Goods

By default, all goods in a character's inventory and Matrix are marked as "available for trade." At any time, specific items can be declassified from this status, and are not view-able by other players in any trade interfaces. One toggle box can batch mark or unmark all equipped gear to be available or unavailable for trade.

Sometimes delivery is possible. See transportation.

Player-run Shops

Players can establish shops in several ways to sell and trade for goods.

In manual management mode (when the player is online, and in Vendor mode) the default prices for incoming goods is set to their Vendor rate, rather than defaulting to average market value. The Vendor will receive one barter request at a time, and follow the protocol for Live Bartering below.

In automated management mode (when the Vendor is idle or logged off), the Vendor's store will follow behavior set by the Vendor, to either only accept scrap as payment, or to accept any incoming items at a % or absolute scrap difference, or to accept specific items or types of items at pre-defined scrap values. For example, a Vendor selling mixed goods may only be interested in acquiring ammunition, so they will set their store to accept any ammunition type item at 75% of the average market value.

A player must leave their character in a Safe Area running their store on logoff. Alternatively a player can hire an NPC to run a store in a set location as well, typically in a settlement.

Reports for each transaction are generated and sent to the Vendor in either management mode, and can be reviewed or batch deleted by the Vendor as they chose. In reviewing their reports, if they discover specific or types of items they are not interested in receiving as a Vendor, they can mark the items as "unwanted," and will prevent those items from being accepted in future transactions. From these reports, prices of incoming items can also be altered, so they can be more precisely set by the Vendor. A higher rank in Merchant allows for more precise manipulation of these values.

Vendors will also receive an optional daily report of the highest volume items that are not priced in their store, to reveal any potential missed trading opportunities.

A seller may choose to limit exchanges to be have results be within their carrying capacity. So if the seller is willing to buy chisels at 2 scrap each, and is selling the Viextemps Guarneri for 100,000 scrap, the seller would not be able to accept a trade of 50,000 chisels for their valuable instrument if he or she did not had space for the chisels.

NPCs will periodically purchase goods from players' shops, provided the items are within their price range.

Bartering with NPCs and with PC stores

Bartering with NPCs and player stores is similar to the mechanic in the Fallout series with NPCs, where the buyer can browse and select scrap or any available item from their own inventory or the inventory of the NPC or player store they are trading with. The NPC or store will accept items of equivalent or greater value in exchange for their items. Items will exist in a filterable list displaying:

[Icon] [Item Type Icon] [Item Name] [Quantity] [Trade Value in scrap units (+/- market average indicator)] [Encumbrance]

Exchanges between players and NPCs can occur on the Cavelink interface if they have a Cavewall store (see Matrix Transactions below), or through an in-person interface. NPC merchants may change their store prices based on their knowledge of transactions done in the world to keep their buying and selling values competitive, although other couldn't care less and will retain fixed pricing on their limited goods.

Live Bartering

During a live exchange between players in person, where both players are manually performing the barter, players have a chance to review all the items (and InCreds) the other player is offering, then confirm their acceptance. If the other player changes anything about the offer, the confirmation is withdrawn to allow for re-review.

To facilitate players in a live trade, a running sum of the scrap values are listed for each players' offer. Each item will show that item's current market value (average of last 24 hours of transactions) in units of scrap, which is used as the default scrap value of the item for the sum calculation. There will be a button which will immediately match the value of the other player's offer using scrap.

Players may haggle on the value of items by right clicking on the item to change their personal value of the item, which will effect the sum calculation. The item will still show the original market value, and the new custom-set value with the name of the character who set that value. A player can choose to change the value of any item as often as they choose, overwriting their own or the other player's set value for the duration of the barter. Players will view items with altered, non-default scrap values with an added green border if it is in their favor, or with a red border if it is against their favor relative to the current market price. During a live trade, any items in your inventory can be changed in their classification as available or unavailable for trade, and if changed from available to unavailable, they will be removed from any active offers. These changes made during a live trade are temporary, and will revert to their settings before the barter was initiated.

Exchanges of material goods in person do not carry any bartering fee, although they require for parties to be in presence or an agreed upon transportation of goods. For this purpose, players can employ the use of the Mailroom as a limited shipping and receiving nexus.

Matrix Transactions

Exchanges made over the Cavewall network from Matrix to Matrix are performed by direct value barter and with InCreds, since no physical objects pass hands. An InCred fee of 1% of trade value is assessed on each transaction and is charged to the seller by the Cavewall network.

Auction House

A global "auction house" on the Calydon network is also available to those with Matrix capabilities, with items going to the highest bidder at the end of their duration of sale. The same 1% InCred fee is conveyed upon the seller in these exchanges.

NPCs will also list items in the Auction House environment, and even bid on items with their own resources.

Listing and Selling Auction Items

1. List an item, set starting big, auction duration, and buyout price. Your item is held in escrow during the auction.

2. Optionally receive notifications of bid activity on your auction. You can view the characters and the amounts they sucessfully bid on your item.

3. When the aution completes or is bought out, you receive the InCreds less 1% of the total.

Buying Auction Items

1. Search auction house for item of interest by any property.

2. Place maximum bid on item; actual bid entered will be just high enough to beat other bids if possible. Your InCreds for your maximum bid are held in escrow.

3. If you are outbid on an item you are winning, you will receive an in-game notification that allows you to up your bid, provided you have enough InCreds.

"You have been outbid on [Item] by [Character]. You had offered [# of InCreds], he offered [# of InCreds]. The auction has [time remaining], would you like to bid again?" [Yes/No]

4, When the auction completes, you receive the item into your Matrix. If you do not have room in your Matrix, it is withheld until sufficient space is made available.

See Post-scarcity economy and Resource curse. See first episode of Mushishi for liquor as currency.