Fwurg

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I have a migration question: How does this change affect those players with a fourth trade fleet? Do they get a second OM zone (at around 2000 for me at least), or do they have to disband their trade fleet in exchange for compensation?

[Mercury]

I have a migration question: How does this change affect those players with a fourth trade fleet? Do they get a second OM zone (at around 2000 for me at least), or do they have to disband their trade fleet in exchange for compensation?

That is an excellent and very relevant question that needs to be answered.

One of the options I considered was giving players the option to temporarily "store" their fourth fleet capacity in the other three until they were able to build a second OM zone. At that time, they'd be able to shift them back to the fourth fleet (or not, as they please).

Another option I am considering is to give all four existing players a free second OM zone, as compensation for having two of their technologies taken away. Those with a fourth fleet in place could immediately start using it, the others would not be able to do that until they'd built it.

I am also open to suggestions.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I think both options would work, but I think the second one keeps a better monetary balance with respect to the technology investment.

It's also possible to offer the current players a choice between an extra OM zone, or the Commodity Distribution Tech? (I'd personally choose the zone for now, and research the tech at a later point in time.)

[RemcoSwenker]

I think the open market zone idea is a good one. Makes it more simple so I don't have to think about all those things.
Am I correct in that you can support 3 fleets on one zone? or am I wrong?

[Praetorian Empire]

I think the open market zone idea is a good one. Makes it more simple so I don't have to think about all those things.
Am I correct in that you can support 3 fleets on one zone? or am I wrong?

No the first 2 fleets are free and you can support 1 fleet per zone for the additional fleets. I guess the option that gives us all 2 open market zones instead of 1 is fair. Since we do lose some tech. This is much easier than combining fleets for short periods.

Are you still capable of assigning a trade fleet to the open market? Since i currently require 385 Gasses from the open market 2 zones of 100 capacity is not gonna cut it. I will build gasses zones but that takes some time. If we can not assign fleets to the open market anymore i will need about 5 turns transition time.

[Sundarian Federation]

The second free zone, in compensation for investment made in the, now obsolete, technologies is a fair deal, as Brend already said, id rather research the new techs at a later point in time if i need them, and the second zone gives me the option to maintain my 4th fleet, which i need to manage all my trades.

However Chris raises a valid point, will we still be able to assign fleets to the open market for extra capacity, since i currently trade 321 with the market. The time needed to reduce that number to 200 or less will be at least 2 turns, if the option to assign fleets to the open market should disappear.

[Mercury]

The OM zone won't be implemented in turn 35 at the very least. I haven't decided on how to do the transition yet, but I do suggest you start building some gasses zones in preparation (if for nothing else than that the Open Market is an expensive place to buy stuff).

Keep this in mind however: one of those free zones is a starting zone, which means you get a free upgrade on a world with natural life. Additionally, they get additional production in favourable locations. If you need a lot of capacity, placing both on a fully terraformed world gets you 350 open market capacity.

Regardless, to promote players to use their trade capacity amongst one another, I believe it would be best not to allow fleets to trade with the open market in addition to the zones themselves.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

Regardless, to promote players to use their trade capacity amongst one another, I believe it would be best not to allow fleets to trade with the open market in addition to the zones themselves.

I agree with this. If it becomes a real problem later on, either A: upgrade your OM zone, or B: ask another player to but from the OM on your behalf and have them ship it, or C: develop a technology later on that allows you to apply trade fleets to the OM (I predict we will never need that tech -- the zones are perfectly fine, and fleets are used to make loads 'o money with other players).

[Mercury]

I have updated the rules on the Wiki to follow the new changes.

• Trade Routes
• Open Market Zones
• Open Market

If I missed anything, let me know!

Each current player gets 2 free Open Market Zones, which should be placed in the Turn 38 Turn Report. That turn we will also start using the new Open Market rules. I think this should give everyone enough time to adapt or get close enough that any switch-over effects are of short duration.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

You missed the '[[Terraformation Modules]]' on the wiki page. I fixed it.

[Brend]

After a search through this thread I seem to have missed somethings. I know we (the current players with an economy) get two free Open Market Zones; I think we get those in turn 38.

However, new technologies were also mentioned in this thread, and I vaguely recall some things on the upcoming change of trade systems being discussed, but I can't find a record of those in the thread.

Can someone with enough information give a short summary of the exact changes the coming turn?

[Mercury]

List of changes:

• Every player gets 2 free Open Market zones
• They should assign locations for these free Open Market zones in their turn report this turn (38)
• This means every player has free support for up to four fleets
• New players get 1 (not 2) Open Market zones
• The following technologies become obsolete: Gravitational Reducers and Freight Catalysts

The technologies proposed (Modularized Transshipment Machinery and Commodity Distribution Nodes) have not been fully fleshed out yet and aren't active right now. They need to be fully finished before applying them. Since nobody has more than 4 trade fleets, this is not currently something that will mess up anything.

[Brend]

What's to happen with Mercantile?

It clearly states as a benefit that it offers a -10 discount on trade fleet upkeep -- this is not applicable anymore.

[Mercury]

I changed Mercantile to give a bonus to Open Market Capacity produced by Open Market Zones - this seems like a reasonable solution and the current text was WRONG.

I'm open to alternative suggestions however so don't take my affirmative action against illegal rules to be the end of the matter if you have a better idea. I think Mercantile might even need some improvement beyond what it currently has (since it now boosts 2 with +10 while others boost 2 with +10 and 2 with +5).

Regardless, this is better than what it was o_O - can't believe I missed that.

[Freekjan]

You could just make the bonus to open market capacity a +20, that way it gives the same total bonus as the rest. The extra focus doesn't feel overpowered to me, because open market trade is usually not your best option anyway.

Another option is to leave it at +10, but give mercantile a minor extra trade boost, such as a 1% better open market price per full billion people or a slightly better distance factor on MTCF trade.