The Great Rebel Economy Rework

[Gr4Ss]

So, I know there are a whole slew of problems with the rebel economy rework and I want to redo the whole thing. But first I do want to touch base and get some opinions in. So... time for the shitstorm, I guess.

To begin, some of the problems I personally have noted as being a thing. I find it important to begin with listing these up, as we can refer back to them when making decisions on how stuff should work. This is the shit we want to fix in the end.

1. Progression is an absolute mess.
   1. No real system to it, things just unlock at near-random levels made up on a whim when they were being punched in.
   2. Not much worth crafting beyond level 40, except a few one-offs at level 50.
   3. Level 30 recipe-wise is somewhat considered mid-game while most crafting rebels start off with 20 levels on character creation already (attributes + starting points).
   4. Boosts can quickly grant a lot of levels to just jump up in progression, making starting rebels able to go near level 30 roughly 2 hours after character creation.
   5. The crafting stations are publicly available in the slums, making them no barrier at all to progression. Anyone has access to a metal bench.
2. Component cost increases as you go up the levels, but there is no better way to get the base resources to compensate. Making anything at a high level is an absolute grind.
   1. We should consider making resource income also progress, and locking ‘high level’ things behind more than just cost.
   2. Breakdown recipes stay the same, giving only the lowest level scrap resources.
   3. Trash spawners do not really scale with level. They provide a lot for low level players (at least once you have a toolkit to be able to break everything down), but too little for high level players.
   4. Breakdown results aren’t really balanced with item needs. Usually this means too much plastic, glass and electronics. Wood isn’t gained a lot, but also not used a lot. Cloth can be scarce at a certain point in progression (bags, armor, filters).
3. As everything must constantly be crafted from scrap resources, making anything high tier involves lots of clicking and waiting and clicking and waiting.
4. Only a few items are worth crafting at level 50, for the rest it is better to not waste your money and buy stuff from BMD’s instead.
   1. Armor: everyone just goes straight for T2 armor, if not T3
   2. Guns: the best gun on crafting is weak compared to what you can get from a BMD, and few people bother unless they run solo.
5. Medicine as a skill is mostly not required for anything unless you really want to get into drugs. The important stuff is all available at low levels that are easy enough to boost (as intelligence is shared with crafting, chances are this is being boosted already anyway).
6. ‘Chip loops’ via smuggling are causing giant amounts of inflation, but with the way BMD’s are set up are 100% required to get anything real.
   1. None of the good stuff is on crafting, it must be gotten via a BMD
   2. In the past week alone, 12000+ adhesive were sold via smuggling, creating a net profit of 100k+ chips going into circulation.
   3. Prices are set based on rebels doing this, making it near impossible for rebels who do not abuse this exploit (or who do not know about it) from getting any real gear.
7. Smuggling really is only useful for the chip loops and to dump excess components, because people buy all the good stuff from BMD’s and rarely need any high level from the smuggler.

In case anyone has anything substantial to add to the above list, feel free to post it. But otherwise, I rather not have endless circles of discussions about what really is wrong and what is just a symptom, bla bla bla. We are here to talk solutions.

I have thought about some things I'd like to implement to address the above, but really it comes down to reworking the whole crating, smuggling and trash system from the ground up again. I believe we can make something better now as we got a better idea of what's up - most recipes date back from pre-server launch before the skill system had fully solidified.

1. New crafting progression set based on workbenches
   1. Allow public workbenches to be freely destroyed/taken with RP
      1. A good part of the cost of some end-game stuff would be from getting the crafting bench. People should WANT to keep them safe.
   2. Progression per level:
      1. 0-15: no bench
      2. 15-25: toolkit
      3. 25-35: crafting bench
      4. 35-45: metal bench
      5. 45-50: machining bench
   3. ‘Side-benches’
      1. Ammo bench for all ammo/grenades
      2. Tinker bench for all electronics
      3. Medicine to get reinforced progression
         1. Mixed (all up to refined chemicals)
         2. Chemistry Bench
   4. High level crafting (as in level 50) to get more useful stuff that currently can only be acquired from BMD's. Crafting shouldn't be fully subpar to BMD's, it should be equal if you put in the effort (at least for high tier stuff, leaving the very high tier things BMD only).
2. Metallurgy
   1. Metal is used in the vast majority of the recipes, thus making metallurgy core to crafting. It makes sense to also base progression around it, and avoid it taking thousands of clicks to get anything done. Some of our currently most expensive recipes take 300+ bits of scrap metal if crafted from start to finish.
   2. Rework current metal progression
      1. Scrap metal
      2. Wrought Iron
      3. Steel
   3. Furnace can do ‘in bulk’ smelting of multiple pieces of metal
      1. Up to a stack of ingredients at one time
      2. Coal cost is per entire stack to encourage bulk processing
      3. Recipes:
         1. 8 scrap + x coal = 4 wrought iron
         2. 4 wrought iron + y coal = 2 steel
3. Other fields
   1. Plastic: important up to and including crafting bench, after that there should be a big shift to metal for everything. Potentially shift it away from needing adhesive in favor of chemicals to add some more value to the higher tier plastic - turn it into somewhat of another 'side progression'.
   2. Wood: to become more important as a source of charcoal, need to maybe make it slightly easier to find
   3. Cloth: potentially add some ruined clothes to the junk mix to add extra sources of cloth (or even replace all the cardboard giving cloth at the moment)
   4. Electronics: shifted more to end-game, early game more of a source of chips
      1. Possibly to also add material tiers in here: ‘scrap electronics’, ‘electrical components’, ‘military-grade electronics’ and add recipes to uptier electronics.
      2. Potentially include copper wire as an extra ingredient
   5. Adhesive: see where it makes sense to remove this and either leave it out all-together or substitute it with other things that are less of a pain to get.
   6. Medicine
      1. Giving the chemical progression a slight redo as well
      2. Consider adding better/other sources for alcohol (distillation from food ingredients?).
      3. Batteries provide enough early-game unrefined chemicals, but late-game might also need a rework
4. Disassembly recipes for scrap
   1. Allow some scrap to be disassembled, returning more/higher grade components, at the cost of needing high tier workbenches and/or high crafting levels
   2. Perhaps rework the entire trash system to take skill levels into account, providing more value for the higher tier rebels.
5. Automatically set smuggling prices based on a handful of ‘base ingredients’ and their crafting recipes.
   1. We could avoid introducing ‘chip loops’ like this, and potentially restrict them to only high tier crafting/smuggling, longer production chains, or something focused on groups rather than something you do on your own with just a mixer.
   2. Prices become easier to adjust on the fly, as we'd reduce the potentially 200+ individual price points down to mostly ~10-15 main items and a bunch of items only used in a single crafting recipe (mainly for drugs and some other very niche stuff).

 

[Belgg]

1. In the past week alone, 12000+ adhesive were sold via smuggling, creating a net profit of 100k+ chips going into circulation.

I wonder who got all those chips...

 

[M3ntal]

It would add value for separated roles in groups. Crafters, medics, smugglers, etc. It would make things more complicated if you haven't already stacked up on chips but it can be adapted to. And introducing a way for more efficient metal production would also be pretty good.

I am guilty of using that loop, but mainly because there is no other way for me to earn chips. No operations to take part of, no alternative sources of chip income beyond selling shit, and selling flashlights alone is only useful as a supplement to chip income rather than a source of income on it's own. I agree with the rework, even if it would retroactively make my life harder, but that's for the sake of more interesting grinding and whatnot.

 

[Belgg]

1. 1. Prices are set based on rebels doing this, making it near impossible for rebels who do not abuse this exploit (or who do not know about it) from getting any real gear.

Also, wouldn't call it an exploit either. It's just business lmao, you get something for a price, sell it for higher. It's on most games.

New crafting progression set based on workbenches

1. Allow public workbenches to be freely destroyed/taken with RP
2. Progression per level:
   1. 0-15: no bench
   2. 15-25: toolkit
   3. 25-35: crafting bench
   4. 35-45: metal bench
   5. 45-50: machining bench
3. ‘Side-benches’
   1. Ammo bench for all ammo/grenades
   2. Tinker bench for all electronics
   3. Medicine to get reinforced progression
      1. Mixed (all up to refined chemicals)
      2. Chemistry Bench

I wouldn't change the skill system, as you would litteraly fuck all the builts people have. And if this is done, at least allow people to reset their current skills.




Also, i wouldn't make it harder than it already is for rebels, since it's already pretty hard... If anything, just remove the so called "loops" and add more RP to get the chips, like a mission system or something like that.

 

[M3ntal]

As it stands though, the reason that glue is so popular to use as a chip loop is because it's literally the only way to earn chips through the smuggler that's cost efficient. Selling explosive material doesn't have as much returns and pretty much anything else sells for less than it costs in selling price of the materials to make it.

 

[M3ntal]

Although if you are going to add a machining bench, perhaps there could be some sort of weapon that's a better automatic than the UZI that you could make? Not saying to bring back the AK or anything, but it would at least make sense to be able to make higher quality weaponry with a machining bench.

 

[RedHotGinger]

I'm too dumb to understand all this advanced developer talk of...numbers and...costs.

But, if this makes it harder for rebels to walk around like slum OTA without needing any RP and gets CP's back on the board of being useful, I am for it.

Thing I will note:

I wish medicine had less to do with crafting and more to do with...medicine. Imo the base healing stats need to be nerfed into the dirt and the ability to level up via actually healing people needs to be increased. Or something of the sort. Medicine is not so much medicine as it is chemistry rn.

 

[Gr4Ss]

It would add value for separated roles in groups. Crafters, medics, smugglers, etc. It would make things more complicated if you haven't already stacked up on chips but it can be adapted to. And introducing a way for more efficient metal production would also be pretty good.

I am guilty of using that loop, but mainly because there is no other way for me to earn chips. No operations to take part of, no alternative sources of chip income beyond selling shit, and selling flashlights alone is only useful as a supplement to chip income rather than a source of income on it's own. I agree with the rework, even if it would retroactively make my life harder, but that's for the sake of more interesting grinding and whatnot.

I agree there is no other way of really getting chips right now, but the chip loop is a vicious circle on that point. The more it gets abused, the more inflated prices become, the more you need to abuse it. Either this ends with chips becoming worthless, or with us cutting out such loops entirely. Perhaps trash could get some rework as well to further support this change, but something MUST change or there is nothing I can do. Can't build a house on a broken foundation, and chips/smuggling is the foundation of the economy.

I personally play my own rebel without using such loops, and I would argue I am doing fine. BMD stuff is extremely expensive, but those prices are set for people who do use the loops. And would also be partially addressed by reconsidering some stuff to make it craftable (e.g. T2 armor).

I do not think the resistance needs it to exist right now, even without a crafting rework. So to me there is little argument to keep it.

Also, wouldn't call it an exploit either. It's just business lmao, you get something for a price, sell it for higher. It's on most games.



I wouldn't change the skill system, as you would litteraly fuck all the builts people have. And if this is done, at least allow people to reset their current skills.




Also, i wouldn't make it harder than it already is for rebels, since it's already pretty hard... If anything, just remove the so called "loops" and add more RP to get the chips, like a mission system or something like that.

We could allow people to lower their skill if they wish post-rework. A good built can handle this though

And I do consider it an exploit, as the chip loops directly break the design philosophy of the entire currency. For chips to be created, more value needs to be removed from circulation. For chips to be used, less value must be added to circulation. Currently adhesive breaks this as rather than take value/chips out of circulation, it puts more into circulation. Some previous admins have just allowed it to exist because they like to break the economy. So as the guy who wrote smuggling system and spent hours setting the prices to good values, I call it an exploit - just one we've allowed to exist. And one I want to stamp out of existence now.

 

[Belgg]

But, if this makes it harder for rebels to walk around like slum OTA without needing any RP and gets CP's back on the board of being useful, I am for it.

As if the rebels that are like that didn't have an rp behind it lmao.

 

[Gr4Ss]

I'm too dumb to understand all this advanced developer talk of...numbers and...costs.

But, if this makes it harder for rebels to walk around like slum OTA without needing any RP and gets CP's back on the board of being useful, I am for it.

Thing I will note:

I wish medicine had less to do with crafting and more to do with...medicine. Imo the base healing stats need to be nerfed into the dirt and the ability to level up via actually healing people needs to be increased. Or something of the sort. Medicine is not so much medicine as it is chemistry rn.

Can be considered, but I wouldn't consider medicine worthless right now. Double healing from items if you get it to a high level is not nothing (that is either half the inventory space/items needed, or twice the bang for your buck). Just certain healing items are so dirt cheap with how inflated chips have become that everyone can run around with top tier first aid kits + morphine and not bother having anything in medicine.

Will it make it harder for rebels? Maybe harder for some (those doing chip loops right now to print money everytime the smuggler changes), could be easier for others. The real high level gear would mostly remain locked behind BMD's anyway and I have no say on changing anything there. That is @Liam who runs that show.

I do want to make some extra high tier available via crafting however (think T2 armor, maybe the AK or something) for rebel groups that do have level 50 crafters/smugglers available and are willing to invest in getting the machining bench.

But again, they would need to work for it. Which is more than running from smuggler to smuggler now until you got enough cash to put down with a BMD for a shiny big gun. I'd like you to need a group, a base and to work together to get to that high end stuff. Not be a lone wolf farming the fuck out of chip loops.

 

[M3ntal]

I do think that it makes sense, but would you agree that if you did go through with this change, Rebels that have high crafting levels would perhaps have access to be able to craft some decent quality guns that would be an intemediary between BMD purchased weaponry and the best automatic we can produce right now, that being the UZI?
EDIT: Perhaps through the use of the machining bench you mentioned.

Can be considered, but I wouldn't consider medicine worthless right now. Double healing from items if you get it to a high level is not nothing (that is either half the inventory space/items needed, or twice the bang for your buck). Just certain healing items are so dirt cheap with how inflated chips have become that everyone can run around with top tier first aid kits + morphine and not bother having anything in medicine.

 

[Belgg]

A good built can handle this though

Best built is not a generic built, but one that applies to the market and shit that's going on right now, for example the crafting on my rebel is litteraly 20.

 

[Gr4Ss]

I do think that it makes sense, but would you agree that if you did go through with this change, Rebels that have high crafting levels would perhaps have access to be able to craft some decent quality guns that would be an intemediary between BMD purchased weaponry and the best automatic we can produce right now, that being the UZI?
EDIT: Perhaps through the use of the machining bench you mentioned.

See my reply to RedHot, and as a problem statement as well - high level crafting is worthless atm with BMD's. I do want to fix that by making high level crafting contain useful stuff. Aka not top-tier stuff, but definitely better stuff than T1 armor & Uzi.

 

[M3ntal]

See my reply to RedHot, and as a problem statement as well - high level crafting is worthless atm with BMD's. I do want to fix that by making high level crafting contain useful stuff. Aka not top-tier stuff, but definitely better stuff than T1 armor & Uzi.

Yeah, because I have level 50 crafting, and all I can do with it is craft the grenade launcher attachment, craft a safe, a metal workbench and that's about it.

 

[Belgg]

See my reply to RedHot, and as a problem statement as well - high level crafting is worthless atm with BMD's. I do want to fix that by making high level crafting contain useful stuff. Aka not top-tier stuff, but definitely better stuff than T1 armor & Uzi.

Why not top tier stuff tho? If you are a fucking expert in crafting you should be able to make good shit... Like anyone can do a fucking bomb irl, or a fucking homemade kalashnikov without being a genious...

 

[Deleted member 2717]

Perhaps the adding of an "exchange" smuggler might be useful for balancing out excess materials?
For example, you get fuck tons of plastic and electronic scrap when you need wood, so you take that scrap and exchange it for the materials you need, directly. This would serve to limit what can be gathered with just chips and summarily the exploit, whilst also allowing the economy to balance itself.

 

[Gr4Ss]

Why not top tier stuff tho? If you are a fucking expert in crafting you should be able to make good shit... Like anyone can do a fucking bomb irl, or a fucking homemade kalashnikov without being a genious...

Because I don't want someone to break the economy and the next day all rebels to be running around with DMR's.

There is good stuff (high tier things), and there is simply downright OP stuff that lets you 1v4 OTA under the right circumstances (very high tier). Else why have BMD's? And how are we going to do quality control?

 

[Belgg]

Because I don't want someone to break the economy and the next day all rebels to be running around with DMR's.

There is good stuff (high tier things), and there is simply downright OP stuff that lets you 1v4 OTA under the right circumstances (very high tier). Else why have BMD's? And how are we going to do quality control?

You can simply allow things like AK's, or stuff like that, and leave the SUPER HIGH TIER to the BMD's.
that's a suggestion but i think its what makes the most sense... Like you can litteraly make grenades that work just as you intend them to work instead of exploding in your hand, but you can't make an ak?

 

[Asimo1234]

1. No real system to it, things just unlock at near-random levels made up on a whim when they were being punched in.

From what I've seen there is plenty of progression to crafting levels. Higher level crafting unlocks better recipes. Such as higher tier crafting components, higher tier weapons, explosives at a certain point. There is a definite progression system.
Smuggling has more weird aspects to it, but in general even there higher level smuggling means ability to smuggler higher tier items.

Not much worth crafting beyond level 40, except a few one-offs at level 50.

Essentially

Level 30 recipe-wise is somewhat considered mid-game while most crafting rebels start off with 20 levels on character creation already (attributes + starting points).

You can indeed minmax your character for 20 crafting at the start, though you essentially pay in every other aspect. It's whatever the player wants essentially so this isn't that much of an issue.

Boosts can quickly grant a lot of levels to just jump up in progression, making starting rebels able to go near level 30 roughly 2 hours after character creation.

They do not grant levels. They simply boost, meaning it runs out. And unless you basically say "I'm going to craft in 2 hours" you either cannot reliably use them or have to run them 24/7 which can be an INSANE pain constantly having to worry about your next meal (Thematic, except the meal is not about surviving but about being able to craft).
The player doesn't reach level 30 crafting after 2 hours. They unlock level 30 recipes for a bit if they minmax'd their character hard for that to be the only thing they can do.

The crafting stations are publicly available in the slums, making them no barrier at all to progression. Anyone has access to a metal bench.

If CPs see you using a crafting station to make contraband, they may take it. If the crafting station is in a public space but nobody ever keeps an eye on it that's an IC issue.
Also anyone can just steal them considering they aren't protected under raid rules in public spaces afaik.

Component cost increases as you go up the levels, but there is no better way to get the base resources to compensate. Making anything at a high level is an absolute grind.

No real disagreements here. Having heard players needing 210 metal scrap to make 3 EMP devices is an absolute fucking joke. The only mechanic missing here is lootboxes containing items you can buy with irl money lmao.

As everything must constantly be crafted from scrap resources, making anything high tier involves lots of clicking and waiting and clicking and waiting.

Same as above. Pain. Pain everywhere.

Only a few items are worth crafting at level 50, for the rest it is better to not waste your money and buy stuff from BMD’s instead.

Yes and no. The best BMD guns still require basically milking the smuggler for days. Not really a great system either IMO.

1. Medicine as a skill is mostly not required for anything unless you really want to get into drugs. The important stuff is all available at low levels that are easy enough to boost (as intelligence is shared with crafting, chances are this is being boosted already anyway).

The bandage value buff you get from medicine is insane. Also besides drugs, there's also pill boosters. These are a different type of boost compared to food and thus stacks. It lasts shorter but generally they can be very helpful. Also medical items. Disinfected bandages are fine but some higher tier items can really come in clutch from time to time.

None of the good stuff is on crafting, it must be gotten via a BMD

Ammo, grenades, people underestimate the value of 6 rebels armed with pistols compared to 1 rebel with an M4. Plenty of decent stuff can be gained through crafting. I've really only seen BMD buying useful if you really needed something not in crafting, which really aren't even that many items.

1. In the past week alone, 12000+ adhesive were sold via smuggling, creating a net profit of 100k+ chips going into circulation.

I highly doubt the 100K number is accurate. Remember, the smuggler has a chip limit of 750 every hour. And not every smuggler buys adhesive. So the maximum in 1 week if every other smuggler buys adhesive is is 63K. And only if people are actively milking the smuggler 24/7.

Prices are set based on rebels doing this, making it near impossible for rebels who do not abuse this exploit (or who do not know about it) from getting any real gear.

The last time prices were changed is already so far back lmao. And pretty sure nobody actually checks the amount of chips in circulation before setting the prices.

Smuggling really is only useful for the chip loops and to dump excess components, because people buy all the good stuff from BMD’s and rarely need any high level from the smuggler.

One of the actual useful ways of using these chip loops is by buying items while also selling items. Virtually the ONLY way to get the aforementioned 210 scrap metal for certain recipes. This means no chips actually enter the system. Just items of an equivalent value that get turned into items which are used/lost over time.
In reality this would cause the collapse of prices, considering rather than there being more chips there are more items. Yet we've never seen this. Probably means the problem isn't as severe as we thought.

 

[Gr4Ss]

You can simply allow things like AK's, or stuff like that, and leave the SUPER HIGH TIER to the BMD's.
that's a suggestion but i think its what makes the most sense... Like you can litteraly make grenades that work just as you intend them to work instead of exploding in your hand, but you can't make an ak?

Again, most stuff what you can and cannot make was done before server launch and barely changed since. Back then the argument also was 'how are you going to make high precision parts like barrels and receivers?' I'm providing an answer to that question by adding the machining bench for such precision work.

Grenades were actually added after server launch so yeah...

Back pre-launch the idea was for high level smuggling to be taken into account by the BMD's and that to be your end-game. Crafting would carry the big bulk of the early and mid-game (which it does very well right now). But then people started chip looping with 13 smuggling and the BMD's only care about money and not your level so...

Another argument why this rework is a good idea. Crafting and smuggling are OLD and just not adjusted anymore to the current state of things. I hope you largely agree with me here that we do not seem to disagree on the rework and got the same idea of where things should go.