Most of the games i played are running a simple linear market system where the in- and output works on the price with p = ax. This is not a model on virtuell reality that fits to the Star Citizen vision in my opinion. So what could CIG do better to keep me hanging around in the verse? Considerations: 1. For minimum 2/3rds of players PvP/PvE is just a concurrently need, necessary to keep farming/grinding or to survive. in my opinion the want to do roleplay, gain more power in the verse or just live out there orga-title corp. Star Citizen is expected to make them feel like a winner, without extraordinary skills on the shooter and pilot branch. 2. Power is not only expressed by military capability, i can also mean having the cash to hire the mil cap. So possibilities open up for players that are able to use mil cap in a strategic manner, considering warfare with larger amounts of ships, trading his mined goods with the most income or manipulate people/markets to his own best. 3. The player shall be thrown in a working environment and be able to manipulate the verse by acting wise or foolish. Conclusion: A market system as used in most games since now can not be used to provide the diversity that is implied when you read the vision of Star Citizen. Possible approaches: 1. Easy To me the simplest appraoch is to have a storage based market system. That means that every trader has a storage that is filled while he buys goods and gets emptied while selling. In this model the profit doesn't matter. The Purchaser has a max price for an empty storage und won't buy anymore. To avoid longterm denial of service because of the gamers-natural greed for cash, the storage must be able to empty or fill by time heading towards average price. To get away from the linear pricing just distinguish weather the stock filling is more or less average and use or mirror an ln(x). Any Trader gets the same price for the same good around the verse. The only simulation part, that is seen by the player and thereby causes performance claims is the traders figure in game. The rest can be done by script working on a database. 2. A bit better: In reality no Trader just works alone and needs profits to keep up trading with effort. Let's give every trader his own storage and connect him the the industries around him. Drake or RSI near the purchaser will probably ask more mined goods than a trader on planets with textile or gasoline industries. A Trader near a mine will have lower prices than a trader far away, because most players prefer a short distance to avoid trouble with the possibility to loose all his goods. But the risky ones, that dare to haul goods longterms will be rewarded if reaching the trader with their load. On the other Hand you give players the opportunity to gain power with blocking or even locking traders to increase sell prices for their own freight. And again most is done by database and scripts 3. moderate Connect the merchants of ships, weapons, textiles etc. to provide a supply chain adjusting the price. It's pretty typical that modern ERP-Systems provide a module to keep track of you suppliers prices. So why shouldn't manipulate a sold good a traders sell-price he can achiev? I.E. a new aurora shall be produced. RSI has a certain demand of goods to produce it. So for the simple system RSI fills up their storage by buying from the next known trader. If you like to be a bit more realistic, the ship's costs will consist of buy-pricing for the materials plus a percentage of production, marketing and profit. So if RSI is settled near mining grounds, most of the time, RSI will sell low-priced. If there is a kind of Store system across the verse there might by shipping costs according to the distance to deliver. The players effort is obviously. Buy cheaper the nearer you are at the factory planet with a certain risk, the more you travel through space. Gain power with blocking ressource supplies and take advantage of supplying the best fitting trader instead of supplying the trader with the best price. It underlines the strategic part of trading. Yes again it's all database and scripts. 4. advanced Why shouldn't corporations be able to keep track on prices, choose the best dealer by shipping-costs, time and knowledge of statistic elements? Why shouldn't players be able to invest in their prefered companies? I don't know! It's only GUI, database, scripts and a business form collection. Make all actors in the supply chain, until the customer buys, an agent, able to act economically. Let the agent mind his storage and his estimated sellings, to choose the trader with the best price, delivering in the needed time with the lowest shipping costs. Supplementary make them have a profit goal, a budget and assignmets for players driven by their stocks of materials. Enrich the price building with moving averages learned by last day, last month or last year in the game and estimates. Give players the chance to provide a banking role to invest the hard-earned money and get possible ROI and interest. In addition the players invest can work possitivly on the manufacturers budget and thereby on the availability of goods for the player to buy. 5. smashing If you want to raise the level of environmental realism you can now add the Orders of the agents as a representation in game i.e. NPC shipping off goods between trader and manufacturers or between the manufacturer and the store. For players effort, make them interactable. Integrate pirates as potential buyers of ships after being splashed in the verse or sellers with stolen and smuggled goods. Let the player actively collect knowledge about suppliers and their status to sell information a trader agent would operate with. Yes thats far more than just working with a database, scripts and some fomulars already known by business man. But the players effort is an extension of his "life" as a Star Citizen. He now have to mind a bit more, what fight is beneficial, what good is needed and therefor beneficial and what acting might have a pssitive influance on his further buyings and earnings. I hope it helps you to get an eye on what i would mod in SC. I'm german, so my english might have been a little hard to undestand. Thank google translate if you can. :grinning: These ideas are made out of the view of a student of business economics. I hope to have all needed minded and avoided most traps. All that sounds easy, the algorithms shouldn't provide much complexity and in my opinion, most is the verse economic design. Best regards, thanks for reading.