Happy New Year to everyone! :tada: Let me start by saying I hope everyone is having a fantastic start to the year. Now, let's dive into the topic of this post! Some time ago, CIG mentioned plans to evaluate the state of the in-game economy, suggesting a wipe with the release of Alpha 4.0. As part of these preparations, several changes were introduced, such as: - Doubling (x2) ship prices compared to their current values. - Adjusting mission payouts. - Increasing costs for refueling and rearming vehicles/ships. - Other changes that I might not recall right now. I personally appreciated these changes, as they felt like steps toward a more immersive and challenging economic simulation. However, upon experiencing Alpha 4.0, I noticed several issues: - Many missions now pay up to ten (x10) times more than before. - Missions like bounties can be shared among friends, but instead of splitting the payout equitably, each participant receives the full amount. This allows large groups to farm money passively (which I assume is not intentional). - Salvage missions yielding millions and millions in profits that are not scrap related (Drug containers). - There’s a noticeable lack of mission variety, especially in categories like investigation, deliveries, and others. - Other things that I might not recall right now. Additionally, there are still bugs and exploits affecting the economy, some of which have been partially addressed, but others persist: - Duplication of armor. - Duplication of weapons (both personal and ship-mounted). - Duplication of commodities and other items. - Duplication of exclusive components and rare items. Considering all this, I have some questions that I believe many in the community share: 1. How do you plan to evaluate whether the economy is balanced? 2. Wasn't acquiring large or capital ships supposed to take weeks, months, or even years? 3. With such large payouts (e.g., 50k UEC for a standard 10-minute mission), what does this mean for players who purchased UEC via the RSI website? Personally, I would have preferred to see payouts decreased significantly rather than multiplied by ten (x10). I believe the game’s economy should strive for a more grounded experience. For example: - Ships like the Aurora costing 20,000–40,000 UEC, akin to buying a car today. - Armors and weapons priced between 200–2,000 UEC. - Missions paying out 1,000–5,000 UEC. While I understand that many players enjoy seeing large numbers, I feel it detracts from the simulation aspect of Star Citizen. In my opinion, this game is moving further away from being the immersive simulation we were promised. I don’t think I’m alone in having these concerns, and I’d genuinely appreciate an official response from CIG addressing these points. Thank you for taking the time to read this. See you all in the Verse! - WaldeckTBD