Talk:Future Imperfect - Economics

--Melonberg (talk) 23:02, 24 August 2016 (CDT)Please note that I am laying out these discussion points as I read the economics sections with the first batch of examples. If I question something that is answered later on, please don't take it too personally, though that may be an indicator that the explanation of things might need to be reordered (or, alternately, that I need to stop being dumb and read contextually before I start asking questions).

--Melonberg (talk) 23:02, 24 August 2016 (CDT)The concept of EN (I am assuming this means "Effect Number") is new, and may need some explanation before it is casually used in examples.

--Melonberg (talk) 23:02, 24 August 2016 (CDT)How is the column number for supply level determined? In the example with Ishmail under "Finding Goods", it says that the column for gold is d6. How is this determined? Is it fixed per the commodity? Or a statistic that varies from world to world (Like in our discussion with the planet Goldinium, would the supply column for gold on that world be d12, while on Dirtworld gold is d4? Or is gold always d6, regardless of which world you find it on?)

• --Melonberg (talk) 23:35, 24 August 2016 (CDT)Oh, I think I found the answer to that question in the section above.

--Melonberg (talk) 23:11, 24 August 2016 (CDT)Under "Finding Goods," you might also list alternate examples, such as how much gold Ishmail could purchase with varying effect levels or higher or lower merchant skill. Also, an alternate example to illustrate how spending more Income Shares would affect the purchase. A single example is only a snapshot; sometimes better understanding can be had if the reader is given multiple snapshots from different "angles," I think.

--Melonberg (talk) 23:33, 24 August 2016 (CDT)As it is written, the "bump increase" seems like a negligible bonus, if I am interpreting it correctly. If one actually manages to get a bump at all, it seems to mean that for X number of income shares spent, you might possibly get 1 extra load of whatever it is you're buying, but only if the bump increase pushed the effect number of the card to a number that is divisible by the buy or sell EN of the good. Since anything more than one bump seems kind of hard to come by outside of the draws that allow you to draw an additional card (regardless of ones Merchant trait/skill combo), it doesn't seem like getting a good deal or making a good sale really relies on one's merchant skill so much as luck of the draw. Granted, higher levels of merchant skill will yield some better results here with a large enough sample size, but the way I'm reading it, it seems like two people with the same trait level but one with merchant/1 and the other with merchant/5 wouldn't generally see much difference in their results in the short run, and not as great a difference as one would expect for that much higher skill in the long run. Maybe how the merchant skill affects that part of trade is intentional, but it seems kind of skewed (or I could just be interpreting it all wrong, in which case, another example or two there might help.)

• --Melonberg (talk) 01:00, 25 August 2016 (CDT)Does the bump increase affect the Buy/Sell EN (in this case for gold, would a bump increase of +1 reduce it from 6/5 to 5/4? If that's the case, then my criticism immediately above is significantly reduced or eliminated entirely. Or, does the bump increase add to the effect of Ishmail's purchase (the part where she got a 16 effect to purchase 2 loads of gold)? Would a bump increase of +1 increase that number to 17 (which wouldn't increase the amount she could buy)? I think that is part of the confusion I'm facing in this section (and part of the confusion here could be just the fact that you are introducing new mechanics and nomenclature). I think this portion could be ironed out with some more concise language and definitions or an alternate example or two (like showing the difference between a marginal or average purchase versus a "good" purchase).

--Jason (talk) 15:11, 27 August 2016 (CDT)This has now been addressed. The bump increase shifts the dice, so 2 bumps would go from 2d6 to 2d10. This is a bonus I think most gamers can get behind.

--Melonberg (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2016 (CDT)I think that's a good solution. A much more tangible and worthwhile result for an exceptional success (plus, you don't have to add anything, just look at a different effect cell on the card!)

--Melonberg (talk) 00:35, 25 August 2016 (CDT)I had to overcome a major hurdle (which took me about an hour) to figure out how spending more income shares increases the number of loads of a good you can buy, and how that equates to selling. The answer only came to me when I tried to get my facts straight on how the whole process seemed broken. I don't think it is broken (or at least not as broken as I was thinking at first read), but could definitely use some more examples. I think another thing that threw me was that the examples listed did not illustrate an optimal, "successful" trading outcome. I think if you also had an alternate example where a merchant made a tidy profit, it might drive the point home better.

--Melonberg (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2016 (CDT)I like the approach to maintenance counters, and how issues that crop up with the ship can act like rough edges for someone on board! Throughout sci-fi, there is the trope about the crew flying through space in a "bucket of bolts" that constantly has issues for one reason or another, and one or more people on board always take the lion's share of the heat for it (Chewie on the Millennium Falcon, Kaylee aboard the Serenity, Montgomery Scott aboard the Enterprise, etc.) The pristine starship aboard which everything is brand new and nothing goes wrong is kind of sanitary and boring. Issues with the ship can possibly give it its own "personality."