Developer Blogs Paul Hutson : A Galactic Economy 02JUN09 Paul Hutson, Lead Developer for Outer Empires, talks about Outer Empires Economic Model. Introduction The Economy of Outer Empires is huge in scope. The universally accepted galactic standard credit facilitates galactic trade and transportation and is discussed below in more detail. I hope by the end of this article you have some more insight into the way that the Outer Empires's economy works.       How do I make Credits? There are a number of ways to obtain Credits in the game - the first and foremost is by doing jobs. Jobs can be found at any station within the Galaxy and their function ranges from transporting a few goods to places, to exploring the furthest reaches of space, to hunting down some criminals in an outlying system. The only downside to taking jobs is that if you don't complete them you will have to pay a fee for defaulting on them. Two other ways to make money in Outer Empires - bounties; if someone attacks another player in government controlled space they will get a bounty placed on them. Any person who can kill that character will get the Credits added to their account; then there is the Galactic Market...       Galactic Market Every Resource, processed material and item can be sold or bought on the market (with the exception of job cannisters) - every system has its own mini economy running, based on the goods it has within the local area (i.e. in a region where lead is available, they sell it cheaply and don't pay much for people bringing it in, whereas if a system didn't have lead they pay a lot more for it). The economy fluctuates over time in game and resources come and go whether the players are selling and buying or not. The wily players out there will be able to spot the trends and hoard items ready for the next up turn.. of course this could be scuppered by another player who has recently set up some mines to get the resource you've been hoarding. Resources Resources are found scattered across the galaxy in various quantities and qualities - every resource in the game is used for production of an item, processed resource or manufactured item. While we've got a list of resources on the site, it doesn't begin to really show the whole lot, so to break it down a little... Within the Cinnhilif system, there are nine resource types available on the planets and moons, these are : Jackianian, Helium, Oxygen, Food, Water, Lead Ore, Jasonium Ore, Copper Ore, Zinc Ore. Every System is different. Each of those types of items is used for different objects. Food and Water are used by colonies that don't have sufficient supplies available at the colony location. All of the Ore's can be used in conjunction with a processing plant to produce the solid product i.e. Lead Ore turns into Lead [i] - lead is in turn used for Shielding, some building flat packs, some ship parts, etc. Manufactured Items As briefly discussed above there are a number of manufactured items within the game - at this time they're mostly geared towards setting up colonies and waging war, although more luxury goods will be added later on.       Players can manufacture their own items providing they have a blueprint for the item and the required number of resources : They can use that in conjunction with a manufacturing plant at one of their colonies to churn out the item. Buildings within colonies are built using Flatpacks - each flatpack takes a different number of resources dependent on the type of building. Ship Hulls, Ship Parts and Ship Weapons are all used in the manufacture of ships (be they civilian or fighting ships). What do I spend Credits On? In addition to purchasing resources and manufactured items, you may also spend credits on Cloning (of your character), Insurance (of your ship), Salaries (for your colonial workers), Faction Setup, Administrative Services, and more. Player Interaction with the Economy New Players New players will more than likely enter the economy by doing jobs - while they won't know whether they're doing jobs for the government (system generated jobs) or for other players (player created jobs) they will be earning credits. The most likely thing that they'll spend credits on to start will be fuel along with saving up for ship upgrades and purchases... and they'll likely upgrade their shuttles before they get new ships. With an aim to buying a bigger ship type eg. Clippers to transfer more items around to generate more cash. Mid Term Players As you begin to establish yourselves within Outer Empires, you'll find that you have a lot of choices opening ahead of you. The choices you make at this point will clear some paths ahead of you and block others. One of those choices is the choice of factions. Choose your friends wisely (and your foes with equal acumen). Will you be an Explorer? A Trader? A Manufacturer? A Researcher? What areas do you wish to focus on and who can you help in such endeavors? For example, you might begin thinking about establishing colonies on planets or moons, paying for flatpacks, workers, resources (food, water, air, etc.)... and transporting everything necessary to your new colony to get it well-established. You should probably scan your colonial sites carefully to ensure that your sites are optimally suited for the needs of your new colonial enterprise, too. Long Term Players Now that you've established yourself as a character within the universe your role should start coming together, if you're a ship parts manufacturer you'll have set up your colonies to start churning out goods, if you're someone who has gone for the faction route you might be a warrior protecting your factions colonies and systems from maruaders. You probably have the contacts amongst the players and are starting to get into the politics of the galaxy... The thing is, there is a lot of choice.. plan ahead!    Economy Flow Chart    Summary There's a lot more to the Outer Empires Economy than I've explained above, however I hope that I've given you a good insight into how things will work. Now you've read through the above there's a basic economy flow chart that the team and I use to check where things route to and from : it looks complex, but if you break down each section it should make sense (it definitely does once you get in game having shown it to a few of the testers for review). As always, we welcome your thoughts on the above in the forums. [i] One thing to note here is that ore's come in three different qualities - low, medium and good. The better the quality of the ore the more of the resource you get from it when it's processed, i.e. 1 Lead = 3 LowQ Lead Ore = 2 MediumQ Lead Ore = 1 GoodQ Lead Ore. Jason Turner : Modelling a Ship 09FEB09 Jason Turner, Lead Artist for Outer Empires, talks about how he goes about modelling a new ship, from conception to finished design. 01 - Concept. Before I build any ship in 3d, I find it helpful to sketch out some rough ideas first. I knew that the scout ship was of a military class and was going to have to be small and fast so this was the starting point for the initial concept. To gain inspiration I looked at alot of images of Jet fighters, Apache helicopters, Lamborghinis and stealth bombers. The concept was never intended to resemble any of these but take small influences from each to create something new. 02 - The Cockpit. I decided to start with building the cockpit because it is central on the ship and was a good indication of how to scale the rest of the ship around it. I started out with just a simple cube, then began to add in details by creating split loops, extruding faces and adjusting edges. This cockpit took direct inflence from the cockpit of an Apache helicopter but did not look like the concept version I made before. I often find that my finished 3d models only resemble their concepts. I never tie myself down to a concept but use it as a rough guide which then allows me more freedom later on. 03 - The Hull. So then I began to build the hull, the air intakes from Lamborghinis really influenced me here, I wanted the scout to look streamlined for speed so clean lines were important but I also wanted it to look hand built and not overly futuristic. I then added in some vents on the sides and the top wing before I started to build the thrusters and main wings. 04 - Finishing the build. Once all the main components were built and laid out I went back over everything to tweak things, adding in all the finishing touches - Pipes, vents, lights and a gun on one side. It was time to give the ship some colour... 05 - The finished product. When I add a texture to a model I like to include alot of detail. I think the detail creates realism and is just as important as the model itself. I wanted the scout to look well used and battered so I painted a lot of grime and rust onto it and made sure the normal maps had a good amount of contrast to them. To add the finishing touch I gave the lights and the cockpit a glow effect and assigned a specular map to it to have the metal shine in certain places. 06 - Scale This gives a sense of the scale of the scout in relation to the other ships. It is the smallest ship of the entire fleet along with the shuttle. With a human standing next to it you can see the real world size of the scout. All of these ships are classed as "small" vessels... there are two classes higher "medium" and "large".