I'm trying to think of what goods would be traded or carried by a small trade ship in EP, I know that a lot of items can be made in nano fabs so they wont need to be traded, but maybe rare materials that are used in the nano fabs would need to be traded.
I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what kind of objects and materials would be traded, then there's who has the items/materials and who needs them.
Any help and ideas would be great.
Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.
Trade goods
Wed, 2011-08-03 13:43
#1
drofkcah
Trade goods
Wed, 2011-08-03 14:47
#2
Unity
Re: Trade goods
Items that would require physical trade:
Nanofabs to locations that lack one
Quantum entangled qubits
Real Earth artifacts
Rare materials (radioactive stuff, antimatter, water-ice at the Vulcanoids)
Alien and other archaeological relics
Helium-3 if you don't live around Uranus or Saturn.
One-Time Pads for security
—
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/info_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/immort_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/mesh_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/exh_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.o
Wed, 2011-08-03 15:25
#3
drofkcah
Re: Trade goods
Thanks for that, there's always the opportunity for smuggling opportunities, nanofabs into jovian space.
Thu, 2011-08-04 04:59
#4
Xagroth
Re: Trade goods
Quantum encrypted computers can also be a merchandise that needs to be carried physically (those two computers coded in the same physical place, then taken aside to keep comms secure).
Sensitive data (using a courier, Johnny Mnemonic's style).
Morphs and other stuff that would take too much time to be build in certain places (because they don't have huge CM, nor the time to craft them into a matrioska chain).
Processing/data storing hardware full of infomorphs/egos
TITAN corrupted stuff for further study (in secure containers)
Weapons of certain kind (usually, naval-grade weaponry, so it would be something really interesting to use as bait for the players)
Raw materials really important, but they don't need to be "rare" (as in plutonium or antimatter): water is a really good example (since when the water turns to ice it needs more space, then it would be transported inn liquid state inside warmed containers by people ready to risk their ship for a little more profit, or as ice by people more concerned by safety).
Thu, 2011-08-04 11:32
#5
Arenamontanus
Re: Trade goods
Biomorphs need to be grown, a process that takes time and some skilled monitoring. It is likely economical to do that at more centralized morph culture plants and then ship the finished morphs than to have a lot of small ones. Of course, for pods you might just ship lots and lots of disconnected organs. Both make for wonderfully creepy stories...
Or just some large datasets. It is ironic, but today beyond a certain file size it is actually faster (and better bandwidth) to ship a truck of hard drives than to try to send it even by dedicated net (a few tens to hundred terabytes, I have been told). In EP the limits are higher (I estimate an ego to be a few tens of terabytes at least), but there are still data that just has to be shipped.
Especially the nuclear batteries for heavier weapons, since they cannot be nanofactured easily (exotic elements and need for a reactor/accelerator/whatever to recharge in). This is likely true for the batteries used by synthmorphs too.
My favourite example is nitrogen (likely in the form of ammonia). Essential for making biospheres, but scarce in the inner system. Hydrocarbons are also useful: most big nanofactured objects use lots of diamond-like structures.
One time pads for cryptography: like sensitive data (couriers keeping an eye on it).
Organisms, especially alien ones that cannot easily be cloned.
Antiques and other things that have value because they haven't been disassembled and reassembled.
—
Fri, 2011-08-05 12:14
#6
Xagroth
Re: Trade goods
The data could be also secret, quantum codified data, of course.
And for the big weapons, please note I made another point refering to exotic materials. Never, ever, let your players to get their hands on any kind of ammo based on rare materials, because they will most likely take it to a dissassembler rather than try to sell the warheads (or whatever). It's easier to find a (safe) buyer for a few hundreds of rail sniper rifles than a couple of nunclear missiles, after all...