Greetings! Welcome to the thread. Here, I would like to talk about the current situation of fruit vendors, food merchants, and crafted food that gives Health Regen 3. What I propose is that "Food Vendors" in NPC villages will change their inventories in one of two ways: 1) Merchants only sell SEEDS for the crops that their race can produce, plus a random sampling of "generic" crops. OR 2) Merchants sell pre-grown crops, but at very inflated rates AND with limited quantity. For example, 100-200 pixels per item, depending on crop growth rate, so that the cost of "endgame healing" food rises to 300-600 pixels. Here's why: *Premises* 1) Fruit Vendor makes all nearby orcs angry. This was proven in the case of Threadstrong v. Smith, in Shattrath Court. 2) Food merchants currently sell many pre-grown crops, for 4-10 pixels per unit. 3) Crafted food, such as Carrot Bread, provides longer Health Regen than Red Stimpaks, for a fraction of the cost. Stimpaks can be anywhere from 175 to 400 pixels, each. Three units of food is anywhere from 12 to 30 pixels. 4) The over consumption of food will lead an extremely large outbreak of obesity. This is a sizable issue that demands a gigantic response to reassure an ever-growing customer base. This issue will only get bigger as time goes on. *Disclaimer* I understand that the current situation will likely not make an appearance in the Release Candidate version of the game. However, I'm making my suggestion on how I would like CF to consider improving the current situation. Also, while I have included pixel costs here, I think that these would need to be heavily reconsidered when pixels are required for tier progression. Right now, the game does not encourage farming, for two major reasons: Crops do not keep growing unless watched carefully, or planted on a player's ship. Pre-grown crops (likely using synthetic hormones and Kluex-knows-what other additives) are extremely cheap. Raising the cost of pre-grown crops and/or lowering the supply of these pre-grown crops will definitely reduce the appeal of going to town and buying 300+ stacks of your favorite dessert's ingredients, and then going to town on the extremely fattening baked goods. On multiplayer servers, this would allow for farmers to raise money by selling their crops and slightly undercutting the NPC prices. This would be worse for solo players that do not believe it is ethical to touch a hoe. They would either need to set aside a much-larger amount of pixels for their healing items, with no benefit gained in return. Honestly, while this is a complete nerf to that playstyle (one that I play myself), I also think that the current situation is too good to be true. It's simply too easy to run around and have infinite Regen3 food, and still have enough pixels for the printer and to buy one of every vanity outfit on that new town's vendor. Thoughts?
Sounds good to me. I would love some way to get those seeds I keep missing. With the dev comment on avoiding economic gameplay, I wouldn't count on a free market model on goods.
True, and a free market model would require multiplayer, and likely medium to large populations. However, raising crop prices would (coupled with a Sell mechanic) allow for farmers to gain a lot of pixels, which should allow them better access to the Pixelgate between Sectors, unless they change their plan on that.
