Any Good Money Sinks In-game?

[MechWarden]

I know, odd question, 'where can I throw away my money?'

But after getting your fleet of ships (freighter, 6 starships, and 30 frigates) the income to maintain things, and economic connection to buy anything you need (or parts to make what you need), there isn't a lot that can be done with your money; besides turn it into a Cookie Clicker game and seeing how high it goes (before hitting the cap).

So what are some interesting money sinks in-game (if there are any), and what do you think would be nice to have as a way to spend your absurd amount of late-game cash?

[MechWarden]

It is hard to have a constant money sink to help balance things through all stages of play, but it would be nice if there was a clear, and hopefully satisfying, end to the money side of things as well.

I really don't think the economic side was considered or planned out when making NMS before release, and HG had to put something in, or people would wind up short circuiting the fun by grinding Dynamic Resonators between NPC ships and the station's market terminal, or the equivalent (and people still try to do to this day).

Like most other things in the game, the money gaining thing seems incomplete. It is much better than it originally was, by far, but it is just a few steps short of feeling 'right', if people know what I mean. If the economy stuff is going to be part of the journey, it should be addressed better.

[FoolishOwl]

My guess is that early on, they had a simple, tidy model, in which there were three basic aspects to the game: combat, exploration, trade. And those were reflected in the three basic ship classes: fighter, explorer, hauler. And in the three alien races: Vy'keen, Korvax, Gek. The basic trade system seems similarly neat and tidy: learn what systems bought and sold, work out a trade route, save up for a better hauler. This is a familiar pattern for games going back to the classic BBS game, Tradewars, through the original Elite, and others in that genre.

My guess is this was all too neat and tidy, and they didn't maintain it for long. Typically of games in that genre, one path tends to be a lot more appealing than the others. In the case of NMS, exploration (combined with survival) was *much* more interesting to the designers than the other two aspects of the game. Since then, they've added base-building; as an extension of the survival mechanics, it pretty thoroughly overshadows trade.

[PickPay]

Gambling could be a great money sink. Not gambling for money in this case but for upgrades, tech or whatever. Customizations also a good way, while not essential to gameplay it could cost you a lot to paint your ship for example.

[NMSPlayer]

Abso-f-in-lutely "they shouldn't worry about HOW we play" I wish I had said that. Stop changing stuff to make us behave a different way. Like farming, why change the growth rates? I rarely stood over my plants andd harvested everytime they fruited but I could if I wanted too. Why change things like that. Make the game better not that it isn't good now but I am a little underwhelmed by animal and planet diversity they could bump that up, a color filter doesn't really make for a different planet, also things like dirt filling in bases and being on a planet listed as having unrelenting cold and the temp storms are 266 degrees farenheight ...no not negative. or my ship lands buried in the dirt when I teleport to a base or the base I renamed won't stay renamed, or the stuff I'm refining just disappears. How bout you get all that fixed and THEN start screwing with us on the other stuff or how about NOT screwing with us lol

Whew! guess you hit a nerve lol but all that said I still enjoy this game [/quote]

+1 sick to effing death of devs from all games trying to change the behaviour of their players. Nerf this cos its too easy, nerf that cos its too effectual, nerf something like selling frigate fuel??? WTF is wrong with selling frigate fuel. Now, a player like me that sends tons of frigate missions has to struggle every other freaking day to find enough dyhhdrogen jelly and tritium -- I ain't gonna farm it, fgs, I have 30 frigates - they're thristy, Im not spending six hours in near orbit shooting asteroid fgs. But now that they nerfed frigate fuel its takes dang near that long to find haulers carrying tritium and stations selling dyhro or the other way around whichever. Such bs sometimes with devs controlling ppl, HG wanted a game that everyone could find something from but now they're like, oooo no massive money making so everyone else has to suffer fgs

[Xenomorph]

I used the editor as a money sink. Not by deleting money, but by paying units to do things i cannot in game, like changing ship seeds, changing frigate traits, moving tech around ships and multitool, even add slots to vaults over the standard 5, paying exorbitantly absurd prices. Also stopped crafting stuff to sell, and just live off the land, doing missions, scanning things, sending out expeditions and occasionally selling junk. But even then, its hard to kick a rock without making money out of it, nowadays.
Spent 250mil today, changing freighter seed from the sentinel dreadnought type thingy to the small star destroyer type thingy. The dreadnoughts seem to be bugged to ♥♥♥♥. Couldnt hang around inside for 15 minutes, fps dropped to sub 20.

[commche]

Originally posted by FoolishOwl:

In the case of NMS, I don't think there's much that HG could do about adding cash sinks to the game, without radically changing the entire concept of the game.

I think it'd be best to just say that if you've maxed out your credits, you've won at trade, and move on.

Can't agree with this. As an extension of the tech and crafting blueprint system, it would be pretty easy to implement a shipyard that sells blueprints. i.e

*This example assumes that the unit cap is increased from 2(32) to 2(64). Until the unit cap is increased / or if it never happens, just focus on the categories in terms of what this idea is. Prices would be dependent on the unit cap, obviously.

- Ship tech slot: 2.5 billion units
- Ship inventory slot: 1.5 billion units
- Freighter tech slot: 3.5 billion units
- Freighter inventory slot: 2 billion units
- Container inventory slot: 1 billion units
- Extra container: 4 billion units

- Freighter Hanger space: 10 billion units
- Freighter Frigate capacity +10: 15 billion units

- Ship Model Blueprint Cosmetic (Hauler): 3 billion units
- Ship Model Blueprint Cosmetic (Explorer): 2 billion units
- Ship Model Blueprint Cosmetic (Fighter): 4 billion units

- Freighter Model Blueprint Cosmetic: 10 billion units
- Freighter Model Blueprint Cosmetic (Unique): 15 billion units

- Ship Class upgrade blueprint: 8 billion units
- Freighter Class upgrade: 20 billion units

- Super Freighter Blueprint: 1 trillion units (mats required to build)


You could do tons with the blueprint system already in place, whether it requires build mats or not.

[chonwaen]

I made a thread months ago going over this very thing. Most suggestions don't actually fix a money sink problem, they just kick the can down the road with bigger and better things that you won't want more than a few of.

My suggestion was to put in an in-game mechanic that would allow players to use units or unit-based goods to adjust (over time) star system conflict and economy levels. Sure, you won't make a profit doing this, but you might make where you decide to hang your hat a nicer and more convenient place, and have the satisfaction of knowing you are responsible for it. Since star systems are numbered in the quintillions, its not like you're gonna run out of potential projects before you run out of patience.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

There is no risk in the game. You can't help but make credits & nanites. I think we need some designed obsolescence to slowly degrade your base, ship, and tool. This would include any addons you install.

Over time you would need to replace addons as they fail, and ultimately replace/completely repair the device...ship, tool, or base part. The trade value would also need to decline as things get older.

While the Devs seem to want to go the other direction based on Beyond, making it harder to earn credits and nanites in the first place would also provide some relief from being overwhelmed in wealth. I like the ideas around buying/building space stations as long as there is some risk so it does not become another mega revenue trap. Maybe pirate takeovers or battle repairs would create some balance.

They could make everything "forever" if you are playing creative so folks have an option.

[dphipps3]

fill your ship up with platinum, or high end trade items, you bought at several starbases and then just delete it all. Seriously, I wish we could invest in improving the economies of our favorite systems from poor to booming, that would be worth a billion credits per pop to increase item availability in trade terminals (especially at my bases) or attract those S class NPC ships that favor booming economies. Edit: I see that chonwaen suggested this already. How about investing a couple billion to add interesting fauna types? Improve the weather? Or make the weather extreme?

[dphipps3]

or buying billion dollar paint jobs for our pink starships?

[chonwaen]

All good suggestions dphipps3, except maybe the dump a load of platinum wherever you can (just seems uselessly wasteful tbh). I had given the planetary adjustments some thought, but that would seem to be much harder to implement. System economy and conflict levels seems like a simpler mechanic to adjust overall (unless its just plain impossible, no way to really tell). Economy level adjustments would just tweak the amount of goods available for sale at trade terminals and possibly the quality of visiting ships you might purchase. Conflict level really only adjusts how often and how many pirates decide to jump you in any given system, and possibly the chance of a distressed freighter in the system.

I would like to add a major caveat: Players should not be allowed to adjust systems they have not registered a unique first discovery of. This should prevent griefers from coming into a system and crud it up for a player who is trying to make a home to their liking (good or bad).

[Bubba Fett]

I think a good money sink they could add to a future patch would be ship editing or custom ship building for outrageous prices.
All of the ships you find or buy in the game are used.
What if there was a shipbuilder on the stations that would custom build a ship for you with a price to match.

Choose a hull, wings, engine, color, slot counts etc, but be prepared to pay through the nose compared to the random ships.
You'd still be constrained by what the game currently allows, you'd just be able to choose how it's combined rather than searching for a random combination that you like.

For instance if you choose a hauler hull, only hauler wings and engines could be added. Not shuttle wings. And your general slots could go to 48 if you're willing to pay, but your tech slots would still be capped low like they are for haulers.

This would allow people to spend tens or hundreds of millions to get exactly the ship they want. Maybe billions for freighters.

[ka-pow]

Another money sink that can be added is to allow to buy nice bases

- costly, to be a money sink
- allows people that hate micromanaging to spare wire and power chores
- allows to decorate a bit some planets without spending a lot of time at it
- with an opt-in 'allow to sell' in the workshop or base contest event with modest prizes it won't cost too much to get some content (from the POV of Hello Games)

[opazed]

As a newbee (40 hours playtime), I awe at this discussion... So I have one freighter, 3 starships (one broken down) and a destroyed frigate... Still very far from all this....

However, it also stimulates me: So I still have to add 3 starships and all the money needed to get 60 more frigates (and figure out how to repare a broken frigate instead of sending it out ;-). I also still want to make a great base, starting from scratch. etc. etc

Have you done all that? Have you gotten all the medals for pirates destroyed, alien colonist encounters, planned zoology scanned etc. ? Oh, what fun you must have had... All of you.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by opazed:

As a newbee (40 hours playtime), I awe at this discussion... So I have one freighter, 3 starships (one broken down) and a destroyed frigate... Still very far from all this....

However, it also stimulates me: So I still have to add 3 starships and all the money needed to get 60 more frigates (and figure out how to repare a broken frigate instead of sending it out ;-). I also still want to make a great base, starting from scratch. etc. etc

Have you done all that? Have you gotten all the medals for pirates destroyed, alien colonist encounters, planned zoology scanned etc. ? Oh, what fun you must have had... All of you.

Maximum number of frigates you can have is 30. Land on a damaged frigate and go to the damaged subsystems to repair them. Don't worry about the milestones as they are almost insultingly low and seem like they were designed to 'wow' people watching streamers who played for the first time; when I got the 10-star milestone for credits (units) just a few hours in, I thought that there would be way way more milestones for it, like the black stars on the icon would turn white or some other color one-by-one to denote further progress. This, of course, did not happen.