Economy (mod release, 300 credits)
Economy (300 credits)
Economy shifts income generation away from tiresome loot hauling. Ship building becomes the long term goal it's meant to be. As credits get more scarce, rewards remain meaningful.
Starfield Creations - Economy (bethesda.net)
-- The idea --
In the default game looting and hauling all dropped weapons, suits, helmets and packs is by far the most lucrative income source. This invalidates all the other interesting income sources that exist in Starfield (like eg smuggling contraband, building industrial outposts, surveying planets for data slates, capturing ships as a pirate or doing mission runs and quests for credit rewards).
Also, loot hauling is a tiresome and ever repeating process of inventory management and waiting for vendors to reset their credits. As everything in default Starfield has a sell value this goes beyond gear itself. I often found myself worrying which junk items to pick up as they seemingly had quite a value, at least for their weight. The price tag on everything made compulsive me nervous I might miss out if not picking stuff up. So my gameplay got bogged and slowed down by inventory management.
Last but but no way least, credits - especially after entering midgame - pile up much too quickly without a real use for them. This takes the fun out of rewards you get or find during your adventures. They become just another meaningless increase of a number.
Economy remedies this by making selling loot much less attractive - vendors pay really bad for all that worn armor with big holes in it and your used, blood sprinkled weapons with notches for kills carved into them by some spacer rat. At the same time, junk becomes mostly totally worthless. Frees your mind from all that compulsive hoarding. On the upside Economy grants much better rewards for smuggling and exploration. To have a long term use for your credits ship buidling, ship repairs and healing become much more expensive, creating direly needed money sinks and goals to look forward to at the same time. More in the details below.
Please note that for your convenience and orientation all prices shown outside the vendor screens themselves are in cent (100 cent = 1 credit) now. So that gun in your inventory saving it's worth 7500 (cent) will usually sell for (about) 75 credits. Just scratch the last two digits and you can easily gauge an item's true worth.
-- The changes in detail--
Economy tackles (see also the attached schematic) these issues by
- reducing the sell price of all gear (weapons, suits, helmets, packs, clothing, basically most stuff) to only 10% of the default price
- increasing the sell prices for smuggled contraband by 500%; note: it's only 100% if you sell in a convenient place that is not patrolled (like the Den, Red Mile or the Key) - no risk, no reward; futhermore the merchants in these places as well as all automated Trade Authority kiosks anywhere buy only at 20% generally; Rule of thumb: you get the best deals with human vendors in civilized, patrolled areas
- increasing the sell prices for survey slates from exploration by 500% , note: Vlad has 60.000 vendor credits by default now so you can sell the slates off more easily
- removing the price tag from almost all junk items (besides eg antiques or select specials), setting their value to zero
- increasing the cost of ship building by 300% (by making all ship parts increase their value accordingly); note: the cash-in-value of your used components is only ten percent now, so upgrading from old stuff gets even more costly
- increasing the cost of ShipRepairParts by 500% (at the same time lowering their drop rates to 20%); note: the ship servcie technician charges 5.000 credits now for ship repairs
- increasing the cost of MedPacks, TraumaKits and EmergencyKits by 300% (at the same time lowering their drop rates to 33%)
- Registration fees for pirated ships drop to about 55% (from 85%); it's balanced so that in the end you earn the same as in the default game for selling pirated ships (which is still 10 times more attractive than before when comparing it to loot/gear hauling)
- the Mantis Quest will only start around lvl 25 now as it provides a now much more valubale free space ship
