Minerthreat

Join Date 03/2015

Hacker array problem

PROBLEM

The hacker array is extremely powerful and discourages player interaction.

EXPLANATION

The hacker array allows a player to create shortages or surpluses on a certain commodity at a known time. The most profitable way to take advantage of a short is to heavily buy into it before hand and then sell when the price artificially climbs. This discourages stock buying since money that is put into stocks can not be used to play the market as previously mentioned. It further discourages interaction because it is the only way to change a price that is not able to be countered by other players. (If you hoard, someone else can up their production, if you flood the market people can move away from that production. You can damage buildings, other people can protect them...)

In my opinion it is akin to allowing guns into a boxing videogame. If everyone can use them it is balanced, but allowing them in the game changes the game to no longer be a boxing sim.

SOLUTION

1. Have the hacker array give advance warning of shorts and surpluses (take that ability away from Scavenger) with an option to automatically increase or decrease the severity by automatically buying or selling goods.

1. b. If that is not powerful enough have an option on it to autosell goods at a given price. say you are producting 02 and want to sell it at $100 it will automatically sell off goods as the price hits 100. (this could be used to sell off a stockpile without flooding the market or it could be used to keep a price low)

2. Have the hacker array monitor the stock market and any time that people put in an order over 10 units in a given timeframe it will buy up some of the resource at the lower price (before the purchase) and sell it back to the purchaser at a slightly higher price. (this actually happens on the real stock markets. see: "high frequency trading")

I'm sure that there are other ways to fix this building, but if you want to keep the building as it currently stands can you please give the option in the start menu to not allow hacker arrays?

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I don't think the hacker array is over powered by itself. When people utilize multiple to double or even quad short a resource, it gets pretty ridiculous.

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What if hacker arrays didn't create the same kind of shortage or surplus, but instead had a subtle, long-term effect? They could instantly start a shortage that happens over 120 seconds and doesn't display to the other players. That would still be good for someone who's cornered a market, but if someone tries to just buy 400 electronics and short it, the other players could see the price jump from buying and have a decent amount of time to produce electronics and sell them before the hacker can get very much profit.

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I'm sure dev team is aware of this strategy now... 2 mil in 20 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z2Z_hi8-m4

I dont know if its fair to say that this breaks the game as it sits... but it does appear to be unbeatable. The strategy is sound, simple, and quite elegant. Keep your money working and use the array for double/triple shorts. I can't think of a good counter play that does not involve the hacker array.

I expect a nerf to max of one array per player until another player is bought that has one also, with no double shorting... or atleast a reasonable cool down. 120 secs? But even then... the amount of money someone playing expansive can do with this strategy with just ONE array will be enough to win just about every game, it'll just take longer...

Alternate solution that doesn't involve ditching the array all together would be to cap the max price movement based on current strike price... perhaps +/- 50%.

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I could see changing it so that if a commodity moves in price (shortage or surplus) that buying/selling of that commodity (other than autobuying for life support) is closed for some length of time - in this way it would mirror how markets can be regulated.

The lock out time could be a cumulative effect as well, where say the first shortage locks out that commodity for 30 sec, then the next an additional 60 sec, and so on; so 30s * n with n being the number of shorts / surpluses of that good.

This would lead to potential defensive hacker array plays to just plain lock out some good, and it would foster the manipulation for more of a longer play using an array to slowly move prices in a direction you want for the long term such as surplusing electronics early (lvl 2) to make it cheap when you are at lvl 5 to more readily purchase an offworld market.

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

I had thought about an idea about replacing the hacker array with a derivatives market. when you place down the building (mars street?), you now would have the option to buy and sell "paper goods"... useless, except have the same cost as the real good... and buying and selling them does not change the price of the real good. So if you thought you knew what the price of things were going to do, you could buy, sell, and perhaps even shortsell 'paper goods' to attempt to profit on what you think the future holds.

It is probably a stupid thought though.

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Quoting MantisStyle,

reply 3

I'm sure dev team is aware of this strategy now... 2 mil in 20 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z2Z_hi8-m4

I dont know if its fair to say that this breaks the game as it sits... but it does appear to be unbeatable. The strategy is sound, simple, and quite elegant. Keep your money working and use the array for double/triple shorts. I can't think of a good counter play that does not involve the hacker array.

I expect a nerf to max of one array per player until another player is bought that has one also, with no double shorting... or atleast a reasonable cool down. 120 secs? But even then... the amount of money someone playing expansive can do with this strategy with just ONE array will be enough to win just about every game, it'll just take longer...

Alternate solution that doesn't involve ditching the array all together would be to cap the max price movement based on current strike price... perhaps +/- 50%.

The problem in the video is also tied to the nanotechnology patent. Not just the hacker array.

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the tactic in Mantis' video is heavily reliant on other players not sabotaging you and having no idea about what you are doing. As such it is a good tactic to stomp public games with where there aren't players like pbhead, zultar or anyone else who knows how to scout and respond to what everyone else is doing. The upcoming patch will also nerf this particular tactic by making nanotech more expensive and making double shorting impossible.

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The heart of the problem is abstract merchant who buys and sells any amount of goods at inadequate prices.

I think game shoud force players to interact through the market with each other and not with this merchant. The market should be more closed.

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This sounds like a decent idea to me Pbhead.

Basically (if you do not mind me paraphrasing) replace the current hacker array mechanism with something that, essentially, lets you place bets about the potential movement of various commodities naturally (i.e. with the only manipulation being the regular buying and selling of goods).

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