Hey All, I was thinking of easing the trade restrictions in Proteus. It’s a very unpopular feature.
In stead of only allowing players to trade down to empires with less stars, I was thinking of allowing you to trade tech with anybody in scanning range, but disable sending cash instead.
Anybody have an thoughts?
instead of nerfing it all the way. how about we do a less restrictive. make it plus or minus 3 or 5 stars? that way your allies have a bit more leeway for trades.
@JayKyburz that sounds like a good suggestion. I think the current restriction puts a lot of players off the game.
I like Golden_Ace idea better.
I would love it if the smaller-to-larger empire trade restrictions went away. If a smaller empire actually has something of value to give to a larger empire that creates interaction, and interaction creates intrigue, and intrigue drives the game…
Keep Trade Scanned, I’ve always thought this was a good idea which also creates interesting interactions and less invulnerable trading blocks… well at least they have to try a bit to get in contact with each other this way…
I do not have strong opinions about the sending cash idea… I’ve never said “man sending cash is ruining the game!” Therefore I’m not sure what impact it would have.
I want to kill the culture of selling tech for cash that has become standard in Neptune’s Pride.
My first attempt was to try and force large empire to be more generous and “bring up” smaller empires with them. I think it might be too hard. Golden_Aces suggestion might make it a little easier.
But I think as soon as there is leeway, I think people will just expect cash in exchange for tech again and we’ll be back where we started.
or how does this sound? can you do away with the cash for tech entirely? example if I want to have your weapons 15 I can trade you my scanning 7 as a strait up trade no cash involved. ie no trade cost. tech for tech swap. even if it is lopsided. you would be unable to give tech to someone unless they have something to give you in return. or even make it same level tech for same level tech
That sounds good to me, but I still want to have the option to give away a tech for free (or in return for moving a fleet).
That’s why I was thinking of removing tech trade restrictions, and killing cash trades altogether.
Have any of you ever sent cash to another player except to pay for a tech trade, (or sending it to your alt-account 
)
In my alliances, I buy tech trades for fair cash price. Sometimes an ally needs an emergency loan.
One time I was fighting a neighbor, and the nearby politics changed, so the enemy was very happy to accept my alliance offer. ( We agreed that it would be more fun if I did not destroy him. HA HA ! ) I gave him cash because I wanted strong allies.
I have, to a ally who was hard up in tech and being pounded on by another player. I fed him my tech so he could spend his money on infrastructure
Most cash in trades is used to compensate for transfer costs, and is done right away to make sure accounts stay current. In most well functioning alliances the allies specialize, and are expected to contribute tech of value to the arrangement. So eliminating cash transfers here would require more trust among allies, probably not a bad thing.
I have been in team games where we attempted to jointly manage our investment program among the allies. Requires a lot of coordination, but worth it. Transferring cash is critical to making this work. @HULK is a master at this.
I haven’t played in a while, and I can’t remember if formal alliances are enabled in Proteus. Perhaps formal allies have trading costs waived? And you can only send cash to a formal ally?
BB
I like the idea of making more a range of stars that you can still trade. One game with @Brand we gave him tons of cash as he was the one on the front line so he could max his industry and stay in the game. Worked out great. Cash isn’t always about getting tech.
I’m playing my first game in… a year? Longer? And am about to quit because of the trade feature. It is impossible. Not only must I navigate the trade alliances, which are already well cemented around my isolated systems, but there are no ways to expand my star count, and no reasons for others to gift me tech when I can’t even repay them!
At least make it so cash can be freely transferred. That would help tremendously.
The only way I can see restrictions work, on a purely game mechanic basis, is that tech trades restrictions enable based on the difference in tech between parties somehow. Probably an algorithm that kicks in the restrictions if there’s a substantial amount of sharing between mostly even empires, forcing them to slowly filter tech to each other, while being able to substantially and freely boost empires with weaker tech spreads across the board. Otherwise, it becomes a game of star shuffle, and that just benefits and reinforces strong alliance ties the point of impenetrability.
I’m going to remove the trade restrictions and use the same system as Triton.
I’m also working on a tool to help you keep track of the money you owe, or money owed to you as a result of tech and cash trades.
Its a work in progress.
You could potentially achieve your plans by making trade with lower developed empires more rewarding instead of blocking tech with everyone else. However with this way you might over do this slightly, but it still is a solution.
If leader board position 1 sends tech to second, first gets 1.1% more research points from experimenting tech.
If first sends to third, first gets 1.2% more research points from experimenting.
if first send the fourth, first gets 1.3% more research points from experimenting.
and you continue to scale the rewards with lower developed empires.
However, all this does is send tech to worse empires, first position will still develop there tech even faster than before now. But… this new physics of the game is just a setup for something else…
Because you can allow second the same rewards as first and last the same rewards as first. For example;
If second trades with third, second receives 1.2% more research from experimenting just like first does, so if seventh trades with eighth, seventh gets 1.9% more research from experimenting.
This physics makes sure it is rewarding to trade with lower developed empires as if you are in first place and you do not trade with bottom, but second places trades with bottom second will be at an development advantage. So second will be eventually able to easier challenge first on the leader board in terms of power. But all this still allows lower developed empires to “fairly” keep up with the top of the leader board.
But it does not have to be exactly like this, I am sure it is a good idea but there probably is better variations of the same thing.
This way would also even out unfair positions were the galaxy map was favouring certain positions… because if you start in an unfavourable position and end up not first on the leader board because of it, you still get a boost of some sorts.
However, technology does not put you first on the leader board because number of stars puts you first on the leader board. So it could create a new unbalance that I probably have not thought of.
EDIT: I suppose the problem with this is does the percentage stack every time you send a tech, because if first is logged in and no one else is, he is going to send his tech to everyone and get an 1 billion percent tech boost.
So no forget my idea. You could reward credits but the problem still is whoever is logged in is going to send all the tech first and no one else will be able to trade as much because everyone already has the tech.
But if you would like more ideas let me know.
EDIT: New idea to make the above work… if you send a level 2 tech to someone who already has a level 2 tech they receive research points based on how much the level 2 tech is worth.
So, if player eight has level 2 weapons and player seven sends player eight level 2 weapons, player eight receives the research points that level 2 weapons costed which goes towards level 3 weapons. And also player seven will receive 1.9% more points from experimenting.
Lets say you can infinitely send tech and the percentages will stack, so you need a new game mechanic for this to still be good… So, diminishing returns… The more tech you send per cycle the more expensive it is to send tech.
Jay,
It looks like Proteus is real time instead of turn based.
Turn based games allow a residual cash trade among allies for the “cheapest safe Econ” before the 24th hr payday turn submit (semi frozen time). I would message my ally how much credits I was short of buying the next safe Econ, and my ally would reply the same. About 60% of the time, our combined funds could buy one more Econ. The next turn jump, funds were returned plus $1-5 credits interest. We could then repeat it again before the payday turn jump.
Small incremental alliance advantage that appears more significant after 25-30 paydays. Message delays would severely hinder this trade on real time np2 games. Proteus also negates payday time advantages since partial payouts arrive as EIS produces for your empire.
jay could you throw the ledger over to the normal games? I think it would be awesome there.
@Firehawkz13 thanks for the notes. Some good ideas and worth thinking about some more. I’ll have a think over the holidays.
@eplazaguest I hope to find some time to open up turn-based Proteus games soon.
@Golden_Ace The plan is to make Proteus the normal games some time soon. The biggest thing holding me back is having to remake the tutorial videos and and improved AI. Triton will always be available as an option for user created games.
I know I sound like a broken record, but just an FYI Jay that the main thing I wanted from Santa this year is user-created mirrored maps in Triton. Am in a couple of team-based games, and this would be soooooo nice.
And no big deal if it sometimes doesn’t work and create “bad” maps.
A big Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you! 
Noted Hulk. I will see if I can find some time for this in the next few weeks.
