Economy SSP

[fadeLocust]

We can make factories that can spit out anything, but what can you do with it? How about a block that simulates an economy?

Essentially a block that accepts one item and replaces it with another. Think of the IC2 Trade-o-Mat (or ee2 condenser), but will take anything and return anything. Items and prices could be put into a configuration file, so it's easily extensible. It'd act like a chest, so mod automation (pipes, tubes, ect) can interact with it. Possibly have it work with shipments, i.e. you need to put several stacks into it before you get payment (this could simulate shipping). There could be a time disparity (configurable, random?) between shipping and payment. Currency wouldn't be a problem, because the config file. I was going to post on Minecraft Forums, but thought this would be a better place because factories.

Of course, if this already exists, I'd love to hear about it.

After thinking about it, this mod is essentially automated cheating, only good for roleplaying (which is what I intended it for).

[Neowulf]

Well, villagers do trading so you have a basic economy there.

But you know, this is a real good idea.

Say a mailbox item that opens a GUI with a long scrolling list of trades you can do, created using the same trade system the villagers use. Pick a trade and how many times to do it, drop in the required payment, and when you hit send it enters the outgoing queue. Every minecraft day at a certain time the outgoing queue gets processed and the results enter the incoming queue (which gets delivered the next day).

GUI work mainly, a tileentity, a bit of scheduling, proper saving of the relevant data and you're done.

Biggest problem would be mod items, but you could easily add a config file to let people list mod items and their relative cost.

From there you could have fun with economic theory and do whatever you wanted for simulations in the background, maybe add special events that put items on sale or jack the price up due to global shortage. Maybe add a commodities market tab so a core group of base resources are always available, though at prices that fluctuate based on player and simulated trading.

[spartanyanni]

Dear god this needs to happen. And it would be pretty awesome in multiplayer. Definitely an improvement offer forestry trade stations.

[fadeLocust]

I can't help but wonder how difficult (or useful) it would be to use computercraft to connect the mailbox to the internet and get real market data.

[Neowulf]

Uhm, it might have an issue finding the current market price for fist sized diamonds or magic red dust...

[fadeLocust]

Ha, yeah, I figured they could be linked to unrelated, but similarly scarce things. It was just a thought, though.