Economy

Beausejour agrees the weapon pricing and the crafting breakdown were validated separately with no check across them, and says human validation is no longer enough, so machine validation is needed for everything.

Beausejour says the team is building a validation framework that designers can use to query across all game data and find outliers, plus more compatibility checks and the beginnings of patchable database data in 4.8, aiming for forward-patchable data.

They say the weapon break-down pricing is intentional rather than an exploit, and that they track several exploit types but won't give details, partly so they can learn causes and who is responsible before acting.

Hull D and E capacity is dropping substantially to more reasonable levels, to 6,912 and 12,288 SCU, because the original numbers were impractical; they remain the top bulk carriers and aren't coming in 2026.

Yes, the Wolf kits will eventually reach in-game UEC shops like earlier weapon kits, though there's no defined exclusivity period and other routes such as loot, crafting and Wikelo are also ways to get such items.

Huckaby gives no date, saying not every ship will be sold in UEC shops and that capital ships will instead be attainable in-game through means like crafting, Wikelo and reputation.

Shop contents are chosen so every game loop is accessible, tied to narrative and location context, and sometimes just for fun, with narrative team input on what fits each place.

Underground deposits will respawn, but very unlikely on a plot you already extracted, so players are meant to move on to new locations, and the economy will need careful balancing of resource sources and sinks.

Players can team up to build bases much faster, and the speakers think selling services at a base, like letting others use high-tier crafting machines, would be cool, though no details are given.

Sellers can list items via freight elevators, terminals or physical shops and advertise in a new app, while buyers browse listings or place costlier buy orders for specific items delivered to a location.

Ships like the Hull C and salvage depend on gameplay teams, so they try not to release ships before gameplay is ready, and salvage forced a pass over older ships' damage meshes, with some visual flaws likely remaining.

Lab-grown synthetic meat is already part of the lore, common in the inner systems where raising livestock is costly, while real livestock is more typical on the frontier.

Todd Papy sees cargo and mining as compressed loops whose pay should reflect danger, and wants a split mining/hauling loop once cargo works, with tuning to follow.

A wipe will definitely come at some point, but not every patch, since keeping progress lets them test long mid-game systems and gather data to rebalance before progress becomes permanent.

Distance-based rewards aren't in yet; a separate economy team sets rewards after mission designers set difficulty, and they hope a dynamic mission system will make this easier, while still exploring ways to measure difficulty.

No exact earn times can be given, but items are balanced by hours of effort, and ships are priced for the finished game, so the team is looking at ways to make earning them easier in the alpha.

The economy designer says spreadsheets are central but they also play the game, and because their own experience is anecdotal they rely heavily on community feedback and live playtests.

He can't show the spreadsheets, because the information is in flux and revealing everything would spoil the exploration, though more might be shown later once things are more locked in.

Components bought with UEC or real money will carry over into the PU, though items may still be rebalanced, while any temporary currency would be wiped.

When broke, players are being considered for loan-shark loans or for paying jobs from players or NPCs, like piloting or menial work, that earn enough for repairs or fuel but not a lot.

Yes, the team plans to use cosmic events as "game master" tools once the game is live, creating things like famines or disasters whose effects ripple through the economy and generate player missions.