Glotmorf on 30 Sep 2002 07:48:03 -0000


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[spoon-discuss] The other side of the production coin


Well, Wonko took a shot at the who, and, while I see problems and objectionables with it, and I'm still smarting from the shot across my score's bow, I can see where he's coming from.  Now let's take a look at the what...

{{ _Technologies_

Products are types of objects.  Each Product is uniquely identified, and all objects that correspond to a given Product are known by that identifier, e.g. if "fizzbin" is a Product, then there can exist individual fizzbins.

There exist objects of type Technology.  A Technology is an ability to construct objects of a particular Product.  An entity that possesses a Technology for a given Product can produce that Product's objects, e.g. if an entity possesses the fizzbin Technology, that entity can produce fizzbins.

A Product has associated with it a construction cost in game resources equal to some combination of points, BNS and/or resource units.  An entity with a Technology and the game resources to construct that Technology's Product can construct the Product, losing the corresponding resources in the process.

If an entity constructs one or more of a Product, that entity can, in addition to giving them to other entities freely or as part of Offers, place them on the Open Market by declaring the quantity available and a per-object purchase price for them on the public forum; those Products can then be purchased by other entities on a first-come, first-served basis.  The selling entity can change the purchase price at any time.

Technologies can be voluntarily transferred from entity to entity through replication: the receiving entity obtains an object identical to the Technology in the giving entity's possession; the giving entity retains possession of its Technology.

An entity can obtain (a.k.a. "steal") a Technology from another entity by paying five times the Technology's Product's construction cost in game resources, or ten times the price at which the Product is initially made available for purchase. [[ Theft, reverse engineering, industrial espionage, parallel research efforts, etc. ]] The entity that the Technology was obtained from retains possession of its Technology.

}}

No, I didn't tie Technologies to Corporations.  I'm still waiting on the objectionables.  Besides, I don't think possession of Technologies should necessarily be limited to Corporations, even if use of them is.  After all, a given player might steal a Technology, then sell it to ten other people and turn a profit.  Or start up eir own Corporation and transfer the Technology into it.

I've already got most of the prose form for this in my head...

						Glotmorf


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