So I decided that today I will start to give you a high-level overview over the economy of the game or rather the philosophy behind it.
The economy of the game is based around a single main currency called FAVOR. Why FAVOR? Lore-wise the Citadel is basically a force of creation which asks the claimants to do things for it, working, going out into the world and gathering resources, fighting the void, etc. In a way, the claimants are doing the Citadel a favor, so creation hands them an I.O.U. in the form of the FAVOR currency. And since it is hard to argue that being owed by the force of creation is bad thing, it is the game currency.
FAVOR, as this main currency is initially held by the Citadel. The Citadel is not just some inactive story tool though, it has its own expenses and projects and will place market orders to buy various things for FAVOR or put out work orders where players can get a salary in the form of FAVOR. Generally, it is up to the Citadel to manage its own currency reserves, should it run out of FAVOR, it can't just print some out of thin air. Note that there are 2 ways how the total FAVOR supply can increase, but I will discuss them at a later stage not to get derailed. For now, lets simplify and assume there is only a total of 1 billion FAVOR in the game and it is all held by the Citadel.
For the most part, the economy is based on resources being acquired through gameplay. These resources (grain, wood, ores, etc.) are refined and processed and eventually will turn into consumer goods (food, weapons, tools, etc.). Production and consumption is designed to be mostly circular with consumption usually enabling production of something in one way or another. At the center of it is the exchange of objects, through refinement and crafting, and the exchange of ownership, through the market.
Talking about the market, all tradeable assets in the game (which is the majority) can be traded on the in-game market. This market is a limit market, where you can place buy and sell orders. If they are matched there is an exchange of goods and currency. I may go into the details of the market in the future, but I am not really reinventing anything so it may not be the most exciting topic. The key takeaway is, that resources can be traded at the market with FAVOR being the main currency.
Let's look at a very basic production cycle. The first one in the game which players will encounter is the production of edible goo. Part of the Citadel is a production facility I named the Goobatory. This facility turns run of the mill trash (yes trash is a resource, an umbrella term for everything with no specific use, think grey items in a traditional MMO) into edible goo which is a food source for humans and claimants. So the Citadel needs trash to fuel the goo production, therefore a buy order is placed on the market to buy trash. Players finding trash during their exploration (again not literal garbage can trash) can then sell it to the Citadel if they want to get some FAVOR.
But the trash alone is not enough. To produce anything in the game, you also need workforce. I will talk about it more another time when I explain production in more detail, for now lets just say a player can use their energy to work. So the citadel needs workers and therefore it creates a work order. Let's say it wants to produce 500 edible goo and pays 500 FAVOR as a salary. As the recipe (again more about that when I explain production) needs 2 trash to produce 5 goo it needs 200 trash and it places 100 work orders at the cost of 50000 FAVOR. When players choose to work in the Goobatory, the Citadel gains the edible goo and the players get their salary. Why does the Citadel want goo? Well it gives out free rations to new players and apart from that it sells it on the market. Players can then buy the goo from the market to restore hp and energy to go out there and earn more trash, but of course also to level up and secure other resources.
So you see a simple production cycle that involves at least 2 different player interactions. Note that the Citadel can't and won't just buy trash forever. If it has enough goo it will eventually stop producing until it needs more and if it doesn't produce goo, it doesn't need trash. It might also have to adapt the salary or there could be a shortage of trash requiring it to offer more FAVOR per trash. Of course there could also be an overabundance and it will pay less. The Citadel is just part of the economy, same as the players, and it will have to acquire different materials and hire players to do things, but it will not just give out FAVOR for pointless activities.
The main goal is to not have an inflatable main currency and a stable value proposition. The free market will of course decide prices of resources, mostly based on supply and demand. Should players farm trash like mad it will not sell very high, or at all. Maybe wood will be in high demand or a certain event requires a lot of weapons to be produced. There will always be shifts in supply and demand as long as there are players playing the game and as I mentioned before, there will be campaigns running which will shift demand to different things depending on what is happening. Maybe there is a combat-heavy campaign requiring a lot of food to restore hp. Maybe a certain potion comes into fashion and requires a special herb that is hard to get. Maybe a new zone is conquered and settlement construction sends the price of wood and stone skyrocketing.
In short, you have a limit market for the exchange of goods and a labor market where producers compete for player energy. And yes, players will eventually have their own production facilities, but don't worry, this is not a game which wants to sell you 1000 USD land on which you can put a building to produce. While land ownership and buildings are certainly a thing, the game features what I call public production. But more about this next time, when I go into detail about how production works in the game.
BR
thatclaimgamedev