Economy

Economy, a so small collection mod (see collection details at the end)

-- The idea -- In the default game looting and hauling all dropped weapons, suits, helmets and packs is by far the most lucrative income source. This invalidates all the other interesting income sources that exist in Starfield (like eg smuggling contraband, building industrial outposts, surveying planets for data slates, capturing ships as a pirate or doing mission runs and quests for credit rewards).

Also, loot hauling is a tiresome and ever repeating process of inventory management and waiting for vendors to reset their credits. As everything in default Starfield has a sell value this goes beyond gear itself. I often found myself worrying which junk items to pick up as they seemingly had quite a value, at least for their weight. The price tag on everything made compulsive me nervous I might miss out if not picking stuff up. So my gameplay got bogged and slowed down by inventory management.

Last but but no way least, credits - especially after entering midgame - pile up much too quickly without a real use for them. This takes the fun out of rewards you get or find during your adventures. They become just another meaningless increase of a number.

Economy remedies this by making selling loot much less attractive - vendors pay really bad for all that worn armor with big holes in it and your used, blood sprinkled weapons with notches for kills carved into them by some spacer rat. At the same time, junk becomes mostly totally worthless. Frees your mind from all that compulsive hoarding. On the upside Economy grants much better rewards for smuggling and exploration. To have a long term use for your credits ship building, ship repairs and healing become much more expensive, creating direly needed money sinks and goals to look forward to at the same time. More in the details below.

Please note that for your convenience and orientation all prices shown outside the vendor screens themselves are in cent (100 cent = 1 credit) now. So that gun in your inventory saving it's worth 7500 (cent) will usually sell for (about) 75 credits. Just scratch the last two digits and you can easily gauge an item's true worth.

-- The changes in detail-- Economy tackles (see also the attached schematic) these issues by

• reducing the sell price of all gear (weapons, suits, helmets, packs, clothing, basically most stuff) to only 10% of the default price
• increasing the sell prices for smuggled contraband by 500%; note: it's only 100% if you sell in a convenient place that is not patrolled (like the Den, Red Mile or the Key) - no risk, no reward; futhermore the merchants in these places as well as all automated Trade Authority kiosks anywhere buy only at 20% generally; Rule of thumb: you get the best deals with human vendors in civilized, patrolled areas
• increasing the sell prices for survey slates from exploration by 300% (as of v2.0; was 500% in prior versions) , note: Vlad has 60.000 vendor credits by default now so you can sell the slates off more easily
• NEW in v2.0 and v2.1 : mission board credit rewards increased by 50% in most cases and then scale with player level, configurable in the gameplay options
• removing the price tag from almost all junk items (besides eg antiques or select specials), setting their value to zero
• increasing the cost of ship building by 300% (by making all ship parts increase their value accordingly); note: the cash-in-value of your used components is only ten percent now, so upgrading from old stuff gets even more costly
• increasing the cost of ShipRepairParts by 500% (at the same time lowering their drop rates to 20%); note: the ship servcie technician charges 5.000 credits now for ship repairs
• increasing the cost of MedPacks, TraumaKits and EmergencyKits by 300% (at the same time lowering their drop rates to 33%)
• Registration fees for pirated ships drop to about 55% (from 85%); it's balanced so that in the end you earn the same as in the default game for selling pirated ships (which is still 10 times more attractive than before when comparing it to loot/gear hauling)
• NEW in v1.7: based on great feedback, mineral prices have been doubled and prices for manufactured goods trippled; this makes industrial mining and production a more viable income source; furthermore, organic resources have been brought more in line with the mineral prices, maiking collecting those and eg seling to Noel more attractive again; Vlad has 65.535 credits in all scenarios now
• NEW in v1.8: based on great feedback again the former delay of the Mantis Quest (v1.7 and older) has been moved to a separate, free mod (look for "Delayed Mantis" on Creations in three variants requiring player lvl 15, lvl 25 or lvl 35 to start the Mangtis Quest. Economy from v1.7 onwards will add no additional requirements to start the Mantis Quest. This way you can mix and match as you like (from vanilla up to lvl 35).

-- Compatibility and installation -- Economy does not directly chnage weapons, suits, helmets or packs themselsves so you can use other mod that affect these. Junk items, contraband, survey slates, healing and reapair items have direct changes though that will conflict with other mods who make changes to these.
Can be installed midgame and easily uninstalled.

NEW Info in V1.8: In case you are using my "Explorer" mod, please place "Economy" in load order behind/lower than "Explorer" (and its patches as far they deal with rewards for survey slates). In other words: Let "Economy" have precedence/override over "Explorer" and its patches. This is neccessary as both mods affect sell prices of survey data slates and you will want to have Economy sort out the correct price increase for the survey slates (3 times as of V2.0).

-- Contact, bug reporting and feedback -- Find me under the username "yourfellowglitch" on the "nosodiumstarfield" reddit, where I have also threads for all of my Creations. Dont bother looking on the "official" Starfield reddit - it's just full of hate these days and not worth anybody's time imho.

-- so small collection -- This mod is part of the "so small collection" of mods. These mods dont require each other and can be played stand alone, even balancewise. They form a greater whole though - the more of them you combine, the more you see this final shape. The overarching idea is to create a gameworld that feels immensely vast, begs for thorough exploration, is full of mysteries, plays truely challenging and lasts very, very long. In other words the goal of the mods is to make the player feel: so small.

Here's the so small collection's homepage for further info: https://youngneil1.github.io/so-small-collection/

And an overview video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKrZ3oP20aA

Finally a list of the Creations in the so small collection in case this idea resonates with you:

Dynamic Universe: A universe that dynamically scales up with your character level - be it star systems or individual enemies. No more outleveling of content, no more overleveled starts of NG+.

Gear Progression: Gear Progression adds levels to all weapons, suits, helmets and backpacks. Your character level must match these in order to equip the gear. Each NG+ these levels raise further.

Economy: Economy shifts income generation away from tiresome loot hauling. Ship building becomes the long term goal it's meant to be. As credits get more scarce, rewards remain meaningful.

Explorer: An immersive overhaul of the resources - crafting - exploration loop. Get out there into the Starfield and explore - the rewards are much bigger now, but so is the need to do it.

Linearity (alternatively have a look for "Death" or "Ruin" mods): A new gameplay mode where reloading is your last resort. Live and embrace your adventure as it unfolds, imperfect as it may be. You can always save to quit and continue later.

Slow Travel: Slow Travel makes your journey through Starfield much more tactile and immersive by grav jump costs, less map markers, no move on overencumberance and restricted fast travel.

Star Powers: Live as a Spellblade in the Settled Systems. Powers are rebalanced so that eg crowd control, slowed time and near invisibiilty become interesting instead of game balance breaking.

The Isotopes: A compelling reason to explore POI in all Star Systems. Loot the 75 new Isotopes, each specific to a singular Star System. They are needed for rank 4 skills and gear mod crafting.

High Level Weapons: Continue to find better weapons, all the way up to level 300. 7+ new revisions/tiers for each of 50 weapon types. Uniquely named, legendary, each hidden in a specific star system.

High Level Armors: Continue to find better armors up to lvl 255. All HLA share about the same power level - mix and match for the looks you like. Starborn armors improve in quality and variety, too.

Counterfire: Starting with level 85 the player gets 1% more ground combat damage for each level. Idealy used in combination with the "High Level Weapons" mod.

Terra Incognita: All ground surface maps disabled. No markers, no topography, no top down small buildings, no white dots - nothing. Welcome to Terra Incognita - the universe is yours to discover.

Further entries (space gets too short here :-)): Helium-4 Dusty Less XP Enter Unity The Waiting Game POI Rotation Rarity Health Journey Building Rarity Time PPOI Deserted UC Listening Post Waylayer GunFu Level Scaled Quest XP Difficulty Buildup Perkout - Locational Gameplay