Planet M.U.L.E.

This idea is to incentivize players to perform assays for Crystite and to make the assay activity more closely resemble a modern economic activity with reward related to the risk involved. Assays take away valuable development time from the player who performs them and the results can contribute a significant amount of information to the entire colony as a whole, particularly to players who are knowledgeable and keep records throughout the game. My compliments to those players who can do it without pen and paper, as I must ;)

I propose that PlanetMule version 2.0 add a finder's fee incentive to Crystite assays and/or a finder's commission for subsequent production. I don't propose changing the assay marking behavior as part of this idea, but making assay results "permanent" by placing making the resulting marker visible to all players for the remainder of the game would speed things up by eliminating repeated assays of plots that have already been checked.

Here's my first cut at a system for finder's fees and commissions. It provides compensation for

• A commission based on the Crystite produced by the specific plot assayed by the player, and
• A finder's fee based on the new information gained by all players regarding the location of Crystite

The production-based commission can be differentiated in such a way as to reward some assays more than others. Two types of assay can occur:

• The player assays a plot they already own, or
• The player assays a plot they do not already own. The plot may be owned by another player already, or it may still be unclaimed.

If the player assays their own plot, no production-base commission is paid. This counts as a "commission-free assay" (only the finder's fee will be payable, stay tuned).

If the player assays a plot they do not already own, the production-based commission shall vary, depending on the ownership of the plot:

• The plot is still unclaimed: Commission shall be paid in the amount of 1/4 the total money earned by sales of Crystite produced by that plot during the commission time window. This time lasts for next two (2) turns. After this time expires, no further commission is owed. In the rare good event that the plot is granted for free after the assay, the commission time window shall start during the current turn, for three (3) total turns of payment (the current turn plus the next two (2) turns).
• The plot is already owned by another player: Commission shall be paid in the amount of 1/8 the total money earned by sales of Crystite produced by that plot during the commission time window. After this time expires, no further commission is owed. If the plot is assayed prior to the owner's development phase, the commission time window begins with the current turn and ends after the next turn, for a total of two (2) turns. If the plot is assayed after the owner's development phase, the commission time window lasts for the next two (2) turns. If the plot's owner has already placed a Crystite mule on the plot just assayed, no commission is owed, since the owner has already assumed the risk associated with Crystite discovery and the entire colony will know the plot's production potential once the production phase begins.

If no Crystite is sold during a turn within the commission time window (including production loss due to theft by Pirates), no commission is paid that turn. The commission is paid to the player who performed the assay by the player selling Crystite immediately following the sale of Crystite during the commodity auctioning phase.

The calculation of the commission shall round fractional dollars down, and the commision owed for each plot shall be computed separately prior to adding up the total money owed. For example, if two (2) plots were assayed during Turn 3 by "Player A" and produced Crystite for "Player B" during Turn 3, with the first plot producing one (1) unit and the second plot producing three (3) units which were all sold for $148, the commission paid by "Player B" to "Player A" immediately after the Turn 3 Crystite auction would be:

The information-based finder's fee is payable immedaitely after an assay is performed, from the Store to the player performing the assay. This way the player's work is compensated immediately. Assays provide information about the location of Crystite to the entire colony, but not all assay results provide equal information:

• A plot assayed to have "Very High Crystite" (4) tells the colony nothing. The Crystite is due to a meteorite strike, which leaves persistent visible evidence for the entire colony to see.
• A plot assayed to have "High Crystite" (3) tells the colony the exact location of one (1) highly valuable plot, plus the location of up to four (4) other very valuable plots. It reduces the uncertainty regarding the locations of other "High Crystite" plots by one (1).
• A plot assayed to have "Medium Crystite" (2) gives the colony as many as four (4) clues about the location of a highly valuable plot, plus the location of one (1) very valuable plot. It reduces the uncertainty regarding the locations of "High Crystite" plots by one (1).
• A plot assayed to have "Low Crystite" (1) gives the colony as many as eight ( 8 ) clues about the location of a highly valuable plot. However, this assay result is also useful for its reduction of the uncertainty regarding the locations of "High Crystite" plots. It reduces this uncertainty by five (5).
• A plot assayed to have "No Crystite" (0) gives the colony no (0) clues about the location of Crystite. However, this assay result is very useful for its large reduction of the uncertainty regarding the locations of "High Crystite" plots. It reduces this uncertainty by 13.

I have created an arbitrary initial method for assigning value to the different components of information gained by each of the assay results above:

• Discovery of the exact location of a "High Crystite" plot: $100.
• Discovery of the exact location of a "Medium Crystite" plot: $75.
• Clues regarding the possible location(s) of "High Crystite" or "Medium Crystite" plots: $10 each.
• Reduction of uncertainty regarding the locations of "High Crystite" plots: $5 each.
• Addition of no new information regarding the location of Crystite: $0. And then you feel shame :-[

With these component values, the finder's fee for assays becomes:

• $145 for a result of "High Crystite Found,"
• $120 for a result of "Medium Crystite Found,"
• $105 for a result of "Low Crystite Found,"
• $65 for a result of "No Crystite Found," and
• $0 for any assay of any plot that has already been assayed before or that has produced during a previous production phase or that has been struck by a meteor.

In addition, I believe it may be useful to have a limited time window for the awarding of commissions and finder's fees that I've proposed here. Perhaps the end of the Turn 6 development phase would be a useful starting point for such an end to incentivized assays. But I haven't really given this element much thought yet.

I hope this proposal generates some interesting and thoughtful discussion about ways to add to the richness and excitement of the Planet Mule version 2.0 experience. I think that these ideas would incentivize an important development activity and compensate players based on the results in an appropriate but not destabilizing manner. Thanks for reading!

These are very interesting ideas.  I have studied this for quite a while, but I still haven't finished my full analysis on the affects this would have on game play.  Although there are some great ideas here,  my first instinct is to make it as simple as possible.  Would love to see what everyone else thinks.  Baby is crying again, so I will try to organize my thoughts and post again in the next few days.

I love this idea, but what about keeping it ultra simple, if you essay a plot that you don't own, regardless of quality of land, you yield 10% income from sale of all units that plot produces of crystite till the end of the game. If you own it then you don't get it, and if the plot produces anything else other than crystite you dont get it..

I like the idea of keeping it simple, however your presentation is beautiful. :)

Reading it made it sound as though Crystite-finders might be getting paid to much, and I agree with the fellow above that streamlining this could work. A lot of it isn't necessary for the function of creating incentive.

That being said, I personally think that assaying plots already has the right incentives. The only risk involved would be eliminated by this. Except of course there probably wont be much fees paid with such a small window and cut-off point.

Another thing, now EVERYONE is going to HAVE to go assay every plot they own and any other plot they can. It will became another routine similar to hunting the wampus that everyone will attempt to do during the excess of their time.