Economy Mods: Too much?

[Zydar]

I wanted to make money very valuable and hard tp earn. I picked up True Medieval Economy, Scarcity, Unique Loot, Trade Routes and Trade & Barter. Is it a good mix? Am I putting in too much? I mainly do this so I would be tempted to use the devious path of prostituion via Deviously Cursed Loot and Loansharks of Skyrim.

[Lodakai]

I would say maybe it is too much, personally.   You don't need 6 different mods to achieve 1 goal.

Trade and barter should suffice and maybe add some weight to your septims making them difficult to carry around in large quantities.

This would effectively make you earn your keep as you go while maintaining cash stashes along your various hideouts.

 

you can also use exchange currency to carry around bank notes if you need.  https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67504/?

 

If you have a pretty light load order, you can add some of the other ones if you like their features.  But the more simple you keep each method of accomplishing an effect on your game, the better it will be for your long term gameplay.

[Guest]

Lodakai's advice to be sparing with mods that cover similar ground is generally smart. But Trade and Barter alone will not achieve your aims imo. Let's assume there are 4 key  areas to cover in overhauling the economy sandbox.

 

1. money supply

2. loot availability

3. food availability 

4. general cost of living

 

1.Trade and Barter will handle money supply variability and bartering mechanics handsomely but it's the loot tables that are the ultimate source of your buying power to cost balance issues. 

 

2. So you need something like Scarcity and/or Morrowloot Ultimate to put the brakes on. Also, reward should be directly proportional to risk, MLU covers that well via encounter zones. If  you really want to be thorough you could also throw something like Gold Adjustments into the mix to ensure you're not up to your eyeballs in free lolly at every tiff and turn.

 

3. You could use iNeed or RND, and/or You Hunger. *

 

4. You have quite a few ways to achieve this, like  Perseid's Inns and Taverns, Carriage and Ferry Overhaul etc. 

 

You have some fun ways available to counterbalance all of this. Hunterborn for example, gives you a way to subsist off the land during the lean times, and Skytest can make hunting prey at least a little less trivial.

 

Overhauling the economy in this game to a reasonably satisfying level isn't a one stop shop sorta deal imo, it takes some effort to set up and get things balanced. But once it's done you won't ever want to play the old way again. You can take that to the bank. 

 

* edit: obviously a Needs mechanic isn't normally a critical aspect of Skyrim game play, but if one is attempting to create a more dynamic economic environment, resource drains are essential, and let's face it, food is utterly worthless in vanilla.

[Lodakai]

I would support w33beas1e's assessment.

 

It is a less lazy approach than I took =p

I've used all of those mods mentioned and they are all worth looking at, and pretty solid.

If you end up experiencing script lag,  disabling hunterborns time sink for skinning, butchering, preparing etc can help alleviate it. 

But you generally should be ok to at least try with it enabled.   Thus making time, also, a factor in consumable assets.

[gangstamick]

Since this is opinion, Trade and Barter is quick and dirty, You can make shop owners have as much capital as a hunter in the woods. As for a pulsating vibrant economy, buy a PS2 and get Star Ocean.

[Champis]

Yes, the super simplistic economic modelling beth uses for its games is problematic. Its not just skyrim, but all beth titles suffer from money-item inflation in a serious way.

 

I use

 

Trade&Barter - more or less default settings

Morrowloot Ultimate.

 

Still doesn't really cover it all, but between those two, definitely a big improvement. Another way to approach the 'economy'  problem in SKyrim, would be introduce more septum sinks. Problem is, the only real gold sinks in Skyrim, are trainers, and player homes, and TBH, you don't really require trainers services at all, so they end up being 'voluntary sinks'.  Even the gold sink homes fall short as they are a one-time only sink. After you buy them, they are 100% maintenance free.

 

One way to increase septum sinks would be to put unique items on vendors and make them super expensive. This is only a partial solution. Crafting tends to trivialize the money since you can make either vanilla or modded items dirt cheap by yourself, and ensuring, for all intents, an infinite supply of funds. Limited only by the game's modest built in limitations on merchant gold. 

 

What the game really lacks is gold sinks, ie taxes, or fees. Specially on homes. Skyrim basically has a 0% tax rate. Thus you can become the biggest single landholder in the entire province, and not pay a single septum on upkeep or taxes. Other absurdities abound.  Followers in your service work for free, fresh food is dirt cheap(but your character does need to actually consume food, so .....). In reality, fresh food in non-industrialized economies is actually fairly expensive. Armor, and weapons, again, zero upkeep cost and they never ever break or wear down-what a deal. Horses require again, zero upkeep. Endless examples.

 

I realize there is a tax mod or two around, but no has really produced an All-in-One economy overhaul mod that would tie everything together in a cohesive way. I would welcome a mod that did some solid research and looked at things like:

 

-What would a farmer's income be?

-What would a unskilled\skilled laborers expect to earn in a day.

-What would items actually be expected to cost? An apple,  a decent meal at an inn a shovel, armors, a bar of gold,  a manor house, a horse, and so on. All based on an actual model, and not just what some Dev thought, 'sounds about right'.

-Realistic property values-along with ongoing upkeep costs.

-Taxes (yeah hate em, but those walls and battlements. and guards don't pay for themselves)

 

Probably safe to say, between crafting on the one hand, and serious lack of well-conceived money sinks on the other, that those are the two biggest culprits.

[Lodakai]

Well if you really want another gold sink.   Follower live package has the option to set a salary for followers based on level.  This includes followers not following you but considered in your army.   You can set the days or day that you want the salary to kick in.  

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33002/?

 

There are patches that make it work with EFF, AFT and UFO

[Slorm]

I normally use Trade and Barter and Taxes of the Nine Holds. For T&B I set selling at -50% and purchase at +50%. For taxes I set each hold level depending on whether I'm a Thane, Homeowner or Peasant.

 

It's fairly simplistic but it works, particularly as I tend to keep my characters at a fairly low level (10 - 30)

[Champis]

Another problem I identified, is the speech tree , or at least parts of it, along with the discount items. IE TG hood etc. The buy sell discounts are way too high. While it is certainly credible to offer skill increases to get better prices, vanillas are far too generous.  Those seriously distort the economics in game, especially when paired with crafting, along with the other factors as well.

 

I was considering making up a mod that reduces the scaling of

>Haggling

>Allure

perks, to  more modest , and realistic levels than vanilla.  At the same time, I would reduce the % on the various pieces of gear that  provide similar merchant buy sell redux as well.

 

I realize few people actually invest in the upper tiers of haggling, because all you really need is rank 1 or 2 + allure, + freebie gear. There is no payoff to having say, haggling 5/5. The fact you need to invest so little to get such a big payoff, indicates a problem right there.  Rescaling those values would go some ways to address at least that aspect of the problem.

 

 

 

 

[Rayvan27]

I use Skytweaks and use the death alternate gold feature. That can drain your money.

[ther1pper]

I'm struggling to find a way to lose money at all. Seriously, i feel like i need to make a potion in the ck that costs 10000-90000 gold each just to properly lose money again.....actually i got a potion(s) for that, i just don't know how to make a merchant.

[Varithina]

I'm struggling to find a way to lose money at all. Seriously, i feel like i need to make a potion in the ck that costs 10000-90000 gold each just to properly lose money again.....actually i got a potion(s) for that, i just don't know how to make a merchant.

 

The problem with most games is that if played properly there is very little need to actually spend money, need some new armour/weapons well there is a bandit camp down the road, what they have will do.

 

Same goes with food unless there is outside interference there is little reason for food not to be pretty common, by outside I mean famine/flood or other such thing affecting food being grown or simply nobles or such simply taking it all to keep those growing it from challenging them or getting uppity as the case may be.  And while skyrim may be a cold and snowy, it would be expected that there agriculture and such will take that into account, to be honest the plains around whiterun do not have as many farms as you would expect to have in that area, as it pretty much seems to be the crop growing area of the province, with the coasts providing fish, and the rest goats/cattle and chickens and such.

 

As you level up it become something you will spend even less as for the most part anything you can buy, you can either craft or simply take from the corpse of your enemies, enchanted weapons and armour are a bit more of a hmm, sort of thing you may find it or craft it but even buying it for the most part will not cost you that much.

 

If you are playing a mage then spending money is a bit easier as the spells and soul gems are a good outgoing expense, potions can be as well as keeping the supply you need/want up can be expensive especially if you buy them all.

 

And with skyrim being in effect a state of civil war things are skewed even more,

[ther1pper]

 

I'm struggling to find a way to lose money at all. Seriously, i feel like i need to make a potion in the ck that costs 10000-90000 gold each just to properly lose money again.....actually i got a potion(s) for that, i just don't know how to make a merchant.

 

The problem with most games is that if played properly there is very little need to actually spend money, need some new armour/weapons well there is a bandit camp down the road, what they have will do.

 

Same goes with food unless there is outside interference there is little reason for food not to be pretty common, by outside I mean famine/flood or other such thing affecting food being grown or simply nobles or such simply taking it all to keep those growing it from challenging them or getting uppity as the case may be.  And while skyrim may be a cold and snowy, it would be expected that there agriculture and such will take that into account, to be honest the plains around whiterun do not have as many farms as you would expect to have in that area, as it pretty much seems to be the crop growing area of the province, with the coasts providing fish, and the rest goats/cattle and chickens and such.

 

As you level up it become something you will spend even less as for the most part anything you can buy, you can either craft or simply take from the corpse of your enemies, enchanted weapons and armour are a bit more of a hmm, sort of thing you may find it or craft it but even buying it for the most part will not cost you that much.

 

If you are playing a mage then spending money is a bit easier as the spells and soul gems are a good outgoing expense, potions can be as well as keeping the supply you need/want up can be expensive especially if you buy them all.

 

And with skyrim being in effect a state of civil war things are skewed even more,

 

 

Fuck, i play as a hunter mainly so getting food is easy, selling pelts makes money. And armor......well, if you look at my main character you can see i don't use it. i use it on my guy character and other warrior. Yeah you'd think the nords would make more farms, hunting seems really easy with the amount of game in the plains all the time. There are what.....4 farms in range of whiterun and about 6 in total if we include roikstead in the whiterun hold.

 

I think its the selling of armor that gets you the most money. Hell once you've mastered blacksmithing, enchanting, and alchemy you don't need anything from anyone.

 

I think i am gonna make a merchant for the potions i made, i made 7 different cheat level potions that temporarly boost enchanting, smithing, and alchemy. I use them a lot so might as well make use them to force myself to spend money too.

 

 

 

I'm struggling to find a way to lose money at all. Seriously, i feel like i need to make a potion in the ck that costs 10000-90000 gold each just to properly lose money again.....actually i got a potion(s) for that, i just don't know how to make a merchant.

 

The problem with most games is that if played properly there is very little need to actually spend money, need some new armour/weapons well there is a bandit camp down the road, what they have will do.

 

Same goes with food unless there is outside interference there is little reason for food not to be pretty common, by outside I mean famine/flood or other such thing affecting food being grown or simply nobles or such simply taking it all to keep those growing it from challenging them or getting uppity as the case may be.  And while skyrim may be a cold and snowy, it would be expected that there agriculture and such will take that into account, to be honest the plains around whiterun do not have as many farms as you would expect to have in that area, as it pretty much seems to be the crop growing area of the province, with the coasts providing fish, and the rest goats/cattle and chickens and such.

 

As you level up it become something you will spend even less as for the most part anything you can buy, you can either craft or simply take from the corpse of your enemies, enchanted weapons and armour are a bit more of a hmm, sort of thing you may find it or craft it but even buying it for the most part will not cost you that much.

 

If you are playing a mage then spending money is a bit easier as the spells and soul gems are a good outgoing expense, potions can be as well as keeping the supply you need/want up can be expensive especially if you buy them all.

 

And with skyrim being in effect a state of civil war things are skewed even more,

 

 

Fuck, i play as a hunter mainly so getting food is easy, selling pelts makes money. And armor......well, if you look at my main character you can see i don't use it. i use it on my guy character and other warrior. Yeah you'd think the nords would make more farms, hunting seems really easy with the amount of game in the plains all the time. There are what.....4 farms in range of whiterun and about 6 in total if we include roikstead in the whiterun hold.

 

I think its the selling of armor that gets you the most money. Hell once you've mastered blacksmithing, enchanting, and alchemy you don't need anything from anyone.

 

I think i am gonna make a merchant for the potions i made, i made 7 different cheat level potions that temporarly boost enchanting, smithing, and alchemy. I use them a lot so might as well make use them to force myself to spend money too.

 

 

[Lodakai]

I guess you could also use something like deadly diseases... and use Sexlab util to give a high chance of disease per encounter...

then just jack up cure potion prices =p

 

There are really a TON of ways to create money sinks.  I don't know why you all have such trouble with it.  

 

- Daily follower salaries.

- armor breakage mods requiring frequent repairs.

- taxes

- use SLutil to have your lover sneak money from your pockets whenever you make love.

- give gold a weight of 1.00  =p  forcing you to drop money.

 

probably hundreds more but then this would be a wall of text.  Why is this an issue?