The logistics of Atlas, travelling times, trade and cargo npc ships

[Darien 14]

One of the major issues of Atlas right now is the grindy nature of its logistics, given the large travelling times to collect rare resources or do high quality maps/hydras and/or the difficulty of doing any trade that is not 1 for 1 (eg 20k copper for 20k cobalt).  This post is written with the intention to provide some feedback on the grindy aspects of the game, taking into consideration that any open world pvp focused game's lategame should not focus on grinding out bazillions of resources and waste hours transporting around the map, but be able to give reasons for players that cannot commit 4 hours a day, to be able and do PVP that will actually can be rewarding and fun. The fact, after all , that easy access on PVP action, along with content that promotes replayability is the reason  why other type of games, like MOBAs and battle royales dominate the playerbase. Lastly, I believe that the developers of ATLAS, given the roadmap they have created, are actually understanding most of the problematic core features of their game.

1)Production
Make late game tools yield more resources. Provide late game  buildings(mines, lumberyards) that provide boost/generate resources if they have the necessary nodes close by. Make them maybe a gold sink by having npcs work on this buildings. Have animals automatically harvest resources as an animal option.

2)Logistics
This is another major issue, right now, given the travelling times with the ships/land, it is kinda tidious to travel resources between place A to place B in the same Island. Although there are some ways and/or exploits to make it a bit faster, like using ziplines way overburdened or make cargo convoys with tames. The same issue exists with transporting between islands.

The best way to overcome those obstacles is to automate the way transport is being made. Make cargo convoys or rails  that can be looted/intercepted. Make trading ship npcs that do not get aggroed by SoDs but they can be sunk/boarded or looted. Lastly, make sailing faster. Implement them as late game quest rewards.

3)Trade
In game economies are always hard to get right. The reason is that, unlike the real world economy, it is hard for gold coins to act as a monetary equivalent between different item values. How much exactly does a unit of cobalt costs compared to to a unit of iridium? How much does a silver ingot (which is harder to make taking into consideration that it needs keratinoid and gems) costs compared to a cobalt ingot? And even worse, how much does a lightwood cost compared to rubies or bamboo? According to value theory, what sets values apart, is the time it takes to find and craft the resulting commodity.

Another problem is when the game overfloods with money. The main way to balance it is keep overall gold rising slowly, in order not to create inflation in the markets and gold to have a meaning. This can be done with creating sufficient coin sinks.

For the trade itself,  make the freeports the hot trading spots. Create a prebuilt building that companies can assign as their preferred Trading Port. Make it easy to access the trading menu and have good delivered in that trading port after a timer. It should not take more than 5 hours  for even the furthest route to be delivered to the destination. Make maps also tradeable that way.