It’s been difficult to find time to work on the game over the last 2 months, so there was not enough for an update until now - but I am finally at the point where I can give you an insight into the upcoming changes to trade and contracts.
So let me talk you through the changes so far, and what I was aiming for at each point: When the game first came out and was focused on quicker multiplayer matches, the point of trading was simple: sell anything you can to make as much coin as possible - and only spend coin to invest in getting more later. Importing of all goods was available at a higher price so if players really needed something, they could get it - but at a higher cost than producing it themselves.
With the switch to longer singleplayer/co-op style games, I also added material progression through the tiers - so players now needed to expand not because they could get more money from further ore nodes - but because the materials further inland allow for progression to higher tiers. This of course meant I had to limit imports. If a player could simply sit at the edge of the island and sell starting goods to import metal, it would completely break the progression I was envisioning at the time - though certain goods, such as ammo, could still be imported at a cost early on, and then produced more cheaply later.
Exporting was still based on the simple early multiplayer system: set a level above which to sell, and all goods are simply exported at the rate at which they are produced above that level. This was the easiest thing to do in a 1 hour quick match where you didn't want to think much about your production past setting it up - but frankly is a little too dull when it comes to the current game.
This is where I tried to bring in the current contract system to incentivise more interesting production goals and make the player more involved: contracts give an additional incentive to produce and sell a certain amount of goods in a certain timeframe, and players get to choose which contracts to accept. Unfortunately, from both your feedback and my own experience with it, it barely changed what people produced or how they built things - and instead just led to accepting of contracts that were basically fulfilled automatically, and rejection of those that wouldn't be.
So, with research now in the game, I am trying to make trade a little more involved and interesting, at least early on. Rather than being able to export everything continuously and import nothing, players will be offered multiple specific import and export contracts for limited amounts. If a player wants to make money early on, they will have to accept a specific contract for the export of e.g. 300 wood or fruit, and will only get a lump sum at the end of exporting it. There will be no time limit on the contract, and in the beginning, players will only be able to accept 3 contracts concurrently. Research will then allow expansion of how many contracts can be accepted, which goods may be requested by contracts, and what the limit is on how many goods may be requested.
This new approach should discourage people from simply setting up a generic early game economy and setting exports for everything above a certain point, as there will be a more limited amount of things that can be sold at the same time. Hopefully, this should encourage more thought about what contracts to accept or reject based on resources also available close-by, and guide development of the settlement accordingly.
I should hopefully have this done in about 2-3 weeks, at which point I will upload it to the experimental branch.
Until next time!