Economy and cargo: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 23:56, 17 October 2026

Economy and cargo connects a player's cash, the goods carried by ships, and the stock and finances of planets. These are related but separate resources: transferring up an item is not the same as buying it, and cash earned by a colony does not automatically appear in its owner's account. Prices, item weights, and many production settings are configurable by the sysop; the figures on this wiki describe the distributed settings unless otherwise stated.

Where value is kept

Resource	Where it is kept	Principal use
Player cash	User account	Buys goods, ships, equipment, and services. It is not cargo and does not consume hold space.
Ship cargo	Individual ship	Carries weapons, supplies, people, and gold. Each item occupies its configured weight and may be lost when that ship is destroyed.
Planetary stock	Individual planet	Holds goods that may be produced, reserved, sold to visitors, or transferred under the applicable access rules.
Planetary cash and tax	Individual planet	Trade receipts and converted gold fund the planetary bank; tax is a separate owner-accessible balance. Neither is automatically the player's cash.

Gold is the bridge between physical cargo and money. A player can carry or sell it, and an owned planet converts gold already in its inventory into planetary cash during a production update. Gold produced on that same update normally waits until a later update for conversion. See Gold, Cash, and Taxes.

Cargo and capacity

Ships carry fourteen item types whose configured weights count against the ship class's cargo capacity. Cargo is distinct from installed equipment: a ship can transport missiles without a launcher or carry fighters the ability to attack planets with them. For fractional weights, capacity checks, inventory reports, and how carried quantities change, see Ship inventory. Ship class configuration explains which equipment a class can use.

Production and planetary wealth

A colony assigns its population's work among reproduction, food, gold, and other goods. Production depends on its environment, resources, population, cash, and the owner's choices. Its inventory and maximum stock are not unlimited. A positive planetary bank supports higher production and stock limits; high taxes can raise revenue but lower productivity and increase revolt risk. See Planetary production, Colonizing planets, and Taxes.

A planet can gain cash when a ship buys its goods or when stored gold is converted during a production update. An owner can manage the planet's tax and trade settings through Planet administration, but its cash and stock remain planetary resources until an allowed game action moves value elsewhere. Selling goods to visiting ships, mining gold, and collecting tax are different ways to build wealth, each with different labor, transport, and risk costs.

Trade and transfers

Buying requires a valid orbit, available stock, the appropriate access or trade password, enough player cash, and enough cargo room. An ordinary owned planet can sell selected stock to a visitor; that purchase moves goods from the planet to the ship and pays money into the planetary bank. The owner can set sale prices and reserves. Zygor is the special neutral-zone market for buying supplies, purchasing ships and equipment, selling ship cargo, and requesting maintenance. Ships can SELL cargo to Zygor, not to an arbitrary player-owned planet. See Planet administration, Buy command, Sell command, and New command.

A transfer is different from a purchase: it moves an item between a ship and an orbiting planet without using the ordinary sale transaction. Ownership and the TRANSOPT setting determine when an upward withdrawal or downward deposit is allowed. In classic GE, transfers require a numeric quantity; ge-next adds shorthand directions and ALL/MAX forms.

Combat and loss

A destroyed ship loses its cargo, although a credited attacker may recover some of it if there is room aboard the winning ship. ge-next prioritizes recoverable gold before taking random portions of other eligible items. The player's account and any other persistent ships are separate from the vessel that was lost. See Combat, Kill credit, and Gold.

The ge-arena Hoard mode treats onboard gold as the match score. Arena ships and their planetary supplies are match-local rather than part of standard ge-next's persistent economy. Other arena modes use different scoring resources; see ge-arena.

Numeric limits

Classic stores many cash and item counters as unsigned 32-bit values. A calculation can nevertheless overflow before the final value is checked, and displayed signed values can be misleading. Classic's cargo-weight multiplication is one example. ge-next tightened capacity and transaction calculations without changing the basic distinction among player cash, ship cargo, and planetary resources. See Classic bug: Cargo weight overflow and Classic bug: Cash and counter wraparound.