brass-and-sigil/docs/economy-system.md

Brass and Sigil — Economy & Quest System Design

Status: design draft (v0.1). Not yet implemented. Owner: matt Last updated: 2026-06-06

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1. Goals

• One unified currency — spurs (Numismatics).
• Multiple ways to earn, each one bounded. No infinite money printer.
• Multiple sinks that scale with progression. Money disappears as you advance, so wealth never dwarfs the cost of new ambitions.
• Spatial design that gives spawn personality. Themed guild buildings, each with a clear purpose, each tied to the same wallet.
• Forward-compat with a proper quest line via FTB Quests, while supporting daily/repeatable activities at spawn.
• Anti-automation by design, not by patches.

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2. Core architecture

            ┌────── MONEY IN (bounded) ──────┐
            │                                 │
   Adventurer's Guild   — Daily bounties (cooldowns, scaling)
   Merchant's Bazaar    — Sell shop (fixed + DR), dynamic exchange
   Mint                 — Capped emerald → spur conversion *
   First-time milestones — One-shot per player
   FTB Quests           — Progression milestone payouts
                  │
                  ▼
          ┌───────────────────┐
          │   Player wallet   │   ← Numismatics
          │     (spurs)       │
          └───────────────────┘
                  │
                  ▼
            ┌────── MONEY OUT (scaling) ──────┐
            │                                  │
   Civic Office         — Plot claim costs (FTB Chunks override)
   Civic Office         — Tier upgrades (FTB Ranks integration)
   Merchant's Bazaar    — Player-to-player job board (no minting)
   Villagers            — Re-priced trades, net sink
   Custom services      — Warps, sethomes, premium cosmetics

* Only if we keep emeralds; see §5 — we're moving villagers to spurs, which probably retires the Mint as a currency-conversion station and repurposes it as a wallet/info hub.

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3. Spawn — themed guild buildings

Each guild is a destination. The guild's NPC is both the entry point (accept work) and exit point (return to claim reward). This pattern applies universally — see §4.

Building	Purpose	Primary mechanics inside
Adventurer's Guild	Combat & exploration	Bounty board (daily mob hunts), boss-kill quests, dungeon-delve quests (future)
Merchant's Bazaar	Trade & raw-mat economy	Numismatics sell shop, dynamic exchange counter, player-driven job board
Civic Office	Land & status	Plot claim office, tier upgrades, sethome/warp services
Library / Academy	Knowledge & magic	FTB Quests anchor NPC, Ars Nouveau themed quests, lore terminals
Tavern	Social & onboarding	First-time newbie quests, casual NPCs, food/buff vendor
Foundry / Workshop	Crafting & commissions	Create-themed contracts, crafting orders, raw-material market
Mint	Currency information	Wallet info, currency tutorial, possibly emerald exchange

Forward-compat with a full quest line

The architecture is naturally dual-track:

• FTB Quests = the progression backbone — chapter-by-chapter pack content, one-time rewards, story arcs. The campaign.
• Spawn-building NPCs (Easy NPC + KubeJS) = the daily/repeatable layer — bounties, sell shops, services. The live activities.

Both pay into the same wallet. Players run the campaign at their pace and the daily content for income/replay value. They reinforce each other rather than compete.

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4. Quest & bounty flow (universal pattern)

Core principle: for any guild, the player accepts work from an NPC, completes it in the world, then returns to that NPC to turn it in and claim the reward. No instant payouts. This:

• Anchors guilds as destinations
• Creates risk/reward tension (die on the return, lose the reward)
• Encourages waypoint use and travel
• Lets the server centrally control payouts and detect cheating

State machine

Each quest, per player, lives in one of these states:

   AVAILABLE  ─[player accepts]─►  ACTIVE  ─[objective met]─►  READY  ─[turned in]─►  COMPLETED
       ▲                                                                                    │
       └──────────────────────[cooldown elapses]───────────────────────────────────────────┘

• AVAILABLE — NPC offers the quest in dialog. Player has no current copy of it.
• ACTIVE — Player accepted. KubeJS tracks objective progress via relevant events (EntityEvents.death for kills, ItemEvents.firstRightClicked for explorations, etc.).
• READY — Objective met. Reward is promised but not yet paid. NPC dialog now offers a turn-in option.
• COMPLETED — Reward paid out. Quest goes on cooldown for this player.
• AVAILABLE (again) — after the cooldown, the NPC will offer it again.

Worked example — daily bounty

1. Adventurer's Guild NPC has 5 randomized daily quests (e.g. "Slay 10 Plunderers — 50 spurs").
2. Player right-clicks NPC → Easy NPC dialog → "Accept: Slay 10 Plunderers."
3. KubeJS writes quest:plunderer_10 to the player's quest state with count: 0.
4. Player kills Plunderers in the world. EntityEvents.death for supplementaries:plunderer increments the count.
5. At count=10, KubeJS flips state to READY and notifies the player ("Return to the Adventurer's Guild to claim your reward.").
6. Player returns. Right-click NPC. Easy NPC dialog detects READY state and offers "Turn in: Slay 10 Plunderers."
7. KubeJS pays 50 spurs into the player's Numismatics wallet, flips state to COMPLETED, sets cooldown to 24h.

Universal applicability

The same accept → complete → return pattern works for every guild:

Guild	Accept	Complete	Return
Adventurer's	"Hunt 10 plunderers"	kill them	NPC pays bounty
Merchant's	"Procure 32 diamonds for our buyer"	gather them	NPC pays inflated price + completes
Civic	"Survey 5 unclaimed chunks"	walk through them	NPC pays survey fee
Library	"Recover this lost tome"	find the book in a structure	NPC pays + grants reputation
Foundry	"Craft 10 Andesite Casings"	craft them	NPC pays commission

KubeJS implementation sketch

• State storage: per-player JSON in world/data/bns_quests/<uuid>.json, written via KubeJS persistent-data hooks.
• Event tracking: standard KubeJS event handlers (EntityEvents.death, ItemEvents.pickedUp, BlockEvents.broken) read the player's active quests and increment.
• Dialog branching: Easy NPC dialog with conditions that call KubeJS to check quest state and route the dialog appropriately.
• Reward delivery: call Numismatics' wallet API to deposit spurs.

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5. Villager rebalance

Decision: move all villagers to spurs (not emeralds). Thematic consistency over preserving vanilla mental model.

Decision principles:

• Villagers are net money sinks — players spend more on villagers than they earn from them.
• Useful trades stay — enchanted books, tools, food, decorative blocks. Reasonable spur prices.
• Trash trades get deleted — no one ever wanted to sell rotten flesh or buy paper.
• Sell-to-villager trades exist but are bad — 64 wheat → 1 spur, 16 leather → 1 spur. Farms still possible, but ~10× slower than any other income source.

Price guidance (initial calibration — tune via playtesting)

Buy-from-villager (player pays spurs)

Item	Tier-1	Tier-3	Tier-5
Standard enchanted book (random)	50 spurs	120 spurs	250 spurs
Mending book	—	—	800 spurs
Diamond tool (unenchanted)	—	80 spurs	—
Diamond tool (enchanted)	—	—	350 spurs
Bookshelf	15 spurs	—	—

Sell-to-villager (player gets spurs)

Item	Spurs per unit
Wheat	1 per 64
Paper	1 per 32
Leather	1 per 16
Iron ingot	2 per 1
Diamond	8 per 1 (matches sell-shop fixed price — players use whichever is closer)

Scope

~60 trades × 5 profession tiers = ~300 trade entries to redesign. One-time data-design pass, implemented via ServerEvents.villagerTrades in KubeJS.

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6. Money inflow sources (detailed)

Source	Cap / DR mechanism	Rough rate
Daily bounties	Per-player per-quest cooldown (24h)	~200-500 spurs/day for an active player
Sell shop (fixed price + DR)	Lifetime sales tracker per player, 10% price drop per 64 sold	~50-200 spurs/hr while diamond stockpile lasts
Dynamic exchange	Global supply pool — price drops with sales	Self-balancing
First-time milestones	One-shot per player (hasFlag)	5-50 spurs per milestone, ~10 milestones total
FTB Quest progression	One-time per quest	Varies; cluster rewards at chapter completion
Villager sell trades	Inherently slow + bad prices	~50 spurs/hr from a serious villager farm

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7. Money outflow sinks (detailed)

Sink	Cost curve	Why this scales right
Plot claims	Free up to 9 chunks. 50 spurs/chunk to 25. 200 spurs/chunk beyond.	New players claim free starter areas; ambitious players pay real money
Tier upgrades	Cumulative cost: 500 → 2k → 8k → 30k spurs	Endgame sink, status display
Buy-from-villager	See §5	Constant outflow as you build up
Premium cosmetics	100-2k spurs each	Optional sink for cash-flush players
Services	Sethome: 50 spurs, warp: 25 spurs, /back: 10 spurs	Convenience taxes

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8. Mod stack (we have what we need)

Need	Mod	Status
Currency + wallets + shop blocks	Numismatics	✅ In pack
NPC quest-givers + dialog	Easy NPC	✅ In pack
Quest engine (progression)	FTB Quests	⏳ Planned, not added
Plot claims	FTB Chunks	✅ In pack
Tier system	FTB Ranks	❓ Not in pack — add when we get to tiers
Glue & quest state	KubeJS	✅ In pack

Not adding: CustomNPCs (Easy NPC covers it), Citizens (Bukkit-only), PMMO (out of scope), generic "quest giver" mods (FTB Quests + KubeJS do it).

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9. Phasing

Each phase is independently shippable. Earlier phases unlock value without depending on later ones.

Phase	Deliverable	Why this order
0	Spawn skeleton built — 7 guild buildings placed (rough).	Locations have to exist before NPCs can stand in them.
1	Merchant's Bazaar V1: Numismatics sell shop (fixed prices, no DR yet) for diamonds & netherite.	Cheapest to ship, immediate economy unlock.
2	Civic Office V1: Plot claim cost via KubeJS /ftbchunks claim override.	Real money sink. Tests FTB Chunks integration depth.
3	Adventurer's Guild V1: Bounty board engine. 5 daily quests, accept→complete→return flow.	The biggest gameplay feature. Validates the universal quest pattern.
4	Villager rebalance: strip vanilla, ship the spur-priced trade table.	Closes the exploit. Big JSON pass.
5	Library / Academy: FTB Quests anchor + first chapter of progression quests.	Long-form content begins.
6	Civic Office V2: FTB Ranks integration + tier upgrades.	Endgame money sink.
7	Dynamic exchange rates (Bazaar V2).	Most engineering, biggest anti-farm payoff, ship last.
8+	Foundry, Tavern, deeper Library quests, dungeons-with-Lootr.	Beyond V1.

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10. Risk register

Risk	Likelihood	Mitigation
Bounty engine bugs out, players lose progress	Medium	Atomic state writes; logs of every state transition
Villager farms still profitable after rebalance	Medium	Track player sell volumes; tune prices in patches
KubeJS-EasyNPC dialog branching has limits	Low-Med	Verify hooks in a test world before Phase 3; fall back to command-driven NPCs if needed
FTB Chunks /claim command override gotchas	Low	Test in dev world; FTB Chunks API is stable
Plot cost feels punishing	Med	First 9 chunks free is the safety valve; tune from playtest
Players bypass the system via creative / /give	Op-only	Document op responsibility; consider audit logs for op spur grants

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11. Open decisions

These need an actual call before implementation:

1. Keep emeralds as a secondary collectible? Or fully retire them now that villagers don't use them?
2. Sethomes / warps as paid services? Or free baseline?
3. PvP bounties (players posting bounties on other players)? Probably no for V1, revisit later.
4. Lootr — add for shared dungeon loot, or skip until structured dungeons exist?
5. Daily quest count — start with 5? 8? Refresh window — true daily (00:00 UTC) or per-player 24h?

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12. Implementation notes

• Document each phase's KubeJS scripts under pack/overrides/kubejs/server_scripts/economy/<phase>.js
• State data under world/data/bns_economy/ — readable JSON, easy to debug
• All NPC dialog trees authored in Easy NPC's editor, exported as preset JSONs into pack/overrides/world/datapacks/bns-fuel/data/easy_npc/
• Trade table for villager rebalance lives in a single villager_trades.js so one file is the source of truth

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See also

• MEMORY.md entries:
  • project-mc-player-economy.md — earlier higher-level notes on Numismatics + plot system
  • feedback-kubejs-rhino-gotchas.md — KubeJS scripting constraints
  • feedback-bns-pack-version-sync.md — pack version + sync workflow
• Existing tasks #20-#26 — to be reshuffled to mirror the phase plan above