An interesting strategy.

I'm honestly not sure how it works.  Here's the segment from the Gameplay.constants file:

marketDef
sellPrice 2.0
buyPrice 4.0
priceIncreaseAtMaxShift 2.22
minTimeForMarketChange 10.0
maxTimeForMarketChange 30.0
minTimeToCrashOrBoom 2.0
maxTimeToCrashOrBoom 10.0
minLengthOfCrashOrBoom 20.0
maxLengthOfCrashOrBoom 200.0
normalMarketMinShift 0.2
normalMarketMaxShift 0.5
boomThresholdPerPlayer 400
crashThresholdPerPlayer -400
boomMinShift 0.8
crashMaxShift 0.2
netChangeForCrash -0.2
netChangeForBoom 0.3

Well that is the textbook answer, in fact the constant, endless gain of resource allows for a simplified version of a simulated large market to actually come into existence.  If you have smaller amounts of resources, like in starcraft, you have to design an entirely different game that would have a horribly unstable market(and therefore receive imbalanced use).  Also, in the real world it takes time to mine/refine resources(starcraft is a bit of a stretch in this area).  The sins market is a well simulated market for its purpose in the game, as market stability is the only way to keep a simulated "living market" from becoming out of control and speculator heavy.

This game isn't an in depth economics simulator, speculators are not as OP as they are in real life.

@ sinperium

good suggestion.

By adding in corporate entities within factions and neutral entities as well would go far making the game feel more dynamic for single player and multiplayer play.

Anything that increases the options and strategy.  Say you start with a strong neutral corp nearby that you want to use early diplomacy to gain a relatively strong military early game friend.  This would add a lot to the diplomacy aspect for multiplayer which could enhance the overall game play.  That being said, you could also invest in that neutral corporation's competitors so that they gain larger "solar market share" and start to weaken your opponents lucky early military advantage by reducing the economic viability of his asset.  In this way the economic player could change the power of the neutral entities nearby over time, and at a balanced cost.  In this way you could simulate a viable multiplayer and single player stock market that would also have military use as well(friendly neutral corporations would fight with you of course!).

Also, if they added a random function so that some corporations, no matter how much early game money you try to make them friendly won't ever become your friend(via having an insanely high "buyout"), that would add a lot to the oomf of strategy in the diplomacy arena.  An AI being able to "lie" to the player in short, to cheat the player out of credits.  These neutral corporations would have to be relatively worth it however.  Perhaps unique technologies via their unique corporate patents would be acquired as long as friendly status is retained.

@ pbhead

lol, you mean adding in sub-factional play and increasing the viability of multiplayer diplomacy options to increase the scope of strategy in the game discredits me how?  Its a good idea to think about.  perhaps someone will mod it.  after all look who i'm talking too.

Perhaps you could explain why adding in small sub factions named "corporations" wouldn't help the game play.  Having these would also make the eco spot have more ways to spend their money tactically.  Perhaps they could have more efficient unit costs and so feeding the corporate AI a few credits could actually ensure that they have a reasonably strong early game fleet, something that even a good player would have to contend with.

Yet another variable, even if its an AI.  I'm not talking about substantial investment, these would look at 200 credits and go, OMG, my AI brain says i could build 2 corvettes for that amount!.  So AI fleets would be large simple minded fleets that had a few more command options then a regular "dumb" ai opponent.

Having them as an efficient source of credit investment to assist in attrition battles.  In this way you would have a smaller fleet yourself, but your AI ally.  This gives you the player more options, especially if these friendly sub-factions have more control options then just the simple "attack here, defend here" options (say you could order the corporations to build LRF!, build corvettes! you wouldn't que them yourself...).  This would this would help the AI be less dumb to fleet composition.

The thing is, AI isn't terrible with attrition as long as its not costing you a ton of cash.  This addition would just add another level to the game, imo. 

Also, the sub factions need not necessarily be only AI.  Imagine what could happen if sins actually had sub empires within the grander empires that say your kid brother or your girlfriend could play?

Co - Op sins in one empire could be possible, without having to have say 6v6 games added to multiplayer.  These small factions would never be capable of having a lot of logistics slots to keep the game from minidumping.  Something to possibly look forward to in sins 2, imo.

So if you don't have a co-op friend playing with you, you would have an AI variant.  The sub-faction play could largely be limited to your sub faction friend, turning them for or against the main empire.  In this way the sub faction player could assist the main faction player by over time creating another possible power bloc.

the game would then have an entirely new level of play.

Personally, I would prefer this because my girlfriend would rather play with me and assist in my RTS domination.  This could also lure in new players into playing competative online matches by becoming someone's "second", and perhaps this second player could take over if the primary player minidumps!

actually the more i think about this idea the better it sounds.

Lol @

i can see where you have a point, i'm no programmer!

Its easier to discuss as an idea then to do, i see.  Man i can't wait for programmer efficiency technology increases to allow for that level of programmer production capability. 

This is why we need robot zombie programmers.  I whole slave class of them for 1)programmers to enjoy whipping while they massage their GOD complexes 2) to do all the really boring programming shit that needs to be done 3)who doesn't want to live in a world where a robot zombie programmer exists?

If you could design those, volt, and then sell them you would become uber rich!

Wait...someone trained sareth to work with nuclear materials!?

We're all doomed.