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aftulus
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Now that they are removing all cross faction boxes and we need to buy expensive ships to get the nice stuff. What about some active play styles to make money.
Base idea:
1. Add cargo/compressed cargo bays. This is a new tab between R%D and cargo. This cargo takes stacks of 9999 and turns them into single cargo items with the old stack values of 15/20/etc. These items are worth the value of 9999xnormal cost of items.
2. Add means to buy and sell this new cargo at a gain or loss of up to 5 ec per item.
Then you can control cargo values by how much you can manage to haul.
If you had the same cargo size as R%D that is 100 slots. That maxes out to 100 million per run.
20x100x9999x5 = 9.999e7 ec.
Max normal cargo equals:
336x9999x5 = 1.67932e7 ec.
This is a max of 116.78... million ec per run max. The condensed cargo can be reduced down to fit game balance needs.
But another method and possible one to go with this is to have the ability for combat to reduce items stored in the compressed cargo. Trading would involved some sort of forced trade route following to get to location with the special sell values. And along the way you have to fight npcs or possible PC's. The combat could destroy cargo along the way or reduce it's value by changing it's quality. This could reduce the end result from 5-1 possibly to 0 gain or less. maybe even down to -5 credits per item.
Then the focus to get juicy trade ec it to do cargo runs where combat/qaulity matter to maximize profits. Risk/rewards. You spend a bunch of money to haul and enemies try to attack you to reduce the value and/or take your cargo.
the combat could involve a mix of combat hits that jar the cargo. And some skills/events that make you drop small ammount of cargo. Sort of like pirates in elite dangerous. It could be balance to fit the needs of STO.
Not sure on the numbers, but a lot could be done to possibly make this work. Think of all the NPC traders we help in missions. There could be hazards and combat and whatever else makes sense. And various forms of trade lanes. Either made by local laws or by actual hazards or combinations of different risk/reward. Lower difficulties could warrant lower rewards but safer trade. Harder mission could loose fortunes, but make vast ones if successful and capable. This could, if balanced end with PVP version with player helping cargo and trying to take/destroy it on the upper end. Lower end could be pure PVE for safer routes.
And to remove the normal cargo, only items condensed get the special cargo prices. and they can only be condensed at location before entering trade lanes gameplay. This means only the cargo stuff can make you money to simplify it. Unless some rare item gives you the chance to do it yourself. This could be RP handed with laws or some practical restriction to normal compression methods etc.
Example:
Level 1 difficulty Max profits.
100x9999x1 = 1.9998e7
This can be reduce by combat but the mission would have lower risk and less reward.
Various cargo could be attached to different qaulity values and hence different difficulties. Say 1-2 or 3-5 etc. Or max qaulity does only level 5 lanes with PVP.
On top of this certain cargo could have different stacks. If 20 is the highest stack max qaulity/difficulty coudl be for 20 stack cargoes. Others could be from 5-20 at intervals of 5 or whatever used to be common. Or some could be higher stack of 25 or more but at lower risk lanes.
Examples:
25x9999x100x1 = 25 million per difficulty level. But with only lv 1 difficulty. This could be higher profit but lower risk but of rarer quality to get.
15x9999x100x1 = 15 million per difficulty level. But only up to level 2.
The main point is that the difficulty dictates the likeliyhood of lowering qaulity via hazards and combat along the way to the sale point. So this is only the maximum qaulity in a perfect run.
The downside of lower risk is that you also have less to fall back on potentially. But it may take less of ship to do it safely or with minimal loss. This could be balanced in the game separate from other gameplay depending on how it's implemented to stop runnaway EC gains. Or just allowed to max out if desired to create fluency in the market as time goes on.
The items sold could be the existing items like industrial energy cells. Or other items that can be bought in mass if desired. But this lets you load them up and try to sell them for a profit. Not sure how to fit it in with current items with heavy sales. Maybe some items are restricted. Or if it has a heavy sale option in the game it's for very risky sales on average and has a high chance to loose value or gain negative value on the way.
BTW, negative value means the chance to loose up to 100 million on max mission also.
things like insurance could be added as parts of runs when you compress cargo down to help mitigate the losses. Lets say all values count as +1 quality at the end of the run. But never over the max. This means if you get an average of 0 profit you can still make a +1 profit but at the cost of insurance figured in also. Or it can lower negative profit loss a little.
Insurances could cover both or either cargo value loss or cargo loss itself. You might have to pick the best insurance policy for the run you are doing and know which one is best for that run/cargo item(s) to reduce profits without the insurance taking up to much cost.
Insurance could also cover pay for pilots helping secure your route. If you make it they make max profit. Say a max mission does 100 million max profit. The pay could insure they make 10% per pilot of the end result. This means the better they do the more they make. Up to 10 million per run. This could be group trade lanes with PVE or PVP. PVP could be the highest difficulty, or have extra rewards at the end on top if PVE should be the main max reward. Depends on how it's implemented.
Obviously PVE would be easier to balance. So, it might be better if it's the main focus with the current game. Unless I'm missing something. I would pleasently suprised if it's possible. The downside of PVP would be people working both sides to secure maximum profits. So, it might be best to do all PVE and have the higher end be focused on increasing profits. It could basically use the current TFO functions to get players to help. Maybe the highest end could be in the form of elite TFO content. And the medium to low could be part of random TFO's. It might help add to quicker mission depending on how hard they are compared to normal TFO's. The elite content with full 100 million profit chances are left to highly specialized and coordinated groups. And medium to lower content full of random groups if desired.
Fleet content could also go to 10 player options and have it split evenly. Maybe even with bonuses to the fleet. 100 million with an even split of max 10 million ec per player and the objective is to get the items to your own fleet or another fleet to supply them. They could be fleet contracts. Then the fleet get items and the players get ec.
Formats could be different per lane/location. And different lanes have control over what can be traded to make it easy to balance etc.
Or to simplify it more, the cargo could be bought in special cargo format that is not condensed from normal items but cost a different amount or is given in a quest. Just realized that to fill up on a 150ec item could cost 3 billion credits. So, the items could need to be either sold or given at a lower cost and you are the delivery man. Or the game would need to expand the credit limits. But there should still be solutions. Just make the cargo items bought in a condensed cargo form and only fit in the special cargo bay itself. Some missions would give cargo and let you keep the profit(unless you deliver it in a bad form) and others make you buy them. These items would only be usable for trade purposes and not for other things in the game. Or the cost could be heavily reduces from bulk sales. Either way a reduced buy price would make it easier to balance as it's not attached to existing items. Potentially at a cost of 1-5 per items per stack or less. The details could be easy to work out.
A box of 20 5 credit items is worth 999,900 credits. that is 50,000 per item. If you drop sales price to 50% or lower you can use that to adjust the risk/reward system. At it's simplest high risk could have the best reduction in cost(up to 90% reduction or 75% to fit mudd's market.). While lower risk has only 50% sale cost. This could have lots of variation though.
You could also allow the use of gpl to buy goods. Then you could win gpl with ec and make ec with gpl.
Base idea:
1. Add cargo/compressed cargo bays. This is a new tab between R%D and cargo. This cargo takes stacks of 9999 and turns them into single cargo items with the old stack values of 15/20/etc. These items are worth the value of 9999xnormal cost of items.
2. Add means to buy and sell this new cargo at a gain or loss of up to 5 ec per item.
Then you can control cargo values by how much you can manage to haul.
If you had the same cargo size as R%D that is 100 slots. That maxes out to 100 million per run.
20x100x9999x5 = 9.999e7 ec.
Max normal cargo equals:
336x9999x5 = 1.67932e7 ec.
This is a max of 116.78... million ec per run max. The condensed cargo can be reduced down to fit game balance needs.
But another method and possible one to go with this is to have the ability for combat to reduce items stored in the compressed cargo. Trading would involved some sort of forced trade route following to get to location with the special sell values. And along the way you have to fight npcs or possible PC's. The combat could destroy cargo along the way or reduce it's value by changing it's quality. This could reduce the end result from 5-1 possibly to 0 gain or less. maybe even down to -5 credits per item.
Then the focus to get juicy trade ec it to do cargo runs where combat/qaulity matter to maximize profits. Risk/rewards. You spend a bunch of money to haul and enemies try to attack you to reduce the value and/or take your cargo.
the combat could involve a mix of combat hits that jar the cargo. And some skills/events that make you drop small ammount of cargo. Sort of like pirates in elite dangerous. It could be balance to fit the needs of STO.
Not sure on the numbers, but a lot could be done to possibly make this work. Think of all the NPC traders we help in missions. There could be hazards and combat and whatever else makes sense. And various forms of trade lanes. Either made by local laws or by actual hazards or combinations of different risk/reward. Lower difficulties could warrant lower rewards but safer trade. Harder mission could loose fortunes, but make vast ones if successful and capable. This could, if balanced end with PVP version with player helping cargo and trying to take/destroy it on the upper end. Lower end could be pure PVE for safer routes.
And to remove the normal cargo, only items condensed get the special cargo prices. and they can only be condensed at location before entering trade lanes gameplay. This means only the cargo stuff can make you money to simplify it. Unless some rare item gives you the chance to do it yourself. This could be RP handed with laws or some practical restriction to normal compression methods etc.
Example:
Level 1 difficulty Max profits.
100x9999x1 = 1.9998e7
This can be reduce by combat but the mission would have lower risk and less reward.
Various cargo could be attached to different qaulity values and hence different difficulties. Say 1-2 or 3-5 etc. Or max qaulity does only level 5 lanes with PVP.
On top of this certain cargo could have different stacks. If 20 is the highest stack max qaulity/difficulty coudl be for 20 stack cargoes. Others could be from 5-20 at intervals of 5 or whatever used to be common. Or some could be higher stack of 25 or more but at lower risk lanes.
Examples:
25x9999x100x1 = 25 million per difficulty level. But with only lv 1 difficulty. This could be higher profit but lower risk but of rarer quality to get.
15x9999x100x1 = 15 million per difficulty level. But only up to level 2.
The main point is that the difficulty dictates the likeliyhood of lowering qaulity via hazards and combat along the way to the sale point. So this is only the maximum qaulity in a perfect run.
The downside of lower risk is that you also have less to fall back on potentially. But it may take less of ship to do it safely or with minimal loss. This could be balanced in the game separate from other gameplay depending on how it's implemented to stop runnaway EC gains. Or just allowed to max out if desired to create fluency in the market as time goes on.
The items sold could be the existing items like industrial energy cells. Or other items that can be bought in mass if desired. But this lets you load them up and try to sell them for a profit. Not sure how to fit it in with current items with heavy sales. Maybe some items are restricted. Or if it has a heavy sale option in the game it's for very risky sales on average and has a high chance to loose value or gain negative value on the way.
BTW, negative value means the chance to loose up to 100 million on max mission also.
things like insurance could be added as parts of runs when you compress cargo down to help mitigate the losses. Lets say all values count as +1 quality at the end of the run. But never over the max. This means if you get an average of 0 profit you can still make a +1 profit but at the cost of insurance figured in also. Or it can lower negative profit loss a little.
Insurances could cover both or either cargo value loss or cargo loss itself. You might have to pick the best insurance policy for the run you are doing and know which one is best for that run/cargo item(s) to reduce profits without the insurance taking up to much cost.
Insurance could also cover pay for pilots helping secure your route. If you make it they make max profit. Say a max mission does 100 million max profit. The pay could insure they make 10% per pilot of the end result. This means the better they do the more they make. Up to 10 million per run. This could be group trade lanes with PVE or PVP. PVP could be the highest difficulty, or have extra rewards at the end on top if PVE should be the main max reward. Depends on how it's implemented.
Obviously PVE would be easier to balance. So, it might be better if it's the main focus with the current game. Unless I'm missing something. I would pleasently suprised if it's possible. The downside of PVP would be people working both sides to secure maximum profits. So, it might be best to do all PVE and have the higher end be focused on increasing profits. It could basically use the current TFO functions to get players to help. Maybe the highest end could be in the form of elite TFO content. And the medium to low could be part of random TFO's. It might help add to quicker mission depending on how hard they are compared to normal TFO's. The elite content with full 100 million profit chances are left to highly specialized and coordinated groups. And medium to lower content full of random groups if desired.
Fleet content could also go to 10 player options and have it split evenly. Maybe even with bonuses to the fleet. 100 million with an even split of max 10 million ec per player and the objective is to get the items to your own fleet or another fleet to supply them. They could be fleet contracts. Then the fleet get items and the players get ec.
Formats could be different per lane/location. And different lanes have control over what can be traded to make it easy to balance etc.
Or to simplify it more, the cargo could be bought in special cargo format that is not condensed from normal items but cost a different amount or is given in a quest. Just realized that to fill up on a 150ec item could cost 3 billion credits. So, the items could need to be either sold or given at a lower cost and you are the delivery man. Or the game would need to expand the credit limits. But there should still be solutions. Just make the cargo items bought in a condensed cargo form and only fit in the special cargo bay itself. Some missions would give cargo and let you keep the profit(unless you deliver it in a bad form) and others make you buy them. These items would only be usable for trade purposes and not for other things in the game. Or the cost could be heavily reduces from bulk sales. Either way a reduced buy price would make it easier to balance as it's not attached to existing items. Potentially at a cost of 1-5 per items per stack or less. The details could be easy to work out.
A box of 20 5 credit items is worth 999,900 credits. that is 50,000 per item. If you drop sales price to 50% or lower you can use that to adjust the risk/reward system. At it's simplest high risk could have the best reduction in cost(up to 90% reduction or 75% to fit mudd's market.). While lower risk has only 50% sale cost. This could have lots of variation though.
You could also allow the use of gpl to buy goods. Then you could win gpl with ec and make ec with gpl.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
Seriously though, as with a lot of ideas on the forum.. sorry, but it's just not feasible. Cryptic is never going to be able to find the time to design and implement a system like this, even considering the fact that they save time by skipping any and all testing.
What this system would do is turn this game into Elite Dangerous - Star Trek Edition, I don't think it's a bad idea (I play Elite and I do trading all the time) it just doesn't really fit with STO's game play style and frankly.. it's too much work for a studio that's already overwhelmed just trying to do simple things.
I will give you credit on a well though out and explained idea. Again, it's not a bad idea, it just doesn't seem realistic for this game. If you haven't tried Elite Dangerous, you might want to give that a shot since it has a trade system that is almost exactly what you are suggesting minus the cargo compression idea.
Just my opinion.
Minaturising cargo does not exist in Star Trek for a start; the only known instances of this happening are freak accidents. In fact the closest you get in Star Trek is the replicator stores, which are the chemicals that are required to make items in the replicators, but it still doesn't 'compress' anything. Even in DSC, they don't do it, bar the 'programmable matter' instances.
If you want to make EC, farm patrols like Kinjer or any other that continually spawns alot of NPC's. It's less hassle, and less exhausting.
Base max gain is based on a system of +5 to -5 or 0 gain(this is max potential for the entire system not per map. some maps would only do +2 or +1 potential profit.). Different values can be used to represent different circumstances in the game for different locations. Kind of like an economic story of sorts. The base cost to buy the items is also a factor and can vary to make a map more risky.
The actual profits are controlled by combat realties and hazards etc.
Two basic types of loss can exist minimum. More can exist if needed. I just can't think or more.
One loss is qaulity decay. Your +5 cargo becomes +4 cargo. This looses profit margins.
The other is loss or actual cargo. This is total loss and is potentially more as you can't even sell to ragain partial money back. This can be controlled simply with potential from mechanisms per map.
It would not be a true open system. Each map location would have a buy point and a sell point. What can and can't be done could be tightly controlled. Possibly only buying in the instant at the start then warping to the next location. Each item represents potentials. Based on your capabilities you will likely be able to make it or not make it with certain gain at the other end based on ship loadouts or other more controlled parameters. It can be as complex or simple as you like it.
Existing maps can be used, because location reuse makes sense at a location.
Bajor or similar needs resources. they ask you to buy x resource and deliver it. qaulity matters. You need to deliver so many resource above a certain qaulity. You get to the other end and either don't get a bonus or have to warp back to the start and repeat until you deliver enough. You need to do so before costing more than it's worth etc. If you overstep you loose currency. Or simpler designs can be implemented to just be a gain over time. There are simple and complex ways to do this. Each map can be different. So, they could make each location different to lower hassle. So most are time gated options that slow down profits the simple way based on how long the mission takes. A few select ones can be more complicated and balanced over time based on gear etc. Variety can be key to this.
the other range is the items buy/sell price. Only max difficutly/rare items would give out +5 proffits for a potential of 100 million. This could be done selectively for certain missions. Say a 10 man fleet mission where each player gets 10% of the profits at the end.
Normal low end missions give out 1-2 proffit per items. This means 10-20 million for a run or less.
A box representing 9999 items is then like an HP bar. You have a stack of 20 items. Each having HP of 9999 per box. This can be added up. so, a 20 hp item can have 199980 hp. This can be controlled with special buy items in each map. Items can only be sold on that map. Or leaving the map implies you blew up loosing all cargo to simplify it more. Only insurance could save you at that point. Unless there is an easy way to tie the cargo to that map. You could retreat and restart somehow if it can be implemented easily.
Other mechanism can be added to help save cargo. Or special skill from special ships like now. we could have trade oriented cargo space traits and gear. If desired. This could reduce quality loss from combat.
HP represents two things. Max hp and actual HP is qaulity.
9999/9999. Qaulity lowers the current hp. Cargo theft is loss of max hp.
If you loose max hp it also takes off quality points. So any max hp loss also takes off current hp for double damage to your profits.
as much as this sounds liken sounds like, it's a potentially very simple system. It depends which way you choose to make it. This can vary per map.
combat on these maps can dish out both ship HP and cargo HP. so getting hit reduces both types. Special NPC's on these maps can be given different values for those instances to balance easily. so, can hazzards.
FYI, to lower max potential sales most maps would only have lower quality items to transport Or lower profit margins from the end delivery side. You start at x location. It turns into a mission instance. You buy items. You transport to the next map location. You go through combat runs(lowering qaulity from damage) until it lets you sell the item or go to the final location to sell the items depending on the map design. rinse repeat. Time gating and other logic like combat difficulty dictate end results along with some variation of equipment etc. This sort of design can be easily made to tightly control end results if needed.
Maps can have special circumstances like no cloaking for various RP reasons if this is unbalanced for instance. A numbers of mechanisms can be simply implemented to balance the maps.
It doesn't have to be matter compressed. It can just be space compressed by putting it a more efficient cargo container. Like a cargo container. It just represents ready cargo. Like a special area of the ship make for transported goods, but with a convenient systems. The rp side of how it works doesn't matter. Although it could have a rare matter compression items for a special ship that increased the stacks to more than 9999 hp per box for more profit.
Also different ships can have different cargo capacity. The largest ships can have 100 cargo slots. The smallest can have 20. It's just a special cargo tab like R%D to simplify the system down.
Mission example:
Bajor needs medical supplies(comes in stacks of 20x9999). They want a max of 8 million. This is 40 stacks. You have a small ship with a cargo of 20 stacks. They only accept a quality per box of level 3. That means 60% hp or more per box. You stock up on 20 boxes of 20. This costs you 4 million at a cost of 1 credit per item/hp. You deliver the boxes with an average of of 75% quality. No boxes are lost. You sell/deliver them for a cost of 2 credits base at 75% for 6 million credits. You warp back to the start to repeat to finish the second half of the cargo. Same result on a medium/low mission that you are kitted out for. This nets you (2mx2)4 million total profit.
BTW, the exact sell value can be derived by the HP itself. The current HP x2 in this case. So each box would sell for a unique amount based on how much damage it received. Damage can be distributed between boxes randomly or with different systems to balance each map/ship out. There could be things made to help protect more expensive cargo or focus on certain items. That would have to be figured out. (This could be part of ship layouts. Tactical or engineering consoles could be made to focus on protecting certain quality items. This could be done with the existing damage reduction mechanisms in the game. Just added to a different value. and it could even use the existing damage types or separated as one would go to ship death/cargo loss anyway. It's a matter of balance needs.)
Any boxes that individually drop below 60% overall health makes the entire box undeliverable and you lose the entire box of sell value. that would be 199800 credits loss in this case.
Other mission can be made with radically different realities if desired for different potentials.
Smalls ships could have 20 cargo. big ones 100 cargo. Or some could have 25 cargo etc. Depends on balance. It could be fit to the current games PVE combat realities. Or PVP if balancable. The cargo amount could be a good selling point for currently unused ships. They could be cheap cargo haulers or something else. Depending on balance it could revive the use of certain ships/loadouts to help defend cargo or carry cargo etc.
This seems like a niche idea that is better done in a separate "space trader" game.
Yes, with a much larger budget and larger player base STO could include niche gameplay like trading, planetary government sims, pure exploration, a Foundry, etc. but at this point in its life STO is going to stay just pew pew pew and Space Barbie.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Also, given that we travel 'Star Wars' fast ingame....you couldn't establish a stable commodities market anyway. Requirements can be instantaneously met because there is virtually no travel time, unlike in Elite:Dangerous. There would also have to be limited access to commodities too; reducing the availability of what we can buy AND replicate would be the only way to regulate this. You can't be carrying around thousands of the same item and expect that thousands of other players aren't doing the same....it quite literally would make commodities worthless. That's why E:D's economy works and this idea wouldn't.
Farm patrols and go sell your stuff to a local Bartender.....trust me, those Ferengi are clueless!
If I were a dev, and looked at your post I'd be thinking, where is the idea for a pet tab again??
If you did Stacks of 250 medical supplies and delivered them at a full hypothetical 100 stacks. (max mission rewards. Mind you this can be controlled by having smaller missions controlling max profits and how much it sells. It doesn't have to be open trade.)
If medical supplies of 250 came in stacks of 20 at 100 cargo and a max mission was available:
5000 hp per box and 100 boxes for 500,000 cargo hp and 75,000,000 credits to enter. Part of the balance can be the entry cost. (And the risk is loss of profits.) If you die in the mission you loose all cargo.(this might be a good candidate for PVP)
Mission. Deliver medical supplies during war time or into a hazard zone in an emergency situation. This is a tier 5 mission. Max difficulty in all directions.
The entire map is covered in hazards.(literally the entire map.)You have to not only have a ship with enough hull healing to survive and enough defense to lower cargo quality reduction and survive attacks.
Bad example:
Lets say each hazard tick of damage takes off 100(50 minimum with gear.) hp from cargo.(This is separate damage from hull damage.) So a constant base tick of damage. You naturally have to get the cargo by time you loose 25 percent of the hp to gain any extra EC. That gives an average of 1250-2500 seconds( 21-42 minutes) until profit loss from the hazard alone. Then combat exist also with pirates and other vehicles. This mission could be long and involved. Lots of waves of enemies and you have to do so before loosing profit.
If damage on average is around 20 from energy weapons fire(per tick not cycle) and possibly 100 per torp hit(actual need for defenses and proper builds.) And it comes in waves of 5-10 enemy vehicles. At worse this is up to near 300 damage potential per second with 1 torp and 7 beam weapons. This leaves about 7-12 minutes (7-14 if combat damage can be halfed.) of combat at constant damage to make profit in the mission. This is potentially manageable.
Balance out more per potential layouts and use specialty equipment to control the outcome. Lots of simple things can be done to limit the outcome if you go by max layouts to balance. And you could force very specialty builds to make profit. This would allow them to gain more sales and more focus on currently unused build and equipment making the market more diverse also.
Cargo damage would only exist in these mission with it added to the npcs and whatnot in these missions. It's separate from normal damage. Your builds would need cargo protection items and normal combat defense to survive. Death would be a loss of 75 million credits. Everything else is time and money wasted. Only items in the special cargo would be sellable. And they are bought at the start of the mission in a controlled environment. And you could make it require very specialized gear to do well potentially.
If all else fails put a massive timer on the mission for like 72 hours or more. Maybe only once a week or more. This is a max tier missions. It can be restricted to only medical supplies as to not allow other higher profit items. Controlling the environment and time gateing can easily start to balance this. So, even if future gear makes it so it's an easy 25 mill a week. This can be under wraps.
You can also connect missions. Only 1 level 5 mission per week. If you fail or win you can only do that mission and all other missions are locked out with it. this can control profit per week. And this can be adjusted to balance it out. Maybe one of each tier per week. That would then be max profits per character. Or even account. I would assume account lock out is better.
Only downside I can see is multiboxing. Did they implement a thing about account connecting? Maybe a rule about like 2-5 accounts per IP or something. that might be an issue though.
And max missions could be connected to fleets to limit it more. There are lots of ways to balance this.
BTW, lower tier mission can be controlled by the sell portion. If you can only sell a certain number of boxes/hp it can make it pointless to have more than needed. It could go by max hp or total number of boxes. Maybe having more would allow you to get the best HP or less damage, but it would grind down the gear over time without a special combo of missions. Which could be controled by limiting mission options. Or just have all of the cargo disappear after the mission. And/or limit it from being sold beyond the required amount per mission.
This missions could also sometimes allow GPL to be used in place of EC.
This isn't it. You're not going to find that here.
(well, unless you do the usual MMO "playing the exchange" thing. Which is, of course, always an option. People have made buckets of EC doing that.)
But yeah, as others have said, the totals you're throwing around are nuts and would destroy the economy (worse than it's already going). The solution to 1.5bn EC ship boxes in the exchange isn't to throw hundreds of millions more EC into the economy. That'll just make them cost more - which will lead to them being traded off the exchange, for actually-valuable things (like huge stacks of keys).
Have you seen the exchange prices compared to suggested price on items?
STO has passed that line a long time ago
Bring the Enterprise XCV-330 to STO