Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' crowd-funded space exploration game, will feature a deep economy system affected by player actions, according to a post on Roberts Space Industries.
The lengthy update provides details on how the system will function in-game. According to the post, the game's economy is "built to represent millions of entities" within the universe that work together to build and transport resources and goods.
"Miners and other resource gatherers work to extract basic resources from the available supply, traders collect those goods and deliver them to other places, escorts protect those convoys from harm (while pirates attempt the opposite), refineries turn the raw goods into processed goods, and factories collect these processed goods to build the finished products that are in demand on worlds throughout the Star Citizen universe," the post reads. "These goods are not assigned an arbitrary fixed price at each location. Instead, we are creating an organic system that keeps track of how much of everything is available, how much it is needed, where it is needed, and what individuals are willing to pay to get it."
The post adds that NPCs will participate in this process as well, and that players may "step in wherever they wish to take part."
The update does mention that as the game is still a work in progress, the economy is subject to change. You can watch the video above for a brief explanation on how Star Citizen's economy works, or check out the full update.