Simulated ChestShop: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:19, 27 May 2026

The Simulated ChestShop is a custom-built automated market activity engine developed specifically for Prosperity SMP. Unlike off-the-shelf plugins, it was designed from scratch to integrate with the server's CPI tracking, monetary policy engine, and economic dashboard. It creates background buying activity at player-owned ChestShop signs, ensuring shops see traffic even during low-population hours.

Purpose

At low player counts, player shops can sit idle for hours. This discourages players from setting up shops, which weakens the player-driven economy. The Simulated ChestShop solves this by having a server-managed bank account (CentralBank) purchase items from player shops at fair market prices.

The system only buys — it does not sell items to players. It is a pure liquidity injection from the CentralBank reserve into player hands.

Custom development

The Simulated ChestShop was purpose-built as a Skript plugin (sim-chestshop.sk) rather than using an existing solution. This allows deep integration with the server's other custom systems:

CPI awareness — the system reads real market prices to determine fair buy values, and its own transactions are excluded from CPI calculations to prevent feedback loops.
Monetary policy engine integration — every bank-to-player payout is classified as a TRANSFER_TO_PUBLIC event, feeding the engine's source-flow ratio analysis.
Demand governor — an adaptive controller that adjusts buying intensity based on time of day, player count, real buyer activity, and bank health. The system backs off when real buyers are active and fills in when the market is quiet.
Per-shop persona system — transactions use randomized buyer names in logs for natural appearance.

How it works

The system maintains a shopping list of approximately 130 common items with internal maximum buy prices.
Every few minutes, it scans active player ChestShop signs for eligible items.
If a shop sells an item on the list at or below the max price, the system may purchase.
The shop owner receives payment to their balance, identical to a normal sale.
Purchased items are removed from the chest (the bank does not stockpile).

From the shop owner's perspective, the transaction looks identical to a real player purchase.

What the system buys

Category	Examples
Mining	Cobblestone, stone, deepslate, iron ingot, gold ingot, diamond, coal, redstone, lapis, copper
Wood	Oak log, spruce log, birch log, planks
Farming	Wheat, carrots, potatoes, sugar cane, melon, pumpkin
Food	Cooked beef, cooked chicken, bread
Building	Glass, bricks, sand, gravel
Mob drops	String, gunpowder, bones, leather, feathers
Nether/End	Quartz, glowstone, chorus fruit, blaze rod

Items the system will NOT buy

Beacons, totems of undying, ender pearls, shulker boxes, elytra, mob spawners, and other high-value or exploit-prone items.

Demand controls

Control	Purpose
Daily spending cap	Bank stops buying after a server-wide daily limit
Per-owner cap	No single shop owner receives more than a set share of the daily budget
Per-shop cooldown	Waits between purchases from the same shop
Intensity profiles	Activity scales with server population and time of day
Bank floor	Stops all activity if the CentralBank balance drops below a safety threshold

Economy integration

The system is tightly integrated with the server's custom economic infrastructure:

Transactions are flagged simulated: true in the transaction log.
The CPI excludes simulated transactions — it reflects real player prices only.
The Monetary policy engine classifies payouts as transfers from reserve, not new money creation.
A 7-day lagged CPI snapshot prevents the system from chasing its own price signal.

Visibility

The system is intentionally invisible to players:

No command reveals bank buy prices or the shopping list.
The /market command shows real player data only.
Shop owners cannot distinguish simulated purchases from real ones.

Admin commands

Command	Description
`/simshop status`	Bank balance, daily spend, pause state
`/simshop pause`	Pause all activity
`/simshop resume`	Resume activity
`/simshop refill <amount>`	Add funds to CentralBank

These require staff permissions.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-The '''Simulated ChestShop''' system is an automated market activity engine on Prosperity SMP. It creates background buying activity at player-owned [[ChestShop]] signs, ensuring that shops see regular traffic even during low-population hours. The system is designed to be invisible to players — it behaves like a normal customer.
+The '''Simulated ChestShop''' is a custom-built automated market activity engine developed specifically for Prosperity SMP. Unlike off-the-shelf plugins, it was designed from scratch to integrate with the server's [[Consumer Price Index|CPI tracking]], [[Monetary policy engine|monetary policy engine]], and [[Economy|economic dashboard]]. It creates background buying activity at player-owned [[ChestShop]] signs, ensuring shops see traffic even during low-population hours.
 == Purpose ==
-At low player counts, player shops can sit idle for hours with no buyers. This discourages players from setting up shops, which weakens the [[Economy|player-driven economy]]. The Simulated ChestShop solves this by having a server-managed bank account (CentralBank) purchase items from player shops at fair market prices.
+At low player counts, player shops can sit idle for hours. This discourages players from setting up shops, which weakens the [[Economy|player-driven economy]]. The Simulated ChestShop solves this by having a server-managed bank account (CentralBank) purchase items from player shops at fair market prices.
-The system does '''not''' sell items to players. It only buys. This makes it a pure money faucet into player hands, funded by the CentralBank reserve.
+The system '''only buys''' — it does not sell items to players. It is a pure liquidity injection from the CentralBank reserve into player hands.
+== Custom development ==
+The Simulated ChestShop was purpose-built as a Skript plugin (sim-chestshop.sk) rather than using an existing solution. This allows deep integration with the server's other custom systems:
+* '''[[Consumer Price Index|CPI]] awareness''' — the system reads real market prices to determine fair buy values, and its own transactions are excluded from CPI calculations to prevent feedback loops.
+* '''[[Monetary policy engine]] integration''' — every bank-to-player payout is classified as a TRANSFER_TO_PUBLIC event, feeding the engine's source-flow ratio analysis.
+* '''Demand governor''' — an adaptive controller that adjusts buying intensity based on time of day, player count, real buyer activity, and bank health. The system backs off when real buyers are active and fills in when the market is quiet.
+* '''Per-shop persona system''' — transactions use randomized buyer names in logs for natural appearance.
 == How it works ==
-# The system maintains a shopping list of common items it is willing to buy.
+# The system maintains a shopping list of approximately 130 common items with internal maximum buy prices.
 # Every few minutes, it scans active player [[ChestShop]] signs for eligible items.
-# If a shop is selling an item on the shopping list at a reasonable price, the system may purchase from it.
+# If a shop sells an item on the list at or below the max price, the system may purchase.
-# The shop owner receives payment to their balance, just like a normal sale.
+# The shop owner receives payment to their balance, identical to a normal sale.
-# The purchased items are removed from the chest (the bank does not stockpile).
+# Purchased items are removed from the chest (the bank does not stockpile).
-From the shop owner's perspective, the transaction looks identical to a real player purchase. The system uses randomized persona names in logs to avoid easy identification.
+From the shop owner's perspective, the transaction looks identical to a real player purchase.
 == What the system buys ==
-The shopping list includes common economy staples:
 {| class="wikitable"
 |-
-! Category !! Example items
+! Category !! Examples
 |-
-| Mining || Cobblestone, stone, deepslate, iron ingot, gold ingot, diamond, coal, redstone, lapis lazuli, copper ingot
+| Mining || Cobblestone, stone, deepslate, iron ingot, gold ingot, diamond, coal, redstone, lapis, copper
 |-
 | Wood || Oak log, spruce log, birch log, planks
@@ Line 31: / Line 37: @@
 |-
 | Building || Glass, bricks, sand, gravel
+|-
+| Mob drops || String, gunpowder, bones, leather, feathers
+|-
+| Nether/End || Quartz, glowstone, chorus fruit, blaze rod
 |}
-Each item has a maximum buy price based on the server's market data. The system will not overpay — if a shop prices above the fair range, the system skips it.
+=== Items the system will NOT buy ===
+Beacons, totems of undying, ender pearls, shulker boxes, elytra, mob spawners, and other high-value or exploit-prone items.
-== Demand governor ==
+== Demand controls ==
-The system has built-in controls to prevent it from dominating the market:
+{| class="wikitable"
+|-
-; Daily spending cap
+! Control !! Purpose
-: The bank has a maximum daily spend limit across all purchases. Once the cap is reached, the system pauses until the next day.
+|-
+| Daily spending cap || Bank stops buying after a server-wide daily limit
-; Per-shop cooldowns
+|-
-: After buying from a shop, the system waits before buying from the same shop again.
+| Per-owner cap || No single shop owner receives more than a set share of the daily budget
+|-
-; Per-owner caps
+| Per-shop cooldown || Waits between purchases from the same shop
-: No single shop owner receives more than a set percentage of the daily budget.
+|-
+| Intensity profiles || Activity scales with server population and time of day
+|-
+| Bank floor || Stops all activity if the CentralBank balance drops below a safety threshold
+|}
-; Intensity profiles
+== Economy integration ==
-: Activity levels adjust based on time of day and player count. During peak hours with many real buyers, the system backs off. During off-peak hours, it increases activity to keep the market moving.
+The system is tightly integrated with the server's custom economic infrastructure:
-== Relationship to the economy ==
+* Transactions are flagged <code>simulated: true</code> in the transaction log.
-Simulated ChestShop activity is tracked separately from real player-to-player trades in the server's economic monitoring systems:
+* The [[Consumer Price Index|CPI]] '''excludes''' simulated transactions — it reflects real player prices only.
+* The [[Monetary policy engine]] classifies payouts as transfers from reserve, not new money creation.
-* Simulated transactions are marked with a <code>simulated: true</code> flag in the transaction log.
+* A 7-day lagged CPI snapshot prevents the system from chasing its own price signal.
-* The [[Economy|CPI (Consumer Price Index)]] calculation '''excludes''' simulated transactions. CPI reflects real player-to-player prices only.
-* The [[Economy|monetary policy engine]] classifies bank-to-player payouts as transfers from the public reserve, not new money creation. The money was already created when an admin funded the CentralBank.
-This separation prevents a feedback loop where the bank's buying activity inflates the CPI, which then causes the bank to buy at higher prices.
 == Visibility ==
 The system is intentionally invisible to players:
+* No command reveals bank buy prices or the shopping list.
-* No public <code>/market</code> command reveals the bank's exact buy prices or shopping list.
+* The [[Economy|/market command]] shows real player data only.
-* Transaction log entries use randomized persona names.
+* Shop owners cannot distinguish simulated purchases from real ones.
-* The [[Economy|/market command]] shows real player-to-player CPI data only, not bank activity.
-* Shop owners see normal sale notifications — they cannot distinguish a simulated purchase from a real one.
-Admins can monitor and configure the system through the <code>/simshop</code> command (staff only).
 == Admin commands ==
@@ Line 74: / Line 81: @@
 ! Command !! Description
 |-
-| <code>/simshop status</code> || View bank balance, daily spend, and pause state
+| <code>/simshop status</code> || Bank balance, daily spend, pause state
 |-
-| <code>/simshop pause</code> || Temporarily pause all activity
+| <code>/simshop pause</code> || Pause all activity
 |-
 | <code>/simshop resume</code> || Resume activity
 |-
-| <code>/simshop refill &lt;amount&gt;</code> || Add funds to the CentralBank
+| <code>/simshop refill &lt;amount&gt;</code> || Add funds to CentralBank
 |}
-These commands require staff permissions and are not available to regular players.
+These require staff permissions.
 == See also ==
-* [[Economy]] — how the economy works, including money flow and inflation
+* [[Consumer Price Index]] — the price index (excludes simulated trades)
+* [[Monetary policy engine]] — the inflation management system
+* [[Economy]] — how money flows through the server
 * [[ChestShop]] — how to create player shops
-* [[Admin shop]] — the server-run shop (separate system)
+* [[Admin shop]] — the separate server-run shop
 * [[Trading]] — trading methods and price discovery
-* [[Getting started]] — includes shop setup guide
 [[Category:Plugins]]
+[[Category:Systems]]