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Post by hyeron on Sept 27, 2011 5:32:25 GMT -5
Hi there! Thought I'd drop a word about something odd. I don't think I saw it mentioned anywhere else, so... When selling restricted goods, time can really fly. It can take almost a year to sell a full hold of electronics and artifacts. That is, unless you sell them one by one. In which case they'll all be gone by the end of the week. Is this the expected behaviour? It's certainly convenient when trying to get Rapid Rank (still isn't fast enough for me to get Rapid Rank II though, but I'll keep trying). But is it fair? I apologize if this was already reported, of course.  |
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Post by slayernz on Sept 27, 2011 17:44:48 GMT -5
There's a certain amount of logic here, although since it is my logic, it's probably flawed in some significant way  Anyway, my theory is that it's just like any negotiation. If you are selling one unit of something at price x, you'll find a lot of people able to buy it. If you are selling 100 units of something at that same price x, the number of people who can (or want) to buy it dramatically reduces. Further, those people who want to buy it don't want to pay x, but rather they'd like to pay some substantially lower value (50% of x?). So you spend weeks trying to drum out a deal where they pay you full price for all 100 units. Real world analogy - if I rocked up to you and offered you a new ipad 2 for $450, you'd probably think sure, why not. if you don't, I can almost guarantee hundreds would. However, if I offered you 100 ipad 2's, for $45,000 I think it would be an outright "No!" followed by "Are you friggin nuts?". There'd be very few casual customers who would want to buy so many at once. Further, the'd go ... "I'll pay you $15k for all them there ipad thingies you have". So you spend the next few months negotiating and hunting for other buyers who might want to pay $45k. You're just lucky that in STRPG, there ARE suckers out there who would pay full price for a bulk order According to rumor control, there may be new rumors or contract types in an upcoming release of STRPG that allow you to get x number of something for a planet. I would hope in that situation, there'd be no major delay because you're fulfilling an order rather than trying to pawn something off on the free market. |
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Post by hyeron on Sept 28, 2011 0:42:05 GMT -5
Certainly makes sense... But then what's the advantage of selling it in bulks (not taking sloth into account ^^)? Rep gain?
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Post by slayernz on Sept 28, 2011 22:42:33 GMT -5
Convenience. Sure you can sell off 100 units of electronics one at a time, but you've got more important things to do - like plan that next blockade of Steel Song, or add a fresh coat of paint to your escape ship. Apart from when you have active contracts, there is only minimal impact to you as a captain. Sure the game gets infinitesimally harder (due to higher turns = higher difficulty), but since your captain can live forever (unless he is killed), what's a few turns between friends |
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Post by Cory Trese on Sept 28, 2011 22:58:10 GMT -5
I have added this to the bug list because I do not like game items that force the player to "grind buttons" to get an advantage.
It looks like it's a math bug, I'll figure it out in the next few days.
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Post by hyeron on Sept 29, 2011 3:28:55 GMT -5
you've got more important things to do - like plan that next blockade of Steel Song, or add a fresh coat of paint to your escape ship. In the long term, I fully agree with that. But when you're trying to go for Rapid Rank, it smells like a big nice exploit. If it doesn't make any difference apart from difficulty ramping up a bit, we're talking YEARS you're getting off your back. With each surface exploration lasting around 2 months, it's a HUGE advantage at 1 sale/6-10 explorations. Sure, it's a pretty specific use. But it's still interesting in that regard. * Disclaimer: I suck at math. BIG TIME. |
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Post by slayernz on Oct 1, 2011 1:55:04 GMT -5
Until it's figured out, if you sell a handful of units at a time you're actually not penalized in terms of weeks lost. I had 120 units of electronics and sold them in lots of 5 - 8 and lost a total of 1 week. If I had kept them all to 5 or less, I wouldn't have even lost that much time.
Still ... even though I know I can save all this time, I still sell in bulk so I can go kill steel song again. It's really bad now because I am even blockading even when I know full well I won't get any XP for doing so. I just believe it's my public service duty.
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Post by phantum on Oct 5, 2011 3:18:35 GMT -5
I can't see the officers and crew being happy with this either if they are paid a commission then they would surely mutiny waiting on the ship a year to sell the cargo! They would be missing out on all the fun they can have exploring wilderness zones...
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Post by Cory Trese on Oct 5, 2011 13:54:51 GMT -5
slayernz -- take contracts in the military base to blockade then you get XP and make everyone happy
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Post by 1chon on Oct 5, 2011 14:42:25 GMT -5
Not sure I totally get this idea of time... the Spice Market is full of middlemen I thought? So you come as the supplier and dump a huge amount of product for whatever the going rate is- then the merchants there are the ones who negotiate with all the individual buyers. You are saying as the ship captain you negotiate with every single buyer? That seems a bit weird. Like a traveling peddler not a traveling pirate or smuggler.
If that is true then negotiate skill should affect time even more than price. Since time is money and XP in the game.
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Post by hyeron on Oct 5, 2011 23:33:56 GMT -5
Unsure. slayernz's logic fits for this case. It WILL take time. Selling a single Weapons crate (only applies to Weapons) sometimes takes over a week. Back to ALL goods, larger quantities means it WILL take time. Heck, filling your tank CAN and WILL take a week at times, too. Sure, a whole frigging year seems a bit over the top if you look at it out of context. But for a Captain and his crew who are able to outlive the turn of the millenium...
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Post by slayernz on Oct 6, 2011 17:23:05 GMT -5
@cory ... errr just so you know, I get great satisfaction from blockading Steel Song ... I'm doing it while I am off-duty (a bit like recreational fishing). I don't really care about the XP - I just feel good about providing a benefit to society. I guess I liken blockading Steel Song to volunteering to clean up some graffiti at the local school.
Back to the time thing ... a year definitely is excessive. An alternative is that you introduce a concept of a trading broker (or Agent) NPC. If you decide to use a broker, you definitely have 10% taken off your sale (as a commission), but selling 1 unit or selling 100 units will cos the same amount of time.
Shalun law should definitely allow the use of brokers and ensure that brokers remain reputable. If they try and scarper with the profits, their reputation goes to hell and they would surely follow. Nobody likes dealing with double-crossers.
Implementation
In terms of game specific changes, having a broker concept is just that - one of the many stories we use to explain a feature.
Approach 1
So either you can have another option in a transaction in an Exchange. Beside "Complete Transaction" and "Cancel", you have "Use Broker" (or "Use Agent").
By pressing that button for the trade, you get immediate sale but 10% reduction in reward.
Advantage of doing this - it is a per-trade option, meaning you can quickly sell 50 Artifacts using a broker and sell 5 weapons without using a broker.
Disadvantage - it's a reasonable amount of work to implement.
Approach 2
Alternative - simply add an option to the Options screen:
"Use a broker for sales of x+ units in the exchange"
x = 10, 20, 40 presented in a drop-down box.
Advantages - Hopefully somewhat straightforward to code for
Disadvantages - a pain to have to change if you want to have a mixed trade (some brokered, some direct).
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Post by hyeron on Oct 7, 2011 0:55:09 GMT -5
That broker thing sounds almost too good to be true. Though the reduction in profit could (should?) be linked to the Negotiation skill.
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Post by Cory Trese on Oct 7, 2011 11:34:04 GMT -5
The expenditure of time is linked to the following facts:
- Higher rating exchanges take less time
- Higher security exchanges take longer
- Selling into a shortage / surplus is faster
- Have more Negotiation than Prince is faster
Time passed now has a minimum scalar value. It should reduce greatly the advantages of selling in small blocks at the same exchange. This will also, in some situations, shorten the time it takes for a shortage or surplus to expire.
After ST40-84 is resolved, the following facts are true:
- There is a hard minimum time for each Exchange to block the grind exploit
- The benefit of $ vs. Negotiation is 10X more in favor of Negotiation
- Independent worlds are 10X faster than Faction worlds
- Higher rating exchanges take less time
- Higher security exchanges take longer
- Selling into a shortage / surplus is faster
- Have more Negotiation than Prince is faster
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Post by hyeron on Oct 7, 2011 11:37:41 GMT -5
That is just awesome.  |
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