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Post by grävling on Feb 8, 2017 4:19:26 GMT -5
Also, I don't think I like it that a good disappears when a market is out of the item that it normally stocks. Maybe use a toggle to get these entries back? I always want to know 'what price would it sell for when it is back in stock' and 'when do you expect that to be'? Even if the answer is 'no clue' and 'as far as we know, we will never have this good again, some merchant dropped it off here but it is not something we usually carry at all' that is useful information. Do all goods restock at the same time (i.e. every 2 weeks on Mondays at 06:00 ?) If so, then just having the market tell us when its next restocking would be the way to go. And if all the goods in the whole universe restock at the same time, then, well, I suppose it is something all children would know in the world.  |
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Post by xdesperado on Feb 8, 2017 4:25:37 GMT -5
Think grävling may be onto something here. Perhaps whats missing at least for me currently is a diversity of low cost/low risk trade goods I can take on spec. Example if half the planet economies produce and sell raven rompers cheap and the rest of them are always looking to buy them at a slight premium, and that second grouping of planets churns out crunchy frogs which the first grouping is always happy to buy then a captain can stay afloat. The profit margin won't be high enough to get rich off of at least not in a reasonable amount of time, but does generally generate enough to pay basic fuel and crew expenses with a bit extra for repairs or to squirrel away for that eventual upgrade. Currently to often I'm seeing little to no diversification in quadrant economies making it hard to cover basic operating costs. I buy all the Harvesters I can from 3 industrial zones, say 27 units total before all exchanges are out of them and dump them on the single low pop indy farm zone and now I can't buy anymore because the markets are exhausted and I couldn't sell them even if I could buy them because that lone farm zone just got flooded. Also telling me what the local economies want tends to be less than helpful when they all want the same stuff that none of their neighbors in the quadrant produce. Having a minor brainstorm here so forgive me for getting crazy but think part of issue may be size of the quadrants, specifically they dont have enough population zones far to frequently. We got spoiled by ST RPGs "Quadrant", even the smallest 4X maps tended to have more habitable zones in their quadrants than we have here. Hard to have healthy market dynamics between multiple planets in same zone when you only have 3-6 planets and possibly a dozen zones total that could have pop. That same shortage of zones may also be what's creating kinks in the missions and why so many of them are asking you to do multiple jumps often for horrible pay. |
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Post by fallen on Feb 8, 2017 10:36:41 GMT -5
I don't see how to figure out how how much cargo space a thing takes up. Assume I am contemplating these purchases. so: power generators. Purchase at C+ for $2200 CPU, sell at C+ for $3575 CPU => PPU of $1,375 vs basic medicines: Purchase at C+ for $88 CPU, sell at A+ for $193 CPU => PPU of $105 or 95% I know where I am going. They want power generators at C+ and basic medicines at A+. What do I get? If my hold can either carry 1 power generator, or 20 units of medicines, I should buy the medicines. All cargo units are an a comparable size. Consider it "1 shipping container of basic medics" or "1 power generator". They take up 1 space in the cargo hold. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 8, 2017 11:19:49 GMT -5
It sounds like we're having some trouble separating the economy simulator and the map generator. I will continue to work on both.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 8, 2017 11:24:49 GMT -5
Also, I don't think I like it that a good disappears when a market is out of the item that it normally stocks. Maybe use a toggle to get these entries back? I always want to know 'what price would it sell for when it is back in stock' and 'when do you expect that to be'? Even if the answer is 'no clue' and 'as far as we know, we will never have this good again, some merchant dropped it off here but it is not something we usually carry at all' that is useful information. Do all goods restock at the same time (i.e. every 2 weeks on Mondays at 06:00 ?) If so, then just having the market tell us when its next restocking would be the way to go. And if all the goods in the whole universe restock at the same time, then, well, I suppose it is something all children would know in the world. Refreshing of economy supply values occurs in a smoothed way, at a set interval after the supply disruption or adjustment was applied, measured in turns, run on a zone-by-zone basis. So if there was a rumor that reduced supply, and the economy had 20 rating it would recover 2 economy points per day for 10 days, or until it was fully recovered. The player is a Star Trader, and you're buying at a Star Trader's Exchange. Their are politics, trade rules, contracts and so forth. I'm sorry you don't like it that goods are removed from the market. That is a foundation design component and cannot be removed. Visibility into the base unadjusted state of the economy is something we might be able to do, but I suspect static documentation would be just as good. I can understand the desire to get a price projection, and that's something the merchants at the Exchange would certainly know. "Yes, the prince has banned any further shipments of Ore to the Exchange this week, but by next week Faction Ore quotas will be met and we'll have units again for the $25-30 price range typically." |
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Post by grävling on Feb 8, 2017 12:46:40 GMT -5
I don't see how to figure out how how much cargo space a thing takes up. Assume I am contemplating these purchases. so: power generators. Purchase at C+ for $2200 CPU, sell at C+ for $3575 CPU => PPU of $1,375 vs basic medicines: Purchase at C+ for $88 CPU, sell at A+ for $193 CPU => PPU of $105 or 95% I know where I am going. They want power generators at C+ and basic medicines at A+. What do I get? If my hold can either carry 1 power generator, or 20 units of medicines, I should buy the medicines. All cargo units are an a comparable size. Consider it "1 shipping container of basic medics" or "1 power generator". They take up 1 space in the cargo hold. Ah. This is quite surprising to me. Thank you. If all units are the same size, then I no longer have as strong an interest in learning that a good sells for A B C D E calculated as a fraction of what it sold for. It's the PPU I care about, and in the above example, the power generators trade, even if it is 'C+ to C+' is 13 times as valuable a trade as a C+ to A+ . If I could go into the place and have it show me PPU as a tuple of 5 values (sell to A, sell to B, sell to C, sell to D, sell to E) I would be very happy. Or if I could tap on the column and have it cycle though the A B C D E values with their assorted pluses and minuses -- which would have the added advantage that it is not greedy in eating your screen real estate. Does this make sense or should I make some mockups? |
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Post by grävling on Feb 8, 2017 12:49:27 GMT -5
Also, I don't think I like it that a good disappears when a market is out of the item that it normally stocks. Maybe use a toggle to get these entries back? I always want to know 'what price would it sell for when it is back in stock' and 'when do you expect that to be'? Even if the answer is 'no clue' and 'as far as we know, we will never have this good again, some merchant dropped it off here but it is not something we usually carry at all' that is useful information. Do all goods restock at the same time (i.e. every 2 weeks on Mondays at 06:00 ?) If so, then just having the market tell us when its next restocking would be the way to go. And if all the goods in the whole universe restock at the same time, then, well, I suppose it is something all children would know in the world. Refreshing of economy supply values occurs in a smoothed way, at a set interval after the supply disruption or adjustment was applied, measured in turns, run on a zone-by-zone basis. So if there was a rumor that reduced supply, and the economy had 20 rating it would recover 2 economy points per day for 10 days, or until it was fully recovered. The player is a Star Trader, and you're buying at a Star Trader's Exchange. Their are politics, trade rules, contracts and so forth. I'm sorry you don't like it that goods are removed from the market. That is a foundation design component and cannot be removed. Visibility into the base unadjusted state of the economy is something we might be able to do, but I suspect static documentation would be just as good. I can understand the desire to get a price projection, and that's something the merchants at the Exchange would certainly know. "Yes, the prince has banned any further shipments of Ore to the Exchange this week, but by next week Faction Ore quotas will be met and we'll have units again for the $25-30 price range typically." Static could work. But make sure you also tell me how many units you will have again. I have to decide whether to wait around for a few weeks for the place to restock, or try elsewhere, and I need that info as well. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 8, 2017 14:40:57 GMT -5
The trading interface already shows current, 100% and 175% -- so that's C+ (or something based on where you are) A+ and D+, I guess we could show A+ Supply (68%) but I think we're running the risk of just putting numbers of the screen for the sake of numbers.
The design today operations knowing the average player needs mostly to know the price tier they're working with, and the current price compared to average and max. Selling, based on player feedback, is always going to be about the Profit calculation for the trade.
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Post by johndramey on Feb 8, 2017 19:40:11 GMT -5
Perhaps whats missing at least for me currently is a diversity of low cost/low risk trade goods I can take on spec. But there are quite a few low cost and low risk goods. Pretty much any kind of food, clothing, and basic meds sell pretty well at most kinds of planets and will yield a decent small profit. This is kind of why you spread around to three or four quadrants. In my current merchant game, I have a long distance trade route that spans across 4 quadrants. I buy power generators (a high trade permit item) from industrial planets on one end, and sell them to luxury population planets on the other. This nets me huge profits (often on the order of 20% or more, and when one hold of generators costs something like 50k we are talking big money). Then, on the way back, I hit up all the ag/mining planets to sell food/ore to population/refining planets in between. By the time I get back to the industrial planets, everything is refreshed and ready for another go round. This seems like a problem with your map and not so much with the system. The early game for merchants is definitely tough because you need to branch out and look into 3-4 quadrants just to get started. Then, you can start setting up point-to-points or multi-stop trade routes. I can understand this, especially in the early game. Once you get set up and let the game run for a while, you start to find out that most of the quadrants actually do have a pretty decent number of inhabited planets. They were just hidden in the early game. If I could go into the place and have it show me PPU as a tuple of 5 values (sell to A, sell to B, sell to C, sell to D, sell to E) I would be very happy. Or if I could tap on the column and have it cycle though the A B C D E values with their assorted pluses and minuses -- which would have the added advantage that it is not greedy in eating your screen real estate. Does this make sense or should I make some mockups? I totally get what you are saying, but don't see the need for it to be honest. We have the letter ranks, and they are really perfect. The concept is simple, buy at a good rank, sell at a good rank. You can turn a profit buying or selling at not so good ranks, but the ideal is an A+ to A+ link. The player really doesn't need to be flooded with a whole bunch of exact data on how much will be made or sold, because the player already knows that buying at, say, C+ and then selling at, say, C+ will turn a profit. Cory posted the exact numbers, but basically F = average price and anything above that costs less to buy (supply side) or earns more to sell (demand side). Sorry for this long post, but I've been playing merchants exclusively and have had a very easy time doing everything. I've currently got my impossible merchant up to level 10, and have not made a single losing trade in the whole game. Basically, when you buy a good, take away 2 "levels" in your mind. That is what you can sell at and still turn a small profit. For example, buy at C+, you can safely sell at C-. Buy at D, even an F sell will turn a tiny profit. A small question for Cory Trese. I've been combing through that spread sheet you posted (really good stuff by the way), and noticed that High Tech Industrial is not listed. Is that a totally separate economy, or just a modifier for Industrial? Also, would it be okay for me to use that info to post a trading guide? I think if we had a detailed guide explaining the system and giving some basic charts (like, a chart for each economy type showing where goods produced at that planet sell well, for example), it would clear up a lot of confusion. |
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Post by fallen on Feb 8, 2017 19:50:17 GMT -5
Sorry for this long post, but I've been playing merchants exclusively and have had a very easy time doing everything. I've currently got my impossible merchant up to level 10, and have not made a single losing trade in the whole game. Basically, when you buy a good, take away 2 "levels" in your mind. That is what you can sell at and still turn a small profit. For example, buy at C+, you can safely sell at C-. Buy at D, even an F sell will turn a tiny profit. A small question for Cory Trese. I've been combing through that spread sheet you posted (really good stuff by the way), and noticed that High Tech Industrial is not listed. Is that a totally separate economy, or just a modifier for Industrial? Also, would it be okay for me to use that info to post a trading guide? I think if we had a detailed guide explaining the system and giving some basic charts (like, a chart for each economy type showing where goods produced at that planet sell well, for example), it would clear up a lot of confusion. Thanks for the killer post with such pro merchant advice. I would say you're doing it amazingly well, and playing the longer trading routes to allow the markets to stay fresh. As mentioned above, any short distance trade route will always be exhausted by either the supply running out, or you flood the market and demand runs out. Looking for larger routes that allow you to net profits all along them in many hops is a key merchanting technique. Big +1 for sharing your tips! |
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Post by grävling on Feb 8, 2017 19:51:18 GMT -5
Sorry for this long post, but I've been playing merchants exclusively and have had a very easy time doing everything. I've currently got my impossible merchant up to level 10, and have not made a single losing trade in the whole game. Basically, when you buy a good, take away 2 "levels" in your mind. That is what you can sell at and still turn a small profit. For example, buy at C+, you can safely sell at C-. Buy at D, even an F sell will turn a tiny profit. Wow. I'm impressed. Nice work. Now, are there any goods which, despite having a favourable trade exchange (I can buy at B+ or better, and I can sell at B+ or better as well) you still avoid, because the profit per unit, despite being high percentage wise, is still low in absolute numbers? Right now I have been persuing the simple-minded strategy of 'only buy at B+ or better' and then sell only when there is a profit to be made. This is not working out for me -- I'd be making more money if I bought more expensive goods even if they aren't being offered at such good terms. |
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Post by xdesperado on Feb 8, 2017 19:52:13 GMT -5
johndramey my early game experience so far is that if you don't have $20-30k banked before making your first jump that theres a great chance you'll wind up broke with a ship needing massive repairs and many of your crew dead/deserted/ready to mutiny. Hard to go exploring new quadrants when your struggling just to make ends meet in your starting quadrant.
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Post by fallen on Feb 8, 2017 19:55:36 GMT -5
grävling - its very Rychartian of me, but I would highly recommend being a Clothing merchant (it was in johndramey's list -- "food, clothing, and basic meds", but Clothing (HATS!!) is especially good)
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Post by fallen on Feb 8, 2017 19:58:41 GMT -5
johndramey - thanks for posting the keys to the merchanting kingdom. I will be pointing everyone here from now on lol. You should probably publish another guide ;P
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Post by johndramey on Feb 8, 2017 20:03:48 GMT -5
grävling, pretty much any trade good is good to sell, but in the early game I typically stick with safe bets. Clothes, basic meds, and food allow you to fly around exploring planets and, more likely than not, offloading at least some goods at each stop. I'd stay away from anything that costs too much in the early game, because you really don't have a ton of capital. My merchant starts tend to have me taking simple courier missions and trading along the way. This lets me a)have some guaranteed pay out and b)learn what economies are withing 2 or so jumps of my starting quadrant. After you get some capital, around $20k is my starting point, I move onto the higher priced goods. As I posted in my early game strategies thread, I absolutely love crop harvesters. You can make pretty decent money selling raw ores to refineries and refined ores to industry, if you can find the loop. In my mind, the perfect loop for late-early game trading is this: Ag (food load) -> Mine (sell food, buy raw ores) -> Refinery (sell raw ores, buy refined ores) -> Industrial (sell refined ores, but crop harvesters/fertilizer/pesticides) -> Ag (sell harvesters, fert., and pest., buy food) -> etc. xdesperado, in my opinion, you're being too conservative. Once I get above $5k, I'll hop out of system for a 1 hop mission. If I have $10k, I'll do 2 hops. You might not make a ton of cash, but making a few trades along the way and the mission pay will most likely let you break even while getting intel on what is around you.
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