Price weighting of letter grades.

[Cory Trese]

There is a hidden bonus that causes some worlds to appreciate the goods of other Factions more. This is the so called "novelty factor" price boost. This will make more sense when we actually name all the trade goods.

Narcotic Spice is actually 12 different, sub-types of trade goods ... Radios Spice Breads, for example, as the "Narcotic Spice Trade Resource" produced by Rychart. Common commodities like Ores don't have a Faction assigned, so you cannot get "novelty factor" and UTR are always a specific Faction so no variation exists there.

So if you are selling something novel into F- (AKA +10) it it still possible, somehow, for you to turn a profit. I'm not sure this is realistic ... I know people who have lost a tonne of money trying to sell things that no one wants, even novel things

But this is a game, and the trade is supposed to be challenging and fun -- not scientifically accurate

[Cory Trese]

The icons and labels will make it very clear that Radios Spice Breads and Thulun Spice Limquor are both "Refined Narcotic Spice"

[johndramey]

That.... that.... that's amazing. I am in awe, that will make trading so much fun. So, not to pry, but is that "novelty factor" a flat value (like supply/demand), or is it something that is generated in game and fluctuates based on politics?

[grävling]

I am more used to measuring demand in terms of elasticity. On the high end, you can dump as much as much of <cargo x> as you like on us. We always can use it, and will always pay you this rate. When demand is low, then if you start selling things to us, we quickly lose interest, the price quickly plummets, and you basically had better take your merchandise somewhere else.

This is independent of whether the price is any good, or not. There are lots of places which have a very strong demand for <cargo x> as long as it is priced <below such and such>. You cannot make money selling food to starving refugees,no matter how strong their demand, because they don't have any money at all, so the top price they can pay taps out below what you bought it for, indeed at 0. Manufacturing worlds want lots of raw materials, but they can only go to such and such a price, or else the refined goods they make with the raw materials will cost too much and they will never be able to sell them.

There are places where this logic does not work. You _can_ make money selling food to starving refugees if the Red Cross is doing the paying. When tulip-mania or some other sort of speculative bubble hits, there pretty much is no limit to what you can charge. If you are selling luxury goods to the super-rich, and there are lots of super-rich, well, those idiots basically like spending money to show off how much money they have -- so rather than liking a bargain, they like things that are overpriced, and will pay extra for the privilege of being taken advantage of, especially if that has the effect of making the good so exclusive that lots of other super-rich still aren't wealthy enough to afford it.

In ST2, if I am getting my head around things correctly, for a change, 'supply' and 'demand' are just about price. Elasticity is handled under how well developed the planet is, or something.

Note: this is not a plea for you to change things. Just explaining why I am having more trouble than I thought I would making a master merchant.

[johndramey]

I want to preface this with a disclaimer that I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, because it definitely seems like I'm jumping into the trade discussion (not argument!) so frequently. However, I would say that ST2 is operating just like things in real life. I mean, it's simplified for us because we want to have fun, but it basically works the same way.

No businessman is going to buy unlimited amounts of anything. There is always a point where someone will say "no, no more!" The factor that changes for us is where that point is. For a small backwater planet, 10 units of clothes may be enough to drive the demand from "GOD WE NEED CLOTHES" to "we're all walking around in silk track suits." Conversely, for a heavily populated planet, 10 units clothes may not even make a dent on the demand.

In ST2, we are dealing in terms of weeks. So, when your ship rolls into a new planet and offloads 50 units of vudka, it takes a couple weeks for the demand to raise back up because that planet now has soviet union levels of vudka.

I like to think that we are dealing with a system where 1 unit of cargo is at least equivalent to a modern day cargo container, and those buggers can hold 25,000kgs. Extrapolate that out to 50 units of cargo, and you are dumping 12,500,000kgs of whatever on a planet at full haul.

[grävling]

Feb 9, 2017 3:27:57 GMT -5 johndramey said:

No businessman is going to buy unlimited amounts of anything.

You'd be surprised. If the price is low enough, there really are buyers at liquidation sales who really will take all that there is to have off your hands. The shareholders are now getting something like 10 cents on the dollar for what they paid for the stuff, but at this point 10 cents on the dollar looks so much better than 0 cents on the dollar.

ST2 doesn't have liquidators. But it does have pirates. <arrr!> Pirates have costs, in repairs, water fuel, and ammo, but assuming those are low enough -- and if they are not, then piracy isn't working out very well for you right now -- the question is, should I haul <good X> all the way across the galaxy where I can get an A+ demand price for it, or sell it for a C+ demand price and go attack somebody else for more loot? I can afford to undercut all of you legal merchant sorts, because, if I am doing this right, I am acquiring my goods for a lot cheaper than you are -- because you, poor victim, are doing all the acquisition costs. <arrr!>

[grävling]

Actually, that is a question. Having never successfully looted a ship, I don't know the answer. I have a load of legally purchased <good x> in my hold. It has an average price, and what I paid in the Cargo View. Now I go exploring and find more of the stuff. It goes in my hold. Finally, I attack somebody and loot his hold of even more of the stuff. What does my cargo view say now?

[fallen]

Feb 9, 2017 6:13:36 GMT -5 grävling said:

Actually, that is a question. Having never successfully looted a ship, I don't know the answer. I have a load of legally purchased <good x> in my hold. It has an average price, and what I paid in the Cargo View. Now I go exploring and find more of the stuff. It goes in my hold. Finally, I attack somebody and loot his hold of even more of the stuff. What does my cargo view say now?

All goods that come from looting, exploring, etc have a $0 paid price. So, if you take them to the Exchange, it is recorded as major profit for you. If you looted half and then bought half the goods, you'd see their average price paid is properly calculated. Every unit is tracked, has an average price, and in fact, we know which Faction made it.

[fallen]

Feb 9, 2017 3:08:32 GMT -5 grävling said:

I am more used to measuring demand in terms of elasticity. On the high end, you can dump as much as much of <cargo x> as you like on us. We always can use it, and will always pay you this rate. When demand is low, then if you start selling things to us, we quickly lose interest, the price quickly plummets, and you basically had better take your merchandise somewhere else.

I think this is just a case of finding better economies. As johndramey mentioned, if you sell a lot of Clothing into a powerful economy (a 14 Econ Luxury Population Center) you're not going to dent the demand. Come back and sell 50, you might see a slight downtick in demand. Come back a little while later, demand is going to be roaring again. Sell 10 units of Clothing into a 5 Econ Lux Pop, and the Clothing market is going to dry up quickly.

Of course, it is a simulation, but you are describing things we very actively worked to simulate. I guess it isn't clear.

[grävling]

Yeah, but what I was trying to explain was that I expected the demand rating to all be about what you are calling 'how powerful the economy is'. Which is wrong (of me). But once you have a wrong idea in your head, it takes a while to shake it out.

[fallen]

Feb 9, 2017 11:07:20 GMT -5 grävling said:

Yeah, but what I was trying to explain was that I expected the demand rating to all be about what you are calling 'how powerful the economy is'. Which is wrong (of me). But once you have a wrong idea in your head, it takes a while to shake it out.

Its all very good, because it is helping us figure out how to craft the UI and the presentation so that its clearer from the start for new players.

[grävling]

Well, if what these really are is 'Selling Price' and 'Buying Price' with no other factors stuffed in, then calling them Prices will be very clear. If other stuff is subsumed in the idea of a Supply and a Demand, then, well I am not sure what those stuff are yet, so I don't know how you can make things clearer.

[athios]

Jumping in on this discussion... so after reading through this entire thread, I think I have a pretty good grasp on how the Letter Grade system is working on both the front and back end, and it feels to me very well thought out. One thing I find myself still needing to do quite frequently though, is mentally calculating absolute price differentials of goods in order to select what to buy.

Example
Planet Best Buy is selling, among other stuff, 3 different products with Grade A+. Which should I buy? Yes, any of the 3 would easily be profitable, but which is better? I have limited cargo space. I have to mentally calculate the price differential per unit, e.g. Product X at Grade A+ has best differential at $15/unit below average.

The other problem is, sometimes there will some other Product Z at C+ Supply Grade... which translates to 20% below average, but have an absolute price differential of say, $60/unit. In this case, this C+ product is actually a better buy than any of the A+ ones.

Now, I assume that with more experience, I may simply remember which products are better for each planet type, but this really isn't feasible in the full release, where they will be many more cargo types, especially rare ones that players don't encounter often. I think the economic system used for calculations works well as is, but perhaps you could adjust the displayed Letter Grade to somehow reflect the absolute differential instead of percentage relative to average? What do other players think of this?

Also, side question — currently it seems that trading doesn't soak up time. I assume this is an alpha-only situation. Will final release have different cargo types taking more/less time to load/unload? Will buying 30 units of a single Product take the same amount of time as buying 1 unit each of 30 different products? That will factor into the selection of goods to buy/sell/loot as well...