Why are grades different between Demand and Sell screens?

[Cory Trese]

Tangentially related? I guess what I'm not getting why players aren't seeing how directly, completely and bidirectionally they're linked. Quantity and price both derive from the column we are calling Supply. If that's not a definition of supply quality, I'm sure what is.

[grävling]

The only thing I am seeing is that matters for The Demand column is Price. If the Price is good (they pay at the top of the scale) you get a good grade. If it is expensive, you get a bad grade. Supply works the same way, except that good grades are dependent on low prices.

I am used to Supply being a measure of, not only how much stock do we have on hand, but also how quickly do things restock. Demand is a measure of 'how much stock can I sell here'. Neither of these things are measured in money. You can have a huge supply of goods at high prices, and if somebody out there is willing to pay those prices, you smile and hold your prices there.

Without knowing that the rating is only about Price, you keep expecting places that have a A+ demand for a good to want to buy a heck of a lot of this stuff at top prices. Instead, they want to buy 4 units at this price, and then the bottom falls out of the market. The sad Star Trader now has a hold full of goods he cannot sell for a profit in this market, or possibly anywhere. The language I use, professionally for situations like this is that "The Price is Good, but the Demand is Weak (or Poor)". Discovering that there is no relationship between the grade rating in the Demand column and how strong the Demand was, was perplexing.

[tenbsmith]

fallen , I believe it was a refinery, I can report back later definitively. Here's a bit more context. I was playing a Merchant, who had just accepted his first two missions both of which were pickup runs with deferred payment. Knights Rest was a waypoint for one mission and my first stop on a triangle run.

It might be best to see if other people are experiencing this before spending too much time. I double checked last night, so I'm 99.5% sure I'm reporting accurately, but it was getting late. Now I know that the 'Browse Demand' and 'Sell Cargo' screens are supposed to have the same Demand Grade for a given product (e.g., Edible Plants). I'll keep an eye out and report back if I find it again.

[tenbsmith]

Cory Trese, The approach to supply/demand grades seems very reasonable. But, there are other reasonable ways to create supply/demand grades. Further, any grading system for this is going to be fairly complicated. So, it's not easy for the player to understand completely.

Many forum users like to understand completely, other customers may be less concerned with that. Other users may be content with A=Good, B=Bad

The table in Johndramey's recent post that showed how the two types of grades were related was helpful.
startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/14787/buying-selling-make-money-merchant
But, now I need to know what that number means.

[athios]

Feb 10, 2017 9:30:27 GMT -5 tenbsmith said:

Back to my original question. I pulled into Knights Rest for the first time. I was excited to see Edible Plants had a Demand Grade of B on the Browse Demand screen because I had some in my cargo. But when I went to Sell Cargo screen Edible Plants had a Demand Grade of C. Why were the two grades different?

Just throwing out ideas here... Andrew mentioned that the game fully tracks which faction made the goods you are carrying. Perhaps there was some inter-factional conflict going on that would affect prices you see? Since the Grade is also tied to the sell price, then it's also possible that your faction, reputation or relative negotiate skill lowers the "Sell Cargo Demand Grade"? Purely conjecture here though. We'd need an admin to confirm.

[tenbsmith]

I went back to Knights Rest and sure enough, Edible Plants have a grade of B+ on the Browse Demand screen, but F- on the Sell Cargo screen. I've got screen shots.