Why do the trade lines show VOLUME and NOT profit?

[CmdrClueless]

In the tutorial video, you guys say that trade lines show volume and NOT profit.

http://youtu.be/H89hHj5LFvI?t=3m38s

What is the thinking behind this? Since this is never a guarantee of making profit, and from what we have seen, it isn't, why did you choose to display this?
I'm not going to go into the discussion of why a trade route with such volume with no profit even exists, this might be of humanitarian reasons.

Anyhow, since what players are looking for is a bit of information to make an informed decision to make profit, this information is useless to us, so basically we pay for trade data that we don't need and doesn't help us at all.

So, the only reliable way to make profit by trading is to actually fly around, get into the stations and actually write down the prices. Or, use automatic tools.
So we are back in 1984, where we manually wrote down prices. And you went through all this trouble designing the trading interface... that's useless.

Why?

 

[Jaeger]

So, the only reliable way to make profit by trading is to actually fly around, get into the stations and actually write down the prices.

Yup. Why? probably because it's a little bit more engaging. If you go to the trouble to write down the high level exports and imports, and figure out your own trade route; then you gain a sense of achievement that would be washed away by an in game automatic best route calculator.

You can blunder around like me, waiting to get lucky if you like too. That also works.... eventually.

 

[Echostatic]

As an Oculus Rift user , I would very much like to know how people are trading since writing down prices isn't quite so easy.

(I still can't believe the pen and paper method is what we have to use. How archaic.)

 

[CmdrClueless]

Yup. Why? probably because it's a little bit more engaging. If you go to the trouble to write down the high level exports and imports, and figure out your own trade route; then you gain a sense of achievement that would be washed away by an in game automatic best route calculator.

You can blunder around like me, waiting to get lucky if you like too. That also works.... eventually.

Writing down prices from every station and 'figuring' out best routes isn't an achievement. It's very easy, but it takes time, time that should be spent playing.
What I want is an informed decision, not automatic best price calculator. Right now, the current trade lines are just colorful lines that show you stuff is moving around, and that's it.

 

[Shepard]

As an Oculus Rift user , I would very much like to know how people are trading since writing down prices isn't quite so easy.

(I still can't believe the pen and paper method is what we have to use. How archaic.)

Same here, I can't believe that in a modern game like this we can't have some kind of a journal in game. For OR users though I think it's mining or dogfighting. Or find a trade route and after you find it then use OR. I think dogfighting would be more fun in OR anyway, trading is extremely boring since you have to jump same route hundreds times of day depending on how long you play. Either you immersed with OR or not using OR routine trading route is as boring as it is without OR. OR iMHO is the best for action based game play. Which I consider dogfighting since you need dof see where enemy ship is going etc etc.

 

[Trashberg]

There are plenty of missions where you need to find a certain commodity, go fetch a certain number and return. And then it's better that trade lines show volume. Then again, the trade lines are never a guarantee that the system has the commodity in stock when you arrive.

 

[defekt]

1980s Casio calculator tech is required for an in-game notepad that records pricelists from visited stations, ergo, no.

 

[Monk]

As an Oculus Rift user , I would very much like to know how people are trading since writing down prices isn't quite so easy.

(I still can't believe the pen and paper method is what we have to use. How archaic.)

Welcome to the modern version of Simon Says!

Lol, just kidding. There have been some 3rd party logging tools but a built in one would be supreme

 

[Vander Mey jr.]

As an Oculus Rift user , I would very much like to know how people are trading since writing down prices isn't quite so easy.

While playing, make screenshots of the price lists. (Or some other way of "taking notes" digitally.)

After playing, turn those "digital notes" into an idea on where to go and what to trade.

 

[euclydian]

Writing down prices from every station and 'figuring' out best routes isn't an achievement. It's very easy, but it takes time, time that should be spent playing.
What I want is an informed decision, not automatic best price calculator. Right now, the current trade lines are just colorful lines that show you stuff is moving around, and that's it.

The idea is you can get a mostly informed decision based on a combination of supply to the station (HIGH will generally mean lower prices), the galaxy average pricing, by looking at the imports and exports column, and by using the trade lines. It hasn't always worked in practice but I'm told that it seems better now in the last couple of patches. Certainly I played for a couple of hours tonight and each commodity I traded I managed a profit on, without looking up prices first.

Best profit lines would make it all a bit simple I think.

 

[FX2K]

IMO, no route pointed out in game should be a guaranteed profit. Some leg work is still required and rightly so.
Just because you see 10 articulated trucks full of <product> heading towards <retail outlet> doesn't mean you will make a profit with a car boot full of the same stuff

The tools do give you an indication though and from an evening of trading last night the accuracy has improved massively, not always resulting in large profits, sometimes as little as 45cr if that... but I would expect to seek out the most profitable routes myself and make do with the mediocre ones on my travels. So long as selling Coke to Coca Cola isn't more profitable (and illogical) compared to selling it to a retail outlet.. which is how it was previously, I am happy..

Although I have only done limited trading (last night) I see a large improvement overall...

Edit: Of course, I would like an in-game station snapshot tool, one which shows me data from a station I just visited.. not one which magically shows me live prices across the galaxy... Basically a screenshot viewer in-game / or a tabbed historical view...not live data.

I would like this so I can save the rainforests.. and when I play with the Rift on

 

[CmdrClueless]

While playing, make screenshots of the price lists. (Or some other way of "taking notes" digitally.)

After playing, turn those "digital notes" into an idea on where to go and what to trade.

I'm not sure any of you get this.
Game design should never push players to use outside of the game sources of information, or using third party tools to gather information that should be in the game.
Designing an interface apparently to help trading, but using it to display irrelevant information, it's just....... unfortunate.

The trading issue should have been addressed and put more thought into, instead, they force me to use all kinds of third party tools to do trading.

 

[mr.wolfie]

OK. What data do you expect is actually being tracked? Because it's not player trading. There's not enough of that in the galaxy to warrant any accurate data by volume or by profit.
So, it's NPC trading?
But, surely they don't influence the markets??? They can't be making profits. And any volume they ship is irrelevant. Do you really think that all the NPCs are being tracked? Across an entire galaxy?
I doubt it.

So the reality is: nothing is being traded and no-one is making a profit. Except for a minority of player characters, who are so small a representation as to be meaningless.

And, even if it were all being tracked, and everything made a difference, then an indication that someone made a profit on a particular run is no guarantee that you will, since you don't know how much got shipped in what sort of vessel, how long ago or how recently, and how the prices have changed since then to reflect that trade.

Bottom line:
Do your own research.

Below the bottom line:
The commodities section should contain snapshots of all the markets you have visited, with the prices as they were when you were last there. That would prevent the need for pen n paper, taking screenshots, or having to write an app for that.

 

[euclydian]

If you just want something that tells you the profit from station A to station B then sure, use external tools. Doesn't seem like much of a game to me though.

 

[Parag]

Sorry guys, but as you can see, the fanboys in this community is hard to get through, because with every idea that someone comes up with they will <snip> on you and say that everything is like it's "supposed" to be.

They can't deal with other peoples point of view.

 

[TheEponymousBob]

I use the trade lines and import/export info, and in my experience they work just fine if you remember that different stations in the same system can have different supply/demand/prices. If someone can direct me to a location where this is not the case, please do, and I will immediately stop posting this. In the meantime, please check this before declaring the trade info broken.

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Sorry guys, but as you can see, the fanboys in this community is hard to get through, because with every idea that someone comes up with they will s*** on you and say that everything is like it's "supposed" to be.

They can't deal with other people's (majority*) point of view.

*Citation needed.

 

[CMDR i Tetsuo]

I make money by checking the volume compared to it's distance from source. It's worked for me so far.
Look at the outgoings, if the volume is high that means demand must be high as well. When you can see several lanes of the trade going to different systems usually the one furthest out pays the highest amount. It's figuring things like this out that keeps trade interesting, if you could figure it all out by just looking at one number then the experience would be even less involving and there are plenty of people that regard trading to be pretty boring as it is let alone if it was even simpler.

 

[CmdrClueless]

OK. What data do you expect is actually being tracked? Because it's not player trading. There's not enough of that in the galaxy to warrant any accurate data by volume or by profit.
So, it's NPC trading?
But, surely they don't influence the markets??? They can't be making profits. And any volume they ship is irrelevant. Do you really think that all the NPCs are being tracked? Across an entire galaxy?
I doubt it.

So the reality is: nothing is being traded and no-one is making a profit. Except for a minority of player characters, who are so small a representation as to be meaningless.

And, even if it were all being tracked, and everything made a difference, then an indication that someone made a profit on a particular run is no guarantee that you will, since you don't know how much got shipped in what sort of vessel, how long ago or how recently, and how the prices have changed since then to reflect that trade.

Bottom line:
Do your own research.

Below the bottom line:
The commodities section should contain snapshots of all the markets you have visited, with the prices as they were when you were last there. That would prevent the need for pen n paper, taking screenshots, or having to write an app for that.

I hope you will never work as game designer on any game.

Do your own research, you say.

There is no research. Flying around stations and gathering hard data is not research, there's nothing you can extrapolate from this.
This is what I want, I want bits for information that will lead me to the conclusion that some station is in desperate need of some commodity AND it will pay well for it. That there's another station selling that commodity at a low price so I can make a profit.

The current, high demand and high supply is again irrelevant data. I've had cases where high demand had prices lower than high supply. So, again, this can't be used as information.
The trade lines show volume and not profit. Again, can't be used as information.
Economy type again, doesn't guarantee anything, again, can't be used as information.

So the only thing I have and can trust is a compilation of price lists, compiled by me flying to a dozen of stations. Which defeats the whole trading view, high supply/high demand, exported to/imported from 'information'

 

[FX2K]

Sorry guys, but as you can see, the fanboys in this community is hard to get through, because with every idea that someone comes up with they will s*** on you and say that everything is like it's "supposed" to be.

They can't deal with other people's (majority) point of view.

For what its worth, the trade issues have been my biggest complaint for weeks.. I have harped on and on about it in multiple threads.

 

[Vander Mey jr.]

I'm not sure any of you get this.

Oh, I get it allright.

I have checked several third-party trading tools, and not a single one of them had a feature set / UI I would agree with.

To put this into context, I'm a professional software developer, and have some idea on what to look for.

So, I think it's safe to assume that any more elaborate in-game interface won't satisfy everybody, or even a sizeable majority. The complaining and moaning would continue, just on a different level.

Designing an interface apparently to help trading, but using it to display irrelevant information, it's just....... unfortunate.

I found the galaxy map interface to be quite sufficient to find where to get a commodity from, at all. (Like in, "Auto-Fabricators purchased at this starport".... you get the idea.)

Given that prices can change quite significantly, quite fast, and that the info in your ship's computers is always dated to begin with, I simply don't expect the computer to do more.

Oh, and FWIW... the most profitable route I have run so far was actually between two stations within the same system. I'm looking forward to your design on representing that in the galaxy map... ;-)