I got disgusted with trading and so many other things being broken that I took a couple of month's break from the game. I was just wondering if trading profit margins are back to normal (high demands with high sell prices) or if things are still borked into the twilight zone right now? Thanks.
So is trading fixed?
- Thread starter Harland White
- Start date
Anything up to a Python and trading is somewhat okay. T9 and anaconda is much worse since the day the beta 1.1 was launched.
There is some kind of new algorithm where if you fly a ship with a lot of cargo slots the route 'can' dive within a run or two. Doing a route in a python no problem, bring in a T9 or anaconda and bye bye profits.
There is some kind of new algorithm where if you fly a ship with a lot of cargo slots the route 'can' dive within a run or two. Doing a route in a python no problem, bring in a T9 or anaconda and bye bye profits.
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I've been trading since December, same area, profit margins are still the same - that is 2.4k/t on a round trip. So many choices to make that sort of money, I only tend to need to swap my route when my jump range gets reduced upgrading to a bigger ship.
So No, it's not broken...
G
Trading was fixed in fact. Now markets will react more actively when huge amount of goods are shipped around - in opposite being flat all the time.
To put this into a broader perspective:
1. Commodity trading behavior has remained _mostly_ stable since the first server side patch a week or two after 1.0 launch way back in December. There were some problems with background system resupply rates at launch, but that was quickly fixed.
2. Profit margins have remained stable since then. Most players with basic commodity trading "know how" can expect between 10,000 cr/ton/hour and 14,000 cr/ton/hour. Players just figuring out commodity trading will probably make <10,000 cr/ton/hour. Lucky or persistent traders can find routes of 16,000 cr/ton/hour or more, but those are either rare or short-lived, or both.
3. Rares trading also got a nerf about 1 month after launch, but it's still a dependable source of income in smaller ship. When you hit T6/Asp range it becomes a question of skill to determine whether commodity trading starts to outpace what you can earn rares trading, but at below T6 levels, rares trading is superior. When you hit T7/Clipper levels, commodity trading is superior is you can wrap your head around it.
4. Luxury trading had a brief 3-4 week window of bliss because for a while the background resupply rate of the simulation was broken and supply effectively never went down from its base level for a station.
5. With patch 1.1 (a little earlier, actually), FD clearly fixed the bug that was causing the Luxury runs to be so never-ending, and the resupply rate went back to normal. A _single_ trader with a large ship nearing 300 cargo capacity can outstrip the resupply rate, so the key now is to look for systems/commodities to have >50,000 supply, or the trade run profits won't be very stable if more than 5-10 players find it and eat up that commodity.
6. An older designed behavior called the "bulk rate tax" _seems_ to be hitting some players, but my suspicion is that they're trading in commodities that have really low supply/demand and are confusing normal price "wobble" due to supply/demand numbers <30,000 with the "bulk rate tax". However, it's possible that ships with cargo capacity above 400 are being hit by something I and other commanders cannot personally observe. I trade in a 272-ton Python, and I know another commander who trades in a 368-ton Anaconda, and we've _never_ seen the behavior that some players have been reporting as a "bulk rate tax". As for the tax itself and what it is, it's _supposed_ to affect you only when you bring a large quantity of a single commodity to a station that wants very little of that commodity. Search the forums for more.
The single most annoying thing was the wall of silence when trading changed. The most I've managed to get from Michael Brookes was that commodities were turned off then back on.
I think that is code for "We'll teach you to fly a T9 or anaconda!".
Since 1.1 went live and given the huge time investment trying to find a decent route, I'm pretty sure I can earn more profit in my Pyhton than I can in my anaconda.
Edit: Also been flying my Python a lot. Loads of outposts have hundred of thousands of commodities to buy and sell. Big stations rarely have commodities anywhere near the scale the outposts do and that does not seem right to me?
It's a weird situation to have an anaconda as the fighting ship and a python as the trader ship...
I think that is code for "We'll teach you to fly a T9 or anaconda!".
Since 1.1 went live and given the huge time investment trying to find a decent route, I'm pretty sure I can earn more profit in my Pyhton than I can in my anaconda.
Edit: Also been flying my Python a lot. Loads of outposts have hundred of thousands of commodities to buy and sell. Big stations rarely have commodities anywhere near the scale the outposts do and that does not seem right to me?
It's a weird situation to have an anaconda as the fighting ship and a python as the trader ship...
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Just to get some data points, what are the cargo capacities that you typically run in your Anaconda and your Python?
@Shads runs either a 368- or 386-ton Anaconda and like me (in a 272-ton Python), isn't seeing the bulk profit hit you and others have mentioned.
Edit: Oh, and there are large stations with large supply quantities. In my current A-B route, some of the commodities that produce in the 14,000 to 16,000 cr/ton/hour range have supply quantities in excess of 200,000 at the respective stations. I'm currently working an outpost-to-outpost route in the same two systems that produces 16,000 cr/ton/hour, and those two supply quantities are both below 50,000 each. One of them hovers closer to 20,000 supply, but I move over to other commodities from other stations (in the same two systems) when I strip down that ~20,000 commodity to the point where profit drops below 14,000 cr/ton/hour.
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No problems here with the T-9 at 532 tons. The route I'm running is akin to a printing press - just hemorrhages cash on demand.
Wonder if that is because a lot of players are ignoring Outposts? Whatever, they should have a lower capacity than stations anyway.....
G
432 in the Anaconda, Python only has 112 because it was my fighter ship. I need to test more but I think I'll be switching it to a trading ship very soon now.
Good to know. So: new working theory is "the bulk rate tax affects only ships carrying >400 tons of the same commodity".
It's _just_ a theory for now.
One that I agree with... I might strip the anaconda down to under 400 just to see what happens.
As far as I remember bulk rate tax kicked in only in huge quantities. Around 100 tons certainly ain't huge IMO.
Too cryptic and lacking context.
Yes but something else happened the day beta 1.1 launched (i.e. before 1.1 even became live). Every Anaconda pilot I know all said something had changed. It doesn't seem to affect smaller trading ships so there is something about having a large amount of cargo spaces that negatively impacts trading.
I found a 3k run, selling gold for 1650 credit (100k high demand). Next run the gold went from 100k high demand to 4000 low demand, Jumped to closest station and back and then it was selling for -370 and all demand had gone.
InMemoriamSirocco
Banned
500 tons of any commodity is not a huge amount. What people are happy to forget is that we are talking about planetary economy here.
All the world's gold facts
I want to make this clear:
I'm NOT talking about wanting it to go back to how it was (endless runs, no change in prices).
What I DON'T want is for the economy to dry up completely within one or two runs. I'm spending 90% of my 'trading' time exploring new routes for them to dry up within a run or two. That to me is very broken. If this was trading in low demands I could understand it but I don't have 50,000 cargo spaces so I shouldn't be impacting demands within a run or two.
I'm NOT talking about wanting it to go back to how it was (endless runs, no change in prices).
What I DON'T want is for the economy to dry up completely within one or two runs. I'm spending 90% of my 'trading' time exploring new routes for them to dry up within a run or two. That to me is very broken. If this was trading in low demands I could understand it but I don't have 50,000 cargo spaces so I shouldn't be impacting demands within a run or two.
So, a few Lakon loads of gold would be equivalent to one percent of the world's gold reserve?
And you say that these amounts should not have any effect on a planetary economy?
This sounds suspiciously like the behavior I've observed for Imperial Slaves on and off since launch. I wonder if Gold and... two other commodities whose names escape me right now are now suddenly being affected by one or more system/station _states_ like I suspect has always happened for Imp Slaves. I know for sure that certain station state changes can make a sudden (and profitable) demand for Imp Slaves appear for a short while. And then just magically go poof sometime less than 2 hours later.
I've noticed from surveying the crowdsourced data since 1.1 that Gold is now an extremely profitable _and_ volatile commodity. Two other commodities also stood out with the same behavior. Sorry I can't remember the names. Typically, though, what I've seen is a huge per unit profit for Gold at quite a few stations, but ALSO with very low supply quantities of <3000 or much less. Same for the other two commodities. The crowdsourced tool I use (Slopey's) does not track _demand_ quantities, so I can't tell what's going on the with the demand side in such situations.
The stable trading I've observed for myself typically involves commodities that aren't Gold, Imp Slaves, or the other two whose names escape me.
Basically, if the black box weren't quite so darn black concerning the way that system/station influence and state changes work in the background simulation, we might have a better explanation for what we're seeing since 1.1. But honestly, I despair that we'll ever be able as a community to reverse-engineer the background simulation's state mechanics. BOX. TOO. BLACK.