Trading is Flat (Economy) and Boring.
- Thread starter _Dastardly_
- Start date
Remember, we were all in a Sidewinder at the beginning with very little money in our pocket. Those low value commodities were very useful to me in my Sidewinder and Hauler when I was low on funds. So, they serve a purpose other than to fill out the list - they give the noobs something to trade.
On the other hand, it would be useful to have the value of space-traded agricultural goods more realistic. Transporting perishables requires refrigeration, an expensive ship, fuel, maintenance, etc. Food costs in space should be much higher than is currently represented.
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Nah. Hauling fish and grain is only useful for newbies for the first few hours until they can fill up their cargo hold with palladium. Then they'll only use the profitable commodities from that point on. That's a lot of resources targeted at the very earliest moments of a players career.
You don't even need to build up to palladium with fish and grain. Much better to run some missions or steal some killing blows from system security in a res.
You don't even need to build up to palladium with fish and grain. Much better to run some missions or steal some killing blows from system security in a res.
I think it comes down to a few small changes that would make a big impact in trading (I'm not talking increasing the profit.. making it more interesting, make finding new routes an enjoyable task that rewards people that are willing to put the time in.
It may be a gamble from FD's point of view, it's super stable at the moment, but also very boring. Make it more unstable, make the prices go up slowly with no (or very high) limits, and drop quickly. Add something to export from industrial (bring some of the Hi-Tech stuff over that's more suited to industrial) and add something to Agricultural to export.
Make traders work to find better routes, push out into the long distance stations and anarchies.
It may be a gamble from FD's point of view, it's super stable at the moment, but also very boring. Make it more unstable, make the prices go up slowly with no (or very high) limits, and drop quickly. Add something to export from industrial (bring some of the Hi-Tech stuff over that's more suited to industrial) and add something to Agricultural to export.
Make traders work to find better routes, push out into the long distance stations and anarchies.
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Then don't do it.
As for there not being any viable 3 or 4 stop runs, you are just dead wrong.
Supply and demand actually works - but it comes along with caveat that NPCs do majority of tradings.
Jeez I dont think you read my post at all.. Trading IS boring, I'm trying to make some kind of suggestion to improve it. If you dont have something constructive to say.. why bother.
Apparently some people would rather have other people just "stop" than to try to improve the game in any way.
Which gives the illusion, or reality actually that it does not matter. Low demand? Npc will fix. Low supply? Npc will fix.
I think the biggest bug bear is that everything is just hit and miss. You have no idea what impact NPCs are having, nor where to go to try and earn decent credits. Trading seems as complicated and surfing for a high tech next to an agricultural system and flying back and forward trying not to fall asleep.
To be fair, I have no solutions as the game is just poorly thought out. Why would anyone EVER trade in hydrogen fuel? Or Waste? or any number of other commodities? And because of this, trading is broken.
To be fair, I have no solutions as the game is just poorly thought out. Why would anyone EVER trade in hydrogen fuel? Or Waste? or any number of other commodities? And because of this, trading is broken.
Because every once in a while, you get a mission to "Bring us 3 Beers, and we'll give you Umpty-Thousand Spacebucks". Or Bio-Waste, or Scrap, or any number of other things. So that you have to go to different places to find different goods.
A completely random mission every blue moon doesn't 'fix' the worthless list of commodities.
I completely agree that there needs to be a great change in the way the trading operates. Because it's the most profitable trade at the moment doesn't mean it needs to be boring! You can easily make it less profitable and more exciting, and people would still choose to do it. I really like Dastardly's proposal. Thanks for thinking about it. Hope the devs take it into account. If not in 1.3 then soon after? 
One problem would be, if you remove the artificial low and high trade price caps on individual goods, how do you then prevent the entire thing spiralling out of control very quickly in popular systems? You'd then get into lots of shenanigans with endlessly tweaking the supply and demand rates of planets.
I get a cold sweat when thinking about trading, its like a never ending nightmare being stuck in treacle and being barely able to move.
I few weeks back I calculated how long it would take to get a fully loaded python and haven't touched the game since, I would like to play but my heart wont let me.
I few weeks back I calculated how long it would take to get a fully loaded python and haven't touched the game since, I would like to play but my heart wont let me.
