It's time to yell at a brick wall - aka.. Request something to be done about trading

[srinidhalaya]

so when bounty hunting will give 50 million per sidewinder, you would also suggest to not touch it?

Bounty Hunting 50 mil per sidewinder kill, obviously isn't working. Current trading system is working. Fix what is broke, don't fix what isn't broke.

That has never been the case since launch.

Uhh, yes it has. There was a massive bug that screwed the economies for trading, because background AI trading wasn't being calculated correctly, and stations that reported DEMAND for commodities had extreme SUPPLY. The galaxy trade map was essentially useless, and once they found AND fixed the bug, it took upward of 2 month's for the economy to settle out, because they didn't want strong arm fix it.

The main point being, with bounty hunting, mining locations being hostile, and other such difficulties, those can be adjusted without directly altering the formula's for the economy. You start tweaking the numbers in the economy, you have massive unintended consequences. This happened several times during the beta. At the moment, everything seems to be sailing along just fine. Dont. Break. It.

 

[Bidermann]

No, just no, so you want to nerf trading, piracy, mining, smuggling, and by extension bounty hunters that target players?
us traders forced to that title that want more danger are called smugglers. Smugglers want more danger and more profits. Trading needs to be the standard set because all other professions besides exploration are bound to it being profitable.
Trading does need a revamp in terms of mechanics and being able to stimulate an economy. More goods need to be able to become valuable such as food if the demand is high enough. But as a whole trading is where it needs to be in terms of profits.

What we really need to work on is smuggling, go crazy making that difficult and dangerous. Seriously all you masochists go nuts turning smuggling into a crazy profession only a fool or brave soul would pursue. But afterward make the potential profit match that risk on its own without stupid missions to throw the balance out of whack.

trading does need to be refined, it does not need to be nerfed or buffed. So far it's the only profession Frontier got right.

totally agree

 

[Derath]

Uhh, yes it has. There was a massive bug that screwed the economies for trading, because background AI trading wasn't being calculated correctly, and stations that reported DEMAND for commodities had extreme SUPPLY. The galaxy trade map was essentially useless, and once they found AND fixed the bug, it took upward of 2 month's for the economy to settle out, because they didn't want strong arm fix it.

The main point being, with bounty hunting, mining locations being hostile, and other such difficulties, those can be adjusted without directly altering the formula's for the economy. You start tweaking the numbers in the economy, you have massive unintended consequences. This happened several times during the beta. At the moment, everything seems to be sailing along just fine. Dont. Break. It.

I think 2 months is rather overboard, they fixed it after about a week and you got ever increasing profit up to our current margins over the next 2 weeks. Even back then traders who didn't wipe after gamma frequently posted that they still had good trade-routes they were just particularly rare at that stage.

I'm fairly certain the galaxy trade maps always been useless The current economy isn't complex they just turned supply/demand off as far as I can tell with tethered galactic averages.

In a way it didn't impact anyone other than people rushing as fast as possible and the few that didn't wipe

 

[Zelos1983]

yes, eliminate the commodity screen as it currently exists. Instead you shift to trade missions.

Sorry, that's an absurd idea.
The commodity screen has always been that way and that's what people expect from Elite.

There is no need to fundamentally change the game mechanics. I don't understand why people are complaing now after having played previous iterations of elite and familiarized themselves with the design goals.

 

[nedeaalex]

trade is fine ..dont mess with it lol

There just had to be someone xD

 

[Lord Momo]

And it's complete like this that gets all the ignorant wannabee hot shot space pilots up in arms. It has never been 20mil and hour and certainly is no where near 11 even now. 4-5 is the average in a top tier ship, maybe 6 or 7 if you're very lucky but that certainly won't be the norm.

You nerf trading profits, then hardly anyone would bother trading. Seriously, 80% of the player traders in the game would probably disappear.

Anyway, which of these professions would you expect to earn the most in real life? Soldier, mugger, miner or trader. The answer is pretty obvious isn't it. You don't become a soldier to earn yourself a fortune, you become one for the adventure and excitement. Likewise being a trader is hardly the most exciting job in the world, but it's a steady safe job and the income is good. You pick the profession that appeals to you most.

In ED you can do any of those from one day to the next. Need to roll some credit in, then get yourself in a cargo ship and go earn some creds. Fancy a bit of action, jump in a fighter and go blast some stuff. No one is forcing you into only playing one profession. If you choose to do nothing but bounty hunting, well then that's your choice. So don't moan that you're not earning as much money as trading, because there's nothing stopping you from doing some trading yourself.

The difference is when you are a soldier in real life you are provided with the highest quality weapons from the start in america's army, in elite you get the worst ship from the start and if you want to be a tank style person in an anaconda, you don't get it by practicing in an anaconda like you would practice in a tank in real life, the best way to get it is to trade grind. in real life if you consider all the weapons and gear that soldiers use they make a ton of money because that stuff is expensive, but it is pre-bought, soldiers don't have to buy all their equipment like you do in elite, that is what makes combat zones not nearly as profitable as trading.

 

[Leighroy]

I just got blown to bits by an NPC and lost 6 million. Have they changed something? He was hanging around when I entered a system and said "You're the one I've been waiting for." It was a vulture.
I am currently sulking.

 

[ChubbyBunneh]

Lol. You earn more farming bounties than anything else in the game until you can afford an Imperial Clipper for trading.

And you can farm that many bounties in a Sidewinder or Viper thanks to the swarm of System Authority vessels in HIRES's helping you out.

Trading income only exceeds RES farming in 4 ships, three of which cost over 50 million credits.

This whole thread is a farce. If anything needs to be reduced it's bounty farming income. Currently there is no reason for the Hauler, Type 6, and Type 7 to even exist.

 

[CmdrKull]

What's you're current combat rank? Dangerous? Deadly?

Are you? I would hope you are living up to the title you've earned.

My rank is Tycoon. Why are you trying to demote me to delivery boy? I already did that. In a sidewinder. I took 100 credits and I turned it into several hundred million credits in cash and equipment. Hence, the Tycoon title.

Go ruin someone else's profession.

 

[Lord Momo]

What's you're current combat rank? Dangerous? Deadly?

Are you? I would hope you are living up to the title you've earned.

My rank is Tycoon. Why are you trying to demote me to delivery boy? I already did that. In a sidewinder. I took 100 credits and I turned it into several hundred million credits in cash and equipment. Hence, the Tycoon title.

Go ruin someone else's profession.

Why does everyone think he is trying to nerf trading? He doesn't want trading profit to decrease, OP just wants something in trading to change so it is not just A-B-A-B etc. I think his ideas are good, trading as is has a very weak gameplay, there is no skill or thought in it and i have earned 27 mil trading so while i am aware that is not great i have done it for around 30 hours so i have a pretty good understanding of what it involves, looking at a database and listening to an audiobook for a couple hours until you finish your book or go do something else. A game should not require me to do something completely unrelated to the game in order for me to find it fun to play a large portion of the game. I think adding something similar to what the OP suggests would add a fun new game mechanic to keep elite fresh, and break away from the current grindy feel.

 

[Scudmungus]

Tradin payin fuh me Pirate Conda..

..piratin not be payin for it. Sad. An truth!

 

[Quineloe]

Lol. You earn more farming bounties than anything else in the game until you can afford an Imperial Clipper for trading.

And you can farm that many bounties in a Sidewinder or Viper thanks to the swarm of System Authority vessels in HIRES's helping you out.

Trading income only exceeds RES farming in 4 ships, three of which cost over 50 million credits.

This whole thread is a farce. If anything needs to be reduced it's bounty farming income. Currently there is no reason for the Hauler, Type 6, and Type 7 to even exist.

That may well be true, but you need to farm hundreds of millions for your ship needs, and billions if you're into power play. And that's where the Anaconda just flat out destroys every other profession in terms of reliable raw cr/h.

 

[fademist]

That may well be true, but you need to farm hundreds of millions for your ship needs, and billions if you're into power play. And that's where the Anaconda just flat out destroys every other profession in terms of reliable raw cr/h.

so ur excuse of trade nerf is that conda a multi ship can do good on trade?...

 

[Derath]

Lol. You earn more farming bounties than anything else in the game until you can afford an Imperial Clipper for trading.

And you can farm that many bounties in a Sidewinder or Viper thanks to the swarm of System Authority vessels in HIRES's helping you out.

Trading income only exceeds RES farming in 4 ships, three of which cost over 50 million credits.

This whole thread is a farce. If anything needs to be reduced it's bounty farming income. Currently there is no reason for the Hauler, Type 6, and Type 7 to even exist.

While its worded harshly and a bit hostile this is true now, certainly low end trading can't match up to bounty-hunting. The issue remains though they just tweaked the background, that being that trade scales linearly with cargo hold/jump range (in some cases), BH scales with kill speed but very quickly ends up flattening off, especially if as mentioned there is a horde of cops.

BH income rises in a fairly expected way from the sidewinder to the vulture, as they have enough differences between them that the kill speed still pays off, once you hit the vulture however I genuinely think the income becomes flat, I probably kill faster in a python than anything else but I suspect vulture/FDL/Python/Clipper/Conda all achieve roughly the same figures depending on pilot specialty.

This is dumb, and I don't think the fix that anyone was looking for, I probably don't care that BH in a viper makes more money than trading as bounty hunting in the small ships is about the only time in the game your at any risk of destruction, trading makes less but is safer in that regard.

I do care that the earnings don't scale though, I suspect the early BH numbers are too high and the late ones too low (depends on what you think theoretical maximum should be). The more obvious issue here is that the other professions, that being exploration/piracy/mining cannot touch BH or Trading still, piracy is a bit niche so thats understandable - if they removed the 20 cargo limit its probably possible to turn a reasonable profit again with piracy. Mining is horrendous however, with missions thrown together to desperately try and fix its awful earnings (is quite relaxing though). I can't comment on exploration as i've not done any, however I'm fairly certain its still much lower than the prime 2.

 

[Space Guru]

OP touched a nerve, looks like. Right now trading is a matter of searching for a route on Thrudd's or EDDB, putting Netflix on your phone/tablet/second monitor, and then spacing out for a few hours while you run the same three or four commodities between the same two stations for as long as you can before you go space-mad. If you get interdicted, just submit and boost away, no muss and/or fuss. The fact that this is the best income in the game is absolutely criminal.

I'd definitely like to see longer-range hauling missions with larger payloads, once you have a T6 or above there's just no point in even looking at the board anymore. Why does everybody only ever need 2-7 tons moved one jump over?

I just wish I could make as much money as traders. Or more, since I'm risking my neck and they mostly are not.

 

[Darth Ender]

Dangerous, 50% to deadly. I didn't CZ farm so combat progression was slow (this was all pre-1.3) despite having 5000+ bounties turned in. That was roughly 5.5 months of regular gameplay. Then after moving from my FDL to an anaconda, i went to do some trading. in about half a month of gameplay i went from 40 mil in trading to 290 mil in trading. I'm entrepreneur and well over 60% towards tycoon.

I'm not trying to ruin trading, i'm trying to fix it. It's already ruined. Brain dead easy is not how it should be and that's how it currently is.

 

[Winecork]

Rather than just nerfing trading, perhaps we look at making mining/combat better.

I've done some mining after 1.3 and really it's not that much better than before - credits wise. The collector limpets are awesome though.

Don't do much combat so can't comment other than saying there are quite a number of posts on this forum telling all and sundry how much money they make RES farming or such like, so how bad can it be?

 

[fademist]

Dangerous, 50% to deadly. I didn't CZ farm so combat progression was slow (this was all pre-1.3) despite having 5000+ bounties turned in. That was roughly 5.5 months of regular gameplay. Then after moving from my FDL to an anaconda, i went to do some trading. in about half a month of gameplay i went from 40 mil in trading to 290 mil in trading. I'm entrepreneur and well over 60% towards tycoon.

I'm not trying to ruin trading, i'm trying to fix it. It's already ruined. Brain dead easy is not how it should be and that's how it currently is.

erm so tell me trade need to be nerfed cause conda is good at it?

- - - Updated - - -

Don't do much combat so can't comment other than saying there are quite a number of posts on this forum telling all and sundry how much money they make RES farming or such like, so how bad can it be?

isnt that they just want to nerf trade to the ground...

 

[Winecork]

I just got blown to bits by an NPC and lost 6 million. Have they changed something? He was hanging around when I entered a system and said "You're the one I've been waiting for." It was a vulture.
I am currently sulking.

I got the same message and he was in a Python, I got lucky and made it away with 14% hull left.

 

[Vasious]

I see this thread hasn't progressed very far.

Seems to be an argument over where the line in the sand on how many millions is too many

I thought the premise of the thread was to encourage debate on ideas on how to diversity trade so it isn't just find the most profitable trade route and run it until you can trade no more.
Performance enhancers one was, Beryllium the other add infinitum.


I thought we would be banding around ideas like, bring in precursor to goods would get you a trade discount on the good.
So you want to earn a better price on your Beryllium - bring in Food and Consumer goods for the Refinery workers, Advanced Catalyzers and Resonating Separators for the actual refinery work.

Sort of like a mini community goal. Puck up a supply contract on the BB
It was a shopping list of goods
50 tons of Animal Meat
30 tons of Fish
200 Tons of Grain
100 Tons of Fruit and Veges
10 Tons of Coffee
10 tons of Tea
50 tons of Beer
10 tons of Clothes
10 tons of Domestic Appliances
100 tons of Microbial Furnaces
20 tones of Advanced Catalyzes
20 tons of Resonating Separators.

Once you complete it you get a fortnights worth of discounts on buying refined metals from that station.

The High Tech Station will have its own different shopping list
And so forth and you could build but a network of places supplying the things you to meet the shopping lists of the other places earning a minor bonus across the board.

The Shopping lists could be affected by the local state state like boom, bust, war and famine.
Booms might increase the demand for the liquors beers and consumer goods and such as an example as every is flush and enjoying life.