Is there a scale problem in trading?

[Adept]

This is not a literal problem, just something I realised when I was looking at the data mined from Mini-Elite.

The planets in Elite seem to be overpopulated hellholes. Rather than having scaled down from the current planet busting 7 billion Earthling, most major planets seem to have more than that.

Now consider the millions of tons of cargo that is shipped around the planet today. The numbers are mind boggling. Then think about the fact that a huge freighter in Elite ferries a load of half a kiloton, and most are much less than that. Despite this, the space traffic is supposed to cause major fluctuations in the price and availability of goods.

Can you see where I'm coming from? On a planet with (greater than) modern earth scale population the freight capacity of a few Anacondas or a swarm of Sidewinders is a fart in the wind.

***

It's not a problem though. I just realised that to keep things dynamic and interesting Frontier are probably adding a lot of zeroes into the effect of our cargo runs.

 

[Astraeus]

That's the population of the whole system with more than one habitable planet and various space habitats.

 

[KickahasTier]

This is not a literal problem, just something I realised when I was looking at the data mined from Mini-Elite.

The planets in Elite seem to be overpopulated hellholes. Rather than having scaled down from the current planet busting 7 billion Earthling, most major planets seem to have more than that.

Now consider the millions of tons of cargo that is shipped around the planet today. The numbers are mind boggling. Then think about the fact that a huge freighter in Elite ferries a load of half a kiloton, and most are much less than that. Despite this, the space traffic is supposed to cause major fluctuations in the price and availability of goods.

Can you see where I'm coming from? On a planet with (greater than) modern earth scale population the freight capacity of a few Anacondas or a swarm of Sidewinders is a fart in the wind.

***

It's not a problem though. I just realised that to keep things dynamic and interesting Frontier are probably adding a lot of zeroes into the effect of our cargo runs.

Do you really think that computers or machinery is sold by the ton?

Engage suspension of disbelief now.

 

[Tinman]

This is not a literal problem, just something I realised when I was looking at the data mined from Mini-Elite.

The planets in Elite seem to be overpopulated hellholes. Rather than having scaled down from the current planet busting 7 billion Earthling, most major planets seem to have more than that.

Now consider the millions of tons of cargo that is shipped around the planet today. The numbers are mind boggling. Then think about the fact that a huge freighter in Elite ferries a load of half a kiloton, and most are much less than that. Despite this, the space traffic is supposed to cause major fluctuations in the price and availability of goods.

Can you see where I'm coming from? On a planet with (greater than) modern earth scale population the freight capacity of a few Anacondas or a swarm of Sidewinders is a fart in the wind.

***

It's not a problem though. I just realised that to keep things dynamic and interesting Frontier are probably adding a lot of zeroes into the effect of our cargo runs.

Players are just a tiny part of the economy. You will also see lots and lots of NPCs flying around trading goods. Sure, these NPCs won't actually be doing that since simulating that would be insane, but in terms of "lore" they are still there. For gameplay reasons players actions will be weighted more heavily, but we can always pretend that if a player have decided to trade in something others would have done the same thing, thus giving the same results.

 

[Evilroco]

I'd like to think that the player base could eventually move a large portion of cargo in certain systems but feel we're more likely to be like some of the independent Clipper captains who make more of a profit by running riskier routes/goods.

If these independent's also influenced Npc entity's into operating in similar areas and routes then you would see player actions in effect being multiplied as you say.

Some of the ships mentioned already although small by Super tanker standards are not insubstantial the Lakon Type 9 as reported in another thread holds 440 tons, that's about 997 000 Iphone 4's boxed and 440 ton of any ultra rare commodity or even rare commodity would shift a single planet's market's given that we have less than 4000 tons of gold enter the market annually (had to look that up) so ten players in convoy could double the available supply and really do some damage.
I look forward to seeing how the Trading goe's for you guys in the Alpha 4

 

[Slawkenbergius]

There will also be less populated systems out on the Frontier, where players can have a bigger effect.

 

[Memnoch]

Although the ships are small by comparison to modern day large container vessels, it may be fair to say that there will be a hell of a lot more of these independent ships flying about. It would be fair to assume that all the worlds container ships would be dwarfed in comparison to the number of larger trading vessels in the entirety of human colonised worlds. Collectively that would be a lot more freight being moved around.

 

[Phil^]

Although the ships are small by comparison to modern day large container vessels, it may be fair to say that there will be a hell of a lot more of these independent ships flying about. It would be fair to assume that all the worlds container ships would be dwarfed in comparison to the number of larger trading vessels in the entirety of human colonised worlds. Collectively that would be a lot more freight being moved around.

Plus ships like the lynx bulk carrier or long range cruiser, should they be implemented - under NPC control.

 

[Memnoch]

Indeed. Free from the constraints of terrestrial bulk carriers they could grow to almost any size, perhaps only limited by the size of the jump drive that powers them. They never need to go into atmosphere so there would be no aerodynamic concerns to speak off. They would become the carriers of their time, dependent on their attendant fleets of ships to protect and refuel them and to load and unload cargo.

 

[Adept]

Players are just a tiny part of the economy. You will also see lots and lots of NPCs flying around trading goods. Sure, these NPCs won't actually be doing that since simulating that would be insane, but in terms of "lore" they are still there. For gameplay reasons players actions will be weighted more heavily, but we can always pretend that if a player have decided to trade in something others would have done the same thing, thus giving the same results.

Ah, but that is my point. Either there is a surprisingly small amount of freight being moved, and those amounts of "food, alcohol and ore are actually causing fluctuating glut and shortage situations, or there are huge numbers of NPC ships, and the players ability to actually effect the prices is miniscule.

I suspect it will be fudged by several orders of magnitude, so that if you dump 400 tons of Iron Ore at a station, it will cause a serious drop in the price.

 

[Tinman]

Ah, but that is my point. Either there is a surprisingly small amount of freight being moved, and those amounts of "food, alcohol and ore are actually causing fluctuating glut and shortage situations, or there are huge numbers of NPC ships, and the players ability to actually effect the prices is miniscule.

I suspect it will be fudged by several orders of magnitude, so that if you dump 400 tons of Iron Ore at a station, it will cause a serious drop in the price.

That's what I meant when I said that we can pretend that lots of NPCs are doing the the same thing as the player. Even in the real world potential deals are often seen and exploited by lots of people when they arise. That's just an excuse of course. In reality they are simply fudging the numbers so that players actions have more importance. Otherwise players would never be able to affect anything which would be bad from the perspective of gameplay.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The planets in Elite seem to be overpopulated hellholes. Rather than having scaled down from the current planet busting 7 billion Earthling, most major planets seem to have more than that.

Sol, Achenar and Facece were major systems in FE2 with several habitable planets and natural centres of population - but were exceptional even in FFE. A top-10 system in all human space being that big doesn't seem unlikely. (And more efficient technology, the wealth of being a faction capital, and spreading out across a few terraformed worlds and several other settlements means that 10 billion-ish is probably no longer "overpopulated")

Leaving aside Leesti and Uszaa which have populations consistent [1] with the original Elite's rather different algorithms, the rest of those seen so far have much smaller populations, mostly in the "tens of millions" range. FE2 had plenty of frontier worlds and anarchies with a population of less than 1,000.

So if it's anything like FE2 there'll be core systems where no matter how much you trade there'll be virtually no effect on the economy, right the way down to systems literally ten million times smaller where you can probably fit most of their annual production in a single Panther Clipper, and even a Cobra might have a noticeable effect on the rarer goods.

[1] The spot-on consistency - 200 years and a few pan-human social upheavals later - suggests that these are stable populations suitable to the environments, presumably maintained by emigration and immigration as appropriate, and not necessarily overpopulated.

 

[Evilroco]

I think Frontier are trying to keep any elements that might lead to "Empire Management" out of the game and keep the spirit of the game to that of the original .

Having said that sole Traders or even loosely grouped alliances should have the ability to effect local markets by their actions alone ,but as with business today they would have to pick their target market or commodity carefully.

If you take the Iron ore example you would indeed need an improbable amount of PC's to cause any major effect on a market with similar natural resources to current Earth and extraction levels. I estimate about 4,000 000 player trips in a year to equal Earth's current production.

As I mentioned earlier with high value commodity's a small player group (in one shot) or even a single player in less than a week could (of course finding a source is another story)effect a planet's market based on today's levels.

We will have to see. I guess when we get to test market aspects in the later Beta we can assess it better ,it would be worth testing the effects of mass trade dumps in system and blockades for that matter

 

[Susimetsa]

the space traffic is supposed to cause major fluctuations in the price and availability of goods.

I don't think we were promised "major" fluctuations...

 

[argus1]

A reality simulator would bill you the cost of an intersteller spaceship in advance, just in case someone got a dint on their Fer-de-Lance and decided to go for whiplash against your no-claims bonus. Thank goodness we don't get speeding tickets in corporate worlds. In a reality sim, the cost of those would be designed by corporate capitalists to take pretty much all of the profit from an optimal trade run, be that tonnes or millions.

I think that you have to look at the gameworld as just that : an escape from the usual.

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Players are just a tiny part of the economy. You will also see lots and lots of NPCs flying around trading goods. Sure, these NPCs won't actually be doing that since simulating that would be insane, but in terms of "lore" they are still there. For gameplay reasons players actions will be weighted more heavily, but we can always pretend that if a player have decided to trade in something others would have done the same thing, thus giving the same results.

I'd hope these NPC's coming and going actually do have a purpose behind them and aren't there just to make us human players feel we're part of a living breathing universe i.e. I hope they're there not for purely cosmetic reasons but have real substance behind them in what they're doing.

Even if they follow a basic script to take virtual goods A to destination B (and they physically fly that route), that's better than a purely mathematical simulation that's run in the background since the script will at least have physical form out in the gameworld that can be directly effected by players.

Also, I understand why human players' actions have to have more weighting behind them if any of us are to feel we can really effect the evolution of the galaxy with our actions, but again I think we lose something much more interesting with that approach - that being the sense that we're just tiny insignificant cogs in an infinite cosmic machine. Depending on how heavy that human-favored weighting is, we could unfortunately often get instantly reminded that we're still in just a game, and not a virtual world.

 

[Commander Regel]

I'd hope these NPC's coming and going actually do have a purpose behind them and aren't there just to make us human players feel we're part of a living breathing universe i.e. I hope they're there not for purely cosmetic reasons but have real substance behind them in what they're doing.

Even if they follow a basic script to take virtual goods A to destination B (and they physically fly that route), that's better than a purely mathematical simulation that's run in the background since the script will at least have physical form out in the gameworld that can be directly effected by players.

This.

I hope NPCs are "real" in terms of the Elite universe and aren't just spawned whenever a player is within range. It would be wonderful to be able to follow an NPC ship and observe its route, trading between systems, and then realising that there is a logical reason why that the NPC is flying that particular route. That would be so immersive.

 

[Daeron]

Yes, I agree with the above. Some NPCs could be set on a "schedule", in order to maintain the illusion of regular activity. It would not have to include all of them, just a portion. But it would be good to see them make full trips, or rounds, even through multiple systems!

Completely randomized and blind spawning without any purpose across the board, would be a little less... ambitious. So what are the chances?

 

[Adept]

Hopefully we'll get some details about the level of universe simulation. What is run on the central server, and what only exists on the client(s).

 

[CaptainKremmen]

This.

I hope NPCs are "real" in terms of the Elite universe and aren't just spawned whenever a player is within range. It would be wonderful to be able to follow an NPC ship and observe its route, trading between systems, and then realising that there is a logical reason why that the NPC is flying that particular route. That would be so immersive.

There is stuff in the DDF about this. If I remember correctly, the developers are using random-spawning NPCs for the vast bulk of traffic, with a system of "promotion" to persistence - if any one NPC gets interesting for you.

So the random ship you follow will, in fact, probably fly a sensible route. If it's deemed worthy of promotion due to your interaction with it, you may see it again... but back before you saw it the first time, it was just a twinkle in FD's eye!