Trade Rank Exploit

[Nevada]

Why the delivery (as a postman - mission) of the goods, increases the trade rank?
You didn't buy the goods. You got it, and you have to deliver it. So, why it increases your trade rank? Just a simple question.
Because of this, trade in the game has become a postman, and not a trader.
It is not a secret, that such a missions as a postman (Sothis, New Yembo and etc.) - is much better, than the default trade routes.
So, if you want a crazy amounts of money - be kind, to raise it without increasing your trade rank.
If you want to increase your trade rank - just trade.
That would be fair, reasonable and generally correct.
For example - Combat and Explorer ranks increase much longer.

I would very much like to hear a response from the FDev.
Thanks in advance.

 

[_Fissure]

What.

 

[TomP]

Erm, you don't understand trading.

These missions are trade commissions, to supply or ferry goods. That is trade.

 

[Nevada]

Erm, you don't understand trading.

These missions are trade commissions, to supply or ferry goods. That is trade.

No matter. It does not change the fact that a postman > default trade routes.

 

[TomP]

No matter. It does not change the fact that a postman > default trade routes.

When clients actually demand goods, they contact a merchant trader. Not just in fantasy land, but also in reality. Whether or not the prices are skewiff is another matter. Gaining trade rank through trade missions is not an exploit. See ya.

 

[SanguisDiabolus]

Wat.

Seems someone has an extremely narrow view of what the word trade means.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

OP has a point, when you consider that players boast that they can reach trade elite in a week or two of Sothis poo hauling. FD clearly don't care that players get billions that easily, but they should care that the elite rank has become as meaningless as the billions of credits.

 

[Nevada]

OP has a point, when you consider that players boast that they can reach trade elite in a week or two of Sothis poo hauling. FD clearly don't care that players get billions that easily, but they should care that the elite rank has become as meaningless as the billions of credits.

This.

 

[veryinky]

I think the fact that missions require a unique cargo to be hauled to be much more realistic. A dealership doesn't order 100 tons of cars. They order specific make and model of cars.

I think FDev should go further with the unique cargo angle. What kinds of "fruits and vegetables" am I hauling? Lavian Banana-Oranges? What type, brand and model of "consumer appliances" are they? Sirius Co. 3302-A Sonic dishwashers? These could be procedurally generated.

Actually unique procedurally generated cargo would be nice, sort of a combination of rare commodity and miniature CG. Game generates say 100 or so of these mini CGs where the destination pays maximum price for a specific good and stations within 10ly of a source system would generate those unique commodities. They'd sell for normal price at non mini cg stations, lavian banana-oranges would go for the price price of fruits and vegetables elsewhere. A plague state system could for example need 50,000 tons of "Formula L-47" advanced medicines, once the demand filled the mini cg automatically ends. During that time the specific product would buy for 10x normal price (no reward tiers at the end of the mini cg, everything is cash on delivery). First come first serve, and the only way to find these procedurally generated mini CGs would be to look at a station's marketplace to see if it had an odd named demand or product or to actually read Galnet news once a week.

 

[SanguisDiabolus]

When has rank ever not been meaningless?
Has anyone actually been impressed by someone's pilot rank?

 

[djbully]

Pretty much agree with this it is now to easy for trade rank.

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

I work in logistics in RL, moving millions of tons around domestic and international ports.
We work on consignment between supplier and client.
Are you seriously saying that because we don't OWN the cargo,
we are not involved in trade?

 

[Red Anders]

Regarding the speed you can rank at with those missions he's right obviously, my trade rank is at 60% Tycoon at the moment but I could take that to Elite tomorrow night with runs from Sothis or Robigo without even trying. Even just running 9-10 missions from Robigo (i.e one Python's worth) will put about 8% on Tycoon.

Considering how long the missions have been in the game for though, I think calling them an exploit is moving into fantasy territory.

 

[Jmanis]

OP has a point, when you consider that players boast that they can reach trade elite in a week or two of Sothis poo hauling. FD clearly don't care that players get billions that easily, but they should care that the elite rank has become as meaningless as the billions of credits.

This.

So, rather than break it for everyone else, how bout we fix Sothis/Ceos/whatever and the fact the payouts are disproportionate to the level of activity? (This isn't a suggestion of how to do that, just an attempt to refocus your concerns)

One of the biggest pains back in the early days was that the only way to get trade rank up was to *not* do trade missions, and instead just engage "normal" trading. This has/had pretty dire consequences on other parts of the game.

You have an issue with the side-effects of Sothis/Ceos does to make the trade rank meaningless? Fine. But don't break the game for everyone else in the process, just because a *minority* of players do something.

Considering how long the missions have been in the game for though, I think calling them an exploit is moving into fantasy territory.

This.

Also, lol. Your problem with Sothis/Ceos is that it makes trade rank too easy to gain... but the people who run Sothis/Ceos missions are doing it for credits, not trade rank. So for FD to do anything about this would be lose/lose as it would just annoy the players who *don't* grind those areas.

 

[GJ51]

I think OP is really just trying to address how trading profits have been inflated over the past year without any commensurate raising of the bar to reach Elite Trader.

Although he may be in error as to the specifics, the core issue he's raising seems fair enough.

Combat is actually harder now as general TTK is higher. Exploration went through a phase where the achievement level requirements were raised.

It seems only fair that with incredibly higher profits available now, there should be some adjustment to the requirement to hit Elite Trader.

One Percent, the first triple Elite in the game, took about 3 months to attain that goal. Now I've recently seen a player who did it in 3 weeks.

 

[veryinky]

So, rather than break it for everyone else, how bout we fix Sothis/Ceos/whatever and the fact the payouts are disproportionate to the level of activity? (This isn't a suggestion of how to do that, just an attempt to refocus your concerns)

My problem with Sothis/Ceos isn't their payouts, it's that demand is reversed and there's no missions to bring a specific cargo to a station.

Sothis, Aditi, really any station that's far, far from the bubble should be giving missions that are "go to this station, pickup this cargo, bring it back". This would make as a cargo and the high payouts would make sense too.

Look at how much it costs to ship 1kg to Grise Fiord, Canada, aka Aujuittuq "the place that never thaws" during the winter months, it's almost as much as it costs to ship 1kg into low earth orbit. Can't do it by plane and special long range helicopters only work when the weather is good. Sothis is a good 400ly into deep wilderness away from the bubble, it should cost a lot to ship goods there. Not nearly as much as it'd cost to ship things to Jaques mind you, but a lot.

I'd remove the biowaste and hydrogen hauling missions from places like sothis. Add a new mission type "return hauling" missions, where it's bringing construction materials, entertainment, food and liquors to the remote outposts of humanity. I'd even go further and make it so the contracts are like "haul 10,000 tons, accepting multiple trips" of the item or even an entire list of items that need to be sourced and brought to the station, with a huge payout if the mission is successfully completed.

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

I sort of think many players may have inflated views of what being "Elite" really means.
I don't think achieving this rank SHOULD be all that difficult, considering the simplicity of it's mechanics.
Buying/hauling or "postman" runs of a-b aren't exactly rocket science to master.
Neither is combat against any PV threat and yet there are a plethora of Elite ranked combat players,
many that still can't fight worth a damn against good PVP, which helps illustrate my point.
Explorer entails the same Rinse and repeat gameplay.

If its all you do, how many thousand repetitions of an action should it really take to become qualified?

 

[xondk]

Why the delivery (as a postman - mission) of the goods, increases the trade rank?
You didn't buy the goods. You got it, and you have to deliver it. So, why it increases your trade rank? Just a simple question.
Because of this, trade in the game has become a postman, and not a trader.
It is not a secret, that such a missions as a postman (Sothis, New Yembo and etc.) - is much better, than the default trade routes.
So, if you want a crazy amounts of money - be kind, to raise it without increasing your trade rank.
If you want to increase your trade rank - just trade.
That would be fair, reasonable and generally correct.
For example - Combat and Explorer ranks increase much longer.

I would very much like to hear a response from the FDev.
Thanks in advance.

Because trade can both be the guy delivering much needed cargo.
Or the guy delivering much needed nuclear launch codes, or such, data is also trading?

 

[Y'Berion]

OP does have a point. Are pizza delivery guys - traders?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Also, lol. Your problem with Sothis/Ceos is that it makes trade rank too easy to gain... but the people who run Sothis/Ceos missions are doing it for credits, not trade rank. So for FD to do anything about this would be lose/lose as it would just annoy the players who *don't* grind those areas.

I'm going to guess that FD won't be doing much about this anyway. My reason for this is the new engineer at Shinrarta Dezhra doesn't just require access to the system, but also wants a combat rank of dangerous.

Personally, I don't have a problem with high paying missions out of Sothis. What bugs me about this is that Sothis is a rare good station, yet the money is in biowaste. It isn't actually worth the space in your hold to cart Sothis Gold, when you could get a poo mission that pays ten times as much. I'd much rather FD fixed this.