MATERIAL TRADERS FILTER in Galaxy map IS COMPLETE USELESS

[Aashenfox]

works fine for me

Yes it works fine in that it shows all the Materials traders at systems you have map data for (sometimes, for me it occasoinally doesn't work at all and I have to main menu and log in again). I think the point is this is inadequate, and I would agree.

It seems FD has decided that you can only know about traders you have found. But this is negated by third party tools (Inara), so what is the point? Why not show all data traders on the galmap regardless of map data? It's just inserting extra needless legwork and continues the trend of FD not proliferating the information in the game that players need. That's how I see it anyway.

 

[Stigbob]

Yes it works fine in that it shows all the Materials traders at systems you have map data for (sometimes, for me it occasoinally doesn't work at all and I have to main menu and log in again). I think the point is this is inadequate, and I would agree.

It seems FD has decided that you can only know about traders you have found. But this is negated by third party tools (Inara), so what is the point? Why not show all data traders on the galmap regardless of map data? It's just inserting extra needless legwork and continues the trend of FD not proliferating the information in the game that players need. That's how I see it anyway.

Some people like finding things for themselves, some don't. Both are catered to.

 

[Aashenfox]

Some people like finding things for themselves, some don't. Both are catered to.

Only one is catered to in game (and I will stick my neck out and say that they would be overwhelming minority). Also, do you really think that mat traders should be an adventure of discovery or that anyone wanting to use one would see it that way? We're not talking about binary earth-likes, we're talking about a basic service in the game introduced for CONVENIENCE.

We can filter for allegiance, state, and MANY other values for systems we have not visited. This decision to apply this to material traders is just not logical or welcome, imo.

As I've stated several times, it does nothing to address, nay, it compounds, the issue that Elite has with proliferation of useful information that players need.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Only systems you visited huh?
Thought it was broken. Bless INARA!

 

[Stigbob]

Only one is catered to in game (and I will stick my neck out and say that they would be overwhelming minority). Also, do you really think that mat traders should be an adventure of discovery or that anyone wanting to use one would see it that way? We're not talking about binary earth-likes, we're talking about a basic service in the game introduced for CONVENIENCE.

We can filter for allegiance, state, and MANY other values for systems we have not visited. This decision to apply this to material traders is just not logical or welcome, imo.

As I've stated several times, it does nothing to address, nay, it compounds, the issue that Elite has with proliferation of useful information that players need.

If you value convenience you've got Inara, FDEV don't seem to have any issues with external sites probably due to the belief the internet will still be around in 3303. I found mat traders of every flavor near my home system without bothering to check Inara so it's no biggie for me.

As to being something that has to be addressed, why bother when Inara already provides it.

 

[Aashenfox]

If you value convenience you've got Inara, FDEV don't seem to have any issues with external sites probably due to the belief the internet will still be around in 3303. I found mat traders of every flavor near my home system without bothering to check Inara so it's no biggie for me.

As to being something that has to be addressed, why bother when Inara already provides it.

Inara is not convenient as it has trouble predicting what kind of mat trader will be at what station, since you haven't ever checked it maybe you shouldn't speak about it.

Please try to stop excusing crap game systems just cos it doesn't bother you. It bothers me, and a lot of other people. Thanks, that would be lovely. Sorry for getting snarky, but I swear sometimes you argue black is white just for the hell of it.

You don't even really understand what our problem is (by your own admission you are happy with the way the info is presented in game) so as long as the proposed solution doesn't make your gameplay experience worse, you don't really have any valid input. The only input you can make is that you rae happy with it, which under the circumstances, wouldn't be helpful, in fact, it would be unnecessary undermining of something other players want changed, since it doesn't change your game, it's effectively wanton sabotage of a concept.

 

[Stealthie]

I'm not sure whether it's worse from a lore POV or a gameplay one.

Lore: "I'm going to set up a business trading rare and valuable materials but I'm going to keep it a secret so it's hard to find me"

Gameplay: "Let's hide this game asset so that it only becomes visible when players are really close to it so they can't use the galmap (assuming they can get it to work) to plan anything"

[wacko]

 

[Aashenfox]

I'm not sure whether it's worse from a lore POV or a gameplay one.

Lore: "I'm going to set up a business trading rare and valuable materials but I'm going to keep it a secret so it's hard to find me"

Gameplay: "Let's hide this game asset so that it only becomes visible when players are really close to it so they can't use the galmap (assuming they can get it to work) to plan anything"

[wacko]

This 40ly range thing is actually a myth, (I assume, since...) for me they work across the galaxy. It's purely the fact that Inara can't tell which trader it will be and the in-game icons are 'visited only', which makes little sense for gameplay reasons (because Mat traders are supposed to be a convenience) and for realism reasons which you already stated.

 

[Dagwit]

Needless to say, I have been using the INARA search page whenever I need to track down a trader.

https://inara.cz/galaxy-nearest/25/17945/

This, when necessary. But I base my modest fleet at a homeport in Sol, so I've bookmarked the three nearest traders (found on Inara), and I just use those for pretty much all my mats trading.

 

[Oaktree]

Agree, the filter is useless. I end up using other options like filtering for economy, population, etc, to find the traders, rendering the filter to find them useless and silly. I'm sure that eventually FD will change it and Traders will become visible, because their decision to make them invisible and then having a filter to not find them makes absolutely no sense at all!

 

[zarrazee]

OP. Just use Inara, quicker and easier and gives same (better?) result - https://inara.cz/galaxy-nearest/25/19851/

 

[Stealthie]

This 40ly range thing is actually a myth, (I assume, since...) for me they work across the galaxy.

Pretty sure that was how it was working for me.

On day 1 the filter flat-out wasn't working at all.
I'd visited 3 or 4 MTs (on the live server, not beta) so I definitely knew where they were but the systems didn't change colour in the galmap.

At the time, the "explanation" for this seemed to be "Well, they only show up once you've stumbled across them for the first time" - which is nuts, but there we are.

After 4 or 5 days INARA had about 40 MTs in it's list and I decided I'd visit all of them to ensure they would appear on my map.
I got around about 20 of them but then noticed that the ones I hadn't visited had started to be highlighted on the map as well.

At that point, the "explanation" changed to "They show up as long as they're at a station you've visited at any point in the past"

At roughly that point, it did seem like they were all showing up for me.
I could just scroll around the map then click on the filter and the systems would change colour.

A few days later, I noticed this wasn't happening any more and they were only showing up as I got within 40Ly of them - which, unless I'm mistaken, was how FDev intended for it to work.


On a related note, it beats me why the filter only applies when you actually hover the cursor over it, rather than working the same way every other filter on the map works.

If I want to find particular classes of star, or particular types of economy, I can just access the relevant filter, make one or more selections and then scroll around the map, seeing the matching systems.
Due to the way the MT filter works, I've got to scroll around the map, access the filter and hover the mouse over the selection and see if any matches appear on the map.

Quite why they couldn't make the MT filter work the same way as other filters is anybody's guess.
Actually, no.
I'm pretty sure the reason it's coded that way is simply to make it more fiddly to use.

 

[Stigbob]

Inara is not convenient as it has trouble predicting what kind of mat trader will be at what station, since you haven't ever checked it maybe you shouldn't speak about it.

What on earth makes you think I've never checked it ?, I said I already know the location of all three types of trader close to my home system through simply finding them. Anything other than that only exists inside your head, I happily use out of game resources whenever I feel like it.

Please try to stop excusing crap game systems just cos it doesn't bother you. It bothers me, and a lot of other people. Thanks, that would be lovely. Sorry for getting snarky, but I swear sometimes you argue black is white just for the hell of it.

Stop telling me what you think is crap then getting upset when I don't agree, you opinions are just that and worth no more than mine. You are just upsetting yourself, complaining is not compulsory and not complaining is not a reason to criticize someone.

You don't even really understand what our problem is (by your own admission you are happy with the way the info is presented in game) so as long as the proposed solution doesn't make your gameplay experience worse, you don't really have any valid input. The only input you can make is that you rae happy with it, which under the circumstances, wouldn't be helpful, in fact, it would be unnecessary undermining of something other players want changed, since it doesn't change your game, it's effectively wanton sabotage of a concept.

Again that only exists inside your head. You want to be led by the hand, you don't want to look in game or have to ALT-TAB and check Inara. I want the option to look for myself, or not and I get this through happily using both the game and Inara.

You are demanding FDEV waste time creating something that we already have, and getting upset about your inaccurate imagined reasons for me disagreeing with that demand.

I disagree with you mainly because we already have it if we want it, and anything introduced in game is likely to be less convenient than Inara so there's no point.

Wanton sabotage, LOL.

 

[Bortas]

This 40ly range thing is actually a myth

Maybe we just got it wrong... I can indeed see mat traders further than 40 LY away in the galmap. I'm also pretty sure it's showing traders at stations I have never visited, but these only at close range.

Might this be the way it actually works?

- Stations with mat traders you have already visited are shown in the galmap, regardless of distance
- Stations with mat traders you have NOT visited before are shown only in a 40 LY radius.

This appears to be the case for me and it makes much more sense, too.

 

[Aashenfox]

What on earth makes you think I've never checked it ?, I said I already know the location of all three types of trader close to my home system through simply finding them. Anything other than that only exists inside your head, I happily use out of game resources whenever I feel like it.

You said you don't use it: "without bothering to check Inara". My bad for the assumption.

Stop telling me what you think is crap then getting upset when I don't agree, you opinions are just that and worth no more than mine. You are just upsetting yourself, complaining is not compulsory and not complaining is not a reason to criticize someone.

Firstly I'm not upset, I'm frustrated about people like you who just want to stifle other people's efforts to make the game better. Do you even realize you're doing that?

Again that only exists inside your head. You want to be led by the hand, you don't want to look in game or have to ALT-TAB and check Inara. I want the option to look for myself, or not and I get this through happily using both the game and Inara.

Sorry, what exists only in my head?

If you actually HAD checked Inara you would see that 90% of statoins say 'either/or'. So once again, if you have not the first clue what you're talking about, perhaps you should stop talking about it. Also, led by the hand? If I was new here and so were you, I could excuse that. Do my postings generally follow a bent that I want everything given to me without effort? That's just a bad attempt to troll me. Try harder.

You are demanding FDEV waste time creating something that we already have, and getting upset about your inaccurate imagined reasons for me disagreeing with that demand.

Are you actually being obtuse now? There is no development effort in flipping this switch that says poll these things from 'visited stations' or 'all stations'. There's nothing inaccurate about my assessment of your reasons. What I propose would make the game better. you seem to want to hold it back just because the current situation doesn't bother you. CAn you accept that it bothers me? If so, well that's mighty big of you, perhaps we can move this along.

When I see someone post an idea, call me insane, but I consider whether the implementation of that idea affects the way I play in a negative or positive way. If neither, then I don't put my oar in, cos the outcome doesn't affect me. I'm happy with teh way Assassination missoins are performed, but if someone made a suggestion to, I dunno, make all assassinations shareable, I wouldn't have anything to say, it wouldn't change my experience. I suggest you perform the same evaluation before sabotaging the suggestions threads of others. What you are doing is called bashing and it is actually against the rules in many forums.

I disagree with you mainly because we already have it if we want it, and anything introduced in game is likely to be less convenient than Inara so there's no point.

How many times can I say the same thing. Go check Inara, then come back and tell me where the unambiguous info is.

Wanton sabotage, LOL.

Yes. Since you are happy with it as it is now, and that won't be made worse by the implementation of wider ranging filters, there is only one possible reason you could have for participating negatively in this thread. To annoy people and sabotage the idea for no other reason than your own personal gratification (or maybe it's personal against me? Least likely scenario, but I'm scraping the barrel here).

 

[777Driver]

Maybe we just got it wrong... I can indeed see mat traders further than 40 LY away in the galmap. I'm also pretty sure it's showing traders at stations I have never visited, but these only at close range.

Might this be the way it actually works?

- Stations with mat traders you have already visited are shown in the galmap, regardless of distance
- Stations with mat traders you have NOT visited before are shown only in a 40 LY radius.

This appears to be the case for me and it makes much more sense, too.

No, there is a limit, I am out in Barnard's loop, have visited many traders in the Bubble, none are showing up for me using the filters. How far out are you seeing the traders?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It's also really stupid that there are no material Traders at engineer bases.

I think it's fine. These engineers are meant to be reclusive odd balls. They don't want these other people living with them on their outposts. It makes perfect sense to me.

Also where the material traders are located also makes sense as they are at a place where they would possible get these materials to trade.

What you want is something that is super easy and quick. Not for me thanks.

 

[Aashenfox]

Maybe we just got it wrong... I can indeed see mat traders further than 40 LY away in the galmap. I'm also pretty sure it's showing traders at stations I have never visited, but these only at close range.

Might this be the way it actually works?

- Stations with mat traders you have already visited are shown in the galmap, regardless of distance
- Stations with mat traders you have NOT visited before are shown only in a 40 LY radius.

This appears to be the case for me and it makes much more sense, too.

Oh, I wouldn't go that far, I might be wrong. I felt confident when I posted it, but I know Stealthie isn't usually a 'blind assumer' so that gives me doubt already on what I thought I'd observed.

I'll try to confirm, but it'll be hours from now, so someone else will probably beat me to it. May well be waht you say.

 

[Stealthie]

Might this be the way it actually works?

- Stations with mat traders you have already visited are shown in the galmap, regardless of distance
- Stations with mat traders you have NOT visited before are shown only in a 40 LY radius.

This appears to be the case for me and it makes much more sense, too.

TBH, I think FDev have quietly been playing with things without telling anybody.
As a result of this, I suspect people's ideas about how it works might be skewed as a result of when they looked at the issue.

IIRC, there's an MT in Sirius which I deliberately haven't visited so I could use it as a "control" to see how things worked.
There's also an MT in LHS 20, at my home port.
And there's an MT in SD.

At one point none of these MTs were showing up regardless of my location.
Soon after, they were ALL showing up regardless of my location or if I'd visited them.
Last time I looked, they were all showing up if I got fairly close to them but not if I was further away - regardless of if I'd visited them before.

 

[Aashenfox]

TBH, I think FDev have quietly been playing with things without telling anybody.

IIRC, there's an MT in Sirius which I deliberately haven't visited so I could use it as a "control" to see how things worked.
There's also an MT in LHS 20, at my home port.
And there's an MT in SD.

At one point none of these MTs were showing up regardless of my location.
Soon after, they were ALL showing up regardless of my location or if I'd visited them.
Last time I looked, they were all showing up if I got fairly close to them but not if I was further away - regardless of if I'd visited them before.

I often have to log out because no traders are shown at all, they all show up when I log back in. Something seems to occaoisnally stop this filter working.