A proposed fix to piracy being worthless and trading being all about the biggest ship

[Draa]

The problem is supply and demand is too static right now. Looking at Thrudds trading tool tells you that prices rarely vary more than 10%/15% for any one commodity anywhere in the universe. Even less for some of the higher priced commodities. No matter how much is bought from a particular system, or how much is sold at another system, prices never range above or below a certain amount (for the most part anyway). Changing that would help both traders and pirates.
I should be able to buy low and sell high between 2 systems until the price changes enough to make me search for more lucrative prices elsewhere. At least greater than what we currently see now. It might require traveling 100ly to buy and sell for the greatest profit but that's what trading should be all about. No more traveling between two close systems for 5 million an hour profit unless there's a greater supply and demand in those systems.
It would force traders to possibly travel large distances for profit or stay local for less profit. Traders are able to trade different commodities for similar or greater profit margins, and pirates are able to make a better profit buy selling a commodity in systems that have high demand for a certain commodity(provided it has a black market and if not they risk traveling to find one for the best profit).
That's my take any way and how it actually works in the real world of trading. I'm sure there's some negatives involved but getting a more dynamic supply and demand would help immensely.

 

[Kyudos]

I haven't done any trading in ED, but I seem to remember from Frontier that you used to be able to make decent money in the 'big cargo' ships hauling large quantities of low value goods at good margins. Do we just need better margins on bulk goods?

 

[Aircool]

Yeah. Hope you enjoy raiding traders for grain. No, you'll probably just hand around asteroid belts as miners will be the only ones who'll be carrying expensive rare metals; or will miners not have the same price hike for their goods? Is pirating really that unproductive, or are there too many people who either make a run for it and get away (not counting those cowards who quit when interdicted).

As for mining, I currently find it just right. Of course, you'll be mining pristine metallic rings/belts or you're doing it wrong, but I've found that collecting every chunk regardless of content is just as profitable (factored with time) as picking and choosing which rocks to mine. With seven bins on my Cobra, I can pick up every type of ore/mineral in a pristine metallic and have it processed. With time factored in, filling a hold with mostly Gallite and Indite is just as profitable as picking and choosing the rocks that only give plat, pall, gold and silver. Sometimes you get lucky and hit a good rock stuffed with plat, sometimes you don't.

 

[AtheosisX]

The problem is supply and demand is too static right now. Looking at Thrudds trading tool tells you that prices rarely vary more than 10%/15% for any one commodity anywhere in the universe. Even less for some of the higher priced commodities. No matter how much is bought from a particular system, or how much is sold at another system, prices never range above or below a certain amount (for the most part anyway). Changing that would help both traders and pirates.
I should be able to buy low and sell high between 2 systems until the price changes enough to make me search for more lucrative prices elsewhere. At least greater than what we currently see now. It might require traveling 100ly to buy and sell for the greatest profit but that's what trading should be all about. No more traveling between two close systems for 5 million an hour profit unless there's a greater supply and demand in those systems.
It would force traders to possibly travel large distances for profit or stay local for less profit. Traders are able to trade different commodities for similar or greater profit margins, and pirates are able to make a better profit buy selling a commodity in systems that have high demand for a certain commodity(provided it has a black market and if not they risk traveling to find one for the best profit).
That's my take any way and how it actually works in the real world of trading. I'm sure there's some negatives involved but getting a more dynamic supply and demand would help immensely.

Without the supply and demand actually dictated by properly simulated in-game supply and demand related to actual industrial production or general station/planetary needs, such a system would be incredibly unrewarding and honestly annoying. Demand doesn't just go down for no reason. You think a massive shipyard is going to need less materials one day to the next because of one trader? Supply should be based on actual overall imports of materials/goods not some arbitrary value that autmotically goes down because one PC trader is bringing in materials. But none of this seems to be possible because FD designed this game totally wrong.

 

[CMDR i Tetsuo]

I think you made a mistake including pirates in the thread title, your main issue (which I agree with) stands without including it and mentioning it will just make some trade players instantly go on the defensive.
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besides that though your point is a good one, only a few commodities are worth attention no matter what type of ship you fly and the rest is noise cluttering up the market place.
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Something definitely needs to be changed but I think the devs are at least stuck with the current design until the Race to Elite competition is over as dramatically altering the main supply of income for a lot of players would be very contentious when real world prize money is involved...

 

[gmiddlemass]

Sorry but i think this is a terrible idea. The prices need to remain as they are so that players just starting out can afford to experiment and make the odd mistake with trading goods.

My suggestion to pirates who complain about not making any money is for them to take it in turns to be a trader and play the victim themselves every now and then. If you make it through with your cargo intact then you've made yourself some cash to fund your chosen profession of being a pirate, if you are attacked and your cargo is stolen then you've helped a fellow pirate have an enjoyable time.

It's so easy to change professions in Elite that there is really no need to stick to the same thing all the time, especially if you're struggling for income.

Just my opinion anyway, obviously you should feel free to play any way you like.

 

[Tigga]

WE URGENTLY NEED MORE PIRATES - I've bounty hunted in hundreds of systems and so far i've encountered 2 pirates............. There is barely a wanted player in sight and bounty hunting sucks because of it.........

I saw you going at ships the other night, not quite sure what, but I suspect this:

After spending time flying around the Yembo system attacking random ships and just generally causing mayhem I got chatting to a player who is also a disenfranchised bounty hunter like myself.

I then saw you disappear into a station. Shortly after I saw you you returned with a lower bounty on your head. I guess maybe you died...

The pirates are there, many just do the same as you, and pay off their bounties. There are plenty who don't, but they're spread thin. I've encounted far more than two in my travels. Nearer 20 with 10k+ bounties, and that's excluding Yembo.

 

[Draa]

Supply should be based on actual overall imports of materials/goods not some arbitrary value that autmotically goes down because one PC trader is bringing in materials. But none of this seems to be possible because FD designed this game totally wrong.

Nowhere in my earlier post did I say one trader would be able to affect commodity prices so I'm not sure where you got that from. Maybe by the way I worded my post it was implied though so let me clarify.
If there's a high demand for a commodity, and enough is delivered into a system/station, then the price and demand of that commodity should decrease. Conversely, if a commodity isn't being delivered, and there's a demand for it, the price and demand should increase until it's profitable to deliver it and demand is met. Again, by multiple traders and certainly not by a single ship.
I realize that some supply and demand is implemented in game but it's poorly done. There's no economy that I can see. Prices should fluctuate greatly according to what's being taken from and delivered to a station/system. Until that happens then we're stuck with a static economy and running mainly Palladium for the best profit margin.

Edit: I can see where me originally saying "I should be able to buy low and sell high until price changes" you would misunderstand what I meant. I certainly wasn't talking about doing that alone but even so it would be possible if I moved enough cargo. Like I said, I could have worded that post better and sorry for not being a little clearer in that regard.

 

[GlyphGryph]

not sure that everyone here thinks we need more pirates.

If this was implemented it would be viable to pirate npcs, which no one does right now because the only reason to be a pirate is to taste sweet player tears. I wanted to be a pirate and pirate NPCs (I have no desire to make other players miserable), but doing so was pointless.

Suddenly a 8 million (~500 palladium) credit loss is now 80 million, wait no expensive items are x25 so 200 million credit loss on death.

And you want to keep the margins the same? Avg ~1.5k per ton max? Maxing out at 5-10 million credits per hour? So when a trader dies in a minute long encounter he is set back 8-20 hours of trading (which he is also susceptible to dying again in unless he's in solo/private)?

This is a terrible idea. It's only an attractive idea to you because you are a pirate, and cargo would be worth more when you sell it.
Get a job pirate, trade like the rest of us!

Then don't buy the most expensive items if you aren't willing to take the risk? Ship grain instead of palladium! That would become an option! It's about giving players more meaningful choices (am I willing to ship a large amount of this extremely valuable good? Maybe I should buy only a couple of these and fill up on something else cheaper...)

If you're shipping the maximum tonnage of the most valuable good in the game, then yes you should be ruined if you lose it. Don't do that unless you're willing to take the risk! (Maybe the margin could be a bit higher on those goods, but that's really addressing different concerns than the ones I'm trying to bring up here). Part of the point of this proposal is to make it worthwhile to ship other less valuable goods - increasing the risk of shipping the most valuable ones is part of what does that.

Not sure if Cargo is terribly cheap...
I mean ask a Hauler-, Cobra- or Type-6 Pilot what he thinks about a 6.500.000 Cr Cargo load of Palladium (~480t).
I don't think he'd consider that "cheap".
And not even me hauling such loads in a Type-9 worth well over 100.000.000Cr consider such a load "cheap". It's high-value Cargo.
Scrap or Biowaste.... Well, that's cheap Cargo right there.
The kind of Cargo you'd laugh seeing snow around in case you ever accidentally hit the "Jettison All" Button.
If that happened to me with a Palladium load - you'd see me speed-scooping like crazy in a Type-9

Haulers, Cobras, and Type 6s wouldn't be thinking of a 6.5 million credit cargo of the most expensive good in the game because it's far past the maximum cargo of their ship. Most of them can afford the most expensive cargo before they can afford the next tier of trade ship, and since it has the highest margins it's a no-brainer what to ship.

Right now there's no reason to ship anything else if you can afford the most expensive good available.

I think it is a good idea - not so much because of the impact upon Piracy, but because it would make a lot more of the trade goods actually worth trading. Right now you just dock and fill with whatever the highest value item is simply because nothing actually costs a lot. Even 13k Palladium is easy to stuff into your holds. And if margins remain as they are then the risk/reward ratio for low cost items would be much more attractive than for the high price items.

Exactly! You'd have so many more choices to make as a trader - ship choice, good choice, risk vs. reward, and the whole market becomes a consideration.

LOL people will not want this? sorry but the risk should mirror the reward! the only thing that needs to be fixed with piracy is the addition of a group feature! one ship to do the threatening and another to haul the booty but this is coming

...what? You say the risk should mirror the reward, but that this isn't a needed fix? One half the point of this is to make the risk of piracy equal the reward! (The other half is to give traders more meaningful choices)

The LAST thing we need is even more expensive commodities. As it is, very few commodities get traded, because the margin (value, not percent) is only in a few commodities. So there will be even more focus on those if the values go up. I would prefer all sorts of fixes to the model so that there is a point for someone to trade in the low and middle priced stuff, though quite how FD could make that happen is not clear to me. But in the real world, you don't have 'a man and a van' hauling around lots of gold: you get very expensive security vans with expensive convoys (aka wingmen) so that the costs of transporting the gold makes a significant dent in the profit to be made.

You don't understand my proposal. Please try to read it again. I am proposing exactly the fix you are asking. Why would my suggestion cause the focus on those goods to go up even more? That doesn't make any sense! (But yes, my proposal WOULD encourage people to form wings if they're shipping high value goods, and be equipped to defend themselves long enough to escape!)

Indeed. And if it were, most traders with any sense would retire after a single run since they would be set up for life.

What are you talking about. This comment makes no sense.

As a side benefit, mining should still be boring, but a little more profitable. Reducing chances of finding high level metals, some people will conform with indite, and few will go from rock to rock for half an hour trying to find Platinum. And maybe a big ship will be happy mining tons and tons of Lepidolite.

This is a great point, I didn't even think of this. But it would definitely make mining non-palladium a lot more worthwhile!

 

[GlyphGryph]

I is all about the margin guys. If I can fly 1 ton of material and make 1,000 credits off it, why would I fly something that only nets me 25 credits.

Because shipping the higher margin good requires a larger investment and higher risk. Hence the suggestion.

Bad idea... Really bad idea... Like saying- make all pirate bounties 10 times higher... Good for the bounty hunters...

I think we should make the bounties on pirates equal to a portion the value of the goods stolen or ships destroyed. I support higher penalties on pirates. But we need to make it worth it for them to be pirates, or your bounty hunting will still be miserable. Higher profits for pirating means good news for bounty hunters.

My suggestion to pirates who complain about not making any money is for them to take it in turns to be a trader and play the victim themselves every now and then. If you make it through with your cargo intact then you've made yourself some cash to fund your chosen profession of being a pirate, if you are attacked and your cargo is stolen then you've helped a fellow pirate have an enjoyable time.

I've played both roles. There's no reason to pirate at all, ever. There's no money to be made in it. It shouldn't be a hobby - pirating NPCs (making you a target for npc and player bounty hunters!) should be a viable career. Right now there's no point to pirating npcs, and I wouldn't have the stomache to pirate other players. Even if every single npc or player I stopped immediately gave me a hold full of cargo no questions asked, it still wouldn't be profitable to pirate compared to trading. That's a serious problem! Pirating is a high risk career and you're begging to be destroyed by the cops, bounty hunters, and prey that fights back. It should, if you're good enough, pay more than trading. Because you probably won't be good enough, but like all criminal enterprises the reward should be tempting enough to make the criminals pursue what is honestly a low chance of true success.

I think you made a mistake including pirates in the thread title, your main issue (which I agree with) stands without including it and mentioning it will just make some trade players instantly go on the defensive..

Good point. WIll change.

 

[Zanten]

Ehhhh, depending on how it's handled, it could be rendered a little borked, at least in terms of PvP piracy. :/ Getting interdicted with a full cargo of Beryllium and destroyed is... irritating. Ultimately, though, it will usually set a trader back maybe a few hours of dedicated (dull) trading, less if they have a good route and so it does allow plenty of traders to feel comfortable flying around in Open with their cargo because, even if their hatch gets blown, they're ultimately only set back a moderate amount, and the pirate gets his fun/shinies.

If the prices of certain commodities get drastically increased, there are two ways it can really be handled; first, increasing the margins of profit to compensate for the higher price. Sooooo if my 6.5 million credits work of cargo for about 1 million profit round trip suddenly got massively bumped up to 65 million credits worth of cargo, my profit would increase to 10 million profit per round trip. However, it is safe to say that this would make lots of traders REALLY rich, REALLY fast, and our profit margins already seems to be a touchy subject on the forum as it is. >.> Essentially, though, the more you rise the numbers to help make pirates more money, the richer you're making traders as well, and probably by an even bigger margin.

The alternative is NOT increasing the profit margins, or not remotely matching the increase in profit to go with the increase in risk. So my cargo would cost 65 million, but I'd still be making 1 million in profit. Maaaaaybe 2. In which case, huzzah for everyone not a trader cause we aren't getting richer any faster, HOWEVER it does raise the reasonable question of why I would bother ever carrying this cargo in the first place, especially in Open. By carrying it, the time I need to recover from having my cargo stolen has increased by a factor of five or ten, (from three hours of trading to fifteen or thirty) making that cargo burn a MUCH bigger hole in my pocket. Keep in mind, the idea here is to make things more profitable for pirates by increasing the amount of money they can make when they turn in particular stolen goods. To turn in those particular stolen goods, they first need to steal it, which means folks need to bother carrying it around in the first place. Without a higher reward to counterbalance the higher risk, most traders won't bother, at least not in Open, so in all likelihood you'll only really find NPC ships carrying it, (which would be hilarious, seeing a Sidewinder carrying cargo worth ten times as much as the ship,) as players in Open largely choose to haul explosives or fruits and vegetables.

And if we're to rely on NPCs, then why not just boost the prices of Rare Artwork, Black Boxes, etc, all the totally illegal cargo they're known to drop anyway? Hell, Rare Artwork especially, I thought I'd hit the JACKPOT the first time I found that floating in space... the prices disappointed me muchly. Kinda wish that stuff sold more like the Mona Lisa, not like That Painting By The Artist Who Sells Out Of His Garage.

 

[GlyphGryph]

I'd be perfectly okay with only the most risk seeking players choosing to carry the highest value goods in open. Doesn't hurt my game at all. I don't see why there should be any special reason to pirate a player over an NPC. (Right now there is, because only players carry most of the few barely profitable goods)

As a trader, when I trade this change would make things a lot more fun for me. It would be exciting, and there would be more concerns to consider than just the profit margin on each given commodity. I'd also have to factor in the risk instead of just being able to shrug off a loss of a hold full of the most precious material in the galaxy, which is how it is now.

Add a little danger to trading (for players who choose it).

 

[ChubbyBunneh]

Ok, but only if pirates are ineligible for insurance. They die, they must buy a brand new ship and re-outfit it. No insurance company is going to pay to replace property lost during the commission of an illegal act.

We're trying to add risk to the game right? How do you like them apples?

 

[LaserFace]

I completely misunderstood the older less clarified OP. Now that "keep the margins the same" has been pointed out to not mean what I thought it does, I would be pretty on board with this.

Though personally, I think fixing up the mechanics of Piracy itself needs some love.

Prohibited goods need to be more than just a random hazard you check the system map for (So combat stabilizers are SUPER illegal here!... Enjoy us not paying you any more than usual for them on the black market!)

Piracy missions should be worth more, or at the very least more open ended. Finding 10 tons of stolen fruit is a bit daunting when you can park in front of an Agriculture station, and every NPC ship you cargo scan in an hour that has cargo isn't carrying anything that could even be considered "food" or any other good produced by said station (Hmmm, another Type 9 with only 40 tons of Lepidolite leaving the farm)

Stuff should be just worth more in general on the black market, but I suspect it so much as meeting the Galactic Average would send many people into screaming fits thinking it's no fair to make that much for cargo you got for "Free"... After time, effort, combat, bounties, and possible fines for getting scanned whole holing stolen goods all for the privilege of selling something for half it's GA value.

This is all coming from a guy who has never even tried his hand at pirating players. Just trying it on some NPCs, and discovered trying to buy and smuggle prohibited goods just makes you lose money because prohibited combat stabilizers you got well below Galactic average snuck into the black market will still make you eat a loss.

Ok, but only if pirates are ineligible for insurance. They die, they must buy a brand new ship and re-outfit it. No insurance company is going to pay to replace property lost during the commission of an illegal act.

We're trying to add risk to the game right? How do you like them apples?

This seems incredibly silly. Nevermind how the game would differentiate Pirates from other types of criminals in the first place. "Stolen" cargo doesn't mean you took it from a player after all.

 

[GlyphGryph]

Ok, but only if pirates are ineligible for insurance. They die, they must buy a brand new ship and re-outfit it. No insurance company is going to pay to replace property lost during the commission of an illegal act.

We're trying to add risk to the game right? How do you like them apples?

Illegality is relative. Commanders respawning in a space in which they have committed a crime already have to pay for their crimes (after which they are no longer criminals) before they can gain the benefits of insurance.

 

[Khan]

Or you can just buff the income from selling goods at the black market by a percentage.

Huzzah, pirates now can make income, without making trade even more worthless then it already is.
80 million investment for 1 million return. My god thats the worst one yet.