Call for volunteers: trading apps & data

[metzer]

There are a few trading apps out there already:

Zebidie's Trade Tool
Slopey's ED BPC/Market Data/Companion Android app and Windows Version - BPC
Metzer's Elite Trader mobile site

These tools, and any others that may be built in the future, face one critical problem: getting timely data about current prices at the various starports.

As much as I'd like to crush the competition by updating my own data manually faster than everyone else, that approach simply won't scale when ED has hundreds or thousands of systems and markets. I wish to eliminate that problem while preserving the freedom individuals have to design their own user interfaces and implement their own algorithms.

Thus, I propose that we coordinate two efforts to solve for our data problems once and for all:

First, development of desktop software designed to harvest market data from stations that players visit. I'm thinking something like World of Warcraft's Auctioneer: a standalone desktop application that eavesdrops on comms between the ED server and client, and collects market data as it comes over the wire. Relying on players to manually update data will not work: players can be lazy and can make mistakes, and we don't want our apps to be hostage to those facts.

Second, construction of a public market data clearinghouse, designed to power any app through a simple REST interface. The client-side app will publish discovered data to this clearinghouse, presumably subject to player preferences. Along with this, we may wish to produce interface libraries in common languages (a JS lib, a Ruby gem, etc.) so that would-be app developers are able to easily use our data to drive their app.

There are important design and technical challenges on both fronts, but I believe it's possible for us to work out an open platform that will open the door not just for our apps, but better ones that haven't yet been designed. This may be our best chance to make a lasting contribution.

 

[Shepard]

You might not need all this above described. If I am not mistaken we will have in-game trading computer that will allow us to analize the markets from inside the ship. Wait until maybe Alpha 5 (after PB is released) cause we will have a lot more stuff added it seems as closer we get to General Beta and then release.

 

[metzer]

@Shepard,

What makes you think FD is building an in-game interface to do all this? Can you cite a forum post, newsletter, or one of the video updates?

 

[Vandyl]

Devs...Please perma ban third party app advertisers & users....Thanks!

 

[Jorlin]

Devs...Please perma ban third party app advertisers & users....Thanks!

i wouldn't go so far...

if the data has to be manually aquired, no problem.
there just shouldn't be an api to connect to game data...
of course, there will be applications that are able to collect market data from the network stream when visiting a station...but which trader with a healthy brain would provide such data? shooting themselves in the foot?

 

[metzer]

@Vandyl,

I'm a fellow player and backer, not some "third-party advertiser." If you'd been reading the forums, you'd know that there are a few lone players like me who are trying to be smart about trading. When someone designs a problem that is best solved by a computer, someone else will use a computer to solve it; FD's trading mechanic is just that (at least so far), and the primary source of difficulty is the lack of perfect knowledge. Some of us have been trying to solve for that in our free time -- and have made the fruits of our labor available to people like you, for free -- and I for one don't appreciate being painted with the same brush you'd use for spambots or paid ads.

What I'm interested in doing right now is finding other people like myself who are growing their own solutions, and helping to coordinate their efforts for the benefit of the community. You don't have to be a part of that, but nobody should be banned because you were too lazy to understand their post, or you didn't like what you saw.

 

[lefty1117]

Don't mind the naysayers, metzer, there are some single-player minds out there that haven't grasped that there is going to be a huge multiplayer component to this game. But I trust that Frontier is a bit more forward looking. There is a concept of a market screen floating around from Frontier that gives hope that there will actually be a decent in-game market. We can only hope that there will be an API as well for read-only access to data. It's the modern thing to do, I'd be shocked if something didn't happen along these lines.

It makes no sense at all, whether in "game lore" or just from a practicality standpoint, that there wouldn't be some sort of way to check up on prices in other systems. This isn't 1983 anymore, I wish some folks would come around to that and realize we don't need 1983 gameplay in 2014 games.

Here's the concept art I mentioned - notice the pricing info at the bottom of the screen from several locations, as well as the ticker at the top of the screen.

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2013_08_01/CargoHold_009.jpg

 

[Colonel Kenney]

I would spend a couple bux for an android app that could keep me updated on market info from them or a third party. Depends which one is best and most realistic.

 

[jinja]

@Shepard,

What makes you think FD is building an in-game interface to do all this? Can you cite a forum post, newsletter, or one of the video updates?

The in-game news channels will, at least, include; "Economy – Prices up/down, surpluses and shortages."

Thread here.

This may not be the level of detail on market data you require, but as another poster says, it might be hard to predict the level of detail at such an early stage of development. I would hate for someone to spend months coding, only to discover it's all available in the final game

 

[Teefur]

I'm a fellow player and backer, not some "third-party advertiser."

You are not Frontier, therefore you are a third party. You were advertising your app that you are developing outwith the bounds of Elite: Dangerous.

By definition you are a third party advertiser. Whether you should be banned or not is an entirely different subject.