Do NPCs Actually Sell Mined Material to Stations?

[KingTurtle]

I was curious if anyone has actually followed an NPC mining ship all the back to the station.

Or checked the market before an NPC Trading ship arrives and see the stock immediately go up.

 

[SteveWW57]

Commodities appear to refill at a set rate up to a maximum amount (no idea what the rates or levels are though). NPC ships appear to have no effect on stock levels. A couple of years ago there was a tritium CG, including Colonia. Over in Colonia there are a limited number of places to buy the stuff, and stocks were rapidly run down to zero and then every 10 minutes (?) some more stock was added.

Steve

 

[Schmack]

Not the ones I pirated.

 

[metatheurgist]

Nah, NPCs don't even track from instance to instance. You see a NPC miner leaving, you won't see them in SC heading for the station. If there was a mining ship in SC dropping out at a station, won't see them docking if you drop into the station. There is no tracking of the amount of goods an NPC delivers, the ridiculous amount of diamonds, painite and void opals mined by players have had zero effect on the economy. Some of this is tech limitations like tracking NPCs in and out of space, some of it is just undoable like tracking every NPC doing it's own thing, some of it is just terrible, terrible decisions.

A while ago they ran an economic galaxy sim which sets the base line for each system and players can dent it a bit, then it rebounds back to the baseline. Which is probably a sensible bedrock for the system. It's just a shame, it's not a bit more ambitious with its malleability. But hey, we got fleet carriers and pointless PMFs all over the place.

 

[Danieros]

NPC ships aren't persistent. Only players buying/selling from a station will impact its supply/demand, or faction states by player input in the BGS.

 

[Jack Winter]

NPC ships aren't persistent. Only players buying/selling from a station will impact its supply/demand, or faction states by player input in the BGS.

Imagine some PMF's inf get trashed by RNG controlled NPCs delivering goods...

 

[metatheurgist]

Imagine some PMF's inf get trashed by RNG controlled NPCs delivering goods...

And they should be. There are 6 trillion NPCs in the galaxy. That's many more times any player faction.

 

[aRJay]

Imagine some PMF's inf get trashed by RNG controlled NPCs delivering goods...

A salt mine.

 

[xzanfr]

I was curious if anyone has actually followed an NPC mining ship all the back to the station.

Or checked the market before an NPC Trading ship arrives and see the stock immediately go up.

No.

The 'living, breathing galaxy' is still a placeholder.

 

[Northpin]

Nah, NPCs don't even track from instance to instance

NPC ships aren't persistent. Only players buying/selling from a station will impact its supply/demand, or faction states by player input in the BGS.

In certain scenarios, they are persistent

For example if you chase an NPC in normal space and they high wake out, you can scan the wake, jump in that system, and you will find them in Supercruise and they can be interdicted.
I used to pirate some npc like that. Since it was a fringe system, they jumped in anarchy/unpopulated systems and the resulting cargo was not marked as stolen

However, it's been a while since i did that - not sure if it was changed.

Edit, but to answer to OP, nope NPCs do not refresh or deplete the stocks at stations.
These depend on system parameters and further affected by BGS states

 

[Schmack]

Imagine some PMF's inf get trashed by RNG controlled NPCs delivering goods...

I cannot count the number of times a good opportunity has been taken away by the hand of god because of how it affected a PMF.

In certain scenarios, they are persistent

For example if you chase an NPC in normal space and they high wake out, you can scan the wake, jump in that system, and you will find them in Supercruise and they can be interdicted.
I used to pirate some npc like that. Since it was a fringe system, they jumped in anarchy/unpopulated systems and the resulting cargo was not marked as stolen

However, it's been a while since i did that - not sure if it was changed.

Edit, but to answer to OP, nope NPCs do not refresh or deplete the stocks at stations.
These depend on system parameters and further affected by BGS states.

The fact NPCs spawn as we do each instance even on relogs and exit/reentry to POIs is really all we need to know in order to know they don't individually affect the BGS. Even the high wake scenario you mentioned, seems to me that others in your instance might not see the NPC you wake scanned, and that it generated because you scanned it. I haven't experimented with that.