I'm curious if NPC trade routes have any effect on the commodity markets they support. For example if a refinery system is near an extraction system & an agricultural system does the trade between them increase the total supply or the rate of production of refinery products? I'd like to believe system economic success has more to it than just what's available within the system itself, but need proof either way.
Does NPC trade affect system economy?
- Thread starter BluePilot
- Start date
No.
Is that your opinion or do you have evidence to prove it? I'm searching for evidence either way not baseless claims...
The evidence would seem be that no it has no effect. If you look up the markets for various stations on a tool like Inara. You'll find that the exhibit very little variation in market supply. This is particularly noteworthy on stations that have multiple economies where having a supply of extraction goods does not boost the supply of refinery goods. That's when the supply is on the same station. Between stations does not appear to have any effect but I haven't bothered to spread sheet it down and see if it's just an effect too small to care about.
Things with markets do seem to be getting tweaked at the moment so that could change but at this time the evidence is that trade routes have no impact.
Things with markets do seem to be getting tweaked at the moment so that could change but at this time the evidence is that trade routes have no impact.
I would go with no but if you want to spend time testing you can simply pick a low supply item instead of one that has 3.5 million. If you use a system with a moderate population it's perfectly possibly to drain the supply of certain goods. I wouldn't bother testing it though. Even a player selling demand items does nothing to aid refill rate so a passive bonus is almost certainly not present. You sell Hematite and it doesn't change the steel refill.
NPCs only exist for you and your instance. They don't really trade, it is all smoke and mirrors.
It's not an opinion, it's tested fact. It can be hard to find the threads on this forum, as this was established years ago and fleet carriers and colonisation threads tend to obscure the information from a search, but there are threads out there that, in principle at least, can be found.
You can reproduce the basic research yourself:
Find a small, out-the-way system with preferably no traffic. Check the availability of commodities. Wait twenty minutes. Check again. There should be no difference as there has been no player trade. You will have seen NPCs arrive and depart, many in trade ships.
Repeat, but this time buy as much as you can of one item. Note the available supply goes down. Wait twenty minutes. See how much it has recovered by. The markets update once every ten minutes.
Now bring in a trading ship, if you can. A Type 9 works well. Buy at least three different high supply commodities and do a trade run between your current system and one with a complementary economy. Always buy at least three types of high-value, high-supply commodities and sell them at each end. Take trade missions as well if you wish. The economy slider in the status tab of the internal panel (default key = 4) for the factions at whose bases you traded (or the factions you did trade missions for) will move to the right. Eventually, your actions will trigger a boom. You can do this within the same system if the economies of the system (including planetside) bases match up, especially if the same faction owns the bases - you'll effectively double the trade inputs into the BGS.
Lots of the states are like this, although some are seemingly random, like drought. Want to cause an outbreak? Haul biowaste.
But NPCs don't do anything and there isn't even notional NPC trade calculated in BGS updates.
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