Fleet carriers buying up steel from trailblazer carriers & selling with a huge markup
- Thread starter Dragsham
- Start date
"Profiteering" would imply that they were somehow cornering the supply in Steel this way so that no-one else could get any. It's a bulk-supply good with thousands of markets across the bubble, so it's going to take more than a couple of people with carriers to manage that.
Sure, they might find the occasional player who's both rich enough not to care about a 300k/t price and lazy enough not to jump one system over and buy it there instead, but it's mainly likely to leave them with a carrier full of Steel that no-one really wants.
(Collecting bulk steel and shipping out to be a convenient source at the end of one of the 500+LY chains? Probably a bit overpriced even at that distance, but more people might be willing to pay for the convenience at that point)
Sure, they might find the occasional player who's both rich enough not to care about a 300k/t price and lazy enough not to jump one system over and buy it there instead, but it's mainly likely to leave them with a carrier full of Steel that no-one really wants.
(Collecting bulk steel and shipping out to be a convenient source at the end of one of the 500+LY chains? Probably a bit overpriced even at that distance, but more people might be willing to pay for the convenience at that point)
Ian, it's much more than just a couple of people. This is for just one megaship (Trailblazer Dream) :
source: https://inara.cz/elite/starsystem-stations/95625/
And all 178 of those carriers are buying up Steel from the megaship to resell at maximum price?
I'm sure not, but if just 20% are then that's 35 FCs. That's more than a couple.
That's what those megaships are there for - a convenient source for Colonization materials.
In order to be able to actually "corner the market", each of those carriers would also have to have several/a lot of CMDRs run as loaders. Remember that we still can't load up carriers directly from the source.
Besides - if that Megaship should ever run out of Steel, get your fix from another source.
Oh - and I wouldn't be surprised if those carriers were loading up for the DW3 pre-event starting today.
In order to be able to actually "corner the market", each of those carriers would also have to have several/a lot of CMDRs run as loaders. Remember that we still can't load up carriers directly from the source.
Besides - if that Megaship should ever run out of Steel, get your fix from another source.
Oh - and I wouldn't be surprised if those carriers were loading up for the DW3 pre-event starting today.
Well, sure. Okay.
Let's say there are 35 FCs buying up Steel from the megaship. Best case, they can hold 35*25000 = 875000t of Steel that way. After that, they can't buy up more Steel, and the megaship will continue to regenerate normally-priced Steel at its standard (likely fairly fast rate). They can of course buy-and-jettison the Steel from the megaship to keep the local supply appearing low, but that then starts to cost them credits with no guarantee at all they'll ever get them back.
Meanwhile, Inara lists the BD-22 3573 system as having over 8.75 million tonnes of steel on its market at large pad stations for conventional prices.
Yes, particularly the Insulating Membranes since no great quantities are needed. But the reason there isn't a great scarcity is because FD buffed the CMM Composites respawn everywhere and the resupply rate of everything else at the megaships. Even 35 FCs can only hold so much steel, leaving every other source free.
But if the megaships weren't there, we'd have a real shortage
Would we?
Steel is available in ridiculous bulk. CMM has such a high regen rate that even a tiny refinery outpost on a frontier planet regenerates it at hundreds of tonnes a trip. Insulating Membrane is required only in small quantities and was never in shortage except among people who couldn't figure out how to search Inara for it; Emergency Power Cells shows up in even fewer constructions and even smaller quantities.
On the other side, the pace of colonisation hauling is of course slowing down a bit after the initial rush, while new production settlements continually come online.
They're a convenience, certainly - my nearest Trailblazer is more convenient than flying halfway across the bubble for Emergency Power Cells - but they're hardly affecting the total supply amounts across the bubble as a whole.
I think you see the glass as half full while I see it as half empty. I'll leave it at that
I think it's more useful deal with actual numbers rather than estimating or making up hypotheticals that aren't happening.
Yes the steel is for sale and players can set any price the market software will allow.
Is it stupid or greedy? Probably both.
Yes in the sense that no game mechanics are being violated, no in the sense of not in the spirit of why those Megaships were deployed.
Maybe not.
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Just wondering why some seem to think that ED is set in an utopian future, under the delusion that people will always be fair, everyone will be nice. Sorry folks it's supposed to be set in a dystopian future. The game allows people to "immerse" (for want of a better word) in that aspect of the game.
If people want to attempt to gouge and they find people willing to be gouged, welcome to capitalism, a dystopian nightmare we need to deal with in the "future".
People killing others, for fun or to steal your stuff is also something we need to deal with in the dystopian "future".
If you think that the game is unrealistic in its depiction of the future and what it allows players to do in the game, then open your door and take a look at our dystopian present.
If people want to attempt to gouge and they find people willing to be gouged, welcome to capitalism, a dystopian nightmare we need to deal with in the "future".
People killing others, for fun or to steal your stuff is also something we need to deal with in the dystopian "future".
If you think that the game is unrealistic in its depiction of the future and what it allows players to do in the game, then open your door and take a look at our dystopian present.
Did you buy a ton and frame it.