I'm being a noob/numpty. How can you sell loads of something at a station with a demand of just "1"?

NeilF

NeilF
I'm being a noob/numpty. How can you sell loads of something at a station with a demand of just "1"?

So while continuing to test mining, I flew off to a station to sell my rocks. I noticed for example with one mineral the station had a demand of "1". Yet I could sell tens of them?

Huh? Point out how I'm being dim please!
 

NeilF

NeilF
Last edited:

Jockey79

Jockey79
NeilF said:
Thanks... Thought it was something like this...

So wouldn't it make more sense to display a more "vague" but applicable message instead of a somewhat misleading "specific value" of "1"? eg:-
"Very low"
"Low"
"Medium"
"High"
"Very High"

etc....?

So in the example above, demand would be "Very Low"? Surely that's more logical than "1"?
Click to expand...

Sold 70 Void Opals to a station last night that only wanted one for 1.6 million.

I shrugged, asked my crew mate how much he made from sitting in my ship for 60 seconds while I sold my stuff and then went to bed.
Figured that "demand" number was pointless years ago when I first started doing A-B-A trade runs.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
NeilF said:
Thanks... Thought it was something like this...

So wouldn't it make more sense to display a more "vague" but applicable message instead of a somewhat misleading "specific value" of "1"? eg:-
Click to expand...
The linked thread is wrong.

A demand of 1 does indeed mean 1t - you can verify this trivially by finding somewhere with a demand of >1 and selling it 1t barrels one at a time, and watching the demand decrease by 1 each time as you do this.

The key is that a demand of 0 does not mean "will not buy", it means "will buy only at minimum price". (A supply of 0 does mean "will not sell", of course).

However, goods pricing does not necessarily work how you might expect.
- price does vary depending on whether the demand is "full" [1] or "empty", but it doesn't vary very *much*. Maybe +/- 10% for most goods. (There's a slightly larger effect on prices for suppliers, but it's still not that big)
- price also varies based on BGS state. The highest I saw in 3.2 was over +500% (though the base price of the good was pretty low). Now in 3.3, the BGS state multipliers themselves get multiplied together. This overwhelms any demand-based price changes, even for the smaller effects.

So there's not really any significant disadvantage to selling at demand zero.


EDIT: I assume this is how it is so that if you want to switch ships you can at least get rid of the cargo you have on board for something, even if the station doesn't technically require it.


[1] Which might be 1t or it might be 100000t depending on the good, the station, and other factors.
 
Last edited:

NeilF

NeilF
Jockey79 said:
Sold 70 Void Opals to a station last night that only wanted one for 1.6 million.

I shrugged, asked my crew mate how much he made from sitting in my ship for 60 seconds while I sold my stuff and then went to bed.
Figured that "demand" number was pointless years ago when I first started doing A-B-A trade runs.
Click to expand...

It's does make you scratch your head...
 

NeilF

NeilF
Ian Doncaster said:
The linked thread is wrong.

A demand of 1 does indeed mean 1t - you can verify this trivially by finding somewhere with a demand of >1 and selling it 1t barrels one at a time, and watching the demand decrease by 1 each time as you do this.

The key is that a demand of 0 does not mean "will not buy", it means "will buy only at minimum price". (A supply of 0 does mean "will not sell", of course).

However, goods pricing does not necessarily work how you might expect.
- price does vary depending on whether the demand is "full" [1] or "empty", but it doesn't vary very *much*. Maybe +/- 10% for most goods. (There's a slightly larger effect on prices for suppliers, but it's still not that big)
- price also varies based on BGS state. The highest I saw in 3.2 was over +500% (though the base price of the good was pretty low). Now in 3.3, the BGS state multipliers themselves get multiplied together. This overwhelms any demand-based price changes, even for the smaller effects.

So there's not really any significant disadvantage to selling at demand zero.


EDIT: I assume this is how it is so that if you want to switch ships you can at least get rid of the cargo you have on board for something, even if the station doesn't technically require it.


[1] Which might be 1t or it might be 100000t depending on the good, the station, and other factors.
Click to expand...
Understood, but isn't a precise numeric value for something so vague clearly daft/misleading? Might a demand of "Low" instead of "1" be more logical?

And if the value basically is pointless what's the point of it? ie: There's something very odd about a demand value seemingly being very low ("1") yet the price being offered for it being insanely high, and people being able to sell as much of they want of the commodity anyway.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
NeilF said:
Understood, but isn't a precise numeric value for something so vague clearly daft/misleading? Might a demand of "Low" instead of "1" be more logical?

And if the value basically is pointless what's the point of it? ie: There's something very odd about a demand value seemingly being very low ("1") yet the price being offered for it being insanely high, and people being able to sell as much of they want of the commodity anyway.
Click to expand...

Problem with low or high is that it doesn't take the size of the economy into account. For a large economy a demand of 10.000 is low while it's high for a small economy. Not saying you don't have a point, but it needs some refinement before it would work.
 
Last edited:

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
NeilF said:
Understood, but isn't a precise numeric value for something so vague clearly daft/misleading? Might a demand of "Low" instead of "1" be more logical?
Click to expand...
This is an unusual case, though - goods with an extremely low demand value which are nevertheless in high supply. The demand level is a precise figure and should be reported as such, though.

If nothing else, for consistency with the supply level, where knowing how close it is to 0 can be very important.

NeilF said:
And if the value basically is pointless what's the point of it? ie: There's something very odd about a demand value seemingly being very low ("1") yet the price being offered for it being insanely high, and people being able to sell as much of they want of the commodity anyway.
Click to expand...
I certainly agree in principle that there should be a high penalty applied for selling at demand 0 (the same reduction to half galactic average for selling at a station which doesn't import at all, perhaps). And similarly the effects of high or low demand I think would be more interesting if they were in the +/- 100% range of a BGS state rather than being much smaller.

On the other hand, the *practical* effects of that would be quite significant, and Frontier would need to approach it very carefully to avoid completely breaking bits of the economy.

For example, just with the new gems, the demand refresh period for a good with ~200k galactic average price would be about 4-6 months. The requirement levels are also very low - looks like about 0.04 per economic unit (very roughly economic units = sqrt(population)). Demand would very rapidly get filled up in most systems, making it increasingly difficult to find anywhere to sell at all - a single player making a single trip could potentially meet demand for a mid-sized system.

The complaints from "I spent hours mining these gems and now no-one wants them" would be much larger than the "it's a bit odd that they still buy at zero demand" ones currently. So they'd have to be very careful how they introduced anything of this sort.
 

NeilF

NeilF
Ian Doncaster said:
The complaints from "I spent hours mining these gems and now no-one wants them" would be much larger than the "it's a bit odd that they still buy at zero demand" ones currently. So they'd have to be very careful how they introduced anything of this sort.
Click to expand...
Without a doubt!

When I saw "1" as the demand at the station I'd made 12 jumps to get to, I almost got my pitchfork and torch!

When I then realised I could still sell everything irrespective of this, I just ended up thinking, "Huh?"
 

DaveB

DaveB
I look at it like this...

The station commodities market is a brokerage. A non-zero demand means they have outstanding buy orders. This drives the price up. A demand of zero means that there are no outstanding buy orders, not that nobody will buy the item if its offered. There just isn't any upward pressure on the price so they'll sell for minimum return.
 

Deleted member 115407

D
NeilF said:
So while continuing to test mining, I flew off to a station to sell my rocks. I noticed for example with one mineral the station had a demand of "1". Yet I could sell tens of them?

Huh? Point out how I'm being dim please!
Click to expand...

Basically I think markets were originally intended to be much more responsive and intricate, but were left in the state they are as a place-holder. Prices were probably originally written to bottom out a lot sooner than they do, with those pips/numbers being good indicators of demand. But I imagine they were padded so as to create minimal disruption to individual gameplay.

It's a shame, because the way they are now doesn't make for very compelling gameplay.
 

Deleted member 115407

D
Amargosa said:
Well, that explains why I always only get 1659k per void opal instead of the stated 1687k on inara...
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Now, prices will bottom out eventually. You use to see it happen with Painite at Pristine Ring stations. But where the "floor" is cannot be reliably deduced from the indicators on the market screen.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Amargosa

A
vindelanos said:
Exactly.

Now, prices will bottom out eventually. You use to see it happen with Painite at Pristine Ring stations. But where the "floor" is cannot be reliably deduced from the indicators on the market screen.
Click to expand...

Diamonds have already crashed quite hard lately, now Benitoites have taken their place as the 1100k range mineral.
 

Deleted member 115407

D
Amargosa said:
Diamonds have already crashed quite hard lately, now Benitoites have taken their place as the 1100k range mineral.
Click to expand...

The problem is that when a boom happens... say we have a void opal boom at system A.

Go to the market there, and the demand is 40, with three pips.

The problem is CMDRs will dump thousands of tons of the commodity on the market before the price even starts to dwindle a bit.

This makes tons of sense in regards to food cartridges, where the demand can be in the hundred of thousands. It makes little sense with regards to a luxury commodity, whose exorbitant prices are based on rarity and for which there is relatively little demand to begin with.

If people started driving dump trucks full of diamonds in from the fields, you would quickly see the value of diamonds plummet.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Amargosa

A
vindelanos said:
The problem is that when a boom happens... say we have a void opal boom at system A.

Go to the market there, and the demand is 40, with three pips.

The problem is CMDRs will dump thousands of tons of the commodity on the market before the price even starts to dwindle a bit.

This makes tons of sense in regards to food cartridges, where the demand can be in the hundred of thousands. It makes little sense with regards to a luxury commodity, whose exorbitant prices are based on rarity and for which there is relatively little demand to begin with.

If people started driving dump trucks full of diamonds in from the fields, you would quickly see the value of diamonds plummet.
Click to expand...

It's the way it is due to gameplay. Can you imagine the outrage if one single player could satisfy the demand and crash the prices of the entire bubble with only 1 ship load?
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
I don't mind that it doesn't make sense, there's plenty that never has, I'm assuming for the sake of game play, but it's interesting none the less.

I'd guess low demand is part of the calculation that increases price (logically), and then other factors from system states add modifiers as well leading to the crazy high price. I appreciate being able to sell more than 1 ton at those prices.

Don't demands actually change with delivery for stations under repair? Maybe some of these occasions are hand altered from the standard BGS formula.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom