Trading in Elite is boring. Finding a two or three station circuit that is actually good becomes a sort of tyranny where any other activity is sub-optimal. Players feel they have little influence through trade other than erratic price changes. How might it be improved? These suggestions form a package that would work together, please don't consider them individually.
1. Change how traders get paid.
In Elite, players are not traders in any real sense. They are space haulers. Haulers should be paid for hauling. In Elite's current economy, why would anyone haul grain or biowaste or hydrogen fuel ever? The profit per ton makes this almost always not worthwhile. Players should be allowed to trade directly in high value items, but the current system of bulletin board hauling missions should be greatly expanded. Hauling missions should be readily available and pay for -full- loads of any size of ship's cargo bay using the full variety of commodities, not random quantities that ensure most accomplished players will never take the missions.
How can the current system allow for hauling contracts that make better sense than the random bulletin board system and include more player interaction with how they are generated?
2. Meaningful inter-station trade relationships.
Elite currently shows you export or import systems per commodity. This idea needs to be expanded into trade route/linkages. Stations should establish linkages with systems that have things they need. Bulletin boards should offer missions that -actually conform to these linkages- and pay reasonable hauling contract fees even for low profit per ton commodities.
These should be readily available (i.e. nearly always) as incredible numbers of haulers would be needed to meet the needs of most systems. If a certain route is overstaffed with haulers, profit should decline, but these missions should nearly always be available. This goes a long way towards reducing the need to use the 'demand' figures to control trade profitability, as players would be more often using hauling contracts, since there are many more low-profit per ton commodities.
Contract payout should take into account distance and danger (hello hutton orbital). This system could also be influenced by the developers to encourage players to congregate in certain areas such as high pay/high risk locales to help foster player interactions. In other words, using hauling contracts, a player might be paid very well to haul grain to an 'outlaw' station in an anarchy system, because of the risk and illegality of the activity. Linkages should respect major faction alignment/political considerations such that empire and federal systems might not want to trade with each other at all.
Yet we don't want to turn this into a simple follow the bulletin board system, that would be boring. How do we include player agency?
3. Dynamic trade linkages.
Trade linkages should not be 100% fully automated. Currently stations seem to form trade relations with other nearby systems within some threshold (not sure maybe 20 ly?). Initial trade linkages should be more randomized to introduce more inefficiency. To give players a role as traders and allow them to influence the broader system, players should be allowed to FORM trade linkages through a special system. This would pay very well for the initial 'introduction' between stations, and give a long-term bonus to the player that helps create a new, valid trade linkage for some commodity. They might receive a price advantage, or a hauling contract bonus on that route for the duration of the route. Since player formed linkages would usually exceed the distance of the automatic system linkages (just like now), they would pay better for contract hauling by default.
This allows players to act as a trade broker in finding new trade routes. This helps encourages players to move around and explore even if they found a decent route already. Without player interaction, trade should be very sub-optimal. Players should feel like they pioneer efficient trade relationships through their own actions. Player formed linkages should decay over time if they are not actively traded, and slowly even if they are. Linkages would return to some initial sub-optimal state without players.
Even with these new elements, the system could still devolve to simple back and forth station grinding after the player forms some good trade linkages. What additional depth might be possible without a huge development cost?
4. Trade route planning via automation.
With the above changes in place, the need for fluctuating commodity buy/sell prices based on player trade volume is substantially reduced, as players would be encouraged to run contract hauling missions along routes rather than purchase commodities directly. Prices could be more stable. An in-game trade tool that has access to current prices and hauling contract details of visited systems would allow the player to create and save multi-stage trade routes that could include both direct trade and hauling. Players might even pay a subscription fee for the information, forcing them to hone in on systems that they are most interested in.
Players could access historical data (stored locally) on their trade route's performance over time. As certain segments decay in profit, the player could make changes to their route. This sort of complex trade design tool would add some depth and encourage complex routes. How would simple back and forth routes be discouraged despite more stable prices?
It will be much easier for the devs to encourage players to move around if they have both a hauling contract mission system on top of the current commodity price system. Contract price decreases would be transparent through the route planning system, rather than the current, obscurantist implementation of sudden price drops. Players might even be warned on their trade route planner about over-trading, including details about when that leg of a trip might be profitable again.
As it stands, the commodity price system is a blunt tool for encourage players to move around as the multiple tweaks to profit decay since release have shown. Players are annoyed to find their route suddenly lose profitability, but would likely be less annoyed to find that one or two legs of a 6 station journey are losing profitability-- especially if they would actually receive a bonus for creating a new trade linkage themselves (i.e. a trade exploration bonus).
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With these changes, traders would spend more time exploring to create trade linkages and using in-game tools to optimize them as part of multi-stage routes, rather than spending a lot of time semi-afk supercruising between the same two or three stations as part of an optimal trade grind. Trade should be as much planning as it should be execution. The ability for devs to decay or adjust profitability would remain, but would be less dramatic than the current methods.
Obviously, these suggestions require some developer time, but they do work on top of existing concepts, esp. the bulletin board hauling missions and the existing galactic map trade routes. Hopefully, by adapting existing systems, a lot of work could be saved. I would love to see the trade system have more depth and more player agency.
EDIT: One additional thing: hauling contracts should play a premium for open play, even if commodity prices don't. Risk is a factor in profitability.
1. Change how traders get paid.
In Elite, players are not traders in any real sense. They are space haulers. Haulers should be paid for hauling. In Elite's current economy, why would anyone haul grain or biowaste or hydrogen fuel ever? The profit per ton makes this almost always not worthwhile. Players should be allowed to trade directly in high value items, but the current system of bulletin board hauling missions should be greatly expanded. Hauling missions should be readily available and pay for -full- loads of any size of ship's cargo bay using the full variety of commodities, not random quantities that ensure most accomplished players will never take the missions.
How can the current system allow for hauling contracts that make better sense than the random bulletin board system and include more player interaction with how they are generated?
2. Meaningful inter-station trade relationships.
Elite currently shows you export or import systems per commodity. This idea needs to be expanded into trade route/linkages. Stations should establish linkages with systems that have things they need. Bulletin boards should offer missions that -actually conform to these linkages- and pay reasonable hauling contract fees even for low profit per ton commodities.
These should be readily available (i.e. nearly always) as incredible numbers of haulers would be needed to meet the needs of most systems. If a certain route is overstaffed with haulers, profit should decline, but these missions should nearly always be available. This goes a long way towards reducing the need to use the 'demand' figures to control trade profitability, as players would be more often using hauling contracts, since there are many more low-profit per ton commodities.
Contract payout should take into account distance and danger (hello hutton orbital). This system could also be influenced by the developers to encourage players to congregate in certain areas such as high pay/high risk locales to help foster player interactions. In other words, using hauling contracts, a player might be paid very well to haul grain to an 'outlaw' station in an anarchy system, because of the risk and illegality of the activity. Linkages should respect major faction alignment/political considerations such that empire and federal systems might not want to trade with each other at all.
Yet we don't want to turn this into a simple follow the bulletin board system, that would be boring. How do we include player agency?
3. Dynamic trade linkages.
Trade linkages should not be 100% fully automated. Currently stations seem to form trade relations with other nearby systems within some threshold (not sure maybe 20 ly?). Initial trade linkages should be more randomized to introduce more inefficiency. To give players a role as traders and allow them to influence the broader system, players should be allowed to FORM trade linkages through a special system. This would pay very well for the initial 'introduction' between stations, and give a long-term bonus to the player that helps create a new, valid trade linkage for some commodity. They might receive a price advantage, or a hauling contract bonus on that route for the duration of the route. Since player formed linkages would usually exceed the distance of the automatic system linkages (just like now), they would pay better for contract hauling by default.
This allows players to act as a trade broker in finding new trade routes. This helps encourages players to move around and explore even if they found a decent route already. Without player interaction, trade should be very sub-optimal. Players should feel like they pioneer efficient trade relationships through their own actions. Player formed linkages should decay over time if they are not actively traded, and slowly even if they are. Linkages would return to some initial sub-optimal state without players.
Even with these new elements, the system could still devolve to simple back and forth station grinding after the player forms some good trade linkages. What additional depth might be possible without a huge development cost?
4. Trade route planning via automation.
With the above changes in place, the need for fluctuating commodity buy/sell prices based on player trade volume is substantially reduced, as players would be encouraged to run contract hauling missions along routes rather than purchase commodities directly. Prices could be more stable. An in-game trade tool that has access to current prices and hauling contract details of visited systems would allow the player to create and save multi-stage trade routes that could include both direct trade and hauling. Players might even pay a subscription fee for the information, forcing them to hone in on systems that they are most interested in.
Players could access historical data (stored locally) on their trade route's performance over time. As certain segments decay in profit, the player could make changes to their route. This sort of complex trade design tool would add some depth and encourage complex routes. How would simple back and forth routes be discouraged despite more stable prices?
It will be much easier for the devs to encourage players to move around if they have both a hauling contract mission system on top of the current commodity price system. Contract price decreases would be transparent through the route planning system, rather than the current, obscurantist implementation of sudden price drops. Players might even be warned on their trade route planner about over-trading, including details about when that leg of a trip might be profitable again.
As it stands, the commodity price system is a blunt tool for encourage players to move around as the multiple tweaks to profit decay since release have shown. Players are annoyed to find their route suddenly lose profitability, but would likely be less annoyed to find that one or two legs of a 6 station journey are losing profitability-- especially if they would actually receive a bonus for creating a new trade linkage themselves (i.e. a trade exploration bonus).
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With these changes, traders would spend more time exploring to create trade linkages and using in-game tools to optimize them as part of multi-stage routes, rather than spending a lot of time semi-afk supercruising between the same two or three stations as part of an optimal trade grind. Trade should be as much planning as it should be execution. The ability for devs to decay or adjust profitability would remain, but would be less dramatic than the current methods.
Obviously, these suggestions require some developer time, but they do work on top of existing concepts, esp. the bulletin board hauling missions and the existing galactic map trade routes. Hopefully, by adapting existing systems, a lot of work could be saved. I would love to see the trade system have more depth and more player agency.
EDIT: One additional thing: hauling contracts should play a premium for open play, even if commodity prices don't. Risk is a factor in profitability.
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