It's time to yell at a brick wall - aka.. Request something to be done about trading

[Darth Ender]

Combat - Want more credits? You have to fight more deadly ships and more of them , increasing your chances of taking damage or dying and decreasing your kill volume.

Mining - Want more credits? You have to mine in hostile resource extraction sites - the more valuable roids are in the most hostile (high skill) res types. This increases your chance of damage / dying, increases your interruptions mining thus also decreasing your mining volume.

Trading - Want more credits? Buy more items from station A and sell them at station B, buy from station B and sell at station A. Repeat - add legs etc. There is no additional risk involved whether you want to trade in a sidewinder or trade in a T9. There is no need to engage npe's at all since you can boost away before they have time to really scratch your shields. There is no self limiting mechanism aside from tanking an economy which is unlikely with 1 player and any half decent trade item.


So what to do about trading?

I'd like to see free trade overhauled to something that may only ever exhibit a profit for a good in times of system wars where normal trade partners are disrupted. Otherwise profits would be very small for an independent trader as most station needs would be filled by standing contracts with huge outfits.

I'd then like to see something akin to the bulletin board missions asking for couriers to transport (whatever your current ship can hold) amount of goods from that station to some other station (sometimes many jumps away) and this is how "traders" profit. The profit levels would be on par with the rate of bounty hunters / miners / etc missions provide. Stations would always have trade missions available on the bulletin board - your standing with the station will dictate how lucrative a trade offer is given as well as your trade rank and ship type.

 

[Cowboy Bats]

No, just no.

 

[Bazorlag]

Honestly, bulk trading is so simple that I don´t understand why it is so profitable (I´ve done it too, for 200+ mils).

 

[peteuplink]

As someone who does trade, not bulk as I only have a Cobra Mk 3, I don't see any problem with it. It has it's risks, I was interdicted plenty of times by AI ships tonight (for some reason they were mostly Alliance Enforcers) in various systems. I can't speak for bulk trading, but low level trading is fine.

I do agree that some of the bulletin board delivery missions should be further away and maybe even riskier in some systems. Sometimes I land at pirate, or unsanctioned, outposts and I would think they'd be a bit more wary of a unknown ship approaching their station.

 

[FlaGuitars]

Trading is fine as it is. If you want to haul more you need to spend more for the ship/cargo space. All that mass does not escape predators as well as a lighter craft. If you lose that expensive ship you lose more insurance. If you lose a huge cargo you lose a huge amount of credits. The balance is fine.

 

[PavelKCZ]

Trading is OK as it is. Do you have another funny idea how to cripple the ED more than already is ? Maybe you should tie your hands and fly your ship only with your nose pressing keys on your keyboard. Surely, it will be really hard, old school and a lot of fun for you.

 

[smiths121]

Combat - Want more credits? You have to fight more deadly ships and more of them , increasing your chances of taking damage or dying and decreasing your kill volume.

Mining - Want more credits? You have to mine in hostile resource extraction sites - the more valuable roids are in the most hostile (high skill) res types. This increases your chance of damage / dying, increases your interruptions mining thus also decreasing your mining volume.

Trading - Want more credits? Buy more items from station A and sell them at station B, buy from station B and sell at station A. Repeat - add legs etc. There is no additional risk involved whether you want to trade in a sidewinder or trade in a T9. There is no need to engage npe's at all since you can boost away before they have time to really scratch your shields. There is no self limiting mechanism aside from tanking an economy which is unlikely with 1 player and any half decent trade item.


So what to do about trading?

I'd like to see free trade overhauled to something that may only ever exhibit a profit for a good in times of system wars where normal trade partners are disrupted. Otherwise profits would be very small for an independent trader as most station needs would be filled by standing contracts with huge outfits.

I'd then like to see something akin to the bulletin board missions asking for couriers to transport (whatever your current ship can hold) amount of goods from that station to some other station (sometimes many jumps away) and this is how "traders" profit. The profit levels would be on par with the rate of bounty hunters / miners / etc missions provide. Stations would always have trade missions available on the bulletin board - your standing with the station will dictate how lucrative a trade offer is given as well as your trade rank and ship type.

I think your view on trading is a bit disingenuous.
Risk/reward and options have changed - or stayed the same, depending on where you trade.

In the core systems, the power play overlay has changed trading - arguably nurfed it a bit as I expect there will be more conflicts with power play. Joining a power can give trade benefits increasing profit, but at the risk of being a target to new sorts of NPCs and players, my firend experimenting with PP just lost 5MCr to insurance and cargo costs, not done that for a while. Trading at Type-7 or above is the most profitable pursuit, the grind everyone keeps talking about, so it could do with a slight nurf - which is what happened. Do you join the power for better profit for more risk or not?

At the frontier where I trade, nothing has changed really. Conflicts, depending on the systems located around the confict system seem to have a slighty increased effect in subduing sell prices, and rasing buy prices for most commodities. in the system with the conflict, particularly if small supply goes out of the window. Profits were never so good as the cores for simple trading, but good 3-4 jump routes exists, often using a more coreward (empire core not galaxy) source of destination.

Trade is affected by civil war and war, but not in the ways you would think - and not in the way you would like, and the affect is more pronounced in our experience compared to 1.2. The mission system offers the best profit by the way in conflict ridden systems. I got 210,000Cr for delivering 3 x Palladium to an ally in a system with a civil war at the weekend. That is some good profit.

Simon

 

[777Driver]

Trading is fine as it is. If you want to haul more you need to spend more for the ship/cargo space. All that mass does not escape predators as well as a lighter craft. If you lose that expensive ship you lose more insurance. If you lose a huge cargo you lose a huge amount of credits. The balance is fine.

Exactly, on my runs I'll lose 8 mill cargo,7/8 mill insurance in my T9. Plus I have to deal with the occasional nutcase cmdr & pirates cruising around, or wings looking for target practce. It's fine as it is.

Easy mode is conda trading in open, so I stick to CG's in that ship

 

[DanTheMan]

This reads like "I only want MY preferred style of play to be worthwhile, FD please spoil what others are doing and enjoying".

If you don't want to or like to trade, fine. Leave those that do alone.

Ask for the rewards for combat & piracy to be enhanced (but...don't pirates prey on successful traders???); please don't ask for what others enjoy to be neutered (if that is the purpose of your post), instead.. Ask for what you enjoy to be improved.

Enjoy your Gaming.

 

[Bazorlag]

Exactly, on my runs I'll lose 8 mill cargo,7/8 mill insurance in my T9. Plus I have to deal with the occasional nutcase cmdr & pirates cruising around, or wings looking for target practce. It's fine as it is.

Easy mode is conda trading in open, so I stick to CG's in that ship

Conda and Python both now with revised mass values. I don´t think there are many ships that can stop python either atm, right?

 

[Jedirogue]

Traders need to make the most profit in the game. They produce the wealth that supports both piracy and bounty hunters. Limiting the profits made would have an adverse affect on these professions too, and piracy is already very poorly paid.

I understand what the OP is aiming for but think that the risk is not worth it. I have traded in the past (I'm one of those who trades purely to make enough to go off and have some real fun) and always find it funny that people think trading is without risk.

A pirate risks the insurance rebuy of his ship, he doesn't pay for cargo. A trader risks both ship and cargo. A fully loaded T9 (carrying Palladium) risks losing over 12 million upon destruction. So while traders do have the safest of the professions they do have the

largest financial risk (excluding players in fully kitted Condas).

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Trading is fine as it is. If you want to haul more you need to spend more for the ship/cargo space. All that mass does not escape predators as well as a lighter craft. If you lose that expensive ship you lose more insurance. If you lose a huge cargo you lose a huge amount of credits. The balance is fine.

this describes it perfectly.
you can make a good amount of credits pretty fast, but at the same time you can also loose a lot.

 

[Scimiter]

Trading is fine as it is.

 

[Kowboat]

OP touched a nerve, looks like. Right now trading is a matter of searching for a route on Thrudd's or EDDB, putting Netflix on your phone/tablet/second monitor, and then spacing out for a few hours while you run the same three or four commodities between the same two stations for as long as you can before you go space-mad. If you get interdicted, just submit and boost away, no muss and/or fuss. The fact that this is the best income in the game is absolutely criminal.

I'd definitely like to see longer-range hauling missions with larger payloads, once you have a T6 or above there's just no point in even looking at the board anymore. Why does everybody only ever need 2-7 tons moved one jump over?

 

[fademist]

trade is fine ..dont mess with it lol

 

[sqzbox1]

No risk? Are you kidding me? My last interdiction went like this (NPC) - interdicted, can't escape because the T9 can't manoevre well enough to follow the escape vector. Down we go. No damage this time, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields hold, into SC, yay. See the pirate waiting (how did he get there so fast) and see his message ("that's the ship I'm waiting for ..."), so decide to try a drop out of SC before he interdicts. Damn - he is there waiting again - how is he getting there before I do? Oh well, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields down, boost, down to 86% hull, into SC. Phew. But damn - there he is again, try to escape, clearly not going to be able to so submit, no further damage from the drop out of SC but there he is - waiting for me and more bam, bam, bam and hull going down fast because shields aren't back yet (due to latest change), thrusters damaged so can't twist and turn or even boost so just have to sit there and wait for death. But wait! I've got some shields back and the damage stops happening! FSD on-line - holy cow I might survive this after all! Into SC with 16% hull - thank the stars! Hang on - there he is again - how is he doing that? He is getting there before I do! Try to drop out of SC before the inevitable interdiction but can't because "FSD cool-down" - don't understand - why should the cool-down stop me dropping out of SC? I understand that would stop you going into SC but if I am in SC why should the cool-down stop me dropping out? Oh well, anyway here we go again. Sure enough interdiction, drop out, bam, bam you're dead.

The AI have improved and sometimes there is no escape no matter how good you are. This cost me a good T9 and 3 mil in cargo. Am I complaining? Hell no! This is a dangerous universe. I have the insurance and enough to cover the cargo as well so it didn't hurt me too much - probably cost me a days worth of playing. So what? I'm in this for the long term so one day of trading? Pff - means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

What did I learn? Well, I was running 500 tonnes of cargo but now I am running less because I have beefed the shields back up to class 6 and added some turrets. I got interdicted again last night (by a Vulture) and I beat the b...stad off! Ha!

 

[Derath]

This reads like "I only want MY preferred style of play to be worthwhile, FD please spoil what others are doing and enjoying".

If you don't want to or like to trade, fine. Leave those that do alone.

Ask for the rewards for combat & piracy to be enhanced (but...don't pirates prey on successful traders???); please don't ask for what others enjoy to be neutered (if that is the purpose of your post), instead.. Ask for what you enjoy to be improved.

Enjoy your Gaming.

Thats probably because trading is the only one they don't keep ruining then attempting to fix in a never ending cycle

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

No risk? Are you kidding me? My last interdiction went like this (NPC) - interdicted, can't escape because the T9 can't manoevre well enough to follow the escape vector. Down we go. No damage this time, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields hold, into SC, yay. See the pirate waiting (how did he get there so fast) and see his message ("that's the ship I'm waiting for ..."), so decide to try a drop out of SC before he interdicts. Damn - he is there waiting again - how is he getting there before I do? Oh well, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields down, boost, down to 86% hull, into SC. Phew. But damn - there he is again, try to escape, clearly not going to be able to so submit, no further damage from the drop out of SC but there he is - waiting for me and more bam, bam, bam and hull going down fast because shields aren't back yet (due to latest change), thrusters damaged so can't twist and turn or even boost so just have to sit there and wait for death. But wait! I've got some shields back and the damage stops happening! FSD on-line - holy cow I might survive this after all! Into SC with 16% hull - thank the stars! Hang on - there he is again - how is he doing that? He is getting there before I do! Try to drop out of SC before the inevitable interdiction but can't because "FSD cool-down" - don't understand - why should the cool-down stop me dropping out of SC? I understand that would stop you going into SC but if I am in SC why should the cool-down stop me dropping out? Oh well, anyway here we go again. Sure enough interdiction, drop out, bam, bam you're dead.

The AI have improved and sometimes there is no escape no matter how good you are. This cost me a good T9 and 3 mil in cargo. Am I complaining? Hell no! This is a dangerous universe. I have the insurance and enough to cover the cargo as well so it didn't hurt me too much - probably cost me a days worth of playing. So what? I'm in this for the long term so one day of trading? Pff - means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

What did I learn? Well, I was running 500 tonnes of cargo but now I am running less because I have beefed the shields back up to class 6 and added some turrets. I got interdicted again last night (by a Vulture) and I beat the b...stad off! Ha!

Good! Thats exactly how it should be! Good story by the way +1

Smeg

 

[Astronut57]

Leave the traders alone - space trucking is a lonely and tiring job just like trucking in RL.
Just remember this - if you got it, a trucker brought it!

 

[Bazorlag]

No risk? Are you kidding me? My last interdiction went like this (NPC) - interdicted, can't escape because the T9 can't manoevre well enough to follow the escape vector. Down we go. No damage this time, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields hold, into SC, yay. See the pirate waiting (how did he get there so fast) and see his message ("that's the ship I'm waiting for ..."), so decide to try a drop out of SC before he interdicts. Damn - he is there waiting again - how is he getting there before I do? Oh well, boost, bam, bam, bam, shields down, boost, down to 86% hull, into SC. Phew. But damn - there he is again, try to escape, clearly not going to be able to so submit, no further damage from the drop out of SC but there he is - waiting for me and more bam, bam, bam and hull going down fast because shields aren't back yet (due to latest change), thrusters damaged so can't twist and turn or even boost so just have to sit there and wait for death. But wait! I've got some shields back and the damage stops happening! FSD on-line - holy cow I might survive this after all! Into SC with 16% hull - thank the stars! Hang on - there he is again - how is he doing that? He is getting there before I do! Try to drop out of SC before the inevitable interdiction but can't because "FSD cool-down" - don't understand - why should the cool-down stop me dropping out of SC? I understand that would stop you going into SC but if I am in SC why should the cool-down stop me dropping out? Oh well, anyway here we go again. Sure enough interdiction, drop out, bam, bam you're dead.

The AI have improved and sometimes there is no escape no matter how good you are. This cost me a good T9 and 3 mil in cargo. Am I complaining? Hell no! This is a dangerous universe. I have the insurance and enough to cover the cargo as well so it didn't hurt me too much - probably cost me a days worth of playing. So what? I'm in this for the long term so one day of trading? Pff - means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

What did I learn? Well, I was running 500 tonnes of cargo but now I am running less because I have beefed the shields back up to class 6 and added some turrets. I got interdicted again last night (by a Vulture) and I beat the b...stad off! Ha!

Why did you not warp to another system after you noticed the npc was re-interdicting you again and again?