More Depth to Trading in the BGS

[EWanderer]

Introduction
So as of now, trading in BGS only affects the controlling faction of the station. If you think about this, you come two one of 2 conclusions:

a) The controlling faction gets a monopoly in all industries on a station.
b) The controlling faction is in charge of the port and flow of goods through them.

Both options seem unlikely in certain goverment structures and just sound weird/wrong.
Therefore I propose an alternative idea:

Station Economy is divided between a stations faction.

Sold Commodities
Each commodity the station produces is run by a different company, which is owned by a faction. Whenever that commodity is bought, instead of affecting the station's controlling faction, the with the company associated faction is affected.
To not have to storage information, which faction controlls, which industry, I propose, that you divide the sold commodities into X chunks (where X is the number of factions) ranked by selling price and then distribute those chunks based on the factions influence ranking. So if you had a station, that sold 10 commodities and 2 factions, the most infuential faction would control the 5 most expensive commdities and the other faction the rest. Coding wise, this would be an easy check to attribute the transaction to the rigth faction.

Bougth Commodities
This would either work the same as above or could be more conveluted. One idea I had for this:
Create a chain of commodity flow (i.e. bio waster -> food, mineral x -> tech item Y). Then have faction in charge of producing the end products be responsible for the Input items. This would of course mean splitting a transaction between multiple faction, if it involves an item, that is used by multiple industries controlled by different factions. Also certain Commodities, like food, water and other essentials (basically all stuff, that cannot be included into the flow chart) will remain with the stations controlling faction regardless.

Effects on gameplay

• More efficent trade runs for BGS people.
• It would revitalize trade in less profitable commodities, at least around player faction.
• This could be the base for more events around PMFs, like spontaneous sales made by a station. It would dillute this post to go into this.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

b) The controlling faction is in charge of the port and flow of goods through them.

This seems more likely, since other factions can bypass the port by offering missions.

So if you had a station, that sold 10 commodities and 2 factions, the most infuential faction would control the 5 most expensive commdities and the other faction the rest.

This would lead to a lot of flipping of which faction sold what, especially at the low end, on a daily basis. Without the ability to sort the goods by price, that could get very confusing.

That said, purchasing commodities that a station sells has zero influence effect, so it probably doesn't matter - it's only the goods you sell to a station that affect influence. It might well be interesting to do some sort of split on that side - rather than shifting it by influence, they could add a big list of production/population support facilities, and have them change hands in wars/elections which don't fight over stations.

Create a chain of commodity flow (i.e. bio waster -> food, mineral x -> tech item Y).

The problem is that there are very few goods which aren't just in the "generally required for this economy" category. Refinery is easy - there are lots of named ores refined into named metals - but on the other hand Extraction has basically all its imports either required for any of its exports or just generally required to support the population. Colony, Service and Tourism economies don't produce anything (except Biowaste).

 

[EWanderer]

This seems more likely, since other factions can bypass the port by offering missions.

Yeah, but still weird. I mean if a coopertaion would own all trade into the US, competitors would smuggle so hard.

This would lead to a lot of flipping of which faction sold what, especially at the low end, on a daily basis. Without the ability to sort the goods by price, that could get very confusing.

Yeah a small change to UI, to either sort by prices and or maybe an indicator on the rigth side, where also import/export info is located for the faction.

That said, purchasing commodities that a station sells has zero influence effect, so it probably doesn't matter - it's only the goods you sell to a station that affect influence. It might well be interesting to do some sort of split on that side - rather than shifting it by influence, they could add a big list of production/population support facilities, and have them change hands in wars/elections which don't fight over stations.

Weird, I thougth buying stuff had an effect. Mhhh well while it would be cool to include that, even without would be interesting.

The problem is that there are very few goods which aren't just in the "generally required for this economy" category. Refinery is easy - there are lots of named ores refined into named metals - but on the other hand Extraction has basically all its imports either required for any of its exports or just generally required to support the population. Colony, Service and Tourism economies don't produce anything (except Biowaste).

As is said, just an idea. You could just use the same model as with bougth commodities, only based on buying prices.