New System State: Cornered Market

[DemiserofD]

There are many, many commodities and minerals in the game that virtually never see worthwhile prices. Because of this, they are almost never mined or traded.

This is fine MOST of the time, but I feel like there should be occasional reasons to trade it anyway. Hence, a new BGS State: Cornered Market.

If you're curious just what a cornered market can mean, this is the chart of Silver prices since 1900. For the most part, they've been somewhat stable; that is, except for around 1980, where they suddenly skyrocketed to an adjusted value of 480 dollars an ounce, because of two brothers attempt to corner the market. They bought over a billion dollars of silver and acquired 50% of the world's silver. Unfortunately for them, the governments quickly responded, and they ended up going bankrupt after their methods were blocked, but for the lucky few who sold when the time was ripe, millions were made!

This is what would happen during a Cornered Market. A random commodity would be selected, and its price would be artificially inflated to ridiculous levels. For commodities only acquireable by mining or piracy, this would be 1,000,000-3,000,000 credits or more. For commodities that can be bought, it would be between 40k-100k+, depending on the purchase price.

The station in question would have a massive price bump, and be given a very large demand for the commodity: But not unlimited. It might be buying, say, 100k of the commodity for minerals, or 1m for traded commodities. Once that demand is met, the state ends, and prices return to normal.

This would encourage players to do a wide variety of activities, and seek out strange and new commodities, in ways they don't normally do! One week they might be looking for Methanol Monohydrate Crystals; the next, Meta Alloys.

Because there are many commodities in the game, it would give players almost unlimited replay value for as long as the game's servers are up.

 

[IcewindZG]

Interesting take.

What conditions would/should cause a cornered market? Would it be something you would see on something like a weekly basis or a few random times a month? If it became too common it would be the go-to for trading at the exclusion of other methods. It might be fun to see as a random hot spot that comes and goes very quickly.

 

[DemiserofD]

Interesting take.

What conditions would/should cause a cornered market? Would it be something you would see on something like a weekly basis or a few random times a month? If it became too common it would be the go-to for trading at the exclusion of other methods. It might be fun to see as a random hot spot that comes and goes very quickly.

It could be more or less random, with about one state per week. Given that some commodities are difficult to acquire, some can only be found doing certain activities, it would balance out so that only one viable one would happen every few weeks. And the good ones could be expected to be used up quite rapidly.

 

[Bottom Hat]

The only trouble with implementation of this (bearing in mind that I quite like the idea, it is fun), is that all the external tools that are open, or those who people use themselves; could probably pick up on the start of the trend within minutes.

Sadly it would have the potential to become the meta of choice for making money. Does that make sense demi? I'm not trying to say your idea is bad, as I'd like more random behavior in markets, but if it showed up as a state straight after a tick, it could result in cg like stampedes, or meta chasing.

So if anything, a way to implement it would be as a silent state that isn't declared as a bgs state. My faction does what all other pmfs do, and daily tour our systems to update inara for example, and visit many others (often more) to check for other things. So without giving away tactics, it would stick out like a beacon for almost anyone who wants to check inara. And that's besides looking at the galmap filters.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound like I'm poo pooing your idea.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

How would there be a cornered market that consists of several markets of worlds. You first need to plausibly create a narration or mechanic that there would be an entitity powerful and rich enough to do it.

 

[DemiserofD]

The only trouble with implementation of this (bearing in mind that I quite like the idea, it is fun), is that all the external tools that are open, or those who people use themselves; could probably pick up on the start of the trend within minutes.

Sadly it would have the potential to become the meta of choice for making money. Does that make sense demi? I'm not trying to say your idea is bad, as I'd like more random behavior in markets, but if it showed up as a state straight after a tick, it could result in cg like stampedes, or meta chasing.

So if anything, a way to implement it would be as a silent state that isn't declared as a bgs state. My faction does what all other pmfs do, and daily tour our systems to update inara for example, and visit many others (often more) to check for other things. So without giving away tactics, it would stick out like a beacon for almost anyone who wants to check inara. And that's besides looking at the galmap filters.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound like I'm poo pooing your idea.

It would be somewhat mitigated if the commodity pool were wide enough. IE, if one week it's a traded good, then that'll draw traders but not miners or pirates. If the next it's a piracy commodity, that'll draw pirates but not traders or miners. So on average you might have it accessible for any given profession every 3 weeks or so, which would still leave some room for more normal trading. Kinda like a second Booze Cruise, only with randomized goods.

Combine that with limited total demand, and you'll have people racing to collect the necessary goods before someone else does, which should limit what gets posted publicly. With such a large pool of potential goods, nobody could pre-stock, so everyone would need to do it immediately. Of course, people would find it eventually, but if you find it first, you could get a few hours headstart, and move several thousand tons of cargo before anyone else.

When the community really gets moving they can move tens of millions of tons a day, so for really good commodity rolls, I'd fully expect the state to be exhausted in 24 hours or so, everyone had a good time, and then they can get back to doing whatever it is they do normally for the next few weeks or so.

 

[Bottom Hat]

It would be somewhat mitigated if the commodity pool were wide enough. IE, if one week it's a traded good, then that'll draw traders but not miners or pirates. If the next it's a piracy commodity, that'll draw pirates but not traders or miners. So on average you might have it accessible for any given profession every 3 weeks or so, which would still leave some room for more normal trading. Kinda like a second Booze Cruise, only with randomized goods.

Combine that with limited total demand, and you'll have people racing to collect the necessary goods before someone else does, which should limit what gets posted publicly. With such a large pool of potential goods, nobody could pre-stock, so everyone would need to do it immediately. Of course, people would find it eventually, but if you find it first, you could get a few hours headstart, and move several thousand tons of cargo before anyone else.

When the community really gets moving they can move tens of millions of tons a day, so for really good commodity rolls, I'd fully expect the state to be exhausted in 24 hours or so, everyone had a good time, and then they can get back to doing whatever it is they do normally for the next few weeks or so.

Absolutely - as before mate, I like the idea - I just think it would be good idea to have it as less of a bgs state as we know them because they can be scraped from the data (not inara but in other ways - I don't know the tech way it's done, but people can tell where cgs etc are going to be by scripting things - best way I can explain it, as it's not my forte at all!!).

Some way of doing it that makes it very hard to detect when it goes live is my point, especially if it is to last a week for example. Someone will randomly stumble across the station or base probably within a day or two, meaning it's highly likely to show on inara etc then. But giving it some mystery and not being announced or started on a regular day; I think would add nicely to the fun of hunting out the 'gold rush' for want of a better term.

In other words, having it be as random as possible to be detected for as long as possible after it starts (probably 24hours by the way the api things work) would just add to the fun and mystery of it all.

I'm in agreement with your idea - nothing huge money wise, and nothing always the same for commodities (bought at stations, surface only, weird rares, mined etc) would just make it very unpredictable, and would make it more of a choice for people to take part, as opposed to CG type events. Also including your suggestion of no infinite demand, but high enough to be good for money, especially for newer players, and sometimes proper noobs too.

It just sounds like fun, and I'd vote for it. J dunno how much work would be needed by fd, but probably the same or less than cgs. (although they do seem to knacker those up at times lol!).

 

[IcewindZG]

I am liking this idea. The biggest thing that seems to be important: RANDOM! If it's predictable then it will be sought out, but if it's just as likely to pop off on a Sunday as a Thursday as not at all...
It sounds like something fun to find that won't be reliable enough to exploit. Sure, you happen to have 400 tons of Animal Meat and you wander in to find the market cornered on it, that's a good day. But you had no way of knowing it would be there.