Rare Commodities List!

[_Flin_]

How far did you travel to sell it?
Was was per tonne profit?

I checked out the distances to the different systems that offer rare commodities. Made a spread sheet. Then chose a triangle that is roughly 130 ly away from each other. So it was Ethezelhazelsomething (buds...) -> Lave -> Chiri Diri Dani (chili paste).

Lave was full stock, couldn't fit it all in my Cobra.
Ethelhazel was 42, then 58.
Chiri Diri Piripiri was enough to load up.

Per tonne profit was around 15k. While it took quite some time for the management (fill spreadsheet with distances to all other rare place, find a route, scan systems, etc.) the second run from Hazelpazel to Lave was 15 minutes.

EDIT: Fuel was getting scarce, had to do some scooping. So if I tailor the route a bit more and cut down the biggest jumps from 15ly to maybe two shorter jumps, I will get each way with one tank of gas and further optimize the speed.

If I can, I will do one or two roundtrips tonight and buy myself an Asp. With an Asp that's light on gear and heavy on cargo, with a good jump drive, you can probably cut down the routes to 6 jumps. Then optimize the roundtrip in regards to the respawn, haul 100 tons of the stuff and make it to a Lakon Type 9 or an Anaconda in a day.

Even with a respawn of 50 tons per loadup, when you take 10 minutes per trip, you do 4 millions an hour.

 

[TheDoctor]

I think that the rare commodities should be locked down so that only pilots who are "allied" with the station factions can then buy them.

It would mean that if you wanted to buy them you would then have to trade/scout/do missions around that particular station and so would be some work to get access.

A lot of the better missions are locked to the faction status so why not these goods as well.

 

[_Flin_]

I think that the rare commodities should be locked down so that only pilots who are "allied" with the station factions can then buy them.

It would mean that if you wanted to buy them you would then have to trade/scout/do missions around that particular station and so would be some work to get access.

A lot of the better missions are locked to the faction status so why not these goods as well.

Actually I like the fact that these exist, and the way you can do some different trading with them than the usual one-hop-to-one-hop-back trading. It should just be that the money being earned with them is comparable with a really good trade route. A really good trade route (not inner system) in a Cobra will get you 720k an hour. Having this multi-million / hour earning machine kind of renders everything else completely useless.

 

[Dogmeat]

So it's not broken, but in need of balance? I agree, and balancing by availability is problematic. You can have 'individual' allocations as now, which feel fudgy and are easily exploited, or you can have a small production shared by all, and just have lots of traders camping the commodities menu and winner-takes all.

Balancing by profit is boring but probably necessary to some degree. I think this class of goods is useful because it provides another way for small operators to make the occasional score - traders hauling 100t or more per trip can already make money easily. As such, I dont think access should be restricted by faction alliance or 'license' because that just plays into the hands of the few who seek to corner the market.

What I'd like to see is announcements on the news network for a 25 ly radius or so, "New supplies of Lavian Brandy released!" and 1000tons of the stuff appears on the commodities list with a limit of maybe 20 or so units per customer. You could also make it very price-sensitive so if someone already sold it at your destination your profits will be much lower, and this lower price will propagate out slowly from the point of sale for a few hours until the supplies dry up, and the system resets for the next batch in a few hours. You'd have a rush to the station but not everyone will be camped out there permanetly.

Do you think this has merit?

 

[Arcanii]

I think these unique goods should be the result of missions, bribery, distribution licenses, assassinations, and other wonderful events.

Right now, they are chugged out faster than McDonald's French Fries.

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I just want to buy a Python tho'

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Found a place called Jotun that has what I think is a rare commodity listed in the description, but its a permit world and cant find any of the faction that controls it outside that one planet to up my rep.

 

[Ben Ryder]

I think these unique goods should be the result of missions, bribery, distribution licenses, assassinations, and other wonderful events.

Right now, they are chugged out faster than McDonald's French Fries.

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I just want to buy a Python tho'

Well said!

It might be even a good idea to place them all under permits which will mean you only get the candy if you have earned the systems friendship / respect.

 

[Tactless]

Ugh. I've been reluctant to give up my sole secret rare commodity, yeah I know they changed it so that everyone has their own supply but still it's kindof neat to think that you know of something that no one else knows about.

XIHE / ZHEN DOCK
Xihe Biomorphic Companions

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

+1 to that idea , if u had to get friendly to buy it would lead to interesting roles, dealing in empire rare's or going for independents etc

 

[Tactless]

Well said!

It might be even a good idea to place them all under permits which will mean you only get the candy if you have earned the systems friendship / respect.

How would you feel if you were the manufacturer and the local cops restricted entry to the retailers that sold your product? You would move to another system.

Actually the way they've set it up makes sense. As a manufacturer you want the widest possible distribution and selling all your stock to 1 or 2 merchants only pushes that stock to wherever they happen to travel. This only builds brand recognition and demand to that limited area. You can think of the personal allocations as the manufacturer saying "limit 50".

 

[sendmark]

There is no logical need to set up an additional barrier like reputation, nor would that add anything gameplay-wise apart from a grind to get the rep to trade what you wanted. It would make as much sense as adding a rep requirement before being able to bounty hunt in a system, or even a rep requirement to trade anything more than fish. Thoughtless suggestions that do nothing positive for the game.

As I've said elsewhere the point of rare goods is to be an alternative to regular commodoties. So instead of making a lot of short distance trips, you make smaller number of long distance trips. If anything rare goods is the trading system which should be the default in this game, given the volume of systems Elite has and as encouragement for people to get out there and travel rather than relentlessly farm the same tiny spot of space via mining/bounty hunting/basic trading.

If there's an issue of credit gain being too high that can be adjusted in stock levels and prices (buy and/or sell), something that's much easier for Frontier to do now that stock levels are unique to players, which I'm sure is part of their thinking, along with making sure stocks are available to all and not dominated by whoever stumbles on them first.

 

[Tactless]

There is no logical need to set up an additional barrier like reputation, nor would that add anything gameplay-wise apart from a grind to get the rep to trade what you wanted. It would make as much sense as adding a rep requirement before being able to bounty hunt in a system, or even a rep requirement to trade anything more than fish. Thoughtless suggestions that do nothing positive for the game.

As I've said elsewhere the point of rare goods is to be an alternative to regular commodoties. So instead of making a lot of short distance trips, you make smaller number of long distance trips. If anything rare goods is the trading system which should be the default in this game, given the volume of systems Elite has and as encouragement for people to get out there and travel rather than relentlessly farm the same tiny spot of space via mining/bounty hunting/basic trading.

If there's an issue of credit gain being too high that can be adjusted in stock levels and prices (buy and/or sell), something that's much easier for Frontier to do now that stock levels are unique to players, which I'm sure is part of their thinking, along with making sure stocks are available to all and not dominated by whoever stumbles on them first.

Bingo. They already have the controls. No need for anything else.

In fact I have an issue with system permits as a whole. They could make it into a game by running a blockade but as it is, it's a hard-coded "NO ENTRY"... but that's a whole other topic.

 

[_Flin_]

Credit gain too high... as in "about 3-5 times as much as you could possibly earn with anything else in the same time"

But well, I'll milk it as long as it is that way.

 

[sendmark]

Credit gain too high... as in "about 3-5 times as much as you could possibly earn with anything else in the same time"

But well, I'll milk it as long as it is that way.

First of all that is just not accurate compared to what can be earned in the same time from mining platinum/palladium from pristine metallic rings or from the top trading of basic commodoties (I had a 1.7k/1.3k one jump route in Gamma). Your posts are starting to sound more like trolling than genuine input.

Second of all, as pointed out even if it is the case that income gain is too high it's easily adjusted by tweaking any one of the stock levels, stock respawn rate, buy price, max sell price or all of them.

 

[_Flin_]

First of all that is just not accurate compared to what can be earned in the same time from mining platinum/palladium from pristine metallic rings or from the top trading of basic commodoties (I had a 1.7k/1.3k one jump route in Gamma). Your posts are starting to sound more like trolling than genuine input.

That's 3000 k on the roundtrip. Let's assume you take 10 minutes on the 1 jump roundtrip, and you end up at 6*48*3000 = 864k in an hour. Which is a bit more money than I make in a single 15 minute trip over 130 lightyears for 48 rare goods with a profit of 15k each, for 720k. Times 4 for the hour, and you get the picture.

EDIT3: I assume 48 tons of cargo since my Cobra has that.

EDIT2: So even assuming your roundtrip takes 10 minutes, which is fast - and the 3000k round trip is the highest I have ever heard - the rare trading beats this by 3.3 times the amount. Which is exactly what I said.

EDIT: I am an idiot that cant calculate. fixed.

Second of all, as pointed out even if it is the case that income gain is too high it's easily adjusted by tweaking any one of the stock levels, stock respawn rate, buy price, max sell price or all of them.

Yes, that is right. I like the mechanic, and the idea. And I actually want to raise awareness so this is fixed fast. Which can be done on the server side (i assume). If this pays 800k an hours in a Cobra, or 1 mil, that would still be great. But close to 3 mio is just insane.

I am sorry to come across as a troll. These extreme credit balancing issues just make it more likely with each day that there is a full wipe. Which I'd actually like to not happen.

EDIT4: The more I think about it, the more i come to the conclusion that trading rare commodities should actually pay LESS than a good trade route. It should be a viable alternative, but not the best way to earn money.
This is because of one main reason:
- it is not integrated into the background simulation
- therefore it does not further the growth and change of the galaxy
- it incentivizes a playstyle that does not lead to anything else but a raised credit balance for the players.

All the events, all the food deliveries, or the background factories, the colonization of space, the growth of outposts into stations, the growth of population etc.... all these do not happen when the achievers concentrate on hauling tea buds from Ethgreze to Lave and Whisky to some other place.

The players should be incentivized to contribute to a changing and evolving galaxy, not to grind a meaningless side "quest", because it's there where they get the best rate of pay.

 

[sendmark]

There is no way the average player can do 4 x 180LY trips in an hour, not including refueling, or scooping, having to deal with interdictions, plus the docking. Let alone the initial route planning + travel time.

That's not to say the balance is currently perfect by any means, but it's certainly not as dramatic as 3 million / hour in a Cobra. More to the point, Frontier have the confirmed data on this anyway due to the server-side logging. If this was the case it will be readily apparent to them, just like the NPC in-system trading issue was earlier in gamma and it's impact on trade profits.

A wipe is 100% going to happen regardless of rare goods, certainly of credits, the non-loaned scanner exploit made sure of it let alone everything else.

 

[_Flin_]

There is no way the average player can do 4 x 180LY trips in an hour, not including refueling, or scooping, having to deal with interdictions, plus the docking. Let alone the initial route planning + travel time.

I did 130 Ly trips. These are around 13 jumps in my 16 ly range laden Cobra. You do it once, write down the jump targets, then go. I have a B2 Fuel scoop, but the fuel is enough to go one way... just, but it is enough. At least for Ethgreze - Lave. I'll probably tweak the routes and add one or two additional jumps in some so I run every route in one go.

If you have a fixed route and all you do is jump, jump, jump to known targets, you can cover a lot of distance pretty fast.

EDIT: And you hardly ever get interdicted since you jump out as soon as the FSD cooled down.

That's not to say the balance is currently perfect by any means, but it's certainly not as dramatic as 3 million / hour in a Cobra. More to the point, Frontier have the confirmed data on this anyway due to the server-side logging. If this was the case it will be readily apparent to them, just like the NPC in-system trading issue was earlier in gamma and it's impact on trade profits.

Next time I run my triangle I will use a stopwatch and tell you how long I took and how many credits I made.

A wipe is 100% going to happen regardless of rare goods, certainly of credits, the non-loaned scanner exploit made sure of it let alone everything else.

Probably. Still don't like it.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Hi Flin, take it easy. Don't rise to the bait of Trolling.

I make 10000cr per minute shift rare commodities under the current system. It's rubbish. It worked fine before and now it goes against the rest of the trade system. It's been taken from one extreme to the other. Before Rare goods were too rare and now they are the only thing worth trading in (that I've found). 10000cr per minute.

If the game goes live like this new players with 100cr will be left way behind. Backers with a basic cobra will be flying around in Pytons etc in a couple of weeks and eating new players for breakfast. No offline mode, so new players will play solo or quit. So much for multiplayer. Cats will sleep with dogs and no flesh will be spared, I tell ya!

 

[SuBSynk]

*snip* Backers with a basic cobra will be flying around in Pytons etc in a couple of weeks and eating new players for breakfast. No offline mode, so new players will play solo or quit. So much for multiplayer. Cats will sleep with dogs and no flesh will be spared, I tell ya!

There will always be players far ahead of others due to time spent and the initial ship you have makes almost no difference. The cobra a backer has compared to a 100cr stater can be earned in 1 day. Just thought its worth pointing out.

New players will always be massively out gunned by the majority of players that have had the game for any amount of time. Elite is not about balancing players if it were the ships would be balanced too

 

[_Flin_]

I play mostly solo, actually. Since i had massive issues with networking.

We'll see whether I can play tonight. I'll keep you posted of the results.

If it stays as it is, and still works, I'll try to get an Asp tonight. The route finding and plotting is a lot of fun. With an Asp I could try going 30 ly a jump, be even faster and haul 100 tons of cargo instead of 48.