Everyone who's somewhat experienced in ED trading knows that the best money comes from back and forth trading between High Tech Refinery stations. From time to time you might find a third leg for a route if you find a nice Agricultural system that produces Tobacco or if one of the stations is orbiting a water world (so you can squeeze in an Industrial system in there), but most of the highly profitable routes require the two main money-maker industries..
So I decided to ask two questions:
1)Why exactly are these types of systems so much better then the rest?
2) Is the fact that only two out of the nine possible baseline economies are responsible for vast majority of player trading bothering the community, or is the community content with the current implementation?
Now, onto our first objective - Why is the High Tech/Rafinery route so much more profitable compared to any other route?
My explanation is as follows: Let's assume we have a disinterested trader at the helm of our hypothetical ship. He doesn't bother using forums or third party tools, nor does he have much time or patience to search for the golden goose routes. However, he does know how supply/demand market works and is capable of figuring out that that the more expensive the item is the higher his margins are. Let's also assume that our trader is quite satisfied with anything that nets him around 1000 Cr profits per ton of cargo.
To gather that much profit for least amount of effort all he has to do is find a refinery stocking any of the higher priced metals in medium quantities and a high tech world with medium supply of the items refineries usually require (Resonating Separators, Performance Enhancers etc.). Assuming both systems have medium demand for each others products our trader has managed to achieve his trading goal, and all that in a very short time.
Now, let's take this route as our baseline, and let's analyze all the comodities that can achieve comparable results. Assuming the supply of any commodity is high, and demand for said commodity is also high, said commodity needs to have at least 3000 Cr galactic average price in order to compete with the baseline route. Analyzing the market, here's the list of commodities that hit the marked price along with the economy that produces them and economy that consumes them:
And here we see what I'd call the source of the issue. Out of 20 listed goods, vast majority are both produced and consumed by High Tech and Refinery economies, and while there are some entries that come from outside of those two economies, most of those come with a caveat. For example Industrial systems produce 3 items on this list but all of them are very hard to find buyers for. Same goes for Agricultural and Military economies, while Terraforming, Tourism and Service economies don't even produce any kind of goods.
Now, onto the second part of my post: Considering the lack of people complaining about the lack of diversity in goods production/consumption department (most of the complaints about economy are focused on other aspects of it), is this even something people would want to change? Personally, I'd find it more interesting to find a place for any kind of economy and instead of filtering out most of the populated space as nothing more then white noise when I'm considering my next trade route.
So I decided to ask two questions:
1)Why exactly are these types of systems so much better then the rest?
2) Is the fact that only two out of the nine possible baseline economies are responsible for vast majority of player trading bothering the community, or is the community content with the current implementation?
Now, onto our first objective - Why is the High Tech/Rafinery route so much more profitable compared to any other route?
My explanation is as follows: Let's assume we have a disinterested trader at the helm of our hypothetical ship. He doesn't bother using forums or third party tools, nor does he have much time or patience to search for the golden goose routes. However, he does know how supply/demand market works and is capable of figuring out that that the more expensive the item is the higher his margins are. Let's also assume that our trader is quite satisfied with anything that nets him around 1000 Cr profits per ton of cargo.
To gather that much profit for least amount of effort all he has to do is find a refinery stocking any of the higher priced metals in medium quantities and a high tech world with medium supply of the items refineries usually require (Resonating Separators, Performance Enhancers etc.). Assuming both systems have medium demand for each others products our trader has managed to achieve his trading goal, and all that in a very short time.
Now, let's take this route as our baseline, and let's analyze all the comodities that can achieve comparable results. Assuming the supply of any commodity is high, and demand for said commodity is also high, said commodity needs to have at least 3000 Cr galactic average price in order to compete with the baseline route. Analyzing the market, here's the list of commodities that hit the marked price along with the economy that produces them and economy that consumes them:
| COMMODITY | GAL. AVG. | PRODUCED BY | CONSUMED BY | NOTES |
| Advanced Catalysers | 3055 | High Tech | Rafinery | |
| Auto Fabricators | 3937 | High Tech | Industrial | |
| Land Enrichment Systems | 5088 | High Tech | Agri/Terr | |
| Resonating Separators | 6175 | High Tech | Rafinery | |
| Performance Enhancers | 7031 | High Tech | Agri/Ind/Ref/Extr/Mil | |
| Progenitor Cells | 7031 | High Tech | All except High Tech | Slightly Regulated |
| Consumer Technology | 7025 | High Tech | All except High Tech | |
| Combat Stabilisers | 3055 | High Tech | All except High Tech | Highly Regulated |
| Personal Weapons | 4474 | HiTech/Ind/Mil | All | Highly Regulated |
| Battle Weapons | 7031 | HiTech/Ind/Mil | Agri/Ref/Mil | Highly Regulated |
| Beryllium | 8549 | Refinery | HiTech/Ind | |
| Gallium | 5426 | Refinery | HiTech/Ind | |
| Indium | 6175 | Refinery | HiTech/Ind | |
| Tantalum | 4196 | Refinery | HiTech/Ind | |
| Superconductors | 7031 | Refinery | HiTech/Ind | |
| Gold | 9742 | Extr/Ref | HiTech/Ind/Terr/Tour | |
| Silver | 5088 | Extr/Ref | HiTech/Ind/Terr/Tour | |
| Palladium | 13527 | Extraction | HiTech/Ind/Terr/Tour | |
| Tobacco | 5082 | Agricultural | All | Somewhat Regulated |
| Marine Equipment | 4469 | Industrial | All | Highly Situational |
And here we see what I'd call the source of the issue. Out of 20 listed goods, vast majority are both produced and consumed by High Tech and Refinery economies, and while there are some entries that come from outside of those two economies, most of those come with a caveat. For example Industrial systems produce 3 items on this list but all of them are very hard to find buyers for. Same goes for Agricultural and Military economies, while Terraforming, Tourism and Service economies don't even produce any kind of goods.
Now, onto the second part of my post: Considering the lack of people complaining about the lack of diversity in goods production/consumption department (most of the complaints about economy are focused on other aspects of it), is this even something people would want to change? Personally, I'd find it more interesting to find a place for any kind of economy and instead of filtering out most of the populated space as nothing more then white noise when I'm considering my next trade route.
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