Somebody want to take a stab at explaining this (mat traders)?

[Ralph Vargr]

Hi, Stealthie.

You have to dock, and select the traders from Contacts.

Then, you are limited by a forty light-year sphere in showing them. Relogging helps (surprise).

I think part of this is over paranoia about how much the galaxy map consumes in resources, and the other part is something I can't say on the forum...

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Redoing my fleet of 7 ships was probably 120+ grade 5 rolls each (I average 9 rolls to make a gr5). Still not done and gave up on some ships. Beluga don't think will ever get modded boosters for example.

Did a test back in beta. From unmodded, to maxed G5 with effects, took 20-25 rolls.

Now, live, you need to collect many, many materials for each roll.

 

[Pville_Piper]

For some reason though, my ships computer is unable to search for material traders as thoroughly as I can manually. Classic fdev.

It's consistent with a design that has many things that are possible in 2018 that's not in 3304...

There seems to be this mentality at FD that you have to "earn" everything. They can't just give this information away.

Nor can you buy it if it's more than 40 light years away...

the other part is something I can't say on the forum...

PM me... I have an enquiring mind...

 

[concentric]

As for the mats traders, it's my understanding that they only show up if they're within 20 LYs, and you've been there before.

Then, you are limited by a forty light-year sphere in showing them.

This 'sphere' seems to vary in size, though. I've definitely seen trader tags on systems more than 100 Ly away. At my current location it goes up to 73 Ly...

edit:
Here some evidence. I'm in KUK and the 105 Ly distant LFT 300 is still tagged orange for having a Raw Material Trader...

Spoiler

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Apart from any known bugs, IMHO the severely cluttered UI design for the Traders makes it very easy to overlook one.

- Services : none Systems clutter up everything to no purpose and can't be disabled
- zoom level and System density have a very distinct "cover-up" effect on any displayed Trader location
- System names remain shown for all Systems, even uninhabited ones, even further cluttering the UI upto being literally unusable to locate the desired Target
- actual Target candidates have no visuals to highlight them amongst and make them stand out against the clutter

Can you spot it? No, you can't.
There is an Encoded Materials Trader System though in this shot. It's merely 10LY from the centered map location... yet, it is 100% invisible due to the UI clutter displaying everything not useful instead of showing the Target.

----------------------------

Manually decluttered GalMap with all Icons manually disabled. Despite zoomed out sufficiently, nothing there...

Ah, there it finally is (tiny orange dot up right of center)... You have to manually pan the GalMap into the right direction to make it show up even under optimal conditions...
(note : had I gotten the useless-in-this-mode orange hats on all the Systems in Range, even this dot would easily disappear amongst them)

--------------------
Now combine all that with "Player has to have visited the Station previously, otherwise it'll only show up within 40LY anyway" and you got the perfect mix for a severe UI issue and Players not finding anything.

PS.
Putting the 40LY restriction for not-visited Traders into perspective :
- I can have the GALmap display Guardian Civilization clearly visible, buried in some 30000LY distant Systems I've never set foot in and don't even have System Maps for. No problem.
- yet, a common Service Provider like a Trader in a System I've visited dozens of times before V3.0 doesn't show up because the System is 41LY away (??!)

Sorry, doesn't pass the Common Sense check. That's just Whiskey Tango Foxtrott.
If a "Personal Narrative" or Gameplay experience was to be generated from it, it'd likely read "wasted time and frustration" and eventually end up being the usual "3rd Party Sites to the rescue".

 

[concentric]

Apart from any known bugs, IMHO the severely cluttered UI design for the Traders makes it very easy to overlook one.

In order to declutter you could always deactivate some markers like bookmarks, engineers, friends markers etc.
Also deactivate both economical routes and fastest routes to get rid of all the lines.
Look at my image above. The trader systems are pretty well discernible. If I had deactivated also the navigation markers even the dots around LFT 300 in the right picture would have disappeared.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

This 'sphere' seems to vary in size, though. I've definitely seen trader tags on systems more than 100 Ly away. At my current location it goes up to 73 Ly...

edit:
Here some evidence. I'm in KUK and the 105 Ly distant LFT 300 is still tagged orange for having a Raw Material Trader...

You must be luckier than I am.

 

[concentric]

You must be luckier than I am.

Hehe, maybe.
Btw, I don't see the point in a distance limit either...

 

[Spacecat]

I dunno. I just figured it was broken like everything else, found one of each, and bookmarked them. As far as the tech brokers go, I ain't touching any of them. Not unless they force me.

 

[Stealthie]

Hi, Stealthie.

You have to dock, and select the traders from Contacts.

Then, you are limited by a forty light-year sphere in showing them. Relogging helps (surprise).

I think part of this is over paranoia about how much the galaxy map consumes in resources, and the other part is something I can't say on the forum...

Again, that's the point here.

I KNOW I've never visited the mat' trader in Anotchadaie because I haven't been anywhere near Leesti since 3.0.
At best, I might've previously visited the station at some point.
That trader shows up on the galmap.

I have no idea if I've been to Back Enterprise in CD-34 9020 before either.
I deliberately went there but didn't access the mat trader so my interaction with both stations is at the same level.
The trader in CD-34 9020 doesn't show up on the galmap.

FWIW, I dunno if it's apparent from the pic's I posted but, after visiting both stations, I jumped back to Leesti before I made those screengrabs.
That meant undocking, getting 7.5km away, jumping to Leesti and then faffing around to make sure I wasn't going to crash into a star while viewing the galmap.
I would hope the jump, the change of instance and the time would be sufficient for the galmap to update if it was going to.
It didn't.

Furthermore, upon jumping back to CD-34 9020 and accessing the mat-trader at Back Enterprise, the trader showed up on the map immediately afterward, which rather suggests it doesn't take any time or changes of instance before the galmap updates.

The only possible inconsistency I can think of is that FDev have set it up so that traders at any station you visited prior to 3.0 are somehow "grandfathered" into your galmap trader search whereas stations you haven't visited are still "undiscovered".
That seems ridiculously convoluted, though, rather than just making it so you either have to discover ALL traders before they appear on the map OR setting it up so they all appear by default.

Bottom line is that if I don't think a feature is reliable, I'm not going to use it.
If they have set it up in some convoluted way that makes it appear unreliable, they're not doing the game any favours and they need to change it.
If, OTOH, it is just flat-out unreliable, they need to fix that too.

 

[Schmack]

It's not the distance or whether you've visited them or not. It's that there's probably a small toad or dwarf living in your stomach. You need a good bleeding.

 

[Ouberos]

I didn't know we were supposed to use the galmap to find mat traders. I use the galmap to plot a course from A to B that's about it.

Hi Krash, the Galmap is actually one of the best things about the game. Playing with the filters you can exponentially increase your earning power by trading across economic states or hunting down good places to Pirate.

You can search out places where there might be blackholes and you can find material rich planets. You can look up the fastest way to clean up after a crime spree or go looking for the nearest Pristine metallic ring to go mining in (*shudders*)

There's also the Thargoid thing and Powerplay I guess.

It's also really useful for checking on your BGS progress in multiple systems.

All things considered, I like the Galmap.

 

[Malic]

People keep omitting this

The mat trader icons only show for systems you have trade data for

Trade data is only good until the daily tick-over point.

If you do not have trade data, you do not know if the mat trader is there using in game tools.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

In order to declutter you could always deactivate some markers like bookmarks, engineers, friends markers etc.
Also deactivate both economical routes and fastest routes to get rid of all the lines.
Look at my image above. The trader systems are pretty well discernible. If I had deactivated also the navigation markers even the dots around LFT 300 in the right picture would have disappeared.

Yes, one can help make the UI display the Trader, but IMHO throwing around literally all settings (15-20 Mouseclicks?) just for that purpose (and having to revert it all again) shouldn't be needed.

 

[znôrt]

People keep omitting this

The mat trader icons only show for systems you have trade data for

probably because that is totally counterintuitive, which is exactly the problem: station services are not live trade data like stocks, prices and transactions.

 

[Truesilver]

People keep omitting this

The mat trader icons only show for systems you have trade data for

Trade data is only good until the daily tick-over point.

If you do not have trade data, you do not know if the mat trader is there using in game tools.

Sorry perhaps I've misunderstood but I don't understand how this can be right.

I use the in-game galaxy map to find mats traders all the time. Yes, it's bugged and awful but they do appear, particularly around my home system.

Based upon what you say above, a lot of the time I wouldn't be seeing any because:

(A) I frequently don't play the game for at least 48 hours;

(B) My first jump away from my home system, going about my normal business, will be at least 40 Ly, so I'm never visiting the systems that the game is showing me.

Am I missing something??

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I would love to shoot a materials trader, if we ever get that functionality. I'm not into knives, except as tools.

Mom still had her K-Bar from the Marines. Do *not* mess with her. Even beyond the grave...