I thought I'd share and embellish a post I made a couple of times in separate threads as I think it deserves a bit more discussion.
The idea(s) cover two main concepts. Distance and risk.
Distance: currently means very little other than a really long wait to get places. Don't get me wrong here - I'm not complaining about the speed, distance travelled or any perceived issue with SC here. In actual fact I like it the way it is. I assume that most players (barring explorers and masochists) will avoid long distance SC trips after their first or second >100,000Ls trip, particularly if they're after profit.
I'll re-iterate this point - long distance SC trips are fine with me. It's the lack of a reason to travel that far which gets me, as well as thoughts on the "reality" of the situation. Supply and demand would dictate that prices at far away stations would be more lucrative for the market - balanced to the distance travelled, but still lucrative.
Currently any trader who's flown more than 10 trips has quickly realised that time = money, and the only systems worth visiting with the current mechanics are those close by, as even with the highest supply/demand, the overall profit for 1 ton of any cargo is limited by time taken to bring the goods from station to station. Systems with stations within 50Ls of the main star are at a premium, any others are ignored completely as profit is watered down quickly with increased distance.
To spread out the use of stations, and to actually make it worth travelling the 100kLs to explore other stations, I suggest that distance from the main star be factored into the algorithm which works out Supply/Demand values. This will take some serious balancing.
I don't expect to make more profit from these long distance trips (or maybe just a little, like 1-5% compared to current trading norms), but I'd certainly expect to be able to make an equal profit as a good short jump run. There will be bad stations with no demand, or no supply, or both, just like there are bad stations near the stars, but overall I expect to get "paid for my time", in a manner of speaking.
I could also be wrong and jumping in too early in the grand scheme of things - if supply/demand is also related to time, then arguably what I'm asking for will develop as these far flung stations are left alone - prices will rise slowly to the point that traders will notice the extra profits to be made and will begin making trips to these stations - but currently this does not seem to be the case.
The other issue would be missions. I'm not sure how I'd factor those in. I'm guessing the logical idea would be that any mission *requiring* you to travel these distances would compensate you accordingly - you could argue that the market prices themselves would be the compensation - I guess that's for FD to decide, should they like the ideas. Missions which just require SC'ing until you find the appropriate USS may not need any compensation, but then you've travelled to the station should you be compensated for that... I don't think so, but that's all part of balancing imho.
The main concept is to try and give pilots a good profitable reason to visit these places, other than idle curiosity.
In real world terms, if you want that comparison, we can look to many countries which are known as being expensive to live in being at the end of nowhere - Iceland for example.
Risk: My second idea is to factor in the danger inherent in the system to market prices. This (I hope) will have several effects, particularly if player interdictions are taken as one of the main "performance indicators" of the level of danger.
What I propose is that the number of player interdictions, ships destroyed, government type, NPC interdictions and even possibly neighbouring system's statuses are also factored into the supply/demand algorithms. Higher profits bring traders willing to take risks in to the area - thus also bringing in pirates, creating player led hubs of activity, profit and fun.
Busy areas become rolling snowballs of profit, risk and death... allowing pilots to earn more in a riskier environment - everyone's happy.
There are (as ever) some caveats of course. Particularly in terms of "danger" and how these changes carry over to Solo mode. Market prices going up means more profits to be made (obviously), but the current "lack of danger" in Solo is perceived by some as a get out clause for "easy money". Maybe in Solo the number of interdictions could be ramped up by a factor - maybe Dangerous/Elite npc pilots could be better equipped, or have AI tweaks to make them a little more, erm, dangerous...
These ideas should be easy to implement, but will certainly require a lot of balancing, but I really do see this as colouring in the universe - certainly not making things easier or hand holding. I'd expect overall profits from trading to be unaffected, only that with these changes people would consider travelling the distances, and I'm sure a lot of people would like the risks involved when activity is condensed around areas - particularly when these areas are truly dynamic - the profits will bring the pilots, and the pirates...
Sorry for the rambling wall of text nature of the post. I'm not too good at putting my thoughts on paper in a sensical way.
tl:dr Supply/Demand algorithms factor in distance of station from main star and risk (chance of interdiction)
The idea(s) cover two main concepts. Distance and risk.
Distance: currently means very little other than a really long wait to get places. Don't get me wrong here - I'm not complaining about the speed, distance travelled or any perceived issue with SC here. In actual fact I like it the way it is. I assume that most players (barring explorers and masochists) will avoid long distance SC trips after their first or second >100,000Ls trip, particularly if they're after profit.
I'll re-iterate this point - long distance SC trips are fine with me. It's the lack of a reason to travel that far which gets me, as well as thoughts on the "reality" of the situation. Supply and demand would dictate that prices at far away stations would be more lucrative for the market - balanced to the distance travelled, but still lucrative.
Currently any trader who's flown more than 10 trips has quickly realised that time = money, and the only systems worth visiting with the current mechanics are those close by, as even with the highest supply/demand, the overall profit for 1 ton of any cargo is limited by time taken to bring the goods from station to station. Systems with stations within 50Ls of the main star are at a premium, any others are ignored completely as profit is watered down quickly with increased distance.
To spread out the use of stations, and to actually make it worth travelling the 100kLs to explore other stations, I suggest that distance from the main star be factored into the algorithm which works out Supply/Demand values. This will take some serious balancing.
I don't expect to make more profit from these long distance trips (or maybe just a little, like 1-5% compared to current trading norms), but I'd certainly expect to be able to make an equal profit as a good short jump run. There will be bad stations with no demand, or no supply, or both, just like there are bad stations near the stars, but overall I expect to get "paid for my time", in a manner of speaking.
I could also be wrong and jumping in too early in the grand scheme of things - if supply/demand is also related to time, then arguably what I'm asking for will develop as these far flung stations are left alone - prices will rise slowly to the point that traders will notice the extra profits to be made and will begin making trips to these stations - but currently this does not seem to be the case.
The other issue would be missions. I'm not sure how I'd factor those in. I'm guessing the logical idea would be that any mission *requiring* you to travel these distances would compensate you accordingly - you could argue that the market prices themselves would be the compensation - I guess that's for FD to decide, should they like the ideas. Missions which just require SC'ing until you find the appropriate USS may not need any compensation, but then you've travelled to the station should you be compensated for that... I don't think so, but that's all part of balancing imho.
The main concept is to try and give pilots a good profitable reason to visit these places, other than idle curiosity.
In real world terms, if you want that comparison, we can look to many countries which are known as being expensive to live in being at the end of nowhere - Iceland for example.
Risk: My second idea is to factor in the danger inherent in the system to market prices. This (I hope) will have several effects, particularly if player interdictions are taken as one of the main "performance indicators" of the level of danger.
What I propose is that the number of player interdictions, ships destroyed, government type, NPC interdictions and even possibly neighbouring system's statuses are also factored into the supply/demand algorithms. Higher profits bring traders willing to take risks in to the area - thus also bringing in pirates, creating player led hubs of activity, profit and fun.
Busy areas become rolling snowballs of profit, risk and death... allowing pilots to earn more in a riskier environment - everyone's happy.
There are (as ever) some caveats of course. Particularly in terms of "danger" and how these changes carry over to Solo mode. Market prices going up means more profits to be made (obviously), but the current "lack of danger" in Solo is perceived by some as a get out clause for "easy money". Maybe in Solo the number of interdictions could be ramped up by a factor - maybe Dangerous/Elite npc pilots could be better equipped, or have AI tweaks to make them a little more, erm, dangerous...
These ideas should be easy to implement, but will certainly require a lot of balancing, but I really do see this as colouring in the universe - certainly not making things easier or hand holding. I'd expect overall profits from trading to be unaffected, only that with these changes people would consider travelling the distances, and I'm sure a lot of people would like the risks involved when activity is condensed around areas - particularly when these areas are truly dynamic - the profits will bring the pilots, and the pirates...
Sorry for the rambling wall of text nature of the post. I'm not too good at putting my thoughts on paper in a sensical way.
tl:dr Supply/Demand algorithms factor in distance of station from main star and risk (chance of interdiction)
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