The Painite crash of Jan 19th
- Thread starter Muzz UK
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Deleted member 115407
D
Prices do move based on different factors. State is one, demand is another.
I conducted a test a while back - found a small surface colony with reasonable demands for foodstuffs (lets say a few hundred each), and started moving those foodstuffs to them with a T-9. I was able to provide enough supply so as to reduce the demand for those items to 0 demand, and 1 pip.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/316295-Market-Test?highlight=colony
The problem was that at that point I got sidetracked and stopped. I suspect that had I continued to flood the colony market with those foodstuffs, then prices would have dropped dramatically (as YinYin states in post #3 of that thread). This is what I believe we see at Pristine extraction orbitals, when the Painite prices are so low. Unlike Water, which often has demands into the millions, the actual demand for painite in most places is generally in the tens or maybe hundreds. A RES miner who has a good night can easily come home with 50T of Painite, and a wing of RES miners can come home with much more. I think when Painite is up, people are taking advantage of the market price, which eventually plummets drastically because the market becomes flooded with larger drops than meets actual demand.
It's first come, first serve. We just don't see it with most other commodities, because the demand numbers are so high that they are just never adequately met.
Think I might take up that test again...
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Deleted member 115407
D
Deleted member 115407
D
Ooh, and then you have to fight them! And they spit jets of space-sand at you and you need a special controller to pry them open and get the pearl!
I'm sold, dude. We need whole asteroid belts comprised of Astroysters
Yes, considerably in some cases. Can definitely help you find the right place to sell.
General effects:
Boom: Price reduction on most goods, big price increase on a few like Painite, big increase in supply of most exported goods
Civil Unrest: Slight reduction on supply of most goods, minor effects on prices, 20%ish increase in sale price for most weapons
Election: Significant reduction in supply of exported goods and increased demand for imports, but prices don't generally change that much
Expansion: Significant increased demand for imports. Prices of a lot of colonisation-useful goods increase (good if it imports them, bad if it exports them)
Investment: Similar to Expansion, but also reduces export supply levels.
Outbreak: Massive decrease in production of everything. Massive increases in demand for and import price of medicines, evac shelters, water purifiers, and other useful goods. Significant decreases in demand for most other imported goods.
Retreat: Reduction in supply, increase in demand, similar to Election. Some minor price changes.
War: Major reduction in supply and demand for most commodities. Significant (but nowhere near as much as Outbreak) increase in price of basic medicines for import, and smaller price increases for a few other goods.
Bust: Insufficient data so far, but probably something mostly opposite to Boom.
Famine: Insufficient data so far, but qualitatively it's like an Outbreak but they want Food rather than Medicines.
I collect statistical data on it at https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/effects (Colonia economies only, because they're mostly single-economy stations which are far easier to analyse, but it should generalise okay)
Alright, that explains a lot of market behavior I've observed and suspected was true but never really sat down to try and compare and contrast with the different states.
Has there ever been an explanation of why some commodities completely disappear from market listing, although not illegal? E.g. Smoot Station in Chona is a high tech / refinery that sometimes sells progenitor cells and sometimes doesn't. I have seen this phenomenon (commodity disappearing from market that should sell it) a number of times but couldn't find the reason / rules for why it happens.
Change in government maybe? I know certain government types will make the Black Market menu option disappear completely in station services, maybe the same with Progenitor Cells? The flavor text suggests that commodity isn't well received in certain places, but I don't know if it's an actual thing.
Refineries import Cells, while High-Tech exports them. So there's presumably some internal demand within the hybrid economy, and sometimes there's a surplus they can sell and sometimes there isn't, depending on how the production is going.
(Looking at my data, I'd expect them to be sold in Boom, and in None if the economy wasn't "mostly Refinery", but not in most other states)
States at work here. A couple of examples:
1. Weapons aren't available for sale at stations where the Controlling Faction is at War. They still buy them of course.
2. Agricultural stations stop selling food while their Controlling Faction is in Outbreak.
Availability of expensive luxury goods like Progenitor Cells from High Tech stations is likely linked to Boom as Ian said, and probably restricted during negative states such as War too.