Trading and the background simulation Issues [ Backwards Trading ]

[Tuzmaal]

With the new fixing of the broken rare commodity trading all the whines about not enough income will increase even more If you guys havent realised it yet, Frontier dont want us to earn an Anaconda every 2 days because then you super traders would cry in 1 month that there is nothing else to do and no endgame while spinning your pimped out supervessels all day long in bordom. Get used to it, the golden age is over, prepare for sub 1k/t deals as max.

 

[ste]

That's what we think, as I say we're looking into it.

Michael

Well maybe What should happen in that case if possible, is the system data that tells you if its supply or demand dynamically changes to show this. Might not be technically possible I dont know.

That would be more realistic then trying to make it so this kind of thing doesnt happen, as it probably would happen.

 

[Icarus1]

Yea this was happening in gamma too. I have given up listening the map and commodities screen now, because Slopey's trade tool is far more accurate and useful

It seems to stopped working with this version. It worked fine yesterday (before the latest update).

 

[FX2K]

Yea this was happening in gamma too. I have given up listening the map and commodities screen now, because Slopey's trade tool is far more accurate and useful

Hopefully FD will resolve this in time and at least logic will then prevail I have confidence.

Yeah the best way to get profits is to enter data into one of the third party tools

With the new fixing of the broken rare commodity trading all the whines about not enough income will increase even more ....snip

I mean no disrespect, but I would prefer to keep this thread on topic of the issue in attempt to help FD.
It is more about logic and the correct systems producing/supplying to the appropriate systems demanding/buying.

Its not about making the highest profits, a third party tool may be helpful for some but they are not essential to make money in the game, Even with the issue presented here, it is possible to make money.

 

[Im_Lost]

It seems to stopped working with this version. It worked fine yesterday (before the latest update).

Hmm It's working for me atm

 

[terminatahx]

Over trading or trading at poor profit or loss.

this drains supply and causes stations to run out of something causing them to import to help restock supply....makes it more expensive to buy their goods.

it also wrecks demand where those goods are sold, dropping the price for selling to the station. It also causes those stations to want to sell their excess supply because they can'tcan't consume it fast enough

The question was directed to Michael. Clearly you don't know what I'm asking, as evident in your answer.

 

[Beermachine]

Yes

You can actually see this behaviour in action if you can find a system with sufficiently low demand that you can easily fulfil (non lethal weapons is a good one)... by fulfilling the demand and oversupplying they will turn into a stockist of the item with zero demand. I posted it in #4 and another player confirmed in this thread too.

The station I did it with appeared to still be importing the item and the supply was increasing.. which meant the AI was disregarding the demand and just sending the goods anyway, something a player would lose money doing.

Yep. Also, it's worth noting that all screenshots showing prices of a commodity can be VERY misleading when dealing with goods with low demand. Someone arriving with 1t of a good can easily see a price 300cr+ more than someone arriving with 480t (tested here, would love SOMEONE to also confirm though https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=78843).

 

[terminatahx]

With the new fixing of the broken rare commodity trading all the whines about not enough income will increase even more If you guys havent realised it yet, Frontier dont want us to earn an Anaconda every 2 days because then you super traders would cry in 1 month that there is nothing else to do and no endgame while spinning your pimped out supervessels all day long in bordom. Get used to it, the golden age is over, prepare for sub 1k/t deals as max.

If your post is at all true, ED has far bigger issues than the current trading debacle.

 

[ste]

Say if theres a station making 100,000s of fish and it cant get rid of the stuff fast enough, then traders take the fish to the local demand stations. Not long these stations may end up having enough fish they can become fish suppliers too. A fish market chain.

I dont see a problem with that, but what should happen is that these local stations should all start to say Fish suppliers instead of remaining as fish demanders.

This would make some stations more like supermarkets instead of only specialists. Which would be more realistic and encourage longer distance trading and make hunting down opportunities more interesting. More dynamic.

Its confusing because at the minute they remain labeled demanders even after becoming suppliers.

 

[beelbeebub]

Looking at the trading problem from another point of view, to open up the discussion:
.
The background trading sim is clearly having a few teething issues. This is not unexpected and from time to time it will probably happen again. The fact that some systems are acting in a slightly irrational manner is not the problem. After all in real life we get all sorts of irrational market behaviour, some due to us not seeing the difference between 2 similar commodities (Saudi oil and Brent Crude as an example), some due to the vagaries of human nature (sudden surges for a particular Christmas toy, slumps in demand because a politician mentions salmonella). So an oddly behaving galactic economy is not the central issue. That being said FD should fix it so it's not totally nuts.
.
What is causing problems at the moment is that all we have to base our trading decisions on is import/export data. This can be misleading, as we are finding out, and that is annoying and makes trading difficult.
.
One possible solution, which has been requested for other reasons, would be to make the commodity prices visible "remotely", in a manner similar to Slopey's tool. Before anyone flys off the handle..... the first steps would be for your ship to store price data from the station when docked. This price data would be a timestamped snapshot, i.e. it would progressively become outdated. Buying trade info would be the same, it would become outdated. Depending on the speed of the economy it might be useful for a few hours or even a few days. By exposing the prices directly you could make your trading decision on a lot firmer ground. Any anomalies in the background sim (which will appear from time to time) can then be explained away as the usual "oddness" of the market and you can continue to trade.
.
The common argument against this is that it removes risk from trading. I'm not sure, after all I know that shipping cocaine from Columbia to New York is wildly profitable, but the risk my cargo is taken from me (plus a healthy dislike of imprisonment) prevent me from capitalising on it. Likewise, I might see a "bubble" in tickle me Elmo toys, but unless I'm fast enough to ship from my source to market by Christmas, I can;t make money.

 

[CaptCalamitous]

I do know this post has been read by FD
And I have raised a ticket previously too, but with smaller examples of such (more like the second post)

Something else on my list to try tonight:

In the build just before release and just before the AI trading tweak, I also was able to single handedly change a consumer into a supplier..

This happened to me as well.

Something is definitely screwy, although I suspected it would be the case for a while as things settled down after release.

After the patch today a Supplier of Indite turned into a consumer (Freycinet Port) really scuppered my mission plan.

 

[gazzareth]

There are definitely big issues with trading at the moment, was hanging around Chemaku until the profits started getting a bit thin. Headed off 150ly in a random direction, new station which has had only 4 visits in the last 24 hours, yet the difference between the price and average is exactly the same as I was seeing where I started out (and Chemaku has 1000's of visitors). At least I was seeing good BB missions there....

G

 

[Rubellen]

I was so bored trading I resorted to this... Go to Eranin... Buy rares... Wait 5 min... Buy rares... Repeat till full cargo... Fly to Lave... Sell with big profit... Fun factor zero nill nada... Bill factor: big profit... FD we all know this is NOT the purpose off the game... So please CHANGE trading as it is right now...

 

[Max Rockatansky]

to me sometimes it seems the background simulation is working TOO GOOD !

Therefore the AI turns exporters to importers, and vice versa.
The player base has simply no information what is going on in the background, and then comes, in extreme cases, to the conclusion 'its broken'.

if we had a better understanding, and confirmation from FD, on how the background simulation operates it may make things clearer.
the AI problem is a good example. yes the AI is trading too much, hence the skewed markets, but we players wouldn't find this out without information from FD. The AI issue needs to be fixed, but with more visibility why this happens in game, our conclusions could be better than just 'its broken'

sadly some expectations that are so out there will never be submitted to a 'reality check', but I guess we will have to live with those.

 

[Talarin]

For what it's worth, I'd suggest that the simplistic solution is to do a check before the AI conducts a trade: would it make a profit? If not, don't do it.

Stop the illogical trading and the system should start to revert to its expected state.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

I was so bored trading I resorted to this... Go to Eranin... Buy rares... Wait 5 min... Buy rares... Repeat till full cargo... Fly to Lave... Sell with big profit... Fun factor zero nill nada... Bill factor: big profit... FD we all know this is NOT the purpose off the game... So please CHANGE trading as it is right now...

Lets assume:
FD changes the rare that they really become rare, or the profit gets reduces, or since everyone is only trading rates, they become 'common' and profits plummet.

common sense expectation:
'oh well, I guess the community traded so many rares, that the market a saturated.' I need to trade something else.
(essentially market principles: demand and supply)

reality in game reaction:
"W T F ! Rares don't provide any profit anymore. Now its going to take ages for my anaconda" or "trading is broken" or similar complaints.

I think FD should improve on providing 'market analysis' tools (not prices) for informing the player base. And fix the obvious bugs (like AI overtrading). But without clear information in-game there will always be people that complain.
And I really like the idea, that everything is subject to supply and demand, no one should have the expectation to make the same (insane) amount of profit over and over again.

 

[Rubellen]

Lets assume:
FD changes the rare that they really become rare, or the profit gets reduces, or since everyone is only trading rates, they become 'common' and profits plummet.

common sense expectation:
'oh well, I guess the community traded so many rares, that the market a saturated.' I need to trade something else.
(essentially market principles: demand and supply)

reality in game reaction:
"W T F ! Rares don't provide any profit anymore. Now its going to take ages for my anaconda" or "trading is broken" or similar complaints.

I think FD should improve on providing 'market analysis' tools (not prices) for informing the player base. And fix the obvious bugs (like AI overtrading). But without clear information in-game there will always be people that complain.
And I really like the idea, that everything is subject to supply and demand, no one should have the expectation to make the same (insane) amount of profit over and over again.

I agree but please use economical basics and not guesswork...

 

[RegisterMe]

(Ignoring the galaxy trade map) I think the problem is threefold:-


1) Data exposed to players about commodity import export status is static.
2) AI "traders" import / export set amounts of commodities on a set schedule, regardless of demand or profitability (I suspect this is where FD tweak things).
3) As a result of 2) AI "traders" dumping a "set" commodity on a destination system can turn a demand system into a supply system (not reflected in data exposed to players).
(There might be some additional subtlety around system population and / or centrality or a distance measure or something but if there is it doesn't materially affect the above three points).


The combination of the above three points leaves players bewildered.


If I'm right then it can probably be fixed. It still makes for a pretty crude model though.

 

[Lanatir]

That's what we think, as I say we're looking into it.

Michael

How about you disable NPC trading for a while so the markets can recover and traders can play again?

 

[NuclearWinter]

How about you disable NPC trading for a while so the markets can recover and traders can play again?

It's going to take more than that to shift the massive excess supply that has built up in importing stations (hundreds of thousands in some cases) and players aren't going to do it because the profit margins are not worth touching them.

At this point they would probably be better off resetting the economy back to it's default starting state, after fixing whatever it is that's caused the problems.