Trading for Influence II (FC Update)

[goemon]

I wonder if you have any plans for further testing .... in particular testing of more than single ship-loads of cargo.

In particular I would love to see a test of: two single commodity trades vs two two commodity trades each of which result in the same total tonnage of each commodity being traded that day.

i think that question has been answered already in fig 1 and fig 9. trading 2x2 commodities of same profit per ton and same tonnage >150t will result in more gain than trading 2x1 commodity of same total tonnage and profit.

just to explain a bit why:
- if it would be otherwise, it would need the BGS to store the type of commodity traded in total along with profit and tonnage, instead of profit and tonnage.
it's not impossible, but a lot of unnecessary data stored serverside and calculated.

that's also the reason why i restarted testing trade and the BGS. the idea of "source (station)" of a commodity playing a role was weird to me - not impossible, but the idea of frontier storing market id of purchase of every ton and tracing it individually just didn't make a lot of sense.

a related observation on this: yesterday i took a smuggling mission and bought the same commodity to bring along. sold the non-mission batch over the black market, and the smuggling mission failed. looks as if the mission badge is not bound to the batches of commodity, but applied to x parts of the whole cargo load. so the game can't differentiate between individual loads of the same commodity.

so, that's why i think - pre cap - selling 2x2 commodities will generate more influence than 2x1 commodity as per figures 2 and 9. it's true for a single run, i can't see an implementation making it different at 2 runs.

still - if somebody would test it and found otherwise, that would be most interesting to me. we had our surprise with testing, too - mainly the population size related tests debunked everything i thought before.

 

[rdc000]

if it would be otherwise, it would need the BGS to store the type of commodity traded in total along with profit and tonnage, instead of profit and tonnage. it's not impossible, but a lot of unnecessary data stored serverside and calculated.

Either way something more than just profit and tonnage has to be stored. As I understand it, your proposed mechanism would require storage of some sort of transactional history, which could more complex than per commodity buckets.

What initially drew me to this was question was the practical consideration: most BGS work is done by groups of commanders. If commodity diversity rather than transactional diversity is what matters it simplifies what is required for groups to do.

As I think about it further your question of multiple commodity types, and my question of multiple cargo runs brings back an old BGS notion, that of transactional vs total work methods of calculating effect. A transactional approach could explain the behaviors that you are seeing as a result of deliveries which involve more than one commodity. Your Figure 4 could be a per transaction curve, with the total effect being those transactions summed against a possible second curve.

I am hoping to test the following (on my own, so it might take a while):

2x200T discreet deliveries of the same commodity vs 1x400T delivery of that commodity
If I understand your proposal correctly these should have the same effect?

And then possibly move on to:
2x400T deliveries, each delivery containing 200T of two different commodities vs 2x400T delivery each containing a single commodity, but different from each other
As you have said the first should have more effect.

The first test will I think be very important in narrowing down possibilities.

 

[goemon]

Either way something more than just profit and tonnage has to be stored. As I understand it, your proposed mechanism would require storage of some sort of transactional history, which could more complex than per commodity buckets.

What initially drew me to this was question was the practical consideration: most BGS work is done by groups of commanders. If commodity diversity rather than transactional diversity is what matters it simplifies what is required for groups to do.

As I think about it further your question of multiple commodity types, and my question of multiple cargo runs brings back an old BGS notion, that of transactional vs total work methods of calculating effect. A transactional approach could explain the behaviors that you are seeing as a result of deliveries which involve more than one commodity. Your Figure 4 could be a per transaction curve, with the total effect being those transactions summed against a possible second curve.

yeah, i'm pretty sure one can look at it as "transactions". BUT fdevs fix for single-t-trading exploit many years ago has been to not count several sells of the same commodity per docking. which is why several commodities came into trading at all (as a way to force more than one transaction per docking). looks as if still works in the same way, just with much larger tonnage.

2x200T discreet deliveries of the same commodity vs 1x400T delivery of that commodity
If I understand your proposal correctly these should have the same effect?

actually no. the tonnage curve gets lower at 150 t, so 2x200 should be stronger than 1x400. basically after (!) 150t you get 1,4 inf for doubling tonnage.

we have not tested multiple runs at all - all tests have been single runs.

2x400T deliveries, each delivery containing 200T of two different commodities vs 2x400T delivery each containing a single commodity, but different from each other

i understand this as following:
2 runs of 2 types of commodity of 200t each with same profit vs. 2 runs of 1 type of commodity each run of 400t.

As you have said the first should have more effect.

if i understood correctly above: yes - if you don't hit a cap.

looking forward to your testings!

 

[kurush]

One thing that is not clear to me after reading this otherwise excellent research: if you do two trades of the same commodity to different stations in the same system with roughly the same profit, does it count the same as two trades of that commodity to the same station?

 

[Dommarraa]

One thing that is not clear to me after reading this otherwise excellent research: if you do two trades of the same commodity to different stations in the same system with roughly the same profit, does it count the same as two trades of that commodity to the same station?

Same as selling 2 different commodities as 1 station.

 

[Mersozz]

If you buy a commodity in a market controlled by your faction, does that have any positive impact on influence?

From what I’ve read here and elsewhere, it appears trading influence is only impacted through the sell side. If someone can confirm I would be grateful.

 

[kail]

Only selling has an impact.

 

[Jmanis]

If you buy a commodity in a market controlled by your faction, does that have any positive impact on influence?

From what I’ve read here and elsewhere, it appears trading influence is only impacted through the sell side. If someone can confirm I would be grateful.

Yup. Selling only. Buying, despite some sound logic behind it, would be quite open to exploitation.

I also argue that selling should have an effect which is ignorant of whether or not a player made profit... instead whether or not you're selling to a demand or supply commodity... but that's an aside.

 

[Mersozz]

Yup. Selling only. Buying, despite some sound logic behind it, would be quite open to exploitation.

I also argue that selling should have an effect which is ignorant of whether or not a player made profit... instead whether or not you're selling to a demand or supply commodity... but that's an aside.

Thanks. I agree that weighting toward demand rather than profit would seem more rational from the perspective of the faction.

 

[Mersozz]

Only selling has an impact.

Thanks Kail, I appreciate your response.

 

[Furyan_ST]

the factor is around 1:0,7. so after ~150 t you get for doubling the tonnage around 1,4 times the influence gain and so on.

Sorry!! I do not understand this, what does this mean in layman's terms?! Explain it to me as if I was 12 please!

 

[goemon]

Sorry!! I do not understand this, what does this mean in layman's terms?! Explain it to me as if I was 12 please!

np if you sell more than 150t in 1 docking of 1 commodity,

for doubling the tonnage 2x150=300t you get 1,4 times the influence gain of 150t

trippling 3x150t=450 gets you 2,1 times the influence gain of 150t

quadrupling or double doubling 2x2=4x=600t gets you 2,8 the influence gain of 150t.

which is why it is worth it to bring 4 or even 5 times 150t of different commidties of same profit in 1 docking(150 tons give "1", so bringing 2 different commodities with 150 t gives you 2x "1" = 2, while bringing 2x150t of the same commodity = 300t gives you "1,4".

mind you, if you have different profit per commodity, that might look very different.

 

[Furyan_ST]

np if you sell more than 150t in 1 docking of 1 commodity,

for doubling the tonnage 2x150=300t you get 1,4 times the influence gain of 150t

trippling 3x150t=450 gets you 2,1 times the influence gain of 150t

quadrupling or double doubling 2x2=4x=600t gets you 2,8 the influence gain of 150t.

which is why it is worth it to bring 4 or even 5 times 150t of different commidties of same profit in 1 docking(150 tons give "1", so bringing 2 different commodities with 150 t gives you 2x "1" = 2, while bringing 2x150t of the same commodity = 300t gives you "1,4".

mind you, if you have different profit per commodity, that might look very different.

So does this mean doing 1 run of 300t of 1 commodity would have the same effect as 1 run of 150t of same commodity?

 

[goemon]

So does this mean doing 1 run of 300t of 1 commodity would have the same effect as 1 run of 150t of same commodity?

no. this does mean doing 1 run of 300t will have 1,4 times the effect of doing 1 run with 150t.

(if it would be linear, as one could reasonable expect, a run of 300t would have the double effect of 150t, as double tonnage, but it hasn't, it just has 1,4 times the effect)

 

[Furyan_ST]

Does 1,4 mean the same as 1.4? Using a comma in maths makes no sense to me, hence why I am not getting what you are saying lol!

 

[goemon]

Does 1,4 mean the same as 1.4? Using a comma in maths makes no sense to me, hence why I am not getting what you are saying lol!

uh! okay. yeah, i'm used to the comma (as is most of europe, russia and south-america), other use a point. means the same thing here!

never thought about it

Decimal separator - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Furyan_ST]

Thank you so much for clarifying, I last did maths in school in 1997 and only used . as a decimal separator back than!

 

[Mersozz]

np if you sell more than 150t in 1 docking of 1 commodity,

for doubling the tonnage 2x150=300t you get 1,4 times the influence gain of 150t

trippling 3x150t=450 gets you 2,1 times the influence gain of 150t

quadrupling or double doubling 2x2=4x=600t gets you 2,8 the influence gain of 150t.

which is why it is worth it to bring 4 or even 5 times 150t of different commidties of same profit in 1 docking(150 tons give "1", so bringing 2 different commodities with 150 t gives you 2x "1" = 2, while bringing 2x150t of the same commodity = 300t gives you "1,4".

mind you, if you have different profit per commodity, that might look very different.

I just thought I would mention this was terrific work on your part. This thread has helped me tremendously.

 

[Sekiou]

I either not understand something, perhaps it is not explained in a way that I can understand or it is not covered well enough (not a criticism, the work done is most excellent!)

The effect of instancing in regard to trading cap's.

This specifically relates to trading by FC as I currently have my FC parked next the target starport. I make 3 or 4 runs in my cutter with 1x160t + 4 x 158t and then go run some missions. Rinse and repeat.
As I understand it from this and your previous thread making multiple runs without an FSD jump is no more effective than making 1 run because a jump up/down from supercruise does not guarantee a new instance. Am I understanding correctly?
If so it is time to move my FC to a nearby star or do 1 run + 1 mission, rinse and repeat.

 

[goemon]

I either not understand something, perhaps it is not explained in a way that I can understand or it is not covered well enough (not a criticism, the work done is most excellent!)

The effect of instancing in regard to trading cap's.

This specifically relates to trading by FC as I currently have my FC parked next the target starport. I make 3 or 4 runs in my cutter with 1x160t + 4 x 158t and then go run some missions. Rinse and repeat.
As I understand it from this and your previous thread making multiple runs without an FSD jump is no more effective than making 1 run because a jump up/down from supercruise does not guarantee a new instance. Am I understanding correctly?
If so it is time to move my FC to a nearby star or do 1 run + 1 mission, rinse and repeat.

it's about docking/undocking/new instance. so, no, you misunderstood (as for supercruise you will have to leave station instance). no hyperjump needed.
if you go in real space without supercruise between stations (doable in pareco for exampel) weird things can happen.