Understanding Trade data in Galmap

[Alecz]

I watched Obsidian And's video on the new trade data and commodities, and I think it could be great tool, but I just don't understand how it works or how to use it.

Yesterday:
Traveled to SAN TU, scanned the Nav Beacon -> No updates to the galmap
Traveled to Chomsky Terminal, bought Narcotics -> No updates to the galmap
Traveled back to Fousang where I had the mission -> No updates to the galmap

Today: checked the galmap -> No updates to the galmap

Galmap Trade data shows neither that data is (not) available or acquired:

Filtering by commodity, does not show the symbol either, but having the system pre-selected before filtering does show that it exports the commodity:

I was hoping this new tool could be used to complete the fetch missions without alt-tabbing to eddb, but I don't get how to use it to that effect.

Also, I don't think the distance is an issue here, as the green triangle was not shown even when I was in the system.

So why doesn't it work? Is this yet another DoA feature, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Alecz]

No traders out there know how this works?

 

[Shiro Akai]

Sadly, FDEVs aren't much interested in providing us reliable, easy to use and user friendly trade tools. This is because existence of great 3rd party tools we already have. Devs themselves admitted that (I remember reading it somewhere) - they don't want to spend time and resources to develop things that are already covered by EDDB/Inara or any other trade tool.

Current gal map filters is a nice step into right direction but it's too much clicky to find answer for a simple question. And it only shows results for a single commodity so checking the best routes requires a lot of clicking. I wish it isn't this way but it's more comfortable to use EDDB for trading.

It's pretty much DoA.

 

[Deep Thought 42]

I tryed it out when i got to Colonia Found it very limited now i have a orange cargo canister stuck on my galmap lol

Sorry to say but eddb & other 3rd party tools are better in every way

 

[Factabulous]

Hmm, my galmap shows more import export symbols than yours, not sure why they wouldn't show up for you as long as you're looking in the commodities markets (not sure why you mention scanning the nav beacon, as that's for ... nav data).

The main issue for me with the galmap for fetch missions (which is shared by eddb / inara as far as I can see) is that you can only look for a single good - whereas I'll often be looking for a range of things. Local copy of eddb with sql works best, but slightly OTT.

 

[Red Fox Four]

Sadly, FDEVs aren't much interested in providing us reliable, easy to use and user friendly trade tools. This is because existence of great 3rd party tools we already have. Devs themselves admitted that (I remember reading it somewhere) - they don't want to spend time and resources to develop things that are already covered by EDDB/Inara or any other trade tool.

Current gal map filters is a nice step into right direction but it's too much clicky to find answer for a simple question. And it only shows results for a single commodity so checking the best routes requires a lot of clicking. I wish it isn't this way but it's more comfortable to use EDDB for trading.

It's pretty much DoA.

So developer is basically saying:

We don't want to do our job and provide a full experience within our game because some players got so fed up with the lack of information they literally did our job for us by providing these features on websites not referenced to or mentioned within our game and thus entirely unavailable for new players until they become equally frustrated as the initial players and then start searching for options on the internet.

If they are going to rely on 3rd party software they should bloody well refer to that software WITHIN the game. "Want to know trade routes in our game? Visit EDDB.io in a browser of your own preference".

Whenever I hear developers say they won't use resources on something because modders or 3rd party sites cover it's a clearcut sign they are left-handing the entire game development.

Why bother having FDEV do anything for Elite. Just open it up more for modders to do the work for free.

Atrocious is what it is if their stance is to not implement features in their on account of it being available in some random non-Elite affiliated, non-FDEV affiliated 3rd part website somewhere on the internet.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I was hoping this new tool could be used to complete the fetch missions without alt-tabbing to eddb, but I don't get how to use it to that effect.

The new tool isn't necessary for that - I've never needed to use eddb for a fetch mission.

Start with the commodity market in the station services. Fetch missions show up for commodities the station demands anyway, so you can go to its entry in the commodity market and look at both the "imported from" list of systems and for *most* goods the import/export economies for the good. *Then* you go to the map, set it to show systems by economy, and off you go.

After a little while of browsing the markets you'll start to spot the patterns - and not even need to check for 90% of goods (remembering without looking it up which are High-Tech exports and which are Industrial exports can be a bit hit-and-miss, though) so you just go straight to the economy map.

The new features in 3.0 *might* then help you find a system of the right economy with the best price, but since fetch missions currently pay pretty well you're probably better just going to the nearest one anyway.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I watched Obsidian And's video on the new trade data and commodities, and I think it could be great tool, but I just don't understand how it works or how to use it.

Yesterday:
Traveled to SAN TU, scanned the Nav Beacon -> No updates to the galmap
Traveled to Chomsky Terminal, bought Narcotics -> No updates to the galmap
Traveled back to Fousang where I had the mission -> No updates to the galmap

Today: checked the galmap -> No updates to the galmap

Galmap Trade data shows neither that data is (not) available or acquired:

Filtering by commodity, does not show the symbol either, but having the system pre-selected before filtering does show that it exports the commodity:


I was hoping this new tool could be used to complete the fetch missions without alt-tabbing to eddb, but I don't get how to use it to that effect.

Also, I don't think the distance is an issue here, as the green triangle was not shown even when I was in the system.

So why doesn't it work? Is this yet another DoA feature, or am I doing something wrong?

When using the galaxy map, it has a 40LY limit. Instead go to the commodites market, click on galactive average price, then go to by market, then search for the system you have been to, don't use the galmap for further then 40ly. Both of the ones you are looking at are 41ly distance and therefore won't show you anything.

Here is how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGZ4GfR09uo

 

[JesusOnEez]

My understanding is that it only give you trade data for stations you've actually docked with in the past.

 

[kpmop]

Yeah there seems to be a range limit for the commodity filter i.e. it only shows the triangles within some distance of your location, but if you select a system as a destination (etc) it'll show you the triangles.

Also worth noting is that if the export price is 0, it means they don't have it(!) regardless of the green triangle.

So it does kind of work, but sometimes it's only useful in combination with the points Ian makes.

 

[Alecz]

Hmm, my galmap shows more import export symbols than yours, not sure why they wouldn't show up for you as long as you're looking in the commodities markets (not sure why you mention scanning the nav beacon, as that's for ... nav data).

The main issue for me with the galmap for fetch missions (which is shared by eddb / inara as far as I can see) is that you can only look for a single good - whereas I'll often be looking for a range of things. Local copy of eddb with sql works best, but slightly OTT.

It was my understanding that you either have to dock at the station, or scan the Nav Beacon and get the data for all the stations.

My understanding is that it only give you trade data for stations you've actually docked with in the past.

I did dock and checked the galmap right after leaving the station and the following day.

When using the galaxy map, it has a 40LY limit. Instead go to the commodites market, click on galactive average price, then go to by market, then search for the system you have been to, don't use the galmap for further then 40ly. Both of the ones you are looking at are 41ly distance and therefore won't show you anything.

Here is how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGZ4GfR09uo

I was in the system when I checked at one point, so 0 LY (but don't have a screen shot). Though I can provide one that shows the station exports Battle Weapons, but in fact they are illegal.
That video is over one hour long covering much more than description of the new Galmap... Might watch it if there's no other options.


Regarding eddb.io, sometimes the prices/stocks are very out-of-date. So that is not infallible either

 

[rekurzion]

It doesn't. Not reliably. The information is always stale when after purchasing trade date. For kicks i thought I'd give it a try for a source and return mission...

Followed the commodities list to a system where the item was traded from. Once there, the commodity in question isn't even listed. Great, now my trail has gone cold. So i go to the galmap to get a better look.

I find one system that should have it. Fly there. And they have none. I repeat this nonsense until i accept there isn't a single useful feature of trade data in game. It's never relevant or up to date.

It's my single gripe with this game over all else. In game trade information isn't reliable and in most cases wrong.

 

[concentric]

It clearly doesn't work as intended.
Recently I thought I'd do some fetch missions as an excuse to use my trade Cutter as I'm usually not much into trading.
I found some wing fetch missions with decent payment (like ~40 mil for 1600 units of landmines) and thought I'd give it a go.
Checked eddb at first which showed me a system with sufficient supply, updated maybe an hour ago.
So off I went only to realise there's 0 supply.
Checked a few others to no avail.
So I thought I'd try the in-game feature for the first time.

Start with the commodity market in the station services. Fetch missions show up for commodities the station demands anyway...

Contrary to your experience landmines didn't show up in the mission giving station's commodity market, so this didn't help either.
Next I tried the galmap.
Set the filter to commodities / weapons / landmines and a few green triangles appeared. NEAT!
Only that EVERY SINGLE triangle showed an export price of 0 when hovering over it and checking the commodities market on-site showed 0 supply. BUMMER!
Next I tried Inara which was more up to date and actually presented me with a market with a supply of landmines.
Strangely THIS system DIDN'T have a green triangle, which means that in-game I would've probably never found it.
And said system was WITHIN a range of 40 LY and I've also visited it before.
Just for demonstration's sake:
I just went to LHS 28. The commodity market shows a supply of 1.001 of explosives:

Spoiler

Then, just to make sure the triangle isn't just missing because I'm in the system already, I went to the neighbouring system LP 128-9 (3.54LY).
Filtered the galmap for explosives:

Spoiler

There are indeed a few faint green triangles but do you see one in LHS 28? Probably no, because there is none.

If I'm not completely missing something here, the system just doesn't work (at least not reliably) and when the one system which had landmines available when doing my missions eventually ran out of supply, the search started again and soon became a rather frustrating experience, almost resulting in my first rant-thread ever...

Same goes for services.
Here I filtered for Interstellar Factors. The map shows a few green dots, one of them being Uchaluroja:

Spoiler

Only when you go into the system's System map you can see that Uchaluroja is a high security system...

Spoiler

...and therefore has no Interstellar Factors:

Spoiler

The same goes for most of the other systems marked for having an IF.
I don't get it - the game knows which security level a system is in. It knows if there is an IF. Why is it so off the mark with its markers?

Again, correct me if I understand it all wrong, but if not, I'd rather they don't implement a feature than implement a broken one, because imo this hasn't worked properly from the beginning.

 

[Alecz]

Might not be helpful, but just for the sake of completion, I was looking for Battle Weapons and the Galnet Map showed me they are for sale in Neche - Descartes station. So I went there yesterday and they are not:

In fact they are prohibited:

However, Galmap still happily shows they are available:

In principle the idea of being able to view the trade data on the Galmap is great. It should also work since the same data is supposedly send to eddb.io via EDMC - where it actually works albeit outdated.

I don't understand why this data is stale - at least that's the only explanation.
Maybe a bug report should be submitted unless one already exists?

 

[Lightspeed]

A bug report wouldn't be a bad idea, although I suspect the Devs responsible for this are already reading your thread. But bug report makes it more legitimate. And you can refer back to this thread if you wish

 

[smiths121]

Might not be helpful, but just for the sake of completion, I was looking for Battle Weapons and the Galnet Map showed me they are for sale in Neche - Descartes station. So I went there yesterday and they are not:



In fact they are prohibited:



However, Galmap still happily shows they are available:



In principle the idea of being able to view the trade data on the Galmap is great. It should also work since the same data is supposedly send to eddb.io via EDMC - where it actually works albeit outdated.

I don't understand why this data is stale - at least that's the only explanation.
Maybe a bug report should be submitted unless one already exists?

I had the same problem for Advanced Medicines with eddb! Said Station X, but a few commodities were missing. I believe this was related to the War (or was it civil war) the controlling faction was involved in - in another system. I am not sure either tool takes the effects of faction state into account, but faction state alters what is available in the station. Lockdown is the most obvious of these effects.

Simon

 

[Red Fox Four]

We did a mission for Insulation Membranes this weekend.

I didn't even bother with the ingame rubbish and went straight for EDDB. Some of the data was old (from 2 days to 112 days), and some data was fresh (5 hours to 17 hours).

I went to one station which listed 11 items with the data showing as 17 hours old (on EDDB). I got there and found 13 items. Bought them all and left... my EDMC updated and sure enough the website refreshed and updated with the items now removed as I had bought them.

So EDMC vs EDDB works great. It updates correctly and quite quickly in my experience.

The ingame galaxy map information though is terrible. It's confusing, convoluted and often misleading (e.g. sending you to a system saying it exports battleweapons when they are prohibited and not even listed in any of the markets).

I really wish they'd make at least SOME of the features in the game less convoluted and you know... not half-done but actually functional.

I regard the whole trade tool on the map the same way I regard multi-crew and powerplay... half baked, left-hand work that got heel-kicked into the game with the unspoken intent of "community will make some tool / website to flesh it out".

Only really wholesome thing I seen in the game lately is, well, the Krait. So GG on that at least.

 

[Requiem Mortis]

We on Xbox also use eddb too, it's a really great tool but unfortunately we have no way of updating it via edmc.

I would hazard a guess that a proportion of PC users use it without the market connector running too, so it's accuracy is going to be patchy.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

We did a mission for Insulation Membranes this weekend.

I didn't even bother with the ingame rubbish and went straight for EDDB. Some of the data was old (from 2 days to 112 days), and some data was fresh (5 hours to 17 hours).

I went to one station which listed 11 items with the data showing as 17 hours old (on EDDB). I got there and found 13 items. Bought them all and left... my EDMC updated and sure enough the website refreshed and updated with the items now removed as I had bought them.

So EDMC vs EDDB works great. It updates correctly and quite quickly in my experience.

The ingame galaxy map information though is terrible. It's confusing, convoluted and often misleading (e.g. sending you to a system saying it exports battleweapons when they are prohibited and not even listed in any of the markets).

I really wish they'd make at least SOME of the features in the game less convoluted and you know... not half-done but actually functional.

I regard the whole trade tool on the map the same way I regard multi-crew and powerplay... half baked, left-hand work that got heel-kicked into the game with the unspoken intent of "community will make some tool / website to flesh it out".

Only really wholesome thing I seen in the game lately is, well, the Krait. So GG on that at least.

You are using the wrong tools then. There are plenty of tools you can use. I suggest looking at the youtube link I left. It explains how to use it and it has been superb for me. Not too sure why you think it is rubbish. Getting live up to date prices on commodities for places that you have been to is superb.

I much prefer using the in-game tools. Much more fun that way.

 

[concentric]

You are using the wrong tools then. There are plenty of tools you can use. I suggest looking at the youtube link I left. It explains how to use it and it has been superb for me. Not too sure why you think it is rubbish. Getting live up to date prices on commodities for places that you have been to is superb.

I much prefer using the in-game tools. Much more fun that way.

To me the video only confirms that I didn't use the system wrong but rather the in-game tools don't work properly.
In my example mentioned above, the only system in the vicinity that had a supply of landmines should have been marked with a triangle, which it wasn't.
Without Inara I would have never found it unless by hovering over every single system with the commodity filter set to landmines and checking the export price, which in that case could have taken me ages. As pointed out above, landmines weren't even listed in the system I got the mission at, so no help there either.
It was the first time I tried this system and it failed.
Second time was when writing my above post and looking for proof.
The example with explosives in LHS 28 was literally the first thing I tried and the system failed again.
May have been a big coincidence but I wouldn't really call that a good success rate.

edit:
I just checked the galmap again and today LHS 28 is actually marked with a triangle for stocking explosives which suggests that the system might just be lagging, albeit hours or maybe days...
However, Uchaluroja is still marked for having an IF in the services filter despite being a high security system...