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+--- Thread: Dear Xoria; (/showthread.php?tid=106220)
RE: Dear Xoria; - Pancakes - 10-24-2013
(10-23-2013, 04:21 PM)Xoria Wrote: Let's try a little exercise.
Trip A lasts 10 minutes and pays 5 credits/unit.
Trip B lasts 20 minutes and pays 10 credits/unit.
Trip C lasts 28 minutes and pays 12 credits/unit.
Trip D lasts 5 minutes and pays 4 credits/unit.
Rank the trips from best to worst and explain why for each one.
This is a stupid question.
It also depends on the risk the transporter have to take.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Blodo - 10-24-2013
It's not a stupid question. You can extrapolate the risk roughly from the length of the route. The longer the route and the higher priced the cargo, the higher the risk - without accounting for average population of the systems the route takes you, but this factor is minor and I will explain why below.
Because pirates in general go where the trade is, one can only assume that risk from players is an extremely random factor that changes organically to roughly adapt to conditions created by the mod. However it's still not a factor that is as major as the other ones, and never will be. Best example why is the 4.84 diamond niob run which took you on a run through almost exclusively pirate territory, next to major pirate bases belonging to factions that were very active. Regardless of how many traders got annihilated on the run, many people still bought their battleships with money earned from that particular route and not any other, because quite simply even the most active faction cannot keep watch 24/7, and in most occasions doesn't even keep watch half the time. It's easy for a single trader to slip through, many times.
So since we just established that risk of piracy should not be taken into the equation, what's left? Players bases can be blown up, sadly the economy isn't dynamic to this degree and probably never will be (barring specific timed events that players discuss with admins) because of how precarious bases are. So we truly are left with two factors: loss risk (high value cargo [in regards to buying price mostly, less so to selling] increases this factor) and time taken. Taking risk of piracy as a real factor in regards to economy balance only creates ridiculous runs that take you through in RP dangerous territory and resulting whine on forums about how space next to Kyoto base is actually a lawful trader highway because that's where the shortest route for a particular run is.
Xoria's post is meant to illustrate what I wrote above, although it's not easy to catch onto it unless you remember the trade shenanigans from 4.84.
On that note, here's what I agree with from other posts so far:
1. Designing trade runs to herd traders into "highways" -> should make border worlds the pirate havens they are meant to be, and increase interaction "in the right way". Trade should split off once house space is reached, thus making pirating on house lanes a bit less lucrative.
2. For runs designed to be "popular" (so mostly inter house runs) a specific route median time should be considered (15 minutes seems nice to be honest). Of course we'd still have various "non standard" routes that might take longer or shorter amount of time, but with profit adjusted so that the power trader will for the most part be herded into the highways while the "non standard" routes will mainly exist for RP purposes (preserving decent profit, but not as good profit/time as the highway routes).
3. There should be 1-2 popular runs between each house to ensure a certain area of activity. Desaturation of activity is not good.
Any other ideas that could be used to improve the trade system?
RE: Dear Xoria; - Pavel - 10-24-2013
As Blodo pointed out, entire game mechanics must be mix of RP basis and balance. Please keep that in mind.
btw Saronsen, route for Ageira? I don't see any problem with that, e.g. Trade Parts to Nagano, H-fuel from Kusari back to Liberty.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Highland Laddie - 10-24-2013
Quote:1. Designing trade runs to herd traders into "highways" -> should make border worlds the pirate havens they are meant to be, and increase interaction "in the right way". Trade should split off once house space is reached, thus making pirating on house lanes a bit less lucrative.
We had this is mind when Gateway| decided to build Oceana Shipping Platform in Cortez. It's right along the major "highway" between Liberty, Bretonia, and the Taus, and thus would attract traders from various factions.
Gold Ore sells high (or at least used to...haven't played in .87 yet to compare) in Rheinland, Liberty, Kusari, and now I hear in Gallia as well. If this is true....Dublin should definitely be a hotspot for miners/pirates again.
I think rotating buffs on various ores through the year would help spread/create activity in a good way like was done earlier this year. For example: How often are people actually out mining Uncut diamonds? I almost never saw anyone out in Omega-11/15 or wherever they are normally mined...and no Hessian/Corsair activity either. Now...buff the sell price of Uncut Diamonds up to 12k/ea in New Tokyo (and maybe even 9k in Colorado) for a week or two, and I'll be you'll see some more activity both in Rheinland, Omegas AND in Kusari.
Or, maybe a different ore gets buffed each month, if we want to keep things more simply scheduled.
ex: January - Beryllium, February - Hydrocarbons, March - Niobium, April - Iridium, May - Platinum, June - Alien Organisms, July - Helium 3, etc. etc.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Blodo - 10-24-2013
(10-24-2013, 03:54 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: I think rotating buffs on various ores through the year would help spread/create activity in a good way like was done earlier this year.This was a plan but would need someone to take care of it. I fully agree with the idea though, gonna bump the thread in admin forum again.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Xoria - 10-24-2013
(10-24-2013, 03:23 PM)Blodo Wrote: On that note, here's what I agree with from other posts so far:All of this is determined by geography already. If you are trading from Bretonia to Rheinland, it makes absolutely no difference whether you are going to Munich or New Berlin, you still have to pass through Omega 3, Omega 7, Stuttgart, and New Berlin. The same applies to all the trade routes between every combination of 2 Houses. Whether a commodity has 1 destination in a House, or 20 is irrelevant because the geography already imposes the traffic pattern on the trader. What is relevant is that your faction affiliation may disallow you from docking at 1 base, but allow others.
1. Designing trade runs to herd traders into "highways" -> should make border worlds the pirate havens they are meant to be, and increase interaction "in the right way". Trade should split off once house space is reached, thus making pirating on house lanes a bit less lucrative.
2. For runs designed to be "popular" (so mostly inter house runs) a specific route median time should be considered (15 minutes seems nice to be honest). Of course we'd still have various "non standard" routes that might take longer or shorter amount of time, but with profit adjusted so that the power trader will for the most part be herded into the highways while the "non standard" routes will mainly exist for RP purposes (preserving decent profit, but not as good profit/time as the highway routes).
3. There should be 1-2 popular runs between each house to ensure a certain area of activity. Desaturation of activity is not good.
Any other ideas that could be used to improve the trade system?
Thus, nearly every commodity has many equivalently profitable destinations in each House, while the basic traffic patterns for each destination cluster together in between the Houses, or within the Houses themselves in the cases of Colorado, Stuttgart, Honshu, Cambridge, etc. Now that the shortcut around Rheinland through the Omicrons is no longer a shortcut, all but the most outlying inter-House trade passes through the same bottleneck systems on the Houses' borders. Whether the trade is between Newcastle-Stuttgart, or Dublin-Hamburg, or Honshu-California, or Texas-Cambridge makes no difference whatsoever to the traffic patterns involved, because those are determined by the geography in between the Houses.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Pavel - 10-24-2013
Cool idea but remember how it ended the last time - already horrendously overpowered IMG had buffed ore for few good months instead of two weeks, DHC lost even 2 new members to them as we cannot mine Silver. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, watch out who gets buffed.
Except that, yeah, mining finetuning is something what needs to be done, prices and yields are quite messed up after version change.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Highland Laddie - 10-24-2013
Quote:Cool idea but remember how it ended the last time - already horrendously overpowered IMG had buffed ore for few good months instead of two weeks, DHC lost even 2 new members to them as we cannot mine Silver. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, watch out who gets buffed.
Right, so it's not the idea that's bad, just the implementation was poor and probably fell by the wayside in anticipation of 4.87. Several months of price buff for ONE ore is too long. Maybe DHC could have picked up some activity if Cobalt Ore, Uncut Diamonds, or Aluminum Ore got a buff, right?
@Blodo - I'm not sure how much work it would be to do this. Is it just a matter of going into the server files once per month and changing the sell values on 1 or 2 locations to a bit higher...then repeating the process the next month? If yes....doesn't seem overly complicated or taxing for an admin. My opinion.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Coin - 10-25-2013
or, and this is just a thought that we've been having over and over again, we have a quasi-dynamic economy. The majority of the qq in this thread is that once the economy files are finished, Xoria (quite rightly) books into the mental asylum for the next six months and gently rocks back and forth until sanity returns.
if the economy changed weekly, then there would be a lot more activity on some routes for a few days, and then it would move to other places. Players would be torn between trading this op route, or pirating the op route.
changing weekly is too much to ask of xoria though; i don't want to pick up the tab for xoria's stay at the window-licking institute.
so, my suggestion: FACTION RP commodities are given an alternative price, in a few select locations. not every single base, that's just madness. when we connect to the server, the server says 'update files', and the new prices are downloaded, and the mad scramble begins.
this way, each of the factions gets a shot at decent activity.
An example: OSC. baden baden's price for vacationers skyrockets as it's peak season. suddenly there's a reason to fly as OSC.
OC - cardamine prices rocket up.
PF - Gaian wildlife shoots up
etc etc.
This boost to profitability would give a higher rate of return for a few commodities, and then it would drop back to normal the next week, and other commodities get a boost.
this is essential the concept of the mining mod (high falling to low in a cycle) applied to commodities, but for a slightly longer period of time.
Ideally, when the server restarted, it would pick one of the commodities at random to boost,but idk if this is possible.
RE: Dear Xoria; - Syrus - 10-25-2013
(10-24-2013, 05:36 PM)Pavel Wrote: Cool idea but remember how it ended the last time - already horrendously overpowered IMG had buffed ore for few good months instead of two weeks, DHC lost even 2 new members to them as we cannot mine Silver. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, watch out who gets buffed.As IMG I do agree, that the period for how long Silver had been buffed was way too long. We asked several times for it to be changed, but then again, Jammie, the person in charge of that, seems to have disappeared...beats me why only he could do it though. It's not IMG's fault that it happened, no idea why you haven't tried to get it changed when it was like that, instead of complaining about us now.
Except that, yeah, mining finetuning is something what needs to be done, prices and yields are quite messed up after version change.
Don't blame all your problems on IMG, it's getting ridiculous. Or are you affected by some kind of weird disease that Redbull, DPC and consorts had?
You are also getting quite biased for a global moderator lately... "IMG has this, IMG has that, DHC has nothing, whingewhinge"...
Not like I don't agree that other mining corps besides IMG should have better options and such, but your whining and pointing fingers at "us" all the time is getting annoying (and is not helpful), why not focus on your own faction and see to it to get that buffed instead of others nerfed?
Besides that I like the ore buffing. In my opinion though, two "ores" (which can't be mined by the same faction) should be buffed for 1 week at max. Can't there just be some randomizer implemented that does that automatically? Or the overall ore prices should be buffed a bit. Hm...though then again, that'd mean trading goes unused...hm...
The best thing would here as well be "trading"/"mining" missions, like suggested in that other thread. Such would be beyond awesome, and missions for "bring this and that ore to here" could also be possible then. But heh, that mission thingy is just at "suggestion" state...sadly it'd probably take till .90 before it's in or so. O;
EDIT: New thread for the "trading missions" topic: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=106376