Trading routes balance

[looqas]

As the latest discussion rages along with house trading vs outer worlds trading I think it's time to make a thread about it specifically and let the discussion spill over to the other topics.

Personally I think the current system has too many downsides compared to upsides. The current system is almost mathematically distance = profit based. It's not demand based or specialized in the sense although it seems so, like Kusari paying for Diamonds etc.

At this has lead to a peculiar phenomenon where people are just using jumphole routes that are in RP, but less hassle the traditional trade lane trading.

I remember Jinx has been saying this for who knows how long, that traders leads to pirates leads to lawfuls. A simple fact.

And I think over 90% of the traders are indies, be that powertraders etc. Dashiell put it very nicely somewhere (that concerned this trading thing too). You can't change the fact so lets put them to good use.

And that's EXACTLY what I'm aiming at.

I suggest we put the best profit routes between houses' capital planets. Personally I don't want to see the other routes nerfed to death, but putting the profits to 200 c/s between house capitals would nicely compensate the hassle coming with it and encourage the house trading. While putting the best buy/sell prices in the capital is not really strict PR, but I think the compromise is in the order. In most of the houses the capital system is the key system where all the roads lead to. The vanilla was designed so.

The current system we have provides good/decent profits for all parties. The reason why it's gone all organ deut or slaves cardi "smuggling" is the above mentioned hassle involving docking the lanes etc.

So discuss.

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Flying under radar.

[Drake]

Currently, House trading is more danger for less reward, especially if you're a House corporation (who generally have more enemies than, say, a Zoner or indie). The only House routes which are really worth it compared to the easier, safer edgeworld routes are all either smuggling or blockade-running.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, any route which follow tradelanes should be superior to those which don't. And House corps should have the best routes available; they are, after all, the economic core of Sirius, beyond even the Zoners.

Things could also be spread out a bit more; at the moment we have a couple major hubs where lots of routes start or end (New York, Gran Canaria, etc.), and other places that should be important, but are nearly worthless (*coughnewlondoncough*).

[Ash]

Don't put the best routes between capitol planets. Manhatten will just turn into Manhatten of 4.84 again. Except there'l be six of em. The most logical and realistic routes are straight from the source of the goods to the location in most demand of those goods.

Ergo:

Prometheum, Gallia -> Willard
Niobium, Taus -> Liberty
H-Fuel, Sigmas -> Bretonia

Yadda Yadda Yadda

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[NonSequitor]

I didn't vote, not be standoffish, but because I think most of the routes are balanced. That said, the trade system is certainly not perfect, but it's better than what we had. One thing I would like to see happen (and it probably wouldn't be difficult to do): Have all cargo take up 1 unit of volume. Especially human cargo. And no, I don't own a liner nor do I traffic in slaves.

The simplest way to tackle this whole trade route debacle is to drop the prices on all ships, all armor and some weapons (i.e. SNAC). Since profit margins (on lawful routes, in particular) have been dramatically lowered, why not lower the prices on high-end products? It's a good deal easier than re-inventing the trade routes.

This is an RP server. But right now, if you want to RP in something bigger than a gunboat, you can look forward to grinding for countless hours. You might say "Oh noez! Teh lolcaps invade and ruin our arrpee!" My response (not directed to Loogas, btw): "They're already here and due to the server cap, their numbers are unlikely to markedly increase. And they tend to sell their big ships either after experiencing peer pressure from our happy little community or they just get bored with their ship after noticing how vulnerable it really is.

Summary: 1) Some minor fine tuning for a relatively good trade route system. 2) Drop the prices on all ships, all armor and some select weapons. 3) Be excellent to one another. Give some, take some but don't be a self-involved jerk.

[looqas]

I'm not talking about the whole over-haul of it. Just picking out and focusing on certain commodities. Easiest tweak would be that you get the best selling price in the capital system for some good that is produced in another house.

Classic example is Diamonds from Rheinland to Kusari.

But not at the expense of making the other routes obsolete.

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Flying under radar.

[Angelfire]

Hiya Loogas... I shared some thoughts below but carried away a bit. If it comes across as a hijack, I'll start a new thread, just shout if it's hijackish.

Righto.. I luurv Trading. Previously it was all I basicly did.

I wish I could have given more input when Xoria and his team were working on the commodities but frankly, I didnt know enough to add much value.

Herewith my thoughts:

IMO the effort vs reward ratio is somewhat unbalanced in this new system of trade.

U understand that the routes were designed for game balance and RP ehancement but I feel it has had the opposite effect to the one intended.

Please note that I have never spent more than 200 mil for a ship so I don't have Battleship motives for my Trading.

When first I saw the new commodities and routes, I got excited and tried as many of them as I legally could (was trading on Disco USA for a while).



Heck.. i don't know if someone will read this lot but here goes:

1) It feels like a grind now.
Trading in smaller transports etc. is just not an option if your objective is the creation of wealth. More than ever, you now specifically trade to 'level up' to a bigger ship so that those long distances can be run less for higher returns. This is normal in any trading game except for the fact that the increase in profit is so marginal that the trade runs become demoralizing and you tend to log off the game sooner and do something else as opposed to actually hanging around to play.
Stopping to RP as a Trader has become a luxury.
The 30 minute one-way run that you hope to squeeze into your 1 hour game time subconciously nags at you like a real life deadline.
Then the pirates us RP friendly types would usually effortlessly entertain become something so unpalatable that it is easier just to dock and play another character until the system is clear... 2 Mil is a lot more than it used to be.. it's like the economic recession in real life now! hahaha.


Although there are routes that are more profitable than others (all distance related), you can still achieve similar profitable results by ping-ponging between two or three friendly systems. The money you save from dodging pirates and hiring Bounty Hunters makes the shorter runs at lower profit MORE profitable in the distance/time ratio.


Righto.. I won't even go futher with those thoughts because they have already proven my point.

My point:

I love RP and I did not mention it once as I brought up the points above.

Why?

The new system makes me clutch my wallet and forget about my game motive (RP). I now focus on profit becuase suddenly money is a problem. My focus is so drawn to not wasting trade time that I actually find myself AVOIDING RP to be profitable so that I can.. er.. RP?

If the goal was to discourage locaps and powertradzors, I humbly suggest that this was the incorrect strategy. They've got the time to power trade, they'll trade for days to get their capships if they want them!
As a matter of fact, The big, expensive toys have become like WoW instance items - Exclusively available to people with TIME, and almost impossible to attain for people who love Role Play.

My suggestion:

1) Forget the distance thing, demand is demand regardless of distance.
I would love to see more trains bouncing between shorter distances.. it would be pirate heavan, thus lawful heavan, thus RP heavan...
Keep the focus on RP and gameplay value. In this case, player control and Rp are mutually exclusive. You will damage one by focusing in the other.

2) Rethink and re-discuss Cap Ship control if this bothers you. People are going to moan about anything we do, we'll never please them all. We have to decide what our objectives for our server gameplay are and stick to what we want, not create an entire system around what we don't want.
(Personally, I feel that Caps are all special RP items anyway! They are currently available to everyone so why not set up a system where you have to earn the damn thing with $$ AND RP? Anyhoo... this aint for this discussion.)

3) Bring back 'Hero' routes. Diamond/Niobium runs were a big No/No, but at least you ran into other dodgy traders and could Trade in Convoys with people from different houses etc. sharing protection and such. The current diversity and balance makes it very lonely for a Trader. It's all so balanced now that the only time I see different traders is on the chat screen.
Don't get me wrong, the Diversity is great, but we need both! Why is there such an issue with 10 traders favoring one route? if it's dangerous, it should be worth HUGE rewards!

Righto.

I'm tired of typing now.

Keen to hear everyone's thoughts.

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The Chronicles of Angelfire

[Unseelie]

Tradelanes are, paradoxically, more work than cruise. For many of the zoner/edgeworld routes, you can cruise away, and cruise, and cruise. Which is plenty of downtime to do -other- things...which people like. Add to that that tradelanes get taken down by players and NPCs...and things balanced based on constant travel through the lanes, you get, even when the lanes might be 'better' in concept, they're worse, because of the constant stopping, and the implied work.

Tradelanes, as I've always argued, are dangerous. they're clear chokepoints to pirate, and lets face it, there aren't military blokes patrolling them.

Tradelanes, it seems, are the issue. That and the routes need some help, but, eh.

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[teschy]

Profits are bad, traders became overly careful for every penny they get their hands on, and pirates.. well, they barely get enough money to repair their ships.

Angelfire is right, everyone trades in a 5k transport nowadays, especially the corporations. And they're the ones screaming 'powertraders', when in fact, they generate more profits than smugglers that risk far more. And I'm not even gonna start on the Zoner whale.

Bump profits for everyone, so that people can generate decent amount of money in any type of trading ship. I don't know who's idea this was, but by lowering and leveling profits, you don't get rid of powertraders, it's the opposite, in fact. People don't stop to RP in trade ships anymore. The only RP you get is 'Hail-Hail' 'Halt-Can't stop me'.

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Mephistoles

[looqas]

I've gotta hand it to you Angelfire. In reading your reply I kept nodding my head. It's more or less maximum profits attitude gripping everybody now.

And I have to confess here that I've had similar ideas than Angelfire has had when flying my indie trader, that stopping is a waste of time.


I think the old system was more working in this sense. If we could just somehow combine the best parts of the old and the new. In the old that there were clearly more profitable routes (we could just have then be more in rp routes) and the new that there are profits to be made for all factions.

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Flying under radar.

[DeathsOverture]

Well said, Angelfire.

In my opinion, what we really need is someone to create an internal development tool with a nice GUI (graphical user interface) to read in the market_commodities.ini file and allow customization of commodities by showing profitability from purchase points to the various sell points and allowing prices to be tweaked.

Xoria isn't around to say it, but the economy took many many hours of number crunching. To completely revamp the economy would be no easy task...

That being said, what would happen if we just raised the base price of all commodities? The buy/sell prices are all relative to the base price, so if we multiply the base price by 1.2, all buy prices would increase by 20%, as would the sale.

old_profit=high-low

vs new_profit=1.2*high-1.2*low

new_profit=1.2*old_profit

20% more profit?

The net effect would mean slighly more risky trade routes at a higher profit margin. This wouldn't solve the tradelane vs free space imbalance, since the travel times are all based on Freelancer Companion.

Edit: This might be advantageous to high priced commodities like Nuclear Devices... it's too early for me to do math.

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