Zentor has hit the nail on the head fair and square. It is a great idea and long over due if it can be complete by some clever Admin Dev. It is a logical step in buying and selling and used by all of retail industry's across the planet and why it is not in FL/Disco must be a huge oversight.
(04-22-2022, 08:23 PM)Zentor Wrote: Please give me your thoughts on this. Is this something that makes sense to you?
Is the buy/sell functionality as important to other POB owners as it is to me?
Do you have further suggestions or ideas?
Put them all in here please!
As I already said in pm a while ago, having different buy and sell prices creates a number of problems, and doesn't do anything to address the glaring problems disco and disco's economy has.
While some people may be euphoric now because they think they'll be able to make easy money, they will probably be disappointed for 2 reasons:
- The "customers" will probably avoid using their pob if it costs them non negligible amounts of money.
- People will be motivated to build their own POBs instead of spending credits on someone else's. That will lead to POB spam in the same locations, rivalry between them, efforts to eliminate/block competitors, and drama.
Also, is it really a good idea to allow players to make credits without actually logging?
But... since people want that functionality (personally I don't, but if others want it who am I to say they shouldnt have it) and it will probably be implemented because of that, here are some ideas on how to solve the problem with the invisible prices:
Either
- Make the POB switch between buy/sell mode by itself when someone tries to buy or sell something while in the wrong price is showing. It seems that this is possible, since there are already features like "base wont accept goods", "insufficient cash", etc, and the "admin buy/sell over ride" that lets logged in owners buy stuff despite the limits. Example: customer lands, wants to buy gold ore. If the pob is in "sell to pob" mode, the attempted "buy" transaction is blocked and an error message "base is in buy mode, switching to sell mode" shows up. The base then automatically switches to "buy from pob" mode and the corresponding price is shown. Some principle for selling to pob
or, if that doesnt work for some reason:
- Make 2 docks for two separate POBs in the same POB model. The 2 pobs share cargo, factories, shield, wps, and all commodities, except that one only buys and the other only sells.
Also, if you make a "welcome" textbox, keep it as short as possible. Don't ell them a long story about coding limitations, just tell them how to use the buy/sell mode in as few words as possible. But hopefully it wont be needed if 1 of the 2 ideas above work.
The prices are "invis'ed" to prevent confusion and encourage players to use the price view switch commands.
Others have suggested stopping transactions if the view is incorrect, so I'll take a look at an implementation along those lines, and yes the disclaimer could be simplified.
#JusticeForBurgundy
"Music gives Wings to the Mind, Soul to the Universe, and Life to Everything"
(05-23-2022, 05:35 PM)Karlotta Wrote: As I already said in pm a while ago, having different buy and sell prices creates a number of problems, and doesn't do anything to address the glaring problems disco and disco's economy has.
While some people may be euphoric now because they think they'll be able to make easy money, they will probably be disappointed for 2 reasons:
- The "customers" will probably avoid using their pob if it costs them non negligible amounts of money.
- People will be motivated to build their own POBs instead of spending credits on someone else's. That will lead to POB spam in the same locations, rivalry between them, efforts to eliminate/block competitors, and drama.
Hopefully the bottom line will be that you can sell ore to a base for an appropriate low price, and rebuy for a high one. From what I read, it may be as simple as an active POB owner setting a reminder on their infotab to check the prices. We use commands for quite a bit around here, what's one more?
More so, I speak to your last point about building new POB's. Things like this, and a few other upgrades we could make to POB's, warrants changes to the POB construction system. First, I think POB builder ships should cost at least 100 million credits. Not only that, but they should add the requirement of 1 unit of another commodity that you can only buy off an NPC base for 100 million credits (a unit). And that would mean, each POB built would also basically cost 100 million up front. I think that would take care of frivolous base building once and for all. But, also allow for increasing the value of POB's in many ways (like upgrading starting strength, defenses, storage, making it a rule players need a Core 2 POB to siege other POB's at all).
(05-23-2022, 05:35 PM)Karlotta Wrote: Also, is it really a good idea to allow players to make credits without actually logging?
Ahh but it is a 24/7 world. As a short range miner, it's better to fill bases knowing its at the right price. The same goes for being the trader. In turn the significance of bases changes and their potential value goes up. Economically, some places might see a jump in costs if they pay fees to run a mining base. Or, a greater interest from concerned parties in general.
I like the idea yet it seems not to be perfect. Maybe there are better solutions? I am no dev (at least not for Freelancer) But maybe it is possible to steal from the weapons vender the code to allow a sell and buy section? There you have for example instead of weapons ... sell goods and instead of ID sell you got to buy goods? Typing everytime a command "/sell" or "/buy" seems time consuming and sometimes might be forgotten. Which would hurt in some way. Imagine you forget to type "/sell" and you sell your Cau8 to the base for only 1$. I feel like there is trouble incoming and it feels personally not convincing enough to have a buy / sell option when there are so many issues with the correct setup for this game (code whise). Maybe I totally misunderstood the idea but at first sight it seems like there are too many sacrifices to make for beeing able to put a buy and sell price. Yes I do understand the strong feeling of having to have this option. But implement something which seems not perfect makes the game more complicated to newcommers and more vulnerable to abuses/mistakes. And that sell / buy option sure would add to that.
(05-23-2022, 06:32 PM)Binski Wrote: First, I think POB builder ships should cost at least 100 million credits. Not only that, but they should add the requirement of 1 unit of another commodity that you can only buy off an NPC base for 100 million credits (a unit). And that would mean, each POB built would also basically cost 100 million up front. I think that would take care of frivolous base building once and for all.
Making pobs more expensive does the opposite of reducing drama around them.
Also, why "frivolous"?
Guy 1 builds pob to buy and sell ore and make him a profit, thinking he will make his investment back in no time when lots of people use his pob.
Guy 2 doesnt want to leave part of his profits with Guy 1, and builds a pob that buys and sells at same price, together with like minded people. Is that "frivolous"?
Guy 1 now built his pob for nothing and gets mad at Guy 2.
Making their pobs more expensive isn't going to make him less mad and it doesnt make it less likely to happen either.
(05-23-2022, 07:08 PM)Ghaoul Wrote: Typing everytime a command "/sell" or "/buy" seems time consuming and sometimes might be forgotten.
...
Maybe I totally misunderstood the idea but at first sight it seems like there are too many sacrifices to make for beeing able to put a buy and sell price.
If the pob blocks the transaction as long as the wrong price is showing and switches buy/sell mode automatically after that happens there would be no need to type anything or to put a disclaimer box.
It would also take no additional effort or clicks in pobs where buy and sell price are the same, like I intend to keep mine.
The main problem is that in then end, the feature will end up being either useless or a salt mine because pob owners will start to compete and either blow the competition up or be forced to go to lower or no profit.
A good concept to the buy / sell price is that any POBs that store mined ores wont get miners dropping ore off at the price for selling to the traders and then means that the POB makes more profit and does not lose profit.
And also for any POBs that sell equipment it means the prices can be adjusted accordingly and also some people may decide that they can buy equipment from people and advertise it and do another service that way and it would mean that people could sell their unwanted equipment to them instead of advertising on the forum, IF they want to.
I have been a POB owner for along time in this game and this idea opens up options for people who wish to use the function, and basically all you need to do is set the BUY and SELL price the same if you dont wish to use the function to its best ability ......simple.
And once again, this idea is really good and could improve POB operation.
Taking into consideration the con's mentioned above, I implemented a price "state" detection mechanism that stops the transaction if the displayed price is not in line with what the player is trying to do (i.e. if you're buying from base and it shows the sell-to-base price), and auto switches the view to the correct value. Have a look see in this short vid clip and lmk if that changes some opinions on this.
Also I'll chop down the disclaimer to be simpler later. Edit: And thinking about it again, we would no longer need to invis prices on the player cargo "side", or even add the market disclaimer popup if this auto switching handles everything well. We can just have the /price info in the regular base help menu.
#JusticeForBurgundy
"Music gives Wings to the Mind, Soul to the Universe, and Life to Everything"
There is no reason why 2 pob's can be built side by side. 2x Core 2 is easier to build than a Core 4. One for wholesale purchase and the other for retail sales.
Or you can have a wholesale buying pob close to a source and retail it closer to the main tradelanes,