For about a week I've been trawling through FLStat and Companion looking for solid passenger routes for the new OS&C, that is routes that only take passengers and their variations (vacationers, tourists, VIP's) which so far has proved to be quite a challenge. A little curious as to why the routes were so difficult I decided to make a spreadsheet detailing where passengers could be bought and which bases they could be sold that also have another form of passenger e.g. selling passengers to Denver and picking up vacationers.
Clarification: These are meant as suggestions for the routes within the mod itself.
(Note: The sheet is based upon OS&C rep with a fully armed luxury liner and arranged by credit per sec) http://tinyurl.com/PassengerSheet
By looking at the sheet it's pretty clear to why the routes are so messed up, with the exception of Gallia, only a handful of them actually form a circle. The worst two sets are passengers_bw and Vacationers whose routes quite often dead end by buying and selling the same commodity, the passengers_bw also have their base buypoint in Alberta for some strange reason which is so out of the way it's barely worth visiting.
The idea is to create two basic circular routes consisting of:
Passengers from OS&C bases and capital planets to other capital planets. (Curacao or New London to New Tokyo/Berlin/Manhattan)
This would require moving Passengers from Shetland and replacing them with passengers_br
Adding buy/sell points for each passenger commodity to capital planets.
Vacationers from capital planets to OS&C bases. (Manhattan to Hawaii)
Splitting Vacationers into four separate commodities with buy points on capital planets and sell points on OS&C bases.
Tourists I would move from Hawaii to the Mackinac in Nagano to serve as gateway into Gallia, since it already uses the previous passengers a return route should be easy if the tourists are sold at the correct bases/planets.
My theory is to create a triangle of trade within the circular routes so whenever the Houses go to war there is always two routes available to the remaining Houses. Feedback, suggestions and constructive critizism are all welcome.
As a side note, VIP's are a bit of a mystery, the cheapest buy point is on the Golden Dragon Casino a Hogosha base in Shikoku which sell the best at Crete, obviously intended as trade route to the Corsairs yet artifacts on the return sell better on the Hawaii. This raised my eyebrow a bit as the Hogosha, who in lore extort money from the Mackinac to the point where OS&C would prefer to move the liner out of Kusari entirely which begs the question, why would they let them land on the Hawaii to sell artifacts? Until that's resolved I'm leaving VIP's in the wind so to speak.
I already suggested my offer to let you fetch refugees at the Haven inRP,
so that one is missed here.
I would love to have the different passenger routes explained or posted somewhere, so as to understand them better.
And even if they are no "luxury passengers" I also suggest looking at the routes for refugees, fugitives and casualties.
Also : I love Leeds primarily for the fact that you can only use a Freighter class vessle or smaller to reach the resistance camps ( anything that normaly uses a docking ring ) and would love to have some more docking points that have the same restriction, even preferably using some sort of passenger ( or smuggler ) buildup.
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I mapped all the routes before they were programmed. Refer to the link below. The basic strategy was to create routes that form a 3 point loop. They overlap, so you could do more complex routes if you wish. I don't think there are any cases where you can go back and forth between the same two bases with top profits.
Cheers for the link Xoria it's simplified things no end, hopefully the lads and I can find some overlooked passenger only routes which is the main issue we've been having so far.
My idea, however hamfisted, was to create a simplified system that would allowed for high amount of passenger, tourist, vactioner and VIP variations, something that almost every member I've recruited for the OS&C has requested to be our primary focus.
Would you be willing to consider suggestions with that focus in mind?
We need a more powerful version of FLCompanion. Something that allows:
1.) seeing the entire map of Sirius as interconnected logistical webs and Venn Diagrams, to pinpoint exactly where the SOURCE bases for different commodities are, so that we can then pinpoint exactly where the OUTPUT bases should be, rather than having to meticulously calculate price/profit-to-time/distance routes
2.) having the commodities be check-boxable to pinpoint which commodities are where, the implications for such, and to simplify which trade-webs we want to see
3.) creating simulations that allow quick re-balancing of commodity price/profit-to-time/distance
4.) color-coding of entire systems via House-ownership (in addition to FLComp's base-ownership via factions limitations)
(03-23-2015, 01:34 AM)leonardo_tigre Wrote: We need a more powerful version of FLCompanion. Something that allows:
1.) seeing the entire map of Sirius as interconnected logistical webs and Venn Diagrams, to pinpoint exactly where the SOURCE bases for different commodities are, so that we can then pinpoint exactly where the OUTPUT bases should be, rather than having to meticulously calculate price/profit-to-time/distance routes
2.) having the commodities be check-boxable to pinpoint which commodities are where, the implications for such, and to simplify which trade-webs we want to see
3.) creating simulations that allow quick re-balancing of commodity price/profit-to-time/distance
4.) color-coding of entire systems via House-ownership (in addition to FLComp's base-ownership via factions limitations)
I entirely agree that a tool like that would be helpful. However:
It will never come to exist.
Speaking from experience, putting together a tool such as that is the type of product that software development companies assign entire teams of employees to work on. The hours required to get that product working would be ridiculous beyond even the amount of time that the devs already generously commit to the mod.
I flew with OS&C quite often and flew some pretty extensive passenger routes. This same discussion has happened before and resulted in no change. We ended up changing routes on our end and taking passengers to the 3rd or 4th highest sell point to "hook" into another run.
Pretty much you'll be digging around FL stat to build a route, but Xoria's web page thingy is very helpful and I fully plan to steal many of those routes
Something related, before the Passenger routes changed, i used to be able to run Passengers between say, Kusari and Liberty, and back to Bretonia. Though the last link in the chain being very unprofitable. VIPs though, i can't figure them out at all. I could never seem to make a route work with them considering the cargo space they take up and the buy/sell prices just make it inoperable for any route i could dream up. Unrelated: The ships to do it, i think the Passenger Liner should have it's cargo buffed to 3600 in respect to the Freelancer ID. Since i find more often than not prefer to roll around in a passenger liner, running those routes with 'Passengers' and RPing it respectively even as a Zoner doing such (Perhaps odd, i could maybe fly as OS&C but i like the neutrality). It seems a tad pointless to keep it at 3300 when it's roughly the same size as the Enterprise?. I think it'd be a better middle ground as the Bretonian Liner is now at 10% with other IDs, OS&C included (I think). Though it'd be nice to see the Passenger trade 'Buffed' to some extent though and the VIPs, well something done about them perhaps?
RP sense would be to take VIPs from important capital planets (NB and Manhattan) and drop them off at major OS&C bases on the other end of Sirius. Ex: Liberty VIPs from Manhattan take to Baden Baden in Stuttgart, Bret VIPs from NL to Hawaii out in Sig-19, or Rheinland VIPs from NB or Kusari VIPs from NT go to Planet Curacao in Cortez.