So today and a good part of last night I spent derping around on my inde hogosha kinda thinking about what I want to make a youtube series about. While doing this I decided to check out some Hogosha routes. The first thing to come to mind was of course Sorted Artifacts.
On board the Luxury Liner Hawaii, Artifact shipments from the Corsairs are sorted by Hogosha appraisers into allotments based on their anticipated sale value. The most highly valued items are then repackaged into custom made display cases and distributed to discrete dealers who specialize in marketing to wealthy collectors. While this has not replaced the ordinary Artifact trade, it has allowed the Hogosha to stimulate interest among jaded collectors and open up a secondary, high profit revenue stream.
Firstly, they appear to be a way that the Hogosha are trying to skim the top quality Artifacts off and resell them for a higher mark up then what I would assume the corsairs are selling them for.
With that in mind I was rather surprised to find out that the commodity isn't in any way reputation locked like some other commodities in the game are. Now I am not saying Hogosha exclusive I feel that's unreasonable. What I do suggest is a minimum buying rep of say +.5? This would pretty well limit to only people the Hogosha deem trustworthy which makes sense. The Hawaii isn't even a Hogosha base, they wouldn't exactly be advertising that they are selling contraband to everyone and their cousin. Not to mention I doubt they would sell them to a Junker.
It isn't like locking a commodity to a certain factions reputation isn't unprecedented these are just a few other commodities that require a certain reputation level to buy:
Synth Gel and FloraGro on Riverside requires Full Green Rep with Synth to buy.
Black Market Light arms from Fort McMurray required +.6 reputation (Bit of an odd one admittedly)
Re-Sale Cardi requires +.6 reputation from every base that sells it.
So yeah discuss I guess. Always been bad at endings.
(02-22-2019, 04:23 AM)Tobias Banks Wrote: Aren't Sorted Artifacts also sold on Beaumont Base in Texas, a Junker location? It sounds like the Hogosha don't have a monopoly on skimming profits.
I mean primarily from the Hawaii, sine their the original source
(02-22-2019, 04:36 AM)Tobias Banks Wrote: Oh, sorry, I think I misunderstood. Are you saying only limit the purchasing from that one source? Because that makes sense.
(02-22-2019, 03:08 AM)Vulkhard Muller Wrote: Synth Gel and FloraGro on Riverside requires Full Green Rep with Synth to buy.
Black Market Light arms from Fort McMurray required +.6 reputation (Bit of an odd one admittedly)
Re-Sale Cardi requires +.6 reputation from every base that sells it.
So yeah discuss I guess. Always been bad at endings.
I was personally told by Xoria, that Synth Food replock on Riverside is to prevent people from abusing the better profit/ration when compared to getting same from California Minor.
Others commodities, I don't know or don't remember what the explanation was.
FloraGro and Synth Gel have the same prices at Riverside as they do at Cali Minor and Los Angeles, where those commodities originate (Synth Gel is actually 10 credits more expensive at Riverside, but that's close). Consequently, trade routes heading towards Kusari or Rheinland for those commodities have higher profit margins at Riverside, and routes heading towards Bretonia are lower, because Riverside is slightly closer to Kusari and Rheinland and slightly further away from Bretonia.
This illustrates the very large c/sec differences that only a small change in geography creates. Preventing situations like that is why I am so meticulous everywhere else. I decided to leave things this way in this case because Riverside is an otherwise underutilized base (very, very few imports), and the only alternative at the time would be to create very high relative profit margins between Los Angeles and Cali Minor with Riverside, or export nothing from Riverside. In the next mod version, Riverside is a good candidate for a new Synth Foods export commodity as a replacement for the current situation.