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I will just say that my happiest days trading have been when I make somewhere around 2.5 M credits an hour. I mostly have done this by trading weapons. They are heavy. It is slow work. I often found routes where I had to travel through at least one wormhole. I was making between 650,000- 1.2M in a xc load (200 cu). You are a sitting duck in these loaded xcs (just ask Westacular how many loads of flechette canons etc he has got off me). If I got 4 of these xc loads to the destination in an hour it was good. It is satisfying to just make it to the dock and sell your goods. I have made several billion credits I have spent almost all of it. My philosophy has always been credits do me good in the spending.
If commodities become more of a thing because they are lighter I think I could get more moved so depending on how far they need to be moved making a little less on short routes would be okay to.
If I spend eight hours on my day off trading I would like to make about 20 m.
I have generally gone for stuff that is making about 4,000 Credits per Cu to 5,500 per Cu. I sell until it is making less than 4,000 per CU then move on to somewhere else. The price generally went down about 300 credits a cu per 200 units sold. Doing this kept the prices from dropping too low and they would always come back in a day or 2. Like over heating an asteroid things should not be oversold.
My rl job is hectic and more like pvp I don't want to come home and have a hectic time as well. I sit back, usually listening to tv documentaries, perhaps an audio book or the like, and putt along in my slow ships, making credits because I have figured out how.
I would like to take this new economy and figure how to make money again. Just please make the new economy robust enough that it is possible.
I believe this is a defensible amount of money to be making or I would not have had to spend most of the fortune I have made getting by in the universe of adversaries. I shoot credits at the pirates not blasters, I think this should continue to be legit gameplay. In order to do this I need to be able to make credits.
I welcome thoughts of others as to what you all think is a good amount to make. I am not against change. I would like to be able to continue to fly an xc and use credits to keep most of the pvpers from blowing me up. The devs have said they would like discussion on this, so please chime in folks
If commodities become more of a thing because they are lighter I think I could get more moved so depending on how far they need to be moved making a little less on short routes would be okay to.
If I spend eight hours on my day off trading I would like to make about 20 m.
I have generally gone for stuff that is making about 4,000 Credits per Cu to 5,500 per Cu. I sell until it is making less than 4,000 per CU then move on to somewhere else. The price generally went down about 300 credits a cu per 200 units sold. Doing this kept the prices from dropping too low and they would always come back in a day or 2. Like over heating an asteroid things should not be oversold.
My rl job is hectic and more like pvp I don't want to come home and have a hectic time as well. I sit back, usually listening to tv documentaries, perhaps an audio book or the like, and putt along in my slow ships, making credits because I have figured out how.
I would like to take this new economy and figure how to make money again. Just please make the new economy robust enough that it is possible.
I believe this is a defensible amount of money to be making or I would not have had to spend most of the fortune I have made getting by in the universe of adversaries. I shoot credits at the pirates not blasters, I think this should continue to be legit gameplay. In order to do this I need to be able to make credits.
I welcome thoughts of others as to what you all think is a good amount to make. I am not against change. I would like to be able to continue to fly an xc and use credits to keep most of the pvpers from blowing me up. The devs have said they would like discussion on this, so please chime in folks
Well Rolflor, In my opinion you have done well. I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, just I would to have been very happy to make such amounts.
I usually do pretty much the same as you, but with lower profit margins, selling weapons, but I also sell ores from mining and commodities.
A good xc load for me would yield about 500k profit, normally this devalues by about 10%-15% every load.
However these routes are very hard to find these days. I do things by experience, without any plugins or suchlike. I find that the 'surprise' of a good trade brings it's own entertainment .
I am like you , I would take an item as low as say roughly 220k per xc load and then move on. However, lately I have seen items like weapons less than 100k per load, I do not sell to that particular station, I would haul it often 1 or 2 systems until I could make a reasonable profit. Of course this brings extra risk, but in my opinion, averting the risks brings it's own entertainment value.
Sometimes I get caught out by storms, pirates, unrats or griefers. But this is the nature of the game. My advice to new players is to not get too sore when things go wrong, move on and recover.
A word on the new economy.
Yesterday I sold some 'dead stock' - stuff that was sitting in station for months, I considered it a good idea just to get rid as station rents were getting a bit much. The item was Gem turrets, valued at 15000cr. I took them to latos N-15. There were none on stock. I thought ok lets sell them. I got less than 10k for them...ok a loss, but money in the bank. Before I left station , I checked the price. Hey...selling for 15k each. Point is , just because a station has no item on stock, doesn't mean it will yield profit.
In conclusion, the amounts of profit as they are, are acceptable and justified, I am not the best PVP player (but I intend to fix that), the profits I make pay for ships/weapons I lose in station takes, skirms, queening and trading ( things do go wrong) and general play. I have also , on occasion, given credits to new players to help them along, especially if I am in the vicinity and they have fallen foul to griefers or pirates.
+1
I usually do pretty much the same as you, but with lower profit margins, selling weapons, but I also sell ores from mining and commodities.
A good xc load for me would yield about 500k profit, normally this devalues by about 10%-15% every load.
However these routes are very hard to find these days. I do things by experience, without any plugins or suchlike. I find that the 'surprise' of a good trade brings it's own entertainment .
I am like you , I would take an item as low as say roughly 220k per xc load and then move on. However, lately I have seen items like weapons less than 100k per load, I do not sell to that particular station, I would haul it often 1 or 2 systems until I could make a reasonable profit. Of course this brings extra risk, but in my opinion, averting the risks brings it's own entertainment value.
Sometimes I get caught out by storms, pirates, unrats or griefers. But this is the nature of the game. My advice to new players is to not get too sore when things go wrong, move on and recover.
A word on the new economy.
Yesterday I sold some 'dead stock' - stuff that was sitting in station for months, I considered it a good idea just to get rid as station rents were getting a bit much. The item was Gem turrets, valued at 15000cr. I took them to latos N-15. There were none on stock. I thought ok lets sell them. I got less than 10k for them...ok a loss, but money in the bank. Before I left station , I checked the price. Hey...selling for 15k each. Point is , just because a station has no item on stock, doesn't mean it will yield profit.
In conclusion, the amounts of profit as they are, are acceptable and justified, I am not the best PVP player (but I intend to fix that), the profits I make pay for ships/weapons I lose in station takes, skirms, queening and trading ( things do go wrong) and general play. I have also , on occasion, given credits to new players to help them along, especially if I am in the vicinity and they have fallen foul to griefers or pirates.
+1
Also to mention, building capships has been very expensive....most of my credits recently have been spent on this.
I wonder how in the 'verse would a new player ever manage to manu. if profits were to fall away from current values. I would say it would make it virtually impossible.
I wonder how in the 'verse would a new player ever manage to manu. if profits were to fall away from current values. I would say it would make it virtually impossible.
"A good xc load for me would yield about 500k profit, normally this devalues by about 10%-15% every load."
That seems about right to me.
After the turrets sent me to Sol II yesterday, whereupon I happened on you, I sold your flechettes for just under a million credits before flying back to Dau. I suppose I could've flown to a few systems and checked the price but I trusted your judgement on this.
500k per load is a handsome, reasonable chunk of coin.
That seems about right to me.
After the turrets sent me to Sol II yesterday, whereupon I happened on you, I sold your flechettes for just under a million credits before flying back to Dau. I suppose I could've flown to a few systems and checked the price but I trusted your judgement on this.
500k per load is a handsome, reasonable chunk of coin.
Another thought on this topic regarding reset timer for prices,
Okay, there are players that tank everything in sight, it is a pity , but it cannot be stopped.
1) could prices be adjusted say, for arguments sake + 100 credits per hour or day per cu?
or another option
2) could the speed of reset be adjusted to reflect the number of players on in game per given period, say a day? More people = more trade = faster depreciation.
I don't want to fill the coffers with Billions of credits just for the sake of it, only just rewards for the time spent online.
Mining is another pastime of mine (no pun intended), but ore prices devalue at a fantastic rate and a lot of hauling is involved to get top prices. If trading weapons and commodities becomes less profitable, can mining become more so to compensate? This will diversify the economy...maybe take the pressure off trading as such and make mining more attractive than just a grind to get bigger ships to trade with.
Okay, there are players that tank everything in sight, it is a pity , but it cannot be stopped.
1) could prices be adjusted say, for arguments sake + 100 credits per hour or day per cu?
or another option
2) could the speed of reset be adjusted to reflect the number of players on in game per given period, say a day? More people = more trade = faster depreciation.
I don't want to fill the coffers with Billions of credits just for the sake of it, only just rewards for the time spent online.
Mining is another pastime of mine (no pun intended), but ore prices devalue at a fantastic rate and a lot of hauling is involved to get top prices. If trading weapons and commodities becomes less profitable, can mining become more so to compensate? This will diversify the economy...maybe take the pressure off trading as such and make mining more attractive than just a grind to get bigger ships to trade with.
+1 to making mining more profitable, it's pretty useless right now
Rolflor said it exactly right.
A very strong +1
A very strong +1
Okay, I'll start out just by recapping feedback from people so far (don't mistake this as me saying "it shall be as such", I'm literally just re-writing what other people have said, for condensed notes)..
1) Mining should be made more profitable. I have no problem with that, but I don't think anything should be trivial either. I think there should generally be a profit-vs-distance kind of concept, at least until we get more into really difficult-to-acquire new ores and minerals that are in challenging areas (like the Unknown System, with no stations for support, etc).
2) Potential common-case profit rates for the galaxy, at least for experienced, long-haul traders running XCs:
Rolfor, mrl1213 - $2.5M / hour in profit
tradervyx, Skinwalker - $500k / XC load in profit
PaKettle - $1M / hour in profit
So we have a bit of a distribution of possibilities, and while I'm not signing off on using any of the above numbers yet (we're still just talking here), I do want people to keep in mind that there will likely be multiple relevant numbers, because the economy should probably have a "spread": to over-simplify a little, imagine like profits are broken down into high/medium/low:
- "High" profits could be randomly sporadic and more challenging to predict, but yield high returns that tank hard after 200 units or so, and then perhaps don't necessarily bounce back in that location.
- "Medium" profits could be the bulk of most common trade goods and items, a lot more predictable results, lower overall returns.
- "Low" profits would be more for short-run goods, newbies learning to trade within a Nation space, and the like.
It wouldn't actually be distributed like that (a 3-stage thing), as it's intended to be organic and fairly realistic. But, I think it's likely I'm going to have to externally poke and prod the economy and have consumption spike randomly in different areas, to drive "need".
Here are a couple of things to think about:
A) In response to pricing model. First understanding that I mainly tweaked the economy back in June and July.. Over the last 30 days (this is "post-nerf"), the average profit per-trade for the following items has been, in order of peak profit:
------------------------- Average Profit ------ Peak Profit
Gauss Cannon Mk2 ----- $861k ------------- $5.93M
Gauss Cannon ---------- $942k ------------- $5.28M
Corvus Holodisks ------- $2.3M ------------- $5.08M
Flechette Cannon Mk2 -- $872k ------------ $4.06M
Flechette Cannon Mk1 -- $722k ------------- $2.4M
(There are a number of other items, this is just a subset, there are quite a few more that average around $500k+ per-run in profit, and a gradual distribution down from there. This is also just data on what people actually have been trading, and excludes any profitable routes that have been ignored).
Now, that's actual profit as calculated by the game, not gross sales. Some of those averages are raised by people who probably optimized bulk-trades that were pre-stored in advance, with sales timed at particular intervals. Others (like Corvus Holodisks) are actually always pretty high.. even after I nerfed the route, it's still very profitable, and almost no-one in the last month has made less than ~1.5M, profit, per sale on that (it has happened, it's just rare). Granted, it's a lengthy route, but in terms of the kind of "profit-per-hour" numbers we're seeing proposed above, I'd first like to establish that.. a lot of people are already getting the numbers that are being "requested" here.
B) Which brings me to the second question: Should this discussion of trade-route profit really start with better tools for traders, rather than changing the economy itself?
Now, understand, I'm not shying away from adjusting the economy.. that's going to happen, regardless, and this discussion of what numbers "feel" right is still super helpful, as is the feedback about the un-profitability of mining.
But I am suggesting, that we could adjust the "Jettison" menu view of trade-prices to show a larger area? Or perhaps a way to request specifically the highest prices in the galaxy for the items you currently have aboard? Or even show you, before you purchase a good, where the nearest location is with a good offer price, and what your profit/CU + distance would be on the given item?
It might be that better visibility of routes would help people use the routes that are already there more effectively, and then we can also continue to tweak and adjust the actual economy itself.
We'll at least be starting from a place of "shared awareness" about what the state of the economy is actually like, which is probably a better place to begin a discussion of how to change things.
Back in the day.. nearly two decades ago, I thought the process of wandering around the galaxy with an Atlas-load of goods (no Moths yet) was part of the "game". Back then you had to dock at every station to see what their prices were, and then go to the next one. I mean, that's not without rationale, from a gameplay standpoint, that's how the old "Taipan!"-descended trading games work, like Port Royale 2, for instance. But they didn't require you to actually.. fly places yourself, you were mostly just clicking on things.
Anyway, I'm not against there being an evolution of what this looks like.. or even this being an area in which awareness could improve with equipment. Maybe you start out "doing your best" with the current J-menu data, but then eventually you can purchase an Addon that gives you additional insight (everyone with an XC immediately shifts uncomfortably, but you get the idea).
Continued feedback is welcome.
1) Mining should be made more profitable. I have no problem with that, but I don't think anything should be trivial either. I think there should generally be a profit-vs-distance kind of concept, at least until we get more into really difficult-to-acquire new ores and minerals that are in challenging areas (like the Unknown System, with no stations for support, etc).
2) Potential common-case profit rates for the galaxy, at least for experienced, long-haul traders running XCs:
Rolfor, mrl1213 - $2.5M / hour in profit
tradervyx, Skinwalker - $500k / XC load in profit
PaKettle - $1M / hour in profit
So we have a bit of a distribution of possibilities, and while I'm not signing off on using any of the above numbers yet (we're still just talking here), I do want people to keep in mind that there will likely be multiple relevant numbers, because the economy should probably have a "spread": to over-simplify a little, imagine like profits are broken down into high/medium/low:
- "High" profits could be randomly sporadic and more challenging to predict, but yield high returns that tank hard after 200 units or so, and then perhaps don't necessarily bounce back in that location.
- "Medium" profits could be the bulk of most common trade goods and items, a lot more predictable results, lower overall returns.
- "Low" profits would be more for short-run goods, newbies learning to trade within a Nation space, and the like.
It wouldn't actually be distributed like that (a 3-stage thing), as it's intended to be organic and fairly realistic. But, I think it's likely I'm going to have to externally poke and prod the economy and have consumption spike randomly in different areas, to drive "need".
Here are a couple of things to think about:
A) In response to pricing model. First understanding that I mainly tweaked the economy back in June and July.. Over the last 30 days (this is "post-nerf"), the average profit per-trade for the following items has been, in order of peak profit:
------------------------- Average Profit ------ Peak Profit
Gauss Cannon Mk2 ----- $861k ------------- $5.93M
Gauss Cannon ---------- $942k ------------- $5.28M
Corvus Holodisks ------- $2.3M ------------- $5.08M
Flechette Cannon Mk2 -- $872k ------------ $4.06M
Flechette Cannon Mk1 -- $722k ------------- $2.4M
(There are a number of other items, this is just a subset, there are quite a few more that average around $500k+ per-run in profit, and a gradual distribution down from there. This is also just data on what people actually have been trading, and excludes any profitable routes that have been ignored).
Now, that's actual profit as calculated by the game, not gross sales. Some of those averages are raised by people who probably optimized bulk-trades that were pre-stored in advance, with sales timed at particular intervals. Others (like Corvus Holodisks) are actually always pretty high.. even after I nerfed the route, it's still very profitable, and almost no-one in the last month has made less than ~1.5M, profit, per sale on that (it has happened, it's just rare). Granted, it's a lengthy route, but in terms of the kind of "profit-per-hour" numbers we're seeing proposed above, I'd first like to establish that.. a lot of people are already getting the numbers that are being "requested" here.
B) Which brings me to the second question: Should this discussion of trade-route profit really start with better tools for traders, rather than changing the economy itself?
Now, understand, I'm not shying away from adjusting the economy.. that's going to happen, regardless, and this discussion of what numbers "feel" right is still super helpful, as is the feedback about the un-profitability of mining.
But I am suggesting, that we could adjust the "Jettison" menu view of trade-prices to show a larger area? Or perhaps a way to request specifically the highest prices in the galaxy for the items you currently have aboard? Or even show you, before you purchase a good, where the nearest location is with a good offer price, and what your profit/CU + distance would be on the given item?
It might be that better visibility of routes would help people use the routes that are already there more effectively, and then we can also continue to tweak and adjust the actual economy itself.
We'll at least be starting from a place of "shared awareness" about what the state of the economy is actually like, which is probably a better place to begin a discussion of how to change things.
Back in the day.. nearly two decades ago, I thought the process of wandering around the galaxy with an Atlas-load of goods (no Moths yet) was part of the "game". Back then you had to dock at every station to see what their prices were, and then go to the next one. I mean, that's not without rationale, from a gameplay standpoint, that's how the old "Taipan!"-descended trading games work, like Port Royale 2, for instance. But they didn't require you to actually.. fly places yourself, you were mostly just clicking on things.
Anyway, I'm not against there being an evolution of what this looks like.. or even this being an area in which awareness could improve with equipment. Maybe you start out "doing your best" with the current J-menu data, but then eventually you can purchase an Addon that gives you additional insight (everyone with an XC immediately shifts uncomfortably, but you get the idea).
Continued feedback is welcome.
Inc, in real markets, those in need let their need be known. If silver is all of a sudden in short supply the price goes up. trade isn't done in a vacuum. the supply and demand for gold, soybeans, and pork bellies are known. There should be a market list to provide equilibrium to the demand at the stations. I'm not sure it should be random luck. Let us bid on the contract to get it there like the do in the futures market.
I mean, that is functionally the same as what I just wrote, in terms of making everyone aware of demand increases when they occur.
I said the demand increases would be random, not that their discovery would be based on luck, especially if there were enhanced tools, like I described.
Whether a route isn't predictable, as I described, has nothing to do with whether it's hidden. It just means people can't "game" the predictability and stockpile in advance.
I said the demand increases would be random, not that their discovery would be based on luck, especially if there were enhanced tools, like I described.
Whether a route isn't predictable, as I described, has nothing to do with whether it's hidden. It just means people can't "game" the predictability and stockpile in advance.
Thanks for the replies Especially from Incarnate!
"- "High" profits could be randomly sporadic and more challenging to predict, but yield high returns that tank hard after 200 units or so, and then perhaps don't necessarily bounce back in that location."
I would suggest a model more like this:
A Fast tanking route should be giving 1.2m per XC load profit and after selling each XC load - it should decrease 200k profit
So basically you will get 1.2m for 1st XC , 1m for 2nd , 800k for 3rd , 600k for 4th , 400k for 5th , 200k for 6th
That would be for the heavy hard to haul long distance stuff, with lighter stuff being less, and shorter trips also being less profitable.
A universe wide Jettison cargo price reveal sounds, cool enough, or perhaps have option to select a system or a nation's space (including grey)
My only worry with that is that currently us traders have plugins that collect this data and we have to do work to obtain it. With the suggested system the info would also be available to the pirates who would then know where to intercept us. Currently I don't believe the pirates are bothering to collect trade data and find out the location of the juicy routes which gives us a little wiggle room to avoid them.
Something like that may still be cool. This "shared awareness" would help out newer players who don't have an established universe wide, price moth system already in place.
Maybe instead of equipment to be able to access this info it could be a combination of trade license and standings that allow you to see this data. This hopefully would reduce the ability of pirates to easily obtain the data either because they have poor standings or they can not just make an alt with low levels to access this data. At least they would have to work for it. (Still a bit leery of this I know some pirates have high trade level and good standings (/me looks at Skinwalker - - at least he can be reasoned with through credits :-) )
Another thing, currently the trade report or the the lists you see of things the station wants don't really bring very good profits. To the point that most of us experienced traders just ignore them. What if these were to be more accurate in steering us towards routes that are actually medium to high profits?
Another idea is this: in the game "Mount and Blade Bannerlord 2" when you mouse over stuff that is for sale it shows you the best buy and sell prices for that item in all the places you have recently been. So you would in VO have to travel around a bit 1st docking in stations to start to collect the trade data that would then steer you toward good profits
Also +1 to making mining more profitable
"- "High" profits could be randomly sporadic and more challenging to predict, but yield high returns that tank hard after 200 units or so, and then perhaps don't necessarily bounce back in that location."
I would suggest a model more like this:
A Fast tanking route should be giving 1.2m per XC load profit and after selling each XC load - it should decrease 200k profit
So basically you will get 1.2m for 1st XC , 1m for 2nd , 800k for 3rd , 600k for 4th , 400k for 5th , 200k for 6th
That would be for the heavy hard to haul long distance stuff, with lighter stuff being less, and shorter trips also being less profitable.
A universe wide Jettison cargo price reveal sounds, cool enough, or perhaps have option to select a system or a nation's space (including grey)
My only worry with that is that currently us traders have plugins that collect this data and we have to do work to obtain it. With the suggested system the info would also be available to the pirates who would then know where to intercept us. Currently I don't believe the pirates are bothering to collect trade data and find out the location of the juicy routes which gives us a little wiggle room to avoid them.
Something like that may still be cool. This "shared awareness" would help out newer players who don't have an established universe wide, price moth system already in place.
Maybe instead of equipment to be able to access this info it could be a combination of trade license and standings that allow you to see this data. This hopefully would reduce the ability of pirates to easily obtain the data either because they have poor standings or they can not just make an alt with low levels to access this data. At least they would have to work for it. (Still a bit leery of this I know some pirates have high trade level and good standings (/me looks at Skinwalker - - at least he can be reasoned with through credits :-) )
Another thing, currently the trade report or the the lists you see of things the station wants don't really bring very good profits. To the point that most of us experienced traders just ignore them. What if these were to be more accurate in steering us towards routes that are actually medium to high profits?
Another idea is this: in the game "Mount and Blade Bannerlord 2" when you mouse over stuff that is for sale it shows you the best buy and sell prices for that item in all the places you have recently been. So you would in VO have to travel around a bit 1st docking in stations to start to collect the trade data that would then steer you toward good profits
Also +1 to making mining more profitable
A Fast tanking route should be giving 1.2m per XC load profit and after selling each XC load - it should decrease 200k profit
That isn't really what I'm describing. A fast-tanking route would tank quickly. But it would probably be more profitable than what you outline, as well.
It would essentially be a one-off, but they would pop up periodically all over the place; they would also likely increase in number based on trader activity, so it could scale with game population.
My only worry with that is that currently us traders have plugins that collect this data and we have to do work to obtain it. With the suggested system the info would also be available to the pirates who would then know where to intercept us.
The current system with plugins and pre-created characters / guild-organization also creates a big have-vs-have-not problem with new players, which isn't a good thing.
But, yes, I fundamentally don't have a problem with revealing route-profit information to pirates. That fits with how the game is intended to work, with an equal playing field.
That isn't really what I'm describing. A fast-tanking route would tank quickly. But it would probably be more profitable than what you outline, as well.
It would essentially be a one-off, but they would pop up periodically all over the place; they would also likely increase in number based on trader activity, so it could scale with game population.
My only worry with that is that currently us traders have plugins that collect this data and we have to do work to obtain it. With the suggested system the info would also be available to the pirates who would then know where to intercept us.
The current system with plugins and pre-created characters / guild-organization also creates a big have-vs-have-not problem with new players, which isn't a good thing.
But, yes, I fundamentally don't have a problem with revealing route-profit information to pirates. That fits with how the game is intended to work, with an equal playing field.
So I have been playing Elite Dangerous for a while, and it has some insanely good player made public tools that report on trade data in thousands of systems, completely relying on players to gather the data. While this is pretty cool, in a proper dynamic economy, this means people rush at profitable trade routes and dry it all up. This did not happen in ED because goods demand and supply never moved, nor did prices(These change through daily "ticks" and background simulations, in-game events).
They implemented a proper "dynamic" economy for a few goods(Very high-value stuff that was traded en masse earlier for game-breaking profits) and it resulted in almost all stations exhausting supply/demand of said goods, and very bad sell rates. One of these goods (Tritium) was fuel for large capital ships, causing them to come to a halt. The only thing that prevented even a worse crisis was the fact that it was a minable commodity along with being sold in stations.
Now my point is, Latos has an entirely dynamic system. People can already pretty quickly tank routes, and a dynamic system with a galaxy-wide tool that reports on these prices would result in people drying up goods faster than what stations in Latos currently supply(even more so with people trading in 1200 units at a time). Almost all commodities are dependent on stations to produce them magically, so there's really no other way to procure them.
My suggestion for a situation that might arise(It could also be very different from ED's), is based on Incs ideas of good types.
"High" profit goods should be kept at their current supply levels, should tank fast, but the economy should be able to generate new routes quick enough(possibly in the opposite side of the 'verse) so that these routes don't end up benefitting a few people who have access to ships with high cargo capacity and access to better tools. These goods should also not be limited to only weapons, it could very well be Heliocene/Pentric, or holodisks/synthetic diamonds.
Another thing that could be associated with these goods is a "Quantity tax"(a modified version of something that exists in elite). What this does, is reduces your profits by a significant amount if you try to trade more than X unit of items(cargo in hold + in storage) at a time. X is an amount that decreases as more units of the item are traded at a station. X could start with a decent proportion of a behemoth/goliaths capacity, and tank quickly to something more comparable to a centaur.
What this achieves is, people with all sizes of ships can capitulate on a route before it tanks completely. Someone with a behemoth would be forced to move on after a couple of trades, due to diminishing demand. This also prevents "hoarders" from just stocking goods and quickly tanking routes.
"Low-Medium" routes should be commodities that are basic necessities(Not weapons or luxury goods). These should have a much higher supply(more than what the player base could exhaust, or maybe infinite?) & demand and very low tanking. Actual supply decreases from large capitol stations to further out greyspace stations, with increasing profits(more than what exists from hauling something like Dried Meat to greyspace rn).
As for better tools, the only thing needed IMO is being able to view sell prices of a commodity at a station without having to haul it to that place, instead of a universal trade sheet. People would still have to travel around, but VO is small enough to not let that be a problem. This would allow for more interesting gameplay as players could group up and collectively gather data a lot easier than having to join guilds to have access to it. This also prevents the pirate issue rolf mentioned, as they too would have to scout for these routes.
Not having access to universal trade data could be explained by the fact that only our ships are capable of faster-than-light travel, and not information(barring public chat channels which would be too hindering).
As for the values(prices, supply/demand) is something only in-game statistics could answer. Though they should take into account the massive credit sink building a capital ship, as you don't want to end up hauling just so can haul even more.
They implemented a proper "dynamic" economy for a few goods(Very high-value stuff that was traded en masse earlier for game-breaking profits) and it resulted in almost all stations exhausting supply/demand of said goods, and very bad sell rates. One of these goods (Tritium) was fuel for large capital ships, causing them to come to a halt. The only thing that prevented even a worse crisis was the fact that it was a minable commodity along with being sold in stations.
Now my point is, Latos has an entirely dynamic system. People can already pretty quickly tank routes, and a dynamic system with a galaxy-wide tool that reports on these prices would result in people drying up goods faster than what stations in Latos currently supply(even more so with people trading in 1200 units at a time). Almost all commodities are dependent on stations to produce them magically, so there's really no other way to procure them.
My suggestion for a situation that might arise(It could also be very different from ED's), is based on Incs ideas of good types.
"High" profit goods should be kept at their current supply levels, should tank fast, but the economy should be able to generate new routes quick enough(possibly in the opposite side of the 'verse) so that these routes don't end up benefitting a few people who have access to ships with high cargo capacity and access to better tools. These goods should also not be limited to only weapons, it could very well be Heliocene/Pentric, or holodisks/synthetic diamonds.
Another thing that could be associated with these goods is a "Quantity tax"(a modified version of something that exists in elite). What this does, is reduces your profits by a significant amount if you try to trade more than X unit of items(cargo in hold + in storage) at a time. X is an amount that decreases as more units of the item are traded at a station. X could start with a decent proportion of a behemoth/goliaths capacity, and tank quickly to something more comparable to a centaur.
What this achieves is, people with all sizes of ships can capitulate on a route before it tanks completely. Someone with a behemoth would be forced to move on after a couple of trades, due to diminishing demand. This also prevents "hoarders" from just stocking goods and quickly tanking routes.
"Low-Medium" routes should be commodities that are basic necessities(Not weapons or luxury goods). These should have a much higher supply(more than what the player base could exhaust, or maybe infinite?) & demand and very low tanking. Actual supply decreases from large capitol stations to further out greyspace stations, with increasing profits(more than what exists from hauling something like Dried Meat to greyspace rn).
As for better tools, the only thing needed IMO is being able to view sell prices of a commodity at a station without having to haul it to that place, instead of a universal trade sheet. People would still have to travel around, but VO is small enough to not let that be a problem. This would allow for more interesting gameplay as players could group up and collectively gather data a lot easier than having to join guilds to have access to it. This also prevents the pirate issue rolf mentioned, as they too would have to scout for these routes.
Not having access to universal trade data could be explained by the fact that only our ships are capable of faster-than-light travel, and not information(barring public chat channels which would be too hindering).
As for the values(prices, supply/demand) is something only in-game statistics could answer. Though they should take into account the massive credit sink building a capital ship, as you don't want to end up hauling just so can haul even more.
The feedback you receive here shouldn't be skewed towards non-combatants. The economic model as it stands in VO may indeed prejudice miners against traders/haulers (I would tend to agree that it does do this), so no issues here so far.
However, this pales enormously in comparison to the undervaluing the model is doing for combatants and those who wish to play profitably as providers of security, escorts, bounty hunters etc. VO also seriously lacks a pirate ship that has a massive cargo capacity - meaning pirates have limited options for serious moneymaking by stealing cargo, and therefore have limited their gameplay for years to protection racketeering. Only the serious roleplayers with roleplay dedication actually play cargo-seeking pirates - a truly great shame.
Refactoring of how much profit per hour should be made should be viewed through the lens of the relative costs of things - and not just capships. Currently, the profits you can make are absurdly high relative to the cost of top tier ships, weapons and other items. As a result, there is a lot of content that has fallen into complete disuse because its economic advantages are irrelevant. The best example is a Vulture Mk III - a very capable ship that is never used because the advantages of an SVG or a Corvult make it obselete despite its respectable stats.
I emphasise that comparison to prices of Tridents or Goliath parts or a 'credits per hour' rating provides a limited view, and seems to be founded on the assumption that every account should be building these things.
The better view is that, when done with a high degree of skill, any of the various roles can provide economic success. It might be fair that the richest trader is slightly richer than the richest captain of the Serco or Itani military after fighting all day in Deneb. However, currently the difference is absurd. We're talking about the trader making 10-100x more profit. The same problem exists when you compare mining to trading/hauling. But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
Incarnate if you agree that combat should not be left behind in the discussion, we need to collect a list of combat related rewards/values so they can be tweaked to align with discussions on reasonable haulage per hour. These are things like kill rewards for deneb kills, credit rewards for hive skirms, kill credits while escorting, player bounties etc etc.
However, this pales enormously in comparison to the undervaluing the model is doing for combatants and those who wish to play profitably as providers of security, escorts, bounty hunters etc. VO also seriously lacks a pirate ship that has a massive cargo capacity - meaning pirates have limited options for serious moneymaking by stealing cargo, and therefore have limited their gameplay for years to protection racketeering. Only the serious roleplayers with roleplay dedication actually play cargo-seeking pirates - a truly great shame.
Refactoring of how much profit per hour should be made should be viewed through the lens of the relative costs of things - and not just capships. Currently, the profits you can make are absurdly high relative to the cost of top tier ships, weapons and other items. As a result, there is a lot of content that has fallen into complete disuse because its economic advantages are irrelevant. The best example is a Vulture Mk III - a very capable ship that is never used because the advantages of an SVG or a Corvult make it obselete despite its respectable stats.
I emphasise that comparison to prices of Tridents or Goliath parts or a 'credits per hour' rating provides a limited view, and seems to be founded on the assumption that every account should be building these things.
The better view is that, when done with a high degree of skill, any of the various roles can provide economic success. It might be fair that the richest trader is slightly richer than the richest captain of the Serco or Itani military after fighting all day in Deneb. However, currently the difference is absurd. We're talking about the trader making 10-100x more profit. The same problem exists when you compare mining to trading/hauling. But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
Incarnate if you agree that combat should not be left behind in the discussion, we need to collect a list of combat related rewards/values so they can be tweaked to align with discussions on reasonable haulage per hour. These are things like kill rewards for deneb kills, credit rewards for hive skirms, kill credits while escorting, player bounties etc etc.
On a separate topic, Incarante wrote: It might be that better visibility of routes would help people use the routes that are already there more effectively, and then we can also continue to tweak and adjust the actual economy itself.
No that will not help at all - these players complaining are from TGFT. That guild is popular because it has a trade plugin that uses a relay with a third party webserver to distribute trade data every time one of its pilots using the plugins goes to a station.
As a result, the TGFT pilots already have full visibility over the prices of goods and a trade calculator showing all the routes. If you would like a copy of the most recent database collected by this plugin TGFT as well as the plugin, I would be happy to arrange these for your inspection.
On the other hand, maybe making plugins like these ones redundant is of broader benefit to the game. Most traders join TGFT because of this plugin which does all the homework on the most profitable routes in the game thanks to crowdsourced data of the hundreds of players. These are the same players that (largely - some exceptions of course) want to maximise the credits per hour for the sake of doing so.
The metagame here is quite progressed - traders have plenty to do. Roflor can relax after work making 5 mil per hour, rather than 20. On the other hand, pilots who come home from work and want to wind down with some combat cant if they have to wait until they get a few hours to haul cargo in order to make credits from doing so. These players just dont log in.
No that will not help at all - these players complaining are from TGFT. That guild is popular because it has a trade plugin that uses a relay with a third party webserver to distribute trade data every time one of its pilots using the plugins goes to a station.
As a result, the TGFT pilots already have full visibility over the prices of goods and a trade calculator showing all the routes. If you would like a copy of the most recent database collected by this plugin TGFT as well as the plugin, I would be happy to arrange these for your inspection.
On the other hand, maybe making plugins like these ones redundant is of broader benefit to the game. Most traders join TGFT because of this plugin which does all the homework on the most profitable routes in the game thanks to crowdsourced data of the hundreds of players. These are the same players that (largely - some exceptions of course) want to maximise the credits per hour for the sake of doing so.
The metagame here is quite progressed - traders have plenty to do. Roflor can relax after work making 5 mil per hour, rather than 20. On the other hand, pilots who come home from work and want to wind down with some combat cant if they have to wait until they get a few hours to haul cargo in order to make credits from doing so. These players just dont log in.
I've always thought that the addition of Player Bounties would be interesting. The mechanics of it might be the challenge, but I'd suggest something like having a Corvus Marshal be the go-between. Then you do a /givemoney-like transaction. Maybe /createbounty
/createbounty "*Marshal Corvus Guy" 10000000 YT-1300
Then any valid bounty hunter that makes the kill anywhere in the verse gets the payout. That's probably a lot of coding, but if enough players put a bounty on the same person, it can add up. A bunch of micro bounties sum up to a nice haul.
I can see a lot of combat-related game-play occurring with something like this. And surely the backend coding would be easy-peasy for Ray <wink>.
"Only the serious roleplayers with roleplay dedication actually play cargo-seeking pirates"
All your cargo are belong to us.
/createbounty "*Marshal Corvus Guy" 10000000 YT-1300
Then any valid bounty hunter that makes the kill anywhere in the verse gets the payout. That's probably a lot of coding, but if enough players put a bounty on the same person, it can add up. A bunch of micro bounties sum up to a nice haul.
I can see a lot of combat-related game-play occurring with something like this. And surely the backend coding would be easy-peasy for Ray <wink>.
"Only the serious roleplayers with roleplay dedication actually play cargo-seeking pirates"
All your cargo are belong to us.
VO also seriously lacks a pirate ship that has a massive cargo capacity - meaning pirates have limited options for serious moneymaking by stealing cargo, and therefore have limited their gameplay for years to protection racketeering. Only the serious roleplayers with roleplay dedication actually play cargo-seeking pirates - a truly great shame.
I don't think piracy should be something done for money-making, at least I do it for the fun of killing and not for the money. Anyway, piracy is supposed to be tough, you can't expect to make credits comparable to a trader just by looting them. You have to kill them, AND carry their cargo to a station. As for a pirate dedicated ship, what do you have in mind? A goliath can do just that. Park it nearby and use it to haul cargo.
But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
I agree, most combat activities pay way too less compared to what a trident pilot can make trading. Deneb shouldn't necessarily pay as much as trading, but the disparity is way too high, without any other benefits. I don't think buffing Deneb payout is the answer though, nor would nerfing trading do much. It's a combat activity, and it's payout should be related to it. Maybe good progress in Deneb results in discounts on ships and weapons in nation stations? Or something along that line. That's for a different suggestion though.
No that will not help at all - these players complaining are from TGFT. That guild is popular because it has a trade plugin that uses a relay with a third party webserver to distribute trade data every time one of its pilots using the plugins goes to a station.
I think you are limiting your view to only TGFT players. They are not the only traders in the game. Better tools might not help them, but it would certainly help someone who has just joined and doesn't want to bother himself with guilds.
On the other hand, pilots who come home from work and want to wind down with some combat cant if they have to wait until they get a few hours to haul cargo in order to make credits from doing so. These players just dont log in.
You only need a few hours of trading to pretty much fund a week's worth of PvP, assuming you do it(PvP) a couple of hours a day.
@Skinwalker
The bounty thing would be cool but there's really no incentive for the bounty issuer to do it. It's also pretty exploitable with an alt/sep. account or a friend.
I don't think piracy should be something done for money-making, at least I do it for the fun of killing and not for the money. Anyway, piracy is supposed to be tough, you can't expect to make credits comparable to a trader just by looting them. You have to kill them, AND carry their cargo to a station. As for a pirate dedicated ship, what do you have in mind? A goliath can do just that. Park it nearby and use it to haul cargo.
But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
I agree, most combat activities pay way too less compared to what a trident pilot can make trading. Deneb shouldn't necessarily pay as much as trading, but the disparity is way too high, without any other benefits. I don't think buffing Deneb payout is the answer though, nor would nerfing trading do much. It's a combat activity, and it's payout should be related to it. Maybe good progress in Deneb results in discounts on ships and weapons in nation stations? Or something along that line. That's for a different suggestion though.
No that will not help at all - these players complaining are from TGFT. That guild is popular because it has a trade plugin that uses a relay with a third party webserver to distribute trade data every time one of its pilots using the plugins goes to a station.
I think you are limiting your view to only TGFT players. They are not the only traders in the game. Better tools might not help them, but it would certainly help someone who has just joined and doesn't want to bother himself with guilds.
On the other hand, pilots who come home from work and want to wind down with some combat cant if they have to wait until they get a few hours to haul cargo in order to make credits from doing so. These players just dont log in.
You only need a few hours of trading to pretty much fund a week's worth of PvP, assuming you do it(PvP) a couple of hours a day.
@Skinwalker
The bounty thing would be cool but there's really no incentive for the bounty issuer to do it. It's also pretty exploitable with an alt/sep. account or a friend.
Man there are a lot of tangential discussions happening here.
My 2c is that approaching the adjustment of the game economy from the OP's perspective is totally arbitrary. The determinative answer to "what's a good amount of money to make?" should only be "how much do things cost?"
While I don't agree with everything TRS said, he makes some very good points, namely:
But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
i.e. tweaking trade route mechanics and profits and ignoring the other significant gameplay styles whose economic consideration has long been ignored is folly.
That's not to say anyone actually expects a comprehensive, wide sweeping overhaul of the economy to be done all at once, and trade routes *are* a piece of that puzzle to be sorted out. They just certainly aren't the only piece, as the OP might suggest.
My view is that trade route pricing should be adjusted based on certain indicators in the PLAYER DRIVEN economy. The player driven side shows where the real money is actually being spent in pursuit of gameplay, which seems to make more sense given VO is an MMORPG last I checked, and not a single-player trading game.
For example, we could determine how much profit one could make off of selling (P2P) 1 hour worth of goods acquired by various non-trading activities (arklan farming, mining, manufacturing, hauling, escort, etc), average it out, and then essentially dynamically "match" by some appropriate ratio the trade route pricing to it. Profitability across gameplay styles would then be more equitable, and the problem TRS mentioned above would be less significant; combat-centered pilots could spend less time generating income via trades to get enough money to support their preferred gameplay.
It's just one approach. But if you try to jimmy the economy without paying attention to how much players are paying for stuff from each other, you are just wasting your time.
My 2c is that approaching the adjustment of the game economy from the OP's perspective is totally arbitrary. The determinative answer to "what's a good amount of money to make?" should only be "how much do things cost?"
While I don't agree with everything TRS said, he makes some very good points, namely:
But again, when Vendetta has such a large content focus on combat content, it's a great disservice to the game to have the economics of combat and security completely forgotten.
i.e. tweaking trade route mechanics and profits and ignoring the other significant gameplay styles whose economic consideration has long been ignored is folly.
That's not to say anyone actually expects a comprehensive, wide sweeping overhaul of the economy to be done all at once, and trade routes *are* a piece of that puzzle to be sorted out. They just certainly aren't the only piece, as the OP might suggest.
My view is that trade route pricing should be adjusted based on certain indicators in the PLAYER DRIVEN economy. The player driven side shows where the real money is actually being spent in pursuit of gameplay, which seems to make more sense given VO is an MMORPG last I checked, and not a single-player trading game.
For example, we could determine how much profit one could make off of selling (P2P) 1 hour worth of goods acquired by various non-trading activities (arklan farming, mining, manufacturing, hauling, escort, etc), average it out, and then essentially dynamically "match" by some appropriate ratio the trade route pricing to it. Profitability across gameplay styles would then be more equitable, and the problem TRS mentioned above would be less significant; combat-centered pilots could spend less time generating income via trades to get enough money to support their preferred gameplay.
It's just one approach. But if you try to jimmy the economy without paying attention to how much players are paying for stuff from each other, you are just wasting your time.
I have a suggestion that might make some of these ideas doable.
Consider using the faction and rewards system that is in place to expand on the idea of player roles. It is common in MMOs that a player may select something like a class for their character. This is not really applicable to VO directly but the idea is. We need only to decide what are the most common character roles used in VO (these are pretty obvious).
We can then use the faction system in place (or other mechanisms) to allow players to follow a path that will lead them to a particular title. A "trader" gets benefits related to trade and loses benefits related to anything that is the antithesis of it. A "pirate", "miner", "soldier"..etc... This is essentially a voluntary class system for player characters. A pirate shouldn't need to mine faster, or get more money for their ores... a trader shouldn't get discounts or availability on pirate class ships.. a Soldier shouldn't get trading and mining perks...all of this could happen by picking up a certain mission tree.
The important thing is to keep it so that you can only be one class at a time, perhaps you can change but it should take a considerable amount of time (this applies to real life as well).
This could go a long way toward making the economy more easy to tune and balance. It would also make a way for built in features that are unique to the classes and remove the need for certain plugins and/or make many of them obsolete altogether. It would also allow you to reward certain behaviors that are specific to a class, instead of trying to create a generic reward that anyone can use or abuse.
Soldier,
Trader,
Miner,
Pirate,
Builder,
In the long term these could be even subclassed for further perks with narrower application:
Soldier - bounty Hunter
Trader - Arms dealer
Miner - Hazard specialist (perks for mining dangerous areas)
Pirate - Ruthless killer (rewards for every kill) or cargo specialist (perk to instantly move any free floating crate straight to station)
Builder - Weapons and components or Capships... perhaps the capship subclass always has access to conq stations.. etc
These are just ideas but it seems that the discussion on this thread seems to skirt around a class system. Class systems are used in most MMOs to address the balance issues that we are discussing here. VO's would be unique because it would be the only twitch based space MMO with such a thing.
Consider using the faction and rewards system that is in place to expand on the idea of player roles. It is common in MMOs that a player may select something like a class for their character. This is not really applicable to VO directly but the idea is. We need only to decide what are the most common character roles used in VO (these are pretty obvious).
We can then use the faction system in place (or other mechanisms) to allow players to follow a path that will lead them to a particular title. A "trader" gets benefits related to trade and loses benefits related to anything that is the antithesis of it. A "pirate", "miner", "soldier"..etc... This is essentially a voluntary class system for player characters. A pirate shouldn't need to mine faster, or get more money for their ores... a trader shouldn't get discounts or availability on pirate class ships.. a Soldier shouldn't get trading and mining perks...all of this could happen by picking up a certain mission tree.
The important thing is to keep it so that you can only be one class at a time, perhaps you can change but it should take a considerable amount of time (this applies to real life as well).
This could go a long way toward making the economy more easy to tune and balance. It would also make a way for built in features that are unique to the classes and remove the need for certain plugins and/or make many of them obsolete altogether. It would also allow you to reward certain behaviors that are specific to a class, instead of trying to create a generic reward that anyone can use or abuse.
Soldier,
Trader,
Miner,
Pirate,
Builder,
In the long term these could be even subclassed for further perks with narrower application:
Soldier - bounty Hunter
Trader - Arms dealer
Miner - Hazard specialist (perks for mining dangerous areas)
Pirate - Ruthless killer (rewards for every kill) or cargo specialist (perk to instantly move any free floating crate straight to station)
Builder - Weapons and components or Capships... perhaps the capship subclass always has access to conq stations.. etc
These are just ideas but it seems that the discussion on this thread seems to skirt around a class system. Class systems are used in most MMOs to address the balance issues that we are discussing here. VO's would be unique because it would be the only twitch based space MMO with such a thing.
I think exposing profitable trade routes without using plugins would be a great start. This seems like it would just simplify the whole trading system in a healthy way.
Allowing pirates to see them sounds like a pretty fair trade off as well, as there would still be ample opportunity for profits. Obviously pirates would likely look out for those highly profitable routes, which would make them potentially more costly to traders. Increasing risk/reward analysis is, more often than not, pretty interesting. Pirates would also likely not spend too much time on the lower profitable routes.
I've always been of the opinion that if there is some functionality that a plugin is serving that is of benefit to the entire community, and that plugin can be easily implemented in a meaningful way into the game itself, that likely should be done. Revealing trade routes in some kind of meaningful way seems to fit that.
Allowing pirates to see them sounds like a pretty fair trade off as well, as there would still be ample opportunity for profits. Obviously pirates would likely look out for those highly profitable routes, which would make them potentially more costly to traders. Increasing risk/reward analysis is, more often than not, pretty interesting. Pirates would also likely not spend too much time on the lower profitable routes.
I've always been of the opinion that if there is some functionality that a plugin is serving that is of benefit to the entire community, and that plugin can be easily implemented in a meaningful way into the game itself, that likely should be done. Revealing trade routes in some kind of meaningful way seems to fit that.