Commodities

[dHay]

I may be missing something, but the buying and selling of commodities seems to have a few, umm, issues.

The commodity list shows systems that have no where to buy or sell. Like asteroid only systems....
(Like Fedolo.) Or systems with no bases with spaceports. Which could increase one's frustration when you've got a ship loaded with Silver Corn Containers, and no where to sell them....

I also have trouble finding the current system in the list. Generally you are interested in the current system for what to buy and where to sell it.

[Drake113]

Well, the commodity list only list places within three jumps of your current system, so in the case of stuff where there are sellers and no buyers listed, that's most likely because there's nobody within a 3 system radius that's buying that item.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by dHay:
The commodity list shows systems that have no where to buy or sell. Like asteroid only systems....<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sounds like a bug... I'll go report it.

[dHay]

Originally posted by Drake113:
Well, the commodity list only list places within three jumps of your current system, so in the case of stuff where there are sellers and no buyers listed, that's most likely because there's nobody within a 3 system radius that's buying that item. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I realize that. But it lists systems that can't buy or sell because there is no spaceport to trade at.

The list is also just a little hard to use.

[Sivran]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Sounds like a bug... I'll go report it. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Definitely a bug, I noticed it too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Edit: Er, also, I bought some commodities in Yorkshire for 101 credits each. After discovering Fedolo was uninhabited, I warped to Wanduk, figuring I'd drop off the commods there, hopefully for no loss. When I got to the Terran Listening Post in Wanduk, some of the commods sold for 175, the rest for 101. Maybe it's a demand thing, but Wanduk wasn't listed on the commodity listing page when I stopped at New Texas on the way to Fedolo.

[ February 19, 2004, 22:15: Message edited by: Sivran ]

[Hok]

My opinion is that I really don't understand why commodities where added to the game at all!

I mean, THIS way.

Everybody says that you make more money by shooting down enemy ships and savaging the cargo.

Even if you don't like that you can ship cargo on request by the various guilds.

So tell me why should anyone do commerce that way?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

1) You don't have a better profit
2) It's more difficult to sell things
3) You don't take mission experience points!

[Phoenix-D]

You could make it so commodity trading has a better profit, if you wanted. Its more a feature for mods than the main game..now only if I could figure it out.

[Ed Kolis]

Yeah... imagine what would happen if you made the regular ship components (i.e. the ones you install) also commodities - so Incinerator Beams might be AVAILABLE in Terran space, but at a very high price and low occurrence - and you could make quite a profit shuttling them over from the Fazrah! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Phoenix-D]

Good idea. Do you know how to do it? I can't seem to find anything that affects where commodities can be found or their rareity.

[Ed Kolis]

Commodities are sold just the same as any other component, remember? So presumably if you just take the stock components and set their "Is Commodity" flag to TRUE, then they should behave like commodities, except they'll appear with their normal rarity and location http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hmm, looks like it's time for a mod... (digs out SJ's store modder and promptly gets nowhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

Darn, that won't work... there's no way to control the price of a commodity at a particular location - it's set in the component file, not the store file! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[cpt. taylor of the eclipse]

so is there a way to set thier occerence?

[cpt. taylor of the eclipse]

is there a way to change the price varable

[dHay]

Originally posted by cpt. taylor of the eclipse:

so is there a way to set thier occerence?
is there a way to change the price varable <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, it seems not. You should be able to change the base price of the component in Main_Components.txt, but there does not seem to be any way to change the system behaviour of the commodities.

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
You could make it so commodity trading has a better profit, if you wanted. Its more a feature for mods than the main game..now only if I could figure it out. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm trying to figure out how you can use it.
It seems that the only controls are "Is Commodity" and "Base Credit Value" in Component.txt.

I can't find anything that controls the system value of a Commodity, or its occurrence. Which leads me to believe that it is calculated by the game by some randomized algorithm. Which would make it very hard to control from a Mod point of view. Sigh.

I am sadly left with the conclusion that it is a not quite well thought out addition. However, it does leave the option to be made more usable in a future release.

[Phoenix-D]

Back to square one, it seems. Or at least making "race generic" commodities.

Hmm. You could have a sort of trading system with events. Say a planet with the following sites..

Trade A
Trade B
Trade C
Trade D
Trace Listings

Going into A-D does nothing..by itself. If you go into Trade Listings it pops up text telling you what the other areas are buying/selling. Its techniclly a Spacedock area, so you buy a component labeled "Buy A 1" or "Sell A 5" or both.

If you go in with "Buy A X" it removes credits from your accout and adds X components to your hold. If you go in with Sell it does the opposite; of course the sites could be buying or selling different items at any given time.

This could also let what they're buying and selling vary over time, even if it is a bit of a clunky workaround.