Big Problem: intra-system trade needs to be fixed!

[Gavinfoxx]

Hi... I had a nice cargo run I did in the original privateer to make lots of money...

It used some exploits, to be sure, but I'm pretty sure Origin put them there intentionally so we would be able to do this; even with the exploits, it still took a LOT of work, and thus was still good gameplay and very rewarding.

I would do a cargo run from New Detroit in New Detroit to the Shiva mining base in Rikel, one jump away. The way this worked, you can easily see in here:

http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/ ... modity.txt

You would either save and reload or launch and re-dock to reset the base... and, while in New Detroit, you would buy Mining Equipment (which is strangely absent from New Detroit in remake) or Construction, making sure you bought it at under 85 credits each, until you had a full cargo hold or as close as possible. Then, you would fly to Rikel, and sell that, making sure you sold it for at least 125 credits, giving you a potential profit per cargo space of about 68 credits. Then, at Rikel, you would buy either uranium and tungsten, if you were low on cash, or gems and plutonium, if you weren't. With the Tungsten, you bought at 65 credits or under (and sold at New Detroit for 125 credits or over), for a maximum profit of 84 credits a piece. With Uranium, you bought only when it was 415 credits or under, and sold in New Detroit when it was 535 or over, for a maximum potential profit of 148 a piece. For the Plutonium, you bought 970 or under, and sold in New Detroit for 1185 or over, for a maximum potential profit of 248 per unit. For Gems, you bought them at 915 or under, and sold them in New Detroit for 1165 or over, for a maximum potential profit of 278.

Now, this is sort of possible in 1.2, except that the prices for the goods dont deviate, and instead of launching and landing to reset, you HAVE to save and load to reset the base... and the best route is buying construction at New Detroit for 70 (it never changes) and selling it at the mining base for 105 (it never changes) for only 35 credit profit each! ugh! terrible. and whats this? Lets check the rest... Uranium you buy for 400 and sells for 499 (no variation), for a profit of 99... Plutonium buys for 945 and sells for 1014 for a profit of 69... WORSE than Uranium... gems buy for 901 and sell for 1016, for a profit of 115...

Lets see, a galaxy with 225 units of gems only gets a net profit of 25875 per run!! terrible... down from a max potential of 62550 in the original privateer, which made doing this worthwhile -- at least more so than normal merchant missions... this sort of trade is supposed tobe REALLY worth it for the people who do their homework and figure out the details of this part of the game, which, in Remake, it isn't...

*sighs*

What would it take to fix the trade system?

[Gavinfoxx]

Alright... some more cargo bugs, this time with cargo missions...

1.) The game will let you get more cargo missions than you have room for; this causes a few bugs... and when you dont have that, you get OTHER bugs... example:

Trying to bypass the first bug, I got three cargo missions, making sure I was in a Galaxy with cargo expansion so I could do them all. They were all from Junction to the one planet in Shangri-La. After I got all three, I still had cargo space left over. At this point, all the cargo was red mission cargo -- though the two stocks of pets were one 50 unit stock. I left the planet to make sure, once again, that all the missions took. Checking the in flight mission info that popped up, they all took Oddly, it said I had two missions with 17 units of pets, though my manifest said I had 50. curious. I flew to the base, and immediately got paid for one of hte missions on landing. checking the commodity exchange, I saw I had 16 units of food (down from around 33....) and 46 units of pets, down from 50, neither of which were mission cargo, both of which I could sell for cash. I knew that selling these would make the other two missions that didnt get accomplished when I landed failed, so I launched, got two more mission accomplished messages, didnt get any of the cash for them though. landed, and still no cash for them. Then I sold the cargo for a miniscule amount of cash.

Strange, no?

[Gavinfoxx]

Alright, I tried another cargo run... this time with from Oxford to the one refinery in Newcastle. One cargo of books from the Merchant's guild for 60000, one cargo of Generic Foods from the mission computer for 40000. The cargo loads fine, everything is mission cargo when I leave oxford... but when I get to the refinery (and I rushed), I checked and a small amount of each cargo had been taken out of my hold, and both were now sellable. So I left the station, and checked, and it said I had been rewarded as agreed for both... so I checked my money, and I had 35000. I then proceeded to sell the rest of the cargo for a miniscule amount of money...

[Gavinfoxx]

Getting fairly angry at this, I decided to do one last test.

I found the single biggest paying merchant guild mission I could, and ran it.

It worked perfectly.

[chuck_starchaser]

You could try GG, that mod is a lot closer to the original.
I prefer it this way myself; makes the game last a bit longer.

[z30]

Lets see, a galaxy with 225 units of gems only gets a net profit of 25875 per run!! terrible... down from a max potential of 62550 in the original privateer, which made doing this worthwhile -- at least more so than normal merchant missions... this sort of trade is supposed tobe REALLY worth it for the people who do their homework and figure out the details of this part of the game, which, in Remake, it isn't...

*sighs*

What would it take to fix the trade system?

The original Privateer would only let you take one mission at a time from the Merchant's guild, forcing you to utilize the extra cargo space using the method you described. In PR stacking 3 guild/computer cargo missions are the way to go,enabling you to accumulate credits pretty quickly.

One way to fix it is adjust the News so that it announces dire commodity shortages in specific systems and planets, prices would automatically go up 2-3x normal rates for the duration of the emergency. This would make the bulletins something to really monitor.

[Silverain]

The original Privateer would only let you take one mission at a time from the Merchant's guild, forcing you to utilize the extra cargo space using the method you described.

Not quite. You could take up to 3 cargo missions, provided that all three were to the same planet destination. It was a problem only if took multiple cargo missions to different destinations, since landing was the trigger point for success or failure of a cargo mission.

@Gavinfoxx

1.) The game will let you get more cargo missions than you have room for; this causes a few bugs... and when you dont have that, you get OTHER bugs... example:

Correct, but if you do not the cargo space, you will automatically fail the mission.

[Gavinfoxx]

Correct, but if you do not the cargo space, you will automatically fail the mission.

in PR 1.2, it fails you AFTER you leave the dock. this causes numerous problems. in GG, it simply doesnt let you accept the mission and have it be in your active missions display while still in base, which helps prevent MANY problems...

[Gavinfoxx]

A question: how much money is one *supposed to make, as a maximum* by moving from one base to another?

Here's what I would say. Lets say I am in a mining base somewhere that has a merchant's guild post, and I wanted to make a lot of money in one go. Here's what I would do, in a completely working game...

I would check the merchant's guild and the mission computer for any cargo missions that look likely. Ideally, these missions would mention how much cargo I would be shipping, to what sort of base or planet, and *which* base or planet they would go to. I would be able to check, while in the base, where these locations are on a navcomp. Lets say I decide that I want to fly to New Detroit. Then, I try and find a few cargo missions that pay fairly well that go there. Using the save/load trick, I am able to get, say, two missions from the Merchant's guild and one mission from the mission computer that go to New Detroit. These mission cargo take up, lets say 125 cargo space in my fully expanded Galaxy. Then, again using the save/load, I get some Uranium to fill out the rest of the cargo space in my hold. Then I fly to New Detroit, not stopping anywhere first. When I land, the mission cargo is automatically 100% removed, and I automatically, immediately get my money while still on the base. Then, I go to the commodity exchange, and since I knew I was going to the right type of base, I sell what I bought and make even more money.

This, ideally, IMO, should be the legal merchant's way to make the most money in one run in the game -- no other way should surpass this... except perhaps this: in the original Privateer, a "perfect" Ultimate run (ie, you bought it at a pirate base at the lowest possible price [901] and sold it at New detroit at the highest possible price [1239], and you used a fully expanded galaxy to do it, all 225 of the space going to Ultimate) gave you exactly 76050 credits.

[Gavinfoxx]

So I picked up the game again after not playing it in forever. Are these cargo issues fixed? What is the main way to make lots of money nowadays?

I'm playing PU1.1b6-DSE.

So *is* there a decent cargo/trading way to make money relatively quickly then, other than doing missions?

[Melonhead]

Short answer: not yet, but you're not alone, and folks are working on it.

Privateer has the ability to vary the cargo prices and quantities using the variables in units.csv. As you noted, it's currently set up so there is basically no variation--it will change by a few tenths, at most. The primary problem is that there is only one setting for a particular commodity at a particular base, so the code determines where you "should" buy and "should" sell using a multiplier off a base price. The same field in units.csv also specifies how much cargo is available, how variable that amount is, and whether the base will accept that item at all.

I've been working my way through all the cargo items to figure out what prices make sense at each base. I have completed this stage. If there's interest, I can post my working draft Excel spreadsheet. (I had to use Excel versus .csv in order to keep the formatting.) The next step is just calculating the multipliers to get each price and play testing them for balance.

As part of this, I've also worked out new densities for each cargo type, based on real values. So, for example, 225 cubic meters of iron, tungsten, or uranium in your Galaxy's hold will affect your ship's handling a lot more than 225 cubic meters of plastic or wheat. Those values are contained in master_parts_list.csv; a version is posted in "Cargo and such," and feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Over in Vega Strike, there are folks working on a complete rewrite of the engine's economic system, but I'm unsure of the current status.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, most of what I want is a good cargo run that means you can make good money in the commodity trading with a fully expanded Galaxy... is there any existing trade route that does that in the current version?

[Dilloh]

I'm thinking about a "quick" economy change to make standard trading more profitable, e.g. lowering buying prices and raising selling prices. What about that, just as a first solution?

[Shissui]

I'm thinking about a "quick" economy change to make standard trading more profitable, e.g. lowering buying prices and raising selling prices. What about that, just as a first solution?

Yes -- as a quick fix, I think that it would help if the spreads were larger.
We all know this is not the *real* solution, but it will help in the short term.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm thinking about a "quick" economy change to make standard trading more profitable, e.g. lowering buying prices and raising selling prices. What about that, just as a first solution?

That would be awesome! and just what I was looking for!

[Dilloh]

I'd like to delegate that to Melonhead - would you agree to do this mate? You're most familiar with cargo stuff, and I suppose it won't affect units.csv?

[Zool]

From what I have read in Wikipedia on this, I think you would need to edit the price deviations in units.csv. The base prices are set in the master_part_list.csv. Maybe this will help.

[quote="Wikipedia"]
For the cargo_import column in units.csv, the entries are: {Cat; price%; pricestddev%; quant%; quantstddev%} eg. {Grain;1.88;0.18;0;0}

Cat[ = grain]; product name
price%[ = 1.88]; price adjustment for base type from basic price
pricestddev%[ =0.18]; price fluctuations
quant%[ = 0]; number of units available for purchase
quantstddev%[ = 0]; fluctuations in number of units for purchase

“Catâ€

[Dilloh]

In this case, we'll certainly have to delay it. Two people working on one file most likely will produce something missing later. You can coordinate with Melonhead if you want, but I'd suggest to wait for each others' final.

[Zool]

Oh Melonhead's quite welcome to carry on with out me. I know I said I was going to try and work something out a couple of months ago and after studying things for a while I decided to put MY efforts on the back-burner as I has a concept and couldn't figure out how to test what I thought of.

I only put that post from wikipedia in incase anyone wanted more information. I'm already working a walkthrough for thew Bonus Campaign, to help MAS out and the new ZR. That's enough for me for now.

[Melonhead]

The changes required for this initial round are all in units.csv, which I'm currently working on. They are all in the base/planet entries, so merging them with another units.csv shouldn't be too difficult (e.g. Parallel Universe updates). BTW, I have figured out how to add contraband, and updated the Wiki. You can have contraband for different factions (Confed, Militia, Retro currently), so that's something people might think about and offer suggestions on, if we want to make minor changes that could add to the fun.

There are a couple places that don't offer commodities that I think should. As already pointed out, New Detroit doesn't sell mining equipment. Neither does it sell plastics, robot servants, or robot workers. That doesn't make sense--it's the biggest industrial facility in the sector; it should make everything.

Also, New Constantinople doesn't sell movies. That doesn't make sense either, since New Con is sort of the cosmopolitan capital of Gemini. I would think that's where most movies, artwork, etc. get made.

Finally, I think holographics and home entertainment are reversed--holographic projectors should be sold cheaply at New Detroit; home entertainment 3D movies to play on them should be sold cheaply at New Constantinople.

Other than the mining equipment at ND, I don't know if these are just errors, or if the original game didn't have them either. I'll plan to make the changes, unless there are objections--for example, some of these changes might open up unbalancing trade routes that I've overlooked.

[Dilloh]

The changes required for this initial round are all in units.csv, which I'm currently working on. They are all in the base/planet entries, so merging them with another units.csv shouldn't be too difficult (e.g. Parallel Universe updates).

Since I'm not going to change too much within canonHUDs2.0, feel free to do whatever you like with units.csv, you only have to arrange yourself with Zool. My little changes can be implemented into the final merge.

BTW, I have figured out how to add contraband, and updated the Wiki. You can have contraband for different factions (Confed, Militia, Retro currently), so that's something people might think about and offer suggestions on, if we want to make minor changes that could add to the fun. Smile

Very nice - so there could be some stuff where the Confeds close their eyes while the Militia hunts you. Let's say weapons - sold on Perry for purpose to defend against cats, the Militia tracks any weapons transport down so that it cannot fall in pirate hands.
Oh, and thank you for updating the wiki. This is also an important cause for making the first steps in modding easier.

There are a couple places that don't offer commodities that I think should. As already pointed out, New Detroit doesn't sell mining equipment. Neither does it sell plastics, robot servants, or robot workers. That doesn't make sense--it's the biggest industrial facility in the sector; it should make everything.

Maybe New Detroit, due to its size, reliability and proximity to Perry has a contract with the feds. Most stuff doesn't even reach the local market for the feds use it for their purposes. How else would you explain that the 3 most important bases in Gemini are that close together and only a few jumps away from cat space?

Also, New Constantinople doesn't sell movies. That doesn't make sense either, since New Con is sort of the cosmopolitan capital of Gemini. I would think that's where most movies, artwork, etc. get made.

Let me try to explain it this way: Do you like watching US blockbusters or bollywood movies? Let's say the blockbusters come from NC, so they go directly into the cinemas, while the pleasure bases sell things like "Casablanca" or make b-movies.

Finally, I think holographics and home entertainment are reversed--holographic projectors should be sold cheaply at New Detroit; home entertainment 3D movies to play on them should be sold cheaply at New Constantinople.

That sounds reasonable.

Other than the mining equipment at ND, I don't know if these are just errors, or if the original game didn't have them either. I'll plan to make the changes, unless there are objections--for example, some of these changes might open up unbalancing trade routes that I've overlooked.

The current trading system is pretty close to the original, but don't take my comments as objections. The current way to earn money by trading is crap. I'd rather like to see the risk increased (=more things are contraband plus more scans) and the profit enlarged.

[Zool]

Since I'm not going to change too much within canonHUDs2.0, feel free to do whatever you like with units.csv, you only have to arrange yourself with Zool. My little changes can be implemented into the final merge.

This shouldn't be a problem. Did you want me to merge melonheads in to my units.csv or would you prefer if we both send to our modded files separately and let you put it all together?

@melonhead, which version of units,csv did you use for your changes? If you used Dilloh's latest, you could mail it to me and I can then make the ZR changes (I don't think there's any overlap so I wouldn't be altering any of your work) and then forward it on to Dilloh. If this is cool with you, PM me and I'll send you my email.

[Dilloh]

Do as you wish, but since melonheads changes have not been tested by too many people lately, I'm keeping myself the option for removing it again if the majority of the people won't like it.

@melonhead
check units180.csv for entries also concerning your cargo mod.

[Melonhead]

Regarding master_parts_list.csv cargo densities, I agree we need to play test it more widely before coming to any conclusions about whether I have the "right" values. I happen to like them, but I lean towards merchants.

If the consensus is that my proposed values make ships too sluggish, changing them is easy. If that's the consensus, my initial thought would be to move the decimal point, making all density entries 10x lower, and play test again. Assuming that is too low, we'd then tweak it back up to some intermediate level. Remember, there is nothing magical about the column entries--whether kilograms, hectograms, decagrams, or 23.2 decagrams, the idea is to make the ships "feel" right while still having a cubic meter of iron mass more than a cubic meter of feathers.

Regarding units.csv price variability, that horrible noise you hear is my plan coming off the rails. After calculating all the desired price differences and variability, I have realized that there's a problem--the code for price variability doesn't work. The variability isn't +/-, it's just minus (which, ironically, is in my own Wiki entry, which I promptly forgot).

Soooo....we're going to need to change the code in the commodity exchange computer script in order to make price variability work. (Volunteers, anyone?) Currently, if you make price variability any reasonably large value, it just reduces the price. It doesn't cause any randomness around a central value. I think I've found the script where the code is, but it's going to take some time for me to figure out what to do instead. I have some RL commitments that will slow this down a bit, although I still want to get it done.

I'm not sure if just changing the buy/sell prices is worthwhile without price variability. (Translation: I don't think it's worth it, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise.) So, I'd recommend we press on with the master_parts_list.csv density improvements, and fix the prices in the next round.

[Melonhead]

Oh, forgot to add...

If there are specific ideas on contraband, those are super easy to implement, so we can still do that. (For example, maybe the Confeds are okay with Tobacco.) Or, if someone has a fun idea for a new kind of contraband cargo, please offer the idea, so the crowd can weigh in. I know it wouldn't be canon, but this isn't GG.

I THINK you can add contraband for factions other than Confed, Militia, and Retros, but haven't verified that.