Price information

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alfatrion
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Price information

Post by alfatrion »

I found a wiki page with feature request, but didn't know where to put this. I would like the average price to be included when you buy or sell items, with a indicator how much above or below it is.

I.e. value 100, average 50 +100%, bought for 50. Where +100% means you sell this at the highest prices, and -100% at the lowest.
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Re: Price information

Post by RedAdder »

I have a different design for a flight trading computer:

It stores the maximum and minimum price, together with the location and type of planet, but only for each planet or base that you visited.
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Re: Price information

Post by alfatrion »

Thats even more sophisticated. :) Pro it more relevant to the player. Con: its harder for newbies like me. Perhaps you could prefill it with the data from the first system.
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Re: Price information

Post by Errol_Summerlin »

However, if the economy is dynamic (I don't know if it is yet), you may also want to make sure it is clear that the "price" is the price the last time you were at that station. You may even include a "predicted" price (along with some measure of error that increases the longer it has been since you last visited the station) that utilizes trends in the price of the item at that station(also collected when you visit a station). For example, a station that orbits a planet that is in turn, in a highly elliptical orbit about its star might require "heat shielding" near periapsis and "power generation" components near apoapsis when they rely less on solar power and more on fission, fusion, or anti-matter power. A fairly simple trend identification program could detect these variation and predict the price for you. It may not be right..especially if some other player has undercut you by supplying what they need already, but it would give you more information than "the price it was when you were last there".
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Re: Price information

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Just for the record:
MANY years ago, the vs universe was smaller, and the number or tradeable items was manageable. Back then players were demanding to have more varieties of tradeable items, and the developers were working on generating larger universes. I sounded the alarm back then, that if the trend continued, it was going to be impossible for players to manage so much information, and eventually were going to begin demanding automatic data management features.
Officially, with this thread, the time has arrived, as I predicted.
Remembering the typical prices of things, and recognizing whether they are high or low, was intended to be 1/3 of the game. The OP is effectively asking you that the game engine play 1/3 of the game on behalf of the player.
If this feature request is granted, the next feature players will request is that the prices of ships and ship upgrades be revealed as to whether it is low or high relative to average price.
That will be another 1/3 of the game lost to the computer...

I think what should be done, instead, is reduce universe size, or quantity of bases per system; and drastically reduce the number of items that can be bought and sold. There's just too many of them to remember and frankly they add no value whatsoever to the game.
Otherwise, if the "listen to your customers" motto continues to be adhered to, there will eventually be no challenge to trading, and the next thing players will ask for is that it be removed or completely automated; and the game will become just a space-fighting arcade.
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

Remembering the prices isn't bad if you ask me... analysis of those prices in relation to other bases is.

The game should indeed provide you with a list of the price last seen on an item, and possibly where that was, and if you saw the item in other places, the prices there. It's a notebook... nothing too fancy.

I don't think that feature is detrimental to the game - on the contrary, forcing me to note each prices, physically on a notebook is the detrimental thing. But lets not overdo the feature: it shouldn't recommend me trade routes or anything like that, it should only be a list of prices.

I do agree, however, that there are too many systems and too many items. I get lost in the map, in the trade screen, in every place, routinely. VS (the game) is an overdose of information.
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Re: Price information

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Remembering the typical prices of things, and recognizing whether they are high or low, was intended to be 1/3 of the game. The OP is effectively asking you that the game engine play 1/3 of the game on behalf of the player.
There's got to be more to trading gameplay than simple memorization though, otherwise the gameplay boils down to simple note-taking grunt work, like Klauss said. Trading should be about putting together leads from headlines, rumors and direct observations that lead you between regions with temporary abundance and temporary scarcity. Add to that planning out routes through or around navigational hazards and hostiles.

Strategy is for players, memorization is for computers and scrap paper, IMO.
Otherwise, if the "listen to your customers" motto continues to be adhered to, there will eventually be no challenge to trading, and the next thing players will ask for is that it be removed or completely automated; and the game will become just a space-fighting arcade.
If things are trending towards combat only, that's because combat is dynamic while trade is not. Simple memorization isn't enough for combat, as broken as it currently is there is much more to it than that. So methinks that until trade gets some more gameplay meat added to it, the focus will continue to trend towards combat.
I think what should be done, instead, is reduce universe size, or quantity of bases per system; and drastically reduce the number of items that can be bought and sold. There's just too many of them to remember and frankly they add no value whatsoever to the game.
Reducing the amount of and maybe grouping the bases (both space and planetary) would improve both trading and the feel of the game.

As for reducing the number of items, I do have an evil suggestion for that.

In the past, the VS canon has been terrified of nanotechnology. The nano-plague plot (gameplay?) device was created just to eliminate the ability of individual planets from arranging atoms into whatever molecules they wanted, instead of having them delivered via space trade. This allows you to create any millions of trade items you want to invent, but do we really need so many.

My suggestion is we let nanotechnology exist, we let planets assemble whatever molecules they want if economically feasible, and space trade becomes about three things-- stored energy, heavy and advanced equipment and valuable elements. These are just a few basic things that are found in large quantities in some places, but very scarcely in others.
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Re: Price information

Post by shenle »

How about a middle-of-the-road approach for trading aids?

You get an in-game notepad, but it does not get prefilled with anything. You can make notes in it, or you can have entries added in from the current local market. Such as items having a checkbox next to them "transfer to notebook", and when selected it makes an entry in the notebook saying item X had a price of this and that on Y date at location Z.

This would simplify bookkeeping a bit without eliminating the need for legwork.

Also, I would welcome welcome welcome a more dynamic economy. The prices I've seen so far never change in any given location.
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

shenle wrote:How about a middle-of-the-road approach for trading aids?

You get an in-game notepad, but it does not get prefilled with anything. You can make notes in it, or you can have entries added in from the current local market. Such as items having a checkbox next to them "transfer to notebook", and when selected it makes an entry in the notebook saying item X had a price of this and that on Y date at location Z.

This would simplify bookkeeping a bit without eliminating the need for legwork.
It would also require attention from the user, which is what, I think, chuck wants. ie, I think chuck is opposed to automatic bookkeeping.
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Re: Price information

Post by shenle »

Also the notebook could be tabbed, and you could define your own tabs and rules as to what goes under each. For instance you can define a tab "khalaisamine" and all entries related to khalaisamine automatically are filed under that tab. Just trying to keep things neat. :)
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

Tabs are fine, but rules?

That's just asking for too much. We don't want an OpenOffice.org within the game.
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Re: Price information

Post by shenle »

OO? No. Awk? Yes. :D
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

Yea, right... have GAMERS write awk rules.

That's a good one.

I wouldn't want to do that, even if they paid me.
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Re: Price information

Post by shenle »

Nope. Awk would be the backend. Simple pattern scan. Found the name of a tab in input? Send input under that tab. No tab name in input? File under general tab.

Or you could do the same with grep if you don't like awk.

Or how about Boost.RegEx?
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

It's a usability problem. If we ever provide such a functionality (automation), but it's too basic, people will complain and we'll have to make it better. If we make it better the easy way (regex like you say), people will complain it's too hard to use, and we'll have to make it fool proof/more usable. And there's the snowball that will end sucking up precious development resources for a really... really useless feature.

So, better not to have the functionality. No automation of any kind.
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Re: Price information

Post by shenle »

Then forget the tabs, 'cause nobody will use that feature either. Make it just a plain text file.
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Re: Price information

Post by RedAdder »

I think it would be useful if you could take notes(one-liners), which ordinarily would be sorted like a diary, and you could search for matching one word or two and you would get an immediate display of all matching notes. This would also be useful if there were more quests. I understand that Klauss thinks it is not the right spot to invest time, but that's my input on how to do it. If you wanted to make an advanced version, it could record the location and time in front of the one-liner automatically.

Example you take all notes of market prices like "Aegia: ice planet salts sell for 100" and it would be display matching "salts sell" or "Aegia".
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Re: Price information

Post by klauss »

Yep, notes, search, all is good.

I was going against automation, (clicking on an info item and making it automatically sort it in tabs and folders and whatnot), because that can easily get out of hand and consume a lot of time to develop.

But searching is trivial, that's ok.

In fact, the button to auto-note prices is also simple, given that there's a builtin and nonconfigurable (and useful) way of browsing those notes. So what you say is nice: click to note an item's price, and note it in a log, diary-style, and then you can search the diary.
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Re: Price information

Post by Neskiairti »

I really like the idea of simplifying trade.
raw materials, energy, and complex or proprietary equipment. ships would fall under the latter, ship components as well.

and Yes I mean ships and what not being normal trade goods.
You dont need nanotech for this btw, just the expectation that any colony or space station will have full manufacturing capabilities, microforges and what not. Standardize the microfactory across the universe :P
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Re: Price information

Post by Deus Siddis »

Neskiairti wrote:I really like the idea of simplifying trade.
raw materials, energy, and complex or proprietary equipment. ships would fall under the latter, ship components as well.

You dont need nanotech for this btw, just the expectation that any colony or space station will have full manufacturing capabilities, microforges and what not. Standardize the microfactory across the universe :P
That is my thinking as well-- I really can't see nanotech being better than large manufacturing equipment in most applications. Nano-tech should fill the same, small roles in the VS universe that it will in actual reality someday. Like medicine and chemical synthesis, some more advanced materials, etc.

BTW, I think microfactories are already a trade item in VS. They're the best item to pirate, worth like 25 mil or something crazy like that. Only way you'll ever afford a Clydesdale.
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Re: Price information

Post by chuck_starchaser »

A notebook is something I've advocated long time ago. In Privateer 2, there was a notebook that updated itself automatically, but it was all about the story, characters, and clues you collected as you talked to people or looked up info on computers.
The notebook was divided into categories which I don't remember but could have been,
  • People
  • Places
  • History
  • Companies
  • Emails
Then again, Priv 2 had a convoluted story, bit of a puzzle; and there were companies, and there were people with backgrounds, and there were info booths you could search, and there were emails you'd get from characters...
Vegastrike's overwhelming info is flat info; basically a gargantuous map, and price data that wouldn't fit in a notebook after a
bit of flying around.
The notebook I once suggested would simply be an in-game editor where you write whatever you want, using the keyboard.
I'd probably note down good trade routes and be done with it, rather than individual item prices.
What also needs to be fixed in Vegastrike is make it less ambiguous, more intuitive, what items are imported or exported.
No question about buying agricultural products at agri planets; but what about medical centers and organs? It is not obvious
whether medical centers would be exporters or importers of body parts, for example. It is even less clear to me what is
imported or exported at commerce centers. I think it is a testament to unintuitiveness that whenever I tried to play vegastrike
I kept losing money; but then again, I've lost money every time in the stock market; so maybe it's just me...
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Re: Price information

Post by Deus Siddis »

If you are going to have a system for manually taking notes, it would be nice if you could create directories to put your notes in, that you can name yourself.

Then, it would be nice to be able to lay out and mark routes and locations and name them, in your star map.
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Re: Price information

Post by Neskiairti »

ive not played VS for so long, I had forgotten about the microfactories. ah well :P I hope the game is made playable soon.

speaking of privateer 2, I really wish I could play it, ive got a copy, but no matter what I cant get it to run right.. I even thought about building an ancient machine and installing windows 95 on it :p

anyway, a notepad would be good. possibly also allow UI functions at say the trade screen, to automatically input information in to a textfile for you. (give the notepad a save folder and able to load different text files)
that way.. say, click a button and it saves that information right to your notepad for you.. might have a button similar for anything, just a semi raw dump of data to the notepad.

say you find an unknown shipwreck in space, click it, click the function, it saves whatever data you know about it including current co-ordinates, size, and orbit path.
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Re: Price information

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Privateer 2 is hated by a lot of WC fans because of its disconnectedness to most things WC; but it was otherwise a good game. And for game developers it's a fountain of good and bad examples. There were a lot of good things in Privateer that Privateer 2 stupidly removed, such as the mission generators; but on the other hand it added a lot of good things, like famous wingmen/women you could hire that had different reputations, skills and AI's; or the ability to hire a cargo ship (which you can load, but has its own pilot that follows you wherever you go; so you are its escort, basically; though its turrets pack a good punch, too).
I played Priv2 on windows 95, when I did, but perhaps it would be better to just install dos on a virtual drive, and do the memmaker thing.
It was VERY crashy on win 95. Wait; maybe it was 98 I was running it on...
Anyways, it was a DOS program.
Some missions I had to do again and again like 15 times, because of crashes; but I did manage to finish the game.

About the notebook, yeah, perhaps it should not be just text, but have say a section for maps, where you say "save current location" and it saves data of whatever sort, but shows it graphically. Same with prices. Save would mean save the screen. When you look at that page of your notebook it looks like a trading screen; even has headers that expand when you click them, perhaps.
But my question remains, how much value would this add to gameplay? And if so, does it add enough goodness to justify the amount of work it would be to implement? Frankly, I think there are gazillions of ideas that would be much more rewarding for a lot less effort. Magazines and books you can read in game, for example, would give frustrated writers something to do. University planets could have libraries containing a small subset of all books in the game. There you could spend hours reading about the history of the klkk or whatever. Another thing: Emails. Another thing: Multiple choice dialogues. Any of these features would add HUGE amounts of goodness at a fraction of the amount of coding work required to implement a notebook with categories and search functions.
Another thing is, in order to have an interactive notebook, we'd need to go to 3D cockpits with pushable buttons. Keybindings are already saturated, and impossible to remember. With 3D cockpits and pushable buttons, then we'd have a much more intuitive interface, with a lot more possibilities:
Click on buttons under the sensor screen to change scanning and display modes.
Click on the Spec, Auto, and other such lights themselves to toggle their status.
Click on a bogey on the sensor screen to target it.
Click on screens or buttons on the maps/nav interface on your left
Click on screens or buttons on the remote trading terminal on your right
Click on the loudspeaker at the corner to communicate
Click on the gloves compartment to look for something in your personal inventory

And some of the functions being suggested for the notebook could be implemented more appropriately as something
else: Why isn't there a ship's log, where you can go back in the history of all your travels?
It could be a list of systems, with special messages for landings that could expand to show you cargo, and your net worth,
before and after the landing; that way you could review where you made good trades.
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Re: Price information

Post by Neskiairti »

might be better off to add a hud like cockpit with 3d underlay. and have the hud be interchangable elements with external scripting. whether its python or whatever, use ssomething like GTK to power it. then modularize it.
resortable hotbar would do wonders for the game, save and load presets for it. So if you are flying one type of ship you can load a preset configuration for it.. then switch to another ship and switch config..
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