Trade Development Blog

[Pavel]

Wouldn't it be good if contraband prices were equally buffed? Let's say instead of 500 credits/unit basic cost for Bloodo Diamonds is 5k/unit, with highest sell price also going up 10 times.

Profit/time relation would stay the same, but high investment cost means smugglers are really afraid of losing their cargo and cargo piracy/lawful interception gets big incentive.

[Thyrzul]

Wouldn't it be good if contraband prices were equally buffed? Let's say instead of 500 credits/unit basic cost for Bloodo Diamonds is 5k/unit, with highest sell price also going up 10 times.

Profit/time relation would stay the same, but high investment cost means smugglers are really afraid of losing their cargo and cargo piracy/lawful interception gets big incentive.

Price(buy) - Price(sell) = Profit
10*Price(buy) - 10*Price(sell) = 10*Profit

Basic maths. If you want Profit/time to stay the same with tenfold buy and sell prices, you need to multiply the travel time by ten as well. Without that, to have the same effect (5k/unit basic cost, same profit margin) you need to add the same amount (4,5k/unit) to both buy and sell prices.

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[Moberg]

I'd totally approve higher risk commodities with higher reward. Mainly contraband from house lawful station to other house lawful stations, preferably through the whole of Sirius (Rheinland to Gallia, for example. Bretonia to eastest Kusari, etc), buy price of 20M for a 5ker, 4000 a piece, and a sell price between 15000 and 20000 maybe? That'd give you a profit of 80M, but also a high risk of losing 20M.

[SnakThree]

Regarding Baltimore Shipyard, Basic Alloys, Boron and Super Alloy:

BASIC ALLOYS, sold in Pennsylvania system
Melding the strength of Titanium with the lightness of Aluminum, Basic Alloys can be used economically to construct durable machine parts. The non-ferrous nature of parts constructed from Basic Alloys and their resistance to oxidization makes them ideal for use in almost any manufacturing environment. When Basic Alloys are infused with a matrix of Boron fibers and combined with Super Alloys, the resulting material is then fabricated into the Ship Hull Panels used by shipyards throughout the colonies

BORON, sold at Planet Pittsburgh
Boron is an essential element in a number of industrial processes. In its fibrous form, Boron filaments are used as a stiffener in the creation of Ship Hull Panels, lending them unparalleled structural integrity. An isotope of Boron, Boron-10, is also used for control rods in the nuclear reactors that power large ships, stations, and planetside bases.

SUPER ALLOY, sold in Newcastle system
In its unalloyed form, Beryllium is incredibly strong and light but also highly brittle; when combined with aluminum, however, the resulting Super Alloy offers all the benefits of Beryllium along with the stiffness of aluminum. The Super Alloy fabrication process is somewhat more complicated than that used to make Basic Alloys, though, and Super Alloy is consequently more expensive. Super Alloys are used in everything from Ship Hull Panels to the frames of advanced military vessels.

Basic Alloy and Boron is sold in Liberty. Super Alloy is sold in Bretonia. BUT, the Ship Hull Panels are sold in Kusari, on Planet Kyushu, agricultural planet.

Kusari has Engine Components to export as ship building material, Rheinland has Ablative Armor. Would it not be a good RP based decision to mvoe Ship Hull Panel sell point to Baltimore Shipyard?

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[Xoria]

Regarding Baltimore Shipyard, Basic Alloys, Boron and Super Alloy:

Basic Alloy and Boron is sold in Liberty. Super Alloy is sold in Bretonia. BUT, the Ship Hull Panels are sold in Kusari, on Planet Kyushu, agricultural planet.

Kusari has Engine Components to export as ship building material, Rheinland has Ablative Armor. Would it not be a good RP based decision to mvoe Ship Hull Panel sell point to Baltimore Shipyard?

Not necessarily. Materials are often shipped long distances to be manufactured into end-products. It's the know-how that is the real key to a product, and the intellectual property belonging to Kusari is not like a factory that can just be built elsewhere.

Besides that, this is a trade simulation, and the general pattern is to have the manufactured product in a separate House from the raw materials source, because that creates more high value trade routes.

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Check out my
Trade Development Blog
for all the latest news on Nerfs and Final Nails, or to request trade changes.

An Interactive Tour of OSC Routes  | POB Supplies

[Thyrzul]

While I have described a general procedure here, most commodities involve unique factors. It would take more time to properly train someone and then check their work than it would to do it myself.

(Approximately) What amount of additional information regarding those unique factors would said potential volunteers require in order to be able to implement commodities into the trade system properly?

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[Zen_Mechanics]

Do you think its fair to buff contraband to the amount of ores? - Or possibly higher? as criminals are supposed to be making more money then the law abiding citizens? Im just wondering why you are not addressing this issue.

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Were fools to make war on our brothers in arms.

[Leppy]

as criminals are supposed to be making more money then the law abiding citizens?

um u wat mate?

Where the hell are you getting that idea from?

[Xoria]

(Approximately) What amount of additional information regarding those unique factors would said potential volunteers require in order to be able to implement commodities into the trade system properly?

That would vary depending on the commodity in question. New commodities need to fit into the existing framework of 155 trade commodities in the game already. How to do that is not something that can be easily explained. There are metals that all basically follow a similar pattern, but dozens more are organized according to their unique roles in the economy, also taking into account the geographic factors involved (like point of origin and travel paths). There is no point in assigning work to someone else when checking that work would take longer than doing it myself (including integrating the work into the master record).

Do you think its fair to buff contraband to the amount of ores? - Or possibly higher? as criminals are supposed to be making more money then the law abiding citizens? Im just wondering why you are not addressing this issue.

I don't agree that criminals should be making more than law abiding citizens. Lawful trading is the backbone of server activity and should be the most profitable. Contraband involves added risk and so has a bonus to profit (an enormous bonus, by the way). Prices for ores have no relationship to the trade economy, and are determined according to an entirely different logic scheme (I'm only assuming there is one, since I've never seen it).

By the way, I checked my records, and in the 4.84 mod version Cardamine's Malta-Manhattan route was worth 249 c/sec and Artifacts' Crete-Manhattan route was worth 194 c/sec. They are both at 400 c/sec now. I think that is high enough.

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Check out my
Trade Development Blog
for all the latest news on Nerfs and Final Nails, or to request trade changes.

An Interactive Tour of OSC Routes  | POB Supplies

[Govedo13]

Any possibility to drastically reduce the level of credit per seconds in the whole economy while keeping only 10-15 trade routes at the current level?
The current economy does not represent the current sever reality. We have average 50 people on-line and theoretically each one of them can pick different trade route and with a bit planning move in a way that he would never encounter other player at all.
Create several hotspots that can create activity, one or two per house.

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Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)