Trade commodity type overhaul

[sindroms]

Hey there.
Alright, so I was never really a fan of the current trade system. No offense to @Xoria as his efforts to make things interesting for all IDs and their potential trade routes is to be noted. Not all factions and IDs were done perfectly, but that is to be expected with this many variables.

However, it is the current approach itself that has been bothering me and I wanted to simply share with you the way I see how things should be done.

My idea is very simple - to revert back to the times where all goods were not bought by all stations with little variables in price. I've always found that this approach seems to be interesting, but overly flawed as even though other bases now serve -some sort- of purpose, players will still take their goods to the highest sellpoint (as long as it is not in Gallia) which defeats the purpose of that intent.



My suggestion is to split up the existing commodities to tiers of cargo. And this is how it should seem:


Tier 0 cargo.
This tier is reserved for base supply goods. I do not own a POB, I am not sure how their placement is calculated and so I am not in a position to speculate how changing them in any manner would help/harm things.

Tier I cargo.
The idea behind Tier I goods is that they are the least-profitable goods that travel between houses, but their initial cost is dirt-cheap. They are the goods that any player can always buy regardless of their finances - being valued at around 1-10$ per unit. Their sell value should not exceed a clean profit of 1,5 - 2k per unit.

Tier II cargo.
This cargo tier is given to high-value goods that are similar in price as our current buffed routes. Their only difference is that in order to get that much better profit than Tier I cargo gives, you as a trader need to invest much more money in the initial purchase. These commodities should be bought at ~5 000$ per unit and should not exceed a clean profit of 3-5k per unit.

Tier II - 2 cargo.
This cargo tier is a subset of tier II. It is regarding human cargo such as Visitors, Vacationers, VIPs and other. Instead of requiring extra space, they should take up as much space as regular goods, but should be bought for 6-8 000 per unit and their clean profit should not exceed 6-7k. However, due to the change in house laws regarding the transportation of humans in non-liner ships, the specialization should be offset by extra profit.

Tier III cargo.
This cargo tier is reserved for "Simple "Ores. Helium being an example. They should be easy to mine, should require no specific IDs/IFFs and their net profit should be at around 5-6k per unit. They are also the ores that can be placed on POBs.

Tier IV cargo.
These are the ''advanced'' ores, but not the way they are now. These ores are mined slowly (Though faster than now), can only be mined by mining SNUBS (aka they cannot be solo-mined), can only be mined by selecting another ship (as in, not being able to mine and ejected) and they cannot be stored on POBs. Their profit should remain at 8-10k per unit, though they should be mined faster than now to offset this change.

Tier V cargo.
Smuggling goods. This cargo should be at the same income tier as Tier IV (ores) cargo due to the nature of smuggling. Long routes, no use of lanes if you want to avoid detection, Tlagsnet players, and the almost always guaranteed loss of cargo AND a fine if caught. However - the increase in profit should be balanced via sellponts placed on the main planets (aka always-populated areas of the system) and their initial buy price should be at around 5 000 per unit (Much like ore prices on POBs now).




Sellpoints.
Sellpoints, as I already mentioned, should be reverted back to a simpler layout. You take New York - Place the sellpoints in New London, New Berlin, New Tokyo, New Paris. It would make things a bit simpler and predictable for all players. As I already noted, the additional decreasing sellpoints are often useless as players with restarted navmaps still go for the most profitable route anyway.

Unlawful Sellpoints.
All of those commodities that are not tier I and Tier 0 should have a sellpoint for a 1/3rd of their sell value in Coronado and Sigma 13 for unlawfuls who happened to pick up cargo.










Does this sound like something we should adapt? Not really.
It is just something I would have seemed as an alternative to the current layout.

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