Suggestion: trading

[Haste]

Only your second point really makes sense, the first point could be avoided by carefully setting sale prices depending on distance from origin in ALL NPC bases. That's a lot of busywork, but could be done.

I'd sooner say it's the other way around. Refinery versus NPC sell price balance is something you can extensively fiddle with to maybe just about make it work. The A -> B -> C "reseller problem" is one that the very laws of the universe oppose, as far as I can tell. I would love for you to back this confident statement up with some example numbers. I will provide the scenario for you to carefully adjust. I'll keep it really simple: a single "producer" (origin point), a single reseller and a single "consumer" (station that buys but does not sell). As before, we'll name them A, B and C respectively.

So, our goal is to create an exponential profit curve. Let's say that a 10 minute route should make $35 profit per unit (about 6 CSU), and a 20 minute route should make $120 (about 9.5 CSU).

We'll set the base price at the producer, A, to $50. This then means that the price at B is $50 + $35 = $85. The price at C would be $50 + $120 = $170.

Let's just make the example as simple as possible: B is truly right in-between A and C. There's a perfectly straight line of travel from A to B and then C. In reality, of course, things aren't that easy - but for the purposes of this example it keeps things as simple as possible. If you are correct in saying the prices can be carefully tuned to create an exponential curve, I imagine the simplest example would be the easiest to work with to prove your point.

So we've got what we wanted: A to B makes $35, 6 CSU. A to C makes $120, 9.5 CSU. However, here comes the fun part: B is a reseller. B not only buys for $85, but also sells for $85. So, I'm not going to buy at A at all. I'm going to buy at B. So, I'm buying at B for $85, and then traveling a 10 minute route to C to sell there at $170, making $85 in 10 minutes. That amounts to approximately 15.5 - 16 CSU.

Which prices are you adjusting to fix this extreme outlier? We want A -> C to continue making $120 profit and A -> B to continue making $35 profit. Under those conditions, what price adjustments are you making?

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