Commodity creation tutorial

[Igiss]

This is a tutorial that will help everyone willing to participate in creation of commodities for Discovery mod. Or, to be more precise, not commodities but trading routes for those. If you will do good, then your routes will be included into the final version of Discovery - after my checks and modifications, of course.

I.

Trading routes for new Discovery commodities (well, most of them) is located in a Goods.xml file that you will find in Discovery mod folder root. This file is processed by FLMM - information from it is extracted into market_commodities.ini file in Freelancer/DATA/EQUIPMENT folder. This file contains information about trading routes in Freelancer - what bases sell and buy certain things and what is their price on each base.

The structure of Goods.xml and market_commodities.ini is similar - each have separate sections with lists of commodities for bases. Difference is that xml file has xml syntax, and does not contain all Freelancer bases (only the most important ones, around 50% of bases total). If you need to add commodities to bases that were not yet listed in Goods.xml, you are free to do so.

Entry for each base/planet in Goods.xml looks like this:

<data file="data\equipment\market_commodities.ini" method="sectionappend]
<section>
[BaseGood]
base = Li01_01_base
</section>
<source>
MarketGood = commodity_marijuana, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 2.16000
MarketGood = commodity_passengers, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0, 1.20000
MarketGood = commodity_mlieutenant, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mcaptain, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mgeneral, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
</source>
</data>

This part:

[BaseGood]
base = Li01_01_base

indicates to what base will the main part be appended. Each base in Freelancer has a number like this. I will further provide full list of bases for reference.

This part:

MarketGood = commodity_marijuana, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 2.16000
MarketGood = commodity_passengers, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0, 1.20000
MarketGood = commodity_mlieutenant, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mcaptain, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mgeneral, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
is the main one. It adds actual new commodities that the base Li01_01 will be buying and selling. This section will not replace any existing original commodities, but rather amend the original commodity list.

II.

Ok, let's go in for some more details. Look at this entry:

MarketGood = commodity_passengers, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0, 1.20000

"MarketGood = " is the start of any commodity line.
"commodity_passengers" is the name of your commodity.
"0" - don't change.
"-1" - reputation needed to buy or sell. Do not change, it must be -1.
"150, 500, 0, " - This part indicates if the commodity is for sale or to buy.

150, 500, 0, means that commodity is sold on the base.
0, 0, 1, means that base buys the commodity.

If the commodity is sold, the base will buy it for the same price it sells it. If base only buys the commodity, you won't be able to buy the commodity from it - only sell.

"1.20000" - it's the last number. It indicates the price of commodity. If commodity is sold (150, 500, 0,), it will be buying and selling price. If the commodity is only bought (0, 0, 1,), it will be only buying price.

The number indicates the difference between base price for each commodity (which is fixed) and price on the particular base.

III.

So, you probably wonder where is the commodity itself? Well, the name, base price and icon for commodity are specified in two other ini files that Goods.xml does not modify. To keep it simplier for you, I'd better do those entries myself.

So, what should you do?

1) Make up a name for your commodity. For example, Armchairs.

1a) You may make some kind of description that will be displayed along with the commodity in-game, or leave this part to me. 2) Make up some a commodity id. For armchairs it should be "commodity_armchairs".

3) Specify the base price. Note that base price is the price for which all bases that you do not specify will buy your commodity, so do not make your base price high! For example, for cardamine it's 300.

You don't need to edit any files for the first three, just send me text.

Then open Goods.xml and start editing.

4) In Goods.xml, start creating trade routes by setting the commodity for sale and to buy on different bases for different prices.

For each base you are interested in, add commodity_armchairs entry to the list of new commodities, like this:

MarketGood = commodity_marijuana, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 2.16000
MarketGood = commodity_passengers, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0, 1.20000
MarketGood = commodity_mlieutenant, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mcaptain, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_mgeneral, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 0.80000
MarketGood = commodity_armchairs

Then decide whether it will be bought or sold. There must be more places where you can sell the commodity than where you can buy it! Note that maximum prices should be only for selling - no player will buy commodity for the maximum price.

If you want armchairs to be sold on Li01_01 (which is Manhattan, by the way), add appropriate numbers to the armchairs entry:

MarketGood = commodity_armchairs, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0,

If you want Manhattan only to buy armchairs, add other numbers:

MarketGood = commodity_armchairs, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1,

All bases where there's no entry for armchairs will buy them for the base price, and won't sell them. This is why it's very important to set base price with care.

If you want armchairs to be sold or bough by Manhattan, than you want price to be different from base price. So, you need to decide what this price will be exactly.

For example, base price on armchairs is 200. Then, if you set 0.9 as a price modifier:

MarketGood = commodity_armchairs, 0, -1, 150, 500, 0, 0.9

Manhattan will sell armchairs for 180.

DO NOT reduce sell price far below 1! It will cause players to buy the commodity and sell them at nearby bases, where price remains unmodified and much higher. For example, you add 0,1 price modifier to Manhattan and don't add entry for Trenton Outpost. This will cause players to buy armchairs for 20 on Manhattan and sell them for 200 on Trenton. To avoid this, you'll have to reduce prices on armchairs all around Liberty, which is hard to do.

It's a better idea to set low base price and add price modifiers ABOVE 1, thus multiplying buy and sell cost of any commodity.

For example, that's how you make a specific base buy armchairs for 300 credits:

MarketGood = commodity_armchairs, 0, -1, 0, 0, 1, 1.5

5) Trade routes creation

If you want good trade routes (which you should want, otherwise your editing will never be used in the mod), you should think about the area or areas where the commodity will be produced, and where prices on it will be low, and areas of high demand where prices will be high. Areas of production are areas where players will buy your commodity. Areas of demand will be places where they sell them. It's better to make versatile prices to make trading more interesting, so that fewer bases have same price. The longer and more dangerous is the route, the more money difference you can make.

Avoid short and profitable routes. All routes with profit 1000 per unit and above must be long, 5-6 systems to pass or even more.

Prices within one system, especially for bases close together, must have minimum difference.