Trading in .85 - a poll

[farmerman]

Overall, I like the routes better. The only issue is how things seemed to be designed to go through the war fronts. While there is some sense to that, it still puts corporate traders behind independent powertraders.

That being said, I think if the profits were boosted 15%-25% all around, it would work out much nicer.

---

Faction info links: Samura Heavy Industries : LWB : Watchers

[Dashiell]

Question 1 - Do you like the new RP trade routes?

yes and no.

running through blockades is fun with my smuggler, and it pays, well, not much but decent.

but for corparate traders, Boewx in my case, it`s gotten worse.
all trade routes to kusari are off limits. breaking the liberty/rheinland embargo with a bowex ship strikes me as oorp, so those routes are all off limits. travelling to the edgeworlds is alo impossible.

very little fun routes remain then.

Question 2 - What do you think about the cash per hour these routes generate?

needs a serious boost. I can understand why the profits have been decreased: cap abuse.
people could just powertrade like crazy (sigma 13 anyone?) and buy their lolcap.

but it affects all players. not only cap users. a lot of people see trading as a neccesary evil to fund their characters. they don`t want to trade for over 3 hours just to be able to set up an equipped fighter.

the same apllies for cap armor upgrades. those things are so expensive that with the current trade system, you`ll be trading for ages just to get a decent one.

some people enjoy trading, most just see it as the Freelancer equivelant of grinding: a tedious, boring time consuming nessecity. boost up the profits so people can buy what they want (in due time) without having to grind ages for it.

Question 3 - How do you compare trading in .85 to trading in .84?

it has become more dynamic. and better in rp in some cases. allround the trade-rp has improved, but like I said: the reward for all your time is far below what people would like to get.

Question 4 (post only) - Is there anything not covered by the 3 questions above which you would like to mention, to see changed or improved?.

free some corparete trading companies from the embargo. give them more routes to run.

---

[Eppy]

Question 1 - Do you like the new RP trade routes?

I 'Like' what routes there are. It's nice not to have to do a lot of back-and-forth action anymore (though I have, unfortunately, due to reasons explained below, reverted to one such two-point route). The problem I see with this is that there is no variety, especially in my choice moneymaking scheme, which is legal human cargo (yes, legal in all of Sirius, not just Maltese space:laugh:). We have two routes to do, one of them being the nice, out-of-the-way but boring two-point run which I will not detail because I am SICK AND TIRED of the people on the only loop run pirating the living hell out of everything I do. I'm off the damn tradelanes because of pirate activity so much my time per run is nearly doubled; if I go through the lanes the pirates, because my level is high (which is bull****, you idiots, levels are a game mechanic and completely irrelevant. My level is high because of the old Battleship armor I have mounted, not because I am bursting with credits), tend to demand an inordinate sum of money, such as three, four, or five million credits. That might not be so bad in any other ship, but as a liner you don't make nearly as much as somebody hauling what have you in an Advanced Train. It shows in my profit margins, too - I had my wisdom teeth (all four) out last Tuesday, so up until Friday I was essentially couchbound and took the opportunity to trade ten hours a day (I'm working for a new cap RP). Over the course of four days - about 40 hours of trading - I've only made about 250 million credits, and gotten blown up, defiled, violated, and humiliated by dozens of pirates going through ONE system (and I usually escape, too, that's the worst part). Something's gotta change.

Question 2 - What do you think about the cash per hour these routes generate?

I don't know about the other runs, but as far as human cargo goes, JACK IT UP SKY HIGH DEAR GOD PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO THROUGH THIS FOR ANOTHER TWO WEEKS JUST TO BUY A FREAKING USELESS SITTING DREADNOUGHT. I suspect other routes could use a marginal increase, too.

Question 3 - How do you compare trading in .85 to trading in .84?

It's nice to see looped runs, I'll give it that, but there's no real romanticism in it anymore - I have to say, on the whole I've begun to enjoy it less. Two-point runs have gone the way of the mastodon, and any of the REALLY long loops, like the two-hour monster we used to run in the IND, are gone. There's nothing to discover anymore, there aren't really any secrets left to making more money, and when you plot stuff out on the map it just becomes a big pattern of rough concentric circles.

Question 4 (post only) - Is there anything not covered by the 3 questions above which you would like to mention, to see changed or improved?

We need variety and profit in Human Cargo. We need at LEAST one more route, one that doesn't drag players through California (DO NOT FEED THE ROGUES), and we should have more options available for good one-way transports that could be loosely strung together into big, variable super-loops like what we used to have.

Also, there should be more than one place to sell a cargo on a given route. I mean, I wouldn't have such a problem with California if there was a way to go around it and still make money - traders should have more options as to where to dump their cargo and still make a profit (and buy a returnable commodity), even if it isn't as big as they're looking for.

---

Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.

[Enko]

Question 1 - Do you like the new RP trade routes?

Yep, highly improved RP routes and I like the way more factions are getting activity due to this. While some corps are still hard to play due to lacking routes *cough*Planetform*cough*, the huge amount of time spent on this can't possibly cover it all. Hopefully there is more to come out of this.

Question 2 - What do you think about the cash per hour these routes generate?

Skimming all the replies, I agree with the majority opinion. While this was put in place for good reason, it does hurt the people that actually want to get somewhere with proper roleplaying abilities. All good intentions aside, it hurts people that have real headaches with trading and simply do not have the time.

Question 3 - How do you compare trading in .85 to trading in .84?

Summed up with the poll vote, it's improved for RP reasons but gone a bit downhill due to various reasons stated. Cargo piracy has improved a lot, getting lucky makes you a TON of cash, it also adds more risk as people are less inclined to simply die due to the cargo being worth less than the demand. A problem that does arise with this however is piracy charges increased due to the value of the cargo which not only further decreases profits on the route but can end up in wrecking it entirely. A good run can easily be wrecked now by two separate piracy incidents along the route, which in long legs of trade routes can easily occur. I also don't particularly like the way that a lot of good routes involve having to break embargos, especially on how easy it is to do so. Speaking as playing authorities in Bretonia, it's almost impossible to enforce the Kusari Embargo aside from the ones that prance right into you.

Question 4 (post only) - Is there anything not covered by the 3 questions above which you would like to mention, to see changed or improved?

Only thing I can mention here is killing off the Zoner spam. Corps get a hard enough time as it is without Zoners being able to outclass them at everything. I'd vote for some form of restriction, like the Guard ID not allowed to go into house space. This way regular Zoner IDs can still do it, but with the 3.8k cargo restriction, making it less desirable to spam.

---

[Benjamin]

Yeah agree with a couple of people here. Only really know Junker and Cryer and Orbital Spa&Cruise stuff in depth, and they all have enough stuff to keep me busy and make enough money.

But yeah, the blockade running stuff benefits zoners and hurts all corporations. Money-wise, there's no reason to be anything but a zoner guard, therefore, there are billions of zoner guard everywhere. I'm sure I read that 4.85 was going to boost corporation traders and nerf indie types, but it basically seems like people trade under a freelancer ID until they can afford a 5k, when they switch to zoner guard and buy the cheapest 5k. The guys in corps are the minority that are in it for the RP, and they get no tangible benefit, and various detriments.

Something to get zoners out of house space and increase the profitability of corporations would be great. (I mean really, zoners being richer than corps is silly.)

---

Join Cryer Pharmaceuticals

[Captain]

Question 1 - Do you like the new RP trade routes?
yes, they are more filled with RP, when I see some-one,

cuz at the moment its very peacfull trading on my route
even NPC's act more hostile,

Question 2 - What do you think about the cash per hour these routes generate?
on my routes it could be a bit more, but I think that will be solved in .86 when the cores get released

Question 3 - How do you compare trading in .85 to trading in .84?
I don't trade anymore outside Gallia and since they weren't "discovered"
in .84 I think some traderoutes have improved

Question 4 (post only) - Is there anything not covered by the 3 questions above which you would like to mention, to see changed or improved?

I like to see the gallic trade route profits improved since Gallic traders only can trade within Gallia.

---

[Grimly]

Question 1 - Do you like the new RP trade routes?
No. They all pass through liberty. Smuggling and legal. If I had not my characters in liberty, I would even forget what a transport is.
I hardly find convoys in the omegas while I don't even have time to locate possible convoys to catch in Liberty, they're coming all the time.

Question 2 - What do you think about the cash per hour these routes generate?
Far enough

Question 3 - How do you compare trading in .85 to trading in .84?
It's concentrated on Liberty now while it was concentrated on diam/niob before... I would say we changed the dragons to rogues/hackers/outcasts ... but here, there is no places for corsairs it gave more fun than now.

Question 4 (post only) - Is there anything not covered by the 3 questions above which you would like to mention, to see changed or improved?
I personnaly hate trading but when I do, I'm going through omegas, bretonia, liberty, kusary, sigmas, omicrons ... lot of spots to be caught by pirates.
We should give more profits to the long routes going in all parts of Sirius (or less to the others).
Simple "go and back" should be devaluated.

---

Taking what's yours since 816 A.S.

[Xoria]

I guess it's useless pointing out that about 75% of commodities have higher profit margins than in 4.84, and that those profit margins are spread out among multiple destinations in different Houses. Take a look at diamonds. It used to be that there was basically only two places to transport diamonds to. Now you can profitably transport diamonds to three Houses, and multiple bases in those Houses. I've been trading and trading and trading, and not only are these trade circuits easier to create than ever before, it's also much easier to switch which route I'm doing than ever before. Big hint : mining machinery and robotic components are the key to switching between one trade circuit and another circuit. I can easily trade for hours on end without doing the same route twice, and without sacrificing profits to do it. So overall profits from trade routes are not going to change. I literally didn't play this game for a single hour for over 6 months in order to spend every single minute of my free time on the commodity coding, and I am not going to spend another 200 hours of my time redoing them. It doesn't matter how many polls, threads or posts demand it, I'm not going to do it all over again.

If you want your credits to have more value, the most inefficient method of accomplishing that is changing commodity prices anyway. Instead, change the prices of what you spend the credits on. Lobby for cheaper equipment, guns, ammo, and ships. It's far, far easier to change the prices of those than changing 3000 to 4000 lines of commodity code, and the end result is the same : you don't have to trade as long to buy what you want to buy.

Besides, if profits go up, then so will pirate demands, and you're back to where you started at. Changing equipment prices has no effect on pirate demands, is much easier to implement, and requires only a fraction of the time to encode and balance.

So if you want a credit to be worth more, then argue for the things you spend it on to cost less, because that is the only way the economic system is going to be changed. And you can bet your last credit on that.

---

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

[NonSequitor]

So if you want a credit to be worth more, then argue for the things you spend it on to cost less, because that is the only way the economic system is going to be changed. And you can bet your last credit on that.

Now that is something I could get behind. Starting with fighter and capship armor upgrades.

[jammi]

I take it all the above applies to Freelancer traders or smugglers. From my experience as a Bowex shipper and from what I've heard from the other Bretonian Corporations, there don't seem to be as many routes that we can actually use as you're advertising there.

You've told us we have to skip embargoes to make the most money, but when you're a corporation, that simply can't happen. I'm totally happy with the profits I'm bringing in though. I'm actually the richest I've ever been on my trade character, but it's where I'm earning that money that's the biggest qualm for me.

For Bretonia 3/5 of the routes go to Rhienland. That's all good and fine if you're just looking at profits, but Liberty is supposed to be Bretonia's largest trade partner. I think the rest of the economy is fine, just there needs to be a few more routes heading to Liberty. I'm sure corporations like Planetform would appreciate extra routes as well.

---

News article library, feedback and content requests.