Trading - Brainstorming Changes

[Quorg]

Benjamin: Heck, if it weren't meant to be somewhat offensive there wouldn't be as much fun in it, and so I wouldn't do it.

Shazbot: Is there some reason that you can't have the same amount of fun and variety through special trade events?

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ATTENTION SMUGGLERS
The Midnight Express: A Slaver <strike>who doesn't completely realize what he's doing.</strike> (video)

Quorg, you're officially a moron.

...mongs like Quorg being like a malignant little cancer...

Way to be useless, Quorg.

[Shazbot11]

I suppose it's possible if the event can be organized.

Also, going back to my idea, it would be depressingly morbid to take VIPs/Passengers/Tourists/Slaves to some pirate base to produce Human Organs.

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Maybe some day, they'll see a hero is just a man who knows he's free.

[reavengitair]

Also, going back to my idea, it would be depressingly morbid to take VIPs/Passengers/Tourists/Slaves to some pirate base to produce Human Organs.

However, is this possible?

[Rowly]

I really like the idea of trade mission that someone mentioned here waaaay back no idea how it would be implemented but it would definitley add to trading. For example say independant traders can trade using the current system and faction traders get specific missions at the bar e.g. say you are a trader with a cryer ID you would get a mission to carry pharmaceuticals to someplace that needs them (have the mission briefing give some random RP reason here) and the missions would vary in pay for danger, amount of cargo for carrying and distance.

this would mean that in house systems or pirate systems there would be <600 cargo freighters running RP goods around with the occasional big transport coming through doing the big run to the next house etc.

maybe make it so that the long runs pay slightly more per second so that you could do say 5 small routes in a small ship for 10 million credits or one long run for 12 million with the long route being more boring and riskier.

[Janus]

However, is this possible?

Not those 4, if you mean to somewhere you'll actually make a profit during the changeover. However, Refugees, Scientists and Prisoners will all work.

The idea of Cryer converting Scientists to Human Organs is a touch farcical though. The other two are at a Zoner Base, can't see that happening either really, and a Corsair one.

[Gemini893]

people keep moaning and groaning about what they call "loltraders". what about "lolpirates" that demand ridiculous amounts of credits because they mistakenly think all traders are worth hundreds of millions?

Then they cry because a trader says "kill me, it's cheaper". DUH

Anyhoo, on topic: One thing that would definitely help is to banish gunboats from ships people can use for pirating. IT IS called a cap ship in that you're not allowed to ram it to cripple it but it's NOT called one as far as pirating. This never made sense to me. Either it's a cap ship and, therefor, should be disallowed for piracy or it isn't one and you can ram the sucker.

hmmm, another idea given to me by the Salvager ship...If you insist on pirating with a gunboat, restrict the shield to lower than class 8. max of class 7 if using for piracy.

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[farmerman]

people keep moaning and groaning about what they call "loltraders". what about "lolpirates" that demand ridiculous amounts of credits because they mistakenly think all traders are worth hundreds of millions?

Maybe you're just in different places than me because I've been seeing constant complaints about idiots on both sides a lot lately!

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Faction info links: Samura Heavy Industries : LWB : Watchers

[DAnvilFan]

The reason why trading is boring has everything to do with repetition. It is the same reason why taking missions is boring.

All we need is an element that introduces variety.
Dynamic economy is one key but Freelancer wasn't made for it and I assume any proper utilization of such a concept would result in failure.

My ideal concept would be the introduction of poverty levels per base.
How this would work is that every station has a poverty level depending on how much products it has sold. If a station has sold a lot, then the wealth level increases. Now when factions want to RP politics and discuss how Crete is poor, for example, they have real values to prove it. Let's say you assign a variable to each station and then check it via FL Hook command (would this be in any way possible?). Let's say that those variables are effected by how many times goods are purchased from that station. Is that also feasible? I assume the answer is outright - "no."

But that's my point. We could introduce a billion fantastic ideas to improve trading, but Freelancer limits all of it.

P.S. I noticed that FL will remember temperarily how much commodities you have sold to it. Of course, once you undock that information is lost. Is there any chance to preserve that information for the entire day until the server restarts? If that's also possible, this would be another way to track wealth of stations. You would also be able to trade goods multiple times. Let's say a bunch of folks have been trading food to Crete all day. Now Crete is stashed with a large amount of food supplies that folks can trade from there. Also not possible? I assume as much.

[masternerdguy]

The reason why trading is boring has everything to do with repetition. It is the same reason why taking missions is boring.

All we need is an element that introduces variety.
Dynamic economy is one key but Freelancer wasn't made for it and I assume any proper utilization of such a concept would result in failure.

My ideal concept would be the introduction of poverty levels per base.
How this would work is that every station has a poverty level depending on how much products it has sold. If a station has sold a lot, then the wealth level increases. Now when factions want to RP politics and discuss how Crete is poor, for example, they have real values to prove it. Let's say you assign a variable to each station and then check it via FL Hook command (would this be in any way possible?). Let's say that those variables are effected by how many times goods are purchased from that station. Is that also feasible? I assume the answer is outright - "no."

But that's my point. We could introduce a billion fantastic ideas to improve trading, but Freelancer limits all of it.

P.S. I noticed that FL will remember temperarily how much commodities you have sold to it. Of course, once you undock that information is lost. Is there any chance to preserve that information for the entire day until the server restarts? If that's also possible, this would be another way to track wealth of stations. You would also be able to trade goods multiple times. Let's say a bunch of folks have been trading food to Crete all day. Now Crete is stashed with a large amount of food supplies that folks can trade from there. Also not possible? I assume as much.

what we need is a system where at server restart there are random +/- market fluctuations on random bases for a random amount between 1 and 1000. That makes daily trade routes.

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Send the fat kid in to see if its a trap

[Revan]

I think most people see trading as a side job to get a ship or weapons they want. I think we need a trader comm, for traders with a trade ID, like how truckers use the radios. It would make it less boring - then i would trade.

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