fazaad, average distance is 5k(but why am i even discussing semantics, i got no clue). You have however got multiple sectors that shorten it down to 300m but also lengthen it to 8k. But that is not skill sorry that is just experience or taking the time to do a jump from any sector to a wormhole or just hearing it from a friend.

Not to mention that safe routes don't exist. I have seen a lot of people pirate in nation territory. Heck if I wantd i could even pirate in nation territory... I/we could even kill fighters in nation territory. But my point is in so called safe routes you will be safe (deuh, what am i being logical again...). But on these excursions to grey space. Its still a risk, its not a dumb, well if I meet somebody im dead thing. That is like saying a valk should always be the counter of any other lower level ship. On which we know that that is not the case. It can take down a lot of low level fighters... but it is not a guarantee although it has a great probability. With your proposition you create a ship that will get countered by pretty much anything in game and will be totally useless for the rest. Like I said before, I don't mind there being counters, but these should never be 100% counters, which is what as yoda so eduquately said is what a speed of 160 does. While 170 is a challenge.

And is compettetivenes not based around challenges, not around ooohh another behemoth, yawn lets press the boost and fire button... boom. Yay +1 for me. -100000 for the trader.

cheers

I'd be OK w/ the Moth going 160m/s. Yes, it would make it very vulnerable, but that would be a good thing. Then there'd be a reason for traders to hire escorts. Their escorts should be the counter to the pirates, not their ship.

Sigh if people wana hire escorts to increase their chances nothing is stopping them to do so even now. But with a speed of 160 1 escort is not going to save this traders butt from 1 - 2 dedicated pirates.

170 would make it interesting, besides we can always adjust a bit more down later... why do people always wanna go from 1 extreme to another when balancing ships... small incremental steps peops... that is the key.

the average distance is nowhere near 5K. and for a trader, knowing where to get into a WH sector is part of his trade, just like a pirate knowing what sectors to bother trying to hit.

lets put it this way, Dau to Azek is often flown as 8K by people, cutting it to 4800m is easy. Dau to Arta can be cut to around 1K, Dau to Nyrius is around 1K as well. Azek to Dau is 4K if you don't want to fly over roid sectors and gamble on a storm, if you wish to do that, you can cut it more. Azek to Latos, 2500m. Latos to Sedina, 5K at best, this is a good one to hit in, but that 5K distance puts you on a very good vector towards the WH that very few pirates cover. Latos to Azek is 2K from the right vector. Everyone knows Sedina to anywhere isn't over 500m if done right.

The average is nowhere near 5K unless you just go at whatever angle you're given. And I hold this as being a skill (experience and skill is pretty much the same thing) for a trader, and it is something that makes pirating pretty darn hard.

And yes, I know traders who rely on information like this and use it for everything its worth.

You can get hit in Nation space but that's why Strike fleets should be better and not break every other day like they do now. And I really doubt 160 in a Behemoth will make it impossible to get away. It'll make it quite a lot harder and it will require a good route, planning and some ideas of how you have to deal with attackers, and demanding experience (sorry, skill) to do this would be good. Dropping mines and starting to tap-boost while turning are last resorts for traders. This isn't what their skill should be about. If a trader has to drop mines their pulse should be high and they should be thinking about how to avoid that next time.

The Behemoth isn't a fighter that has a counter in another fighter. It is a trader. It's like saying that the Behemoth is a counter to the Valkyrie since a Valk can't run trade missions.

Edit: And the fastest way of finding a good value for something is often a binary search.

so knowing comen knowledge is a skill?

Knowing where you can hav ethis so called effect just by taking the time to jump from each exitpoint to the wormhole is a skill?

Please... each tradeintensive guild has a survey of what the closest entrypoints are to get to the next wormhole fast. heck... even our guild has one although only rudimentary since we don't live to trade .

Each person doing the same route over and over will have this 'skill'. And after x times the same bulkroute to make money from a mission, i'm sure many people know the quickest way.

And naturally traders will use this for everythgin it is worth, since it suts traveltimes in half easilly. Still it will not be only traders that use it, im sure a lot of ctc'ers now the quickest paths to a wormhole on the route. I'm sure some fighters or pirates know the quickest way on a route. But surely that ain't a skill... its a common knowledge. Especially since i don't beleive in all this requiring skill at all.

And well oyu doubt it will not make it impossible to get away, I doubt it will so lets just dismiss this as a different point of opinin since im sure you wont change and im sure I wont change my view/stance.

And yes it are probably all arbitrary numbers, but seeing at how big the frigging moth is and knowing yodas background and knowledge about the game and about pirating moths... I value his opinion greatly. And if he says 160 moth = cannonfodder then so it is. And seeing that we are cutting down from a speed of 190, i don't see a drop of 20 if there is some contestation over as that big of a startingpoint, we can always drop more if the common feeling is that moths still get away to easilly.

cheers

PS: who cares what the fastest way is, its prolly also the best way to take into account the emotionallity of dropping something from press turbo zoom away, to press turbo boom im dead without the opponent even having to bother watching the screen to aim.

> 170 would make it interesting, besides we can always adjust a bit more down later...
> why do people always wanna go from 1 extreme to another when balancing ships... small
> incremental steps peops... that is the key.

Heh, yeah incremental steps are better. Maybe after a while at 170m/s I'd change my mind, but I still think I'd be OK going down to 160. And, at 160m/s I do think 1 escort would be effective against protecting it against 1 pirate (2 would be iffy, though). The pirate has a choice, either go for the escort, or directly for the Moth. If he goes for the escort, the Moth will probably have time to get away. If he goes for the Moth, he'll be rather vulnerable to the escort.

Renegade, what do you wish to see the traders show as skill? Their ability to lock turbo and drop mines? Their ability to tap-boost and roll?

Most people know WH access points, everyone doesn't know the shortest one to every WH in their path, and everyone doesn't plot that course. They're too lazy to do that.

There are ways of making "smart" navroute usage (use stubs that you connect together as you go via prompts and binds), yet people don't do this much at all. This is another "skill" I'd like to see traders use to stay alive, plan your routes, put effort into every run. I did this as a n00b and I'd happily do this again if I had to. It might even make trading less of a chore and more of a challenge.

if I had to do that, it would make it even more a chore for me then a challenge. I'm not playing a game to heighten my codeing skills. If I wanted to do that... then i would do that at work.

No a traderskill would be to easilly identify or findprofitable non mission traderoutes.

A traderskill would be to consistently beat a pirate to capture his cargo.

And yes, planning will be a part of it, but it is only a minor part, and it should not be a major part as you portray it to besince if I ever have to go trhough that just to get me some money to fund my lost ships... then th game can be damned to me. Its not a tradesimulator...

cheers

PS: proper mineplacing is an art, the ability to use your turbo at appropiate times is an art... locking your turbo will get you killed if you go up agaisnt an even moderate pirate(with the 190+ infiniboost), if it is lower.. it will be a lot harder for the trader to get away.

PPS: I always plot the shortest if I think about plotting it... I don't want to spedn a second longer hauling cargo then I really really have to.

Renegade, all your arguments have been under the assumption that people hate to trade and it should be made as quick and easy as possible.

There are people who actually enjoy trading, and would like to see it become more of a challenge, and thus involve more strategy.

Having one ship that is better at trade than all the others in every way kinda kills that. My personal opinion (and this is my last post on the topic, I swear) is that if one ship is able to carry far more cargo than any of its competitors, it should also be more vulnerable to pirates.

Still we are catering to both groups aren't we? And im endorsing the middleground. Not making it quicker and easier...

If i had wanted to make it easier, i would have been a firm supporter of pumping up hte infiniboost speed to 240. And asking for a ship that carries 2000000000 wedgets, costs 1 credit and can make a billion credits in 5 secs. But I'm not, im asking people to keep it reasonable.

If you want to do all that has been mentioned before, you can and it does give you an advantage(although small, which in my mind is good). But making it into a requirement... hell no.

PS: from all the people I know there is only a minority that loves to trade every single day for days to an end and do nothing else. But that is outside of the question anyway.

PPS: By dropping its speed to 170 I'm not making it impenetrable to pirate attacks. I'm only giving a chance to a skilled (or a tactical) trader to get away in a moth. I'm using a person as a reference to set the speed that has fought more moths then prolly me and you combined and even then we will stil not reach the number that he has fought. I don't want to turn it in cannonfodder... I wanna give an enterpreneurial and higher skilled trader a chance at getting away in a ship that with a lesser pilot will get killed off easilly. I'm actually making it harder and rewarding these same people that love trading and do nothing else to be able to get away. So really what is the problem. If yoda had said that cannonfodder would have been 150 and maybe getting away 160... I woudl have put it on 160. Is it that important to see the number 160 appear...

One question, how is finding good non-mission routes a skill while finding and using good access patterns to WHs not a skill?

> A traderskill would be to consistently beat a pirate to capture his cargo.

This is only true if we have a level playing field. Otherwise, all traders have high skill now. :-)

I'm not going to argue that Yoda has fought a lot of Behemoths. I don't think think a Behemoth will be fodder at 160 even if he says it. It's also worth remembering that Yodas favorite hunting ship, the Cent MkII, isn't infiboost anymore.

A funny situation could be that the TD Hog makes UIT space safer, since pirates want to fly it.

Oh, and I've repetedly survived 0 in his Valk by just locking turbo. I've done the same against other Syns. Flare Valks do however require dodging. It's very much a matter of how you plan your exit and your strategy for the dash.

But I will accept 170 as a start. We'll see how much it does and how much harder it becomes.

Because finding good access patterns and exit patterns is a static occurence. If you once found a wormhole entry in which you can cut of the distance to 300m, you can use that entry for the rest of your career as a trader. Seeing that we are a bunch of quasi friendly people (with a decent community), I'm sure that most people share these entries with their friends.

However due to the dynamical nature of good traderoutes, finding one does not necessarilly mean that this traderoute will be as profittable for your entire career. Although we probably know 1 traderoute that doesn't seem to follow this trend of dynamics, but keeps a static price the entire time (but lets not talk about this exception please). This dynamical nature is exactly what makes it more difficult and if you then consistently can find the best profitable traderoutes, that my friend is then a skill (in opposition with luck).

But thanks for the discussion is was a pleasure :D.

Traderoutes in VO are static. Selling prices never change. "Good routes" are "less used routes", and the are pretty doable to find by just using brute force. Of course, this requires you to know what every station sells every item at, but that information is easy to come by.

:D

I presumed them not to be according to the advertising as them being dynamic. Not to mention once there are like 400+ people flying around in this universe... will it still be as easy as it is now?

Maybe now we can slack a bit, but I think that if you can find them time and time again, it will be one of the main and most important characteristics of a skillfull trader.

There isn't a way to beforehand know what a station will buy a widget for. Knowing this is a matter of knowing where people tend to sell widgets. Being able to pull off good routes often is a matter of experience and habit. Just like WH planning. The best routes are the ones people don't fly or certain routes which trade guilds advertise.

Besides, as we all know, there are two ways to make money. Trading guild missions and the one specific route we don't want to talk about.

The problem is that everything else is a waste of time. Even in-system runs that yield 400-700 credits per cu (these are easy to find if you know what is sold where, I've seen people make web pages listing such routes), you still make less than you would on the one run, and you can only make so much before the prices fall and you have to move on. All in all, pretty annoying. I quickly learned that even looking for cargo to take back from a procurement mission was pretty pointless. Unless you make 100 credits at least per cu, why bother when you can get 1M / hour without thinking?

With more people we'll see even less "normal" trade and even more people move to trading guild and "special" routes. They're guaranteed and they make more money than you can get off "normal" trade.

In case someone wishes to correct me, some selling prices do change, but not trade widgets. How this works has been documented before. For trade widgets the buying price is dynamic but the selling price isn't.

Actually there is, many pure traders chart out the setors they are thinking about trading to with 1 ship packed with all kind of wedgets. they do this once, write down the semi interesting routes and then masstrade.

Heck I have even found very good routes that made me more then the one route we don't wanna talk about only because most people dont bother searching for them. Heck I could have made more then 2 mill/hour on each route that I had in my mind if I had just waited and stockpiled enough widgets(buying for 900, selling for 4-5k in a 1 system jump). And I had 3 of those options available...

So don't tell me that a trader that is experienced doesn't know any mroe of those routes. And yes those happen because of people not choosing them but the easy route. But isn't that exactly what skill is, knowing where to be to get a major profit. Especially since you can't predict where these points are going to be. If they would have been predictable any person could as long as he had the predictiontool come out with uber profits. Where is the skll in that?

And telling that wormholejumping is a skill... come on they stay static every time they don't ever change if you know it once you know it for all eternity. That is not skill, any person that has read about it knows it.

And actually selling prices (froml station to you) do vary, but only very minor. Since these prices are dependant on the amount of goods you bring from each. Heck ask any skilled trader and he will be able to tell you that if you dump x amount of part Z of item Y that the price of this item Y will drop. It only needs a very big load to do it, but it does happen (yoda did it once while he was trying to lower the cost of sunflares in one of the grey areas, and i beleive mr spuck did it also but don't quote me on that). And yes some tradegoods are dependant on their lower class tradegoods (thats exactly the reason why you see insane profits of 700% on soem of them)

And as you prolly know, selling prices (or the prices at which the stores buys your goods) vary greatly depending on the amount you bring. Although it goes quicker to drop an items profitabillity from 100% to 50% then from dropping an items profit from 20% to 10%. And at those times the other items are better to cart around. Although that one route we ar enot talking about messes all this up.

Sales prices for ships and weapons vary outside of grey. Trade widgets don't. You can change the price of Gauss between a few different levels if you know what you're doing, but you can't make XiRite Alloy any cheaper.

Even if you make 2M / hour for 2 hours its hard to compete with 1M / hour forever. I'd love to see this fixed, but right now, trading in VO doesn't involve hunting good runs. And selling for 4-5K per unit I suppose you're dealing with 3u cargo, which takes three times as long to move. 2M / hour is high though.

People do run with many pieces of cargo to probe things, I have too. I've found lots of individual routes that were worth quite a bit. None of them ever stood up to the income / time ratio of the alternatives when you figure in the time to probe and the "cooldown" of the route once you've run it once.

And this is just as static as WH routes once you've done so once.

Well I don't beleive that it can be static , since these routes will be depressed by human interference. You can maybe find one of the routes today, but tomorrow and the rest of the weeks coming other people always beaten you to it. Making another route less depressed and open as a good traderoute. And if you then compare this with the wormhole problem, letting more people jump through the wormhole does not hcange the vector of this wormhole making it dynamical. Or as part of a skill.

And seeing that this human interaction scheme is dynamic, good traderoutes can never be static from a logical point of view just because of that.

And I alays presumed that if none of the traderbots arived at their destination that yu could actually inflate the prices of xithrite alloy and power cores (can't find exact names for some wedgets) etc. Since all these items(lower level wedgets) get mostly supplied by the tradebots keeping some of these items on a quasi static level, and ensuring that the products made from it don't rise in price as well.

I even believe that waylon posted something about all the wedgets being part of an engineering or constructionscheme... for latr craftingpurposes although I'm hard presed to find out from what synthwood would be a derivative.

You're right that sell prices are dynamic, what I hope I said was that purchase prices where static. Ships and weapons have dynamic purchase prices and vary with what trade widgets you sell. But purchase prices for the trade widgets themselves are static. Or they have never changed in the months I have played and checked against peoples trade databases.

Sorry I always get confused betwen selling and buyprices considering it all depends from which point of view you look at it.

Anyway i did see buyprices change in price, it has never been groundshattering, like a drop from 950 to 935 or something along those lines, but they did drop or raise. At least they did while I was trading. But to have a conclusive answer, maybe the devs can give one ? Since on that point we are both guessing anyway ;).