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In a few minutes, a new version is going to be released, which will change the way Vendetta's trading economy works.
As most of you know, we have, to date, used a "Demand" based system where the degree of demand for a given item at a given station is decreased as quantities of that item are sold there. Ie, the more of Widget X you deliver to a station, the less they'll be willing to pay for more of Widget X, until the demand slowly climbs back up again. The degree of demand-drop (the amount of drop per unit sold) is configured per-item, although it's mostly consistent across the majority of items.
The "funky" bit appears, however, in that demand has only ever been recalculated every five minutes. So, in other words, you could sell an infinite quantity of Widget X, and the station would happily buy them at its "current" price (perhaps the maximum), in vast amounts. This gave rise to the practice of stockpiling large quantities of items at stations, to allow for mass-selling during the no-demand-change window, reaping massive rewards. Only a minority of our userbase really made use of this, but they're by far the wealthiest percentage in the game ;).
As of tonight, we now integrate the demand decrease during the sale. In other words, the amount that the station is willing to pay for the item will change as you alter the quantity you wish to sell there. If you choose to sell 100 items, you may get price X, if you choose to sell 1000, you will get a smaller price per item, as the demand decrease is factored into resulting total. Thus, it is now more advantageous to sell Widget X's to multiple different stations that have the highest demand, or sell them in small quantities over a period of time when the local demand reaches its peak. I leave the calculation of those optimal price variations to our worthy traders.
What does this mean for most players?
Actually, it doesn't really mean very much. We experimented with before-and-after profit differences, in fact Ray wrote up a little application to show us the differences for any quantities we wanted, based on various prices and demand-dropoff values. For the average moth-load of items (say, 200), the change is not that dramatic. There is some change, you will make a bit less profit, but not a staggering difference. For smaller loads.. say, an Atlas or some such, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference at all.
For those who trade in major quantities, however, the difference is quite significant. When selling 1000 or more of a given item, the profit differences can be quite large (50% or more), escalating with the quantity.
So, in other words, most "normal" trading is just as viable as it ever was. However, mass-stockpile trading is now less viable.
Why did we do this?
This needed to be done, to fix a fundamental flaw in the way our economy worked. As it was, it made the possibilities of trade route exploitation rather.. bad, to the point where I was leery of adding new things or creating especially-profitable routes. After all, someone would immediately just stockpile 50,000cu of Widget X and then make a bajillion credits. Although I know the stockpiling system was considered a legitimate trade tactic, I think the overall game will be better off this way. Strictly speaking, it doesn't negate the benefits of stockpiling, it just makes it more time-sensitive and closes the hole of making obscene amounts immediately.
Now, for instance, I can offer the ability to purchase Trading Warehouses, or some such, at various stations, allowing heavy traders to put in their fully automated buy and sell orders. Allowing them to make money, even while they're offline. That might strike some as kind of bad, but that is part of our eventual Trading "endgame", where traders should be able to establish fully automated routes between their station and other stations, buying and selling goods when certain price points are met, and hiring NPCs/PCs to carry their goods to and fro, and also defend their goods from the many would-be pirate who will always be on hand to attack them. This is all good, it creates more content for everyone. Don't expect warehouses to show up right away or anything, there's a lot of economic balancing to do, but it is an example.
Anyway, if I had created any kind of automated trading-post sort of feature into the game, as it was, it would have been excessively easy to make way too much money, further exacerbating our inflation issue. With the demand now calculated in-line during sale, we can continue tuning other aspects of the economy until we have a relatively stable and "fun" total picture, and then begin offering new features (like that mentioned above), offsetting it with various "fees" and "costs" and such to continue keeping our system in balance.. but still allowing the truly dedicated and hardcore trader to (eventually) become galactic billionaires (and then, maybe they can lose all their money in an in-game stock market crash! and blow themselves out an airlock! who knows). Yes, I know we have billionaires now, but it'll be more meaningful when it's difficult to achieve and there's much more expensive stuff to buy.
Anyway, I hope that serves as some explanation of what's going on, and why we did this. Take care all, and Happy Halloween!
As most of you know, we have, to date, used a "Demand" based system where the degree of demand for a given item at a given station is decreased as quantities of that item are sold there. Ie, the more of Widget X you deliver to a station, the less they'll be willing to pay for more of Widget X, until the demand slowly climbs back up again. The degree of demand-drop (the amount of drop per unit sold) is configured per-item, although it's mostly consistent across the majority of items.
The "funky" bit appears, however, in that demand has only ever been recalculated every five minutes. So, in other words, you could sell an infinite quantity of Widget X, and the station would happily buy them at its "current" price (perhaps the maximum), in vast amounts. This gave rise to the practice of stockpiling large quantities of items at stations, to allow for mass-selling during the no-demand-change window, reaping massive rewards. Only a minority of our userbase really made use of this, but they're by far the wealthiest percentage in the game ;).
As of tonight, we now integrate the demand decrease during the sale. In other words, the amount that the station is willing to pay for the item will change as you alter the quantity you wish to sell there. If you choose to sell 100 items, you may get price X, if you choose to sell 1000, you will get a smaller price per item, as the demand decrease is factored into resulting total. Thus, it is now more advantageous to sell Widget X's to multiple different stations that have the highest demand, or sell them in small quantities over a period of time when the local demand reaches its peak. I leave the calculation of those optimal price variations to our worthy traders.
What does this mean for most players?
Actually, it doesn't really mean very much. We experimented with before-and-after profit differences, in fact Ray wrote up a little application to show us the differences for any quantities we wanted, based on various prices and demand-dropoff values. For the average moth-load of items (say, 200), the change is not that dramatic. There is some change, you will make a bit less profit, but not a staggering difference. For smaller loads.. say, an Atlas or some such, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference at all.
For those who trade in major quantities, however, the difference is quite significant. When selling 1000 or more of a given item, the profit differences can be quite large (50% or more), escalating with the quantity.
So, in other words, most "normal" trading is just as viable as it ever was. However, mass-stockpile trading is now less viable.
Why did we do this?
This needed to be done, to fix a fundamental flaw in the way our economy worked. As it was, it made the possibilities of trade route exploitation rather.. bad, to the point where I was leery of adding new things or creating especially-profitable routes. After all, someone would immediately just stockpile 50,000cu of Widget X and then make a bajillion credits. Although I know the stockpiling system was considered a legitimate trade tactic, I think the overall game will be better off this way. Strictly speaking, it doesn't negate the benefits of stockpiling, it just makes it more time-sensitive and closes the hole of making obscene amounts immediately.
Now, for instance, I can offer the ability to purchase Trading Warehouses, or some such, at various stations, allowing heavy traders to put in their fully automated buy and sell orders. Allowing them to make money, even while they're offline. That might strike some as kind of bad, but that is part of our eventual Trading "endgame", where traders should be able to establish fully automated routes between their station and other stations, buying and selling goods when certain price points are met, and hiring NPCs/PCs to carry their goods to and fro, and also defend their goods from the many would-be pirate who will always be on hand to attack them. This is all good, it creates more content for everyone. Don't expect warehouses to show up right away or anything, there's a lot of economic balancing to do, but it is an example.
Anyway, if I had created any kind of automated trading-post sort of feature into the game, as it was, it would have been excessively easy to make way too much money, further exacerbating our inflation issue. With the demand now calculated in-line during sale, we can continue tuning other aspects of the economy until we have a relatively stable and "fun" total picture, and then begin offering new features (like that mentioned above), offsetting it with various "fees" and "costs" and such to continue keeping our system in balance.. but still allowing the truly dedicated and hardcore trader to (eventually) become galactic billionaires (and then, maybe they can lose all their money in an in-game stock market crash! and blow themselves out an airlock! who knows). Yes, I know we have billionaires now, but it'll be more meaningful when it's difficult to achieve and there's much more expensive stuff to buy.
Anyway, I hope that serves as some explanation of what's going on, and why we did this. Take care all, and Happy Halloween!
Things are moving, and that's good. Once the effect of this change catches up with the effect of recent change in ship prices we will see some impact in the way people use their money to buy ships, loose ships, and in the end on how they wage wars.
Looking forward to play again in a few days or so when time allows it.
Looking forward to play again in a few days or so when time allows it.
Excellent, TGFT welcomes any move towards a balanced dynamic economy.
Historically, we have been noted for stockpile selling, quite simply because the quantity of goods being traded in the vo universe was relatively small and we could put our trade knowledge to good use in finding underused routes.
This knowledge has made many TGFT traders wealthy, but it is the collection and sharing of that information rather than the wealth itself that makes being part of a trade guild interesting.
We look forward to putting that trading knowledge to use in a more demanding environment.
Ecka
Historically, we have been noted for stockpile selling, quite simply because the quantity of goods being traded in the vo universe was relatively small and we could put our trade knowledge to good use in finding underused routes.
This knowledge has made many TGFT traders wealthy, but it is the collection and sharing of that information rather than the wealth itself that makes being part of a trade guild interesting.
We look forward to putting that trading knowledge to use in a more demanding environment.
Ecka
I love you!
As a mid level trader just past his first 500 mill, I'm sort of ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I've made a fair amount of money stockpiling (which is bloody hard work, which may come as a surprise to some), on the other hand anything that moves us closer to a more dynamic/"realistic" economy can only be a good thing,and will probably make trading more interesting and challenging overall.Even if some of will have to change our approach to trading a bit. We'll see how it goes, I guess :-)
Ricker
Ricker
Two thumbs up. I'd also say keep going like this, but you're already doing so :)
What is this trading you speak of?
I say this change couldn't have come soon enough! The stock & sell aspect of the system was badly flawed to the point where it was a borderline exploit. Plus, this is the perfect excuse for me to do this sort of thing again. After all, in all change, there is opportunity.
Yay! :)
I can't support this change enough! I always wondered why it didn't do this in the first place. A definite step in the right direction.
Now thats what I call progress
oh joy.
I guess it solves a problem for the progress of all of VO. I am looking forward to the changes that these steps necessitates. In the meantime......
btw, nice pussycat Surb
I guess it solves a problem for the progress of all of VO. I am looking forward to the changes that these steps necessitates. In the meantime......
btw, nice pussycat Surb
Very happy to see the positive response.
One other thing this makes possible.. is larger ships with higher capacities for trading. Like capships, for instance, as the ability to move 10,000cu to and fro at once is no longer quite the ridiculous money source that it was previously.
One other thing this makes possible.. is larger ships with higher capacities for trading. Like capships, for instance, as the ability to move 10,000cu to and fro at once is no longer quite the ridiculous money source that it was previously.
But it's (larger ships) still an awesome way to take control of a station sector and cause problems! w00t
Awesome. If we get capital trading ships, especially if we eventually have the opportunity to capture rather than destroy them, will make piracy a real thing rather than a role-playing idea only.
I have a question, and this may not be be the right spot to ask, but I am wondering:
How will the decrease in in-system/in-nation trade and anti-stockpiling will affect the new traders, considering that most will start with in-system in-nation trade, which would have low profit rates (not the million(s) that veteran traders talk about)?
How will the decrease in in-system/in-nation trade and anti-stockpiling will affect the new traders, considering that most will start with in-system in-nation trade, which would have low profit rates (not the million(s) that veteran traders talk about)?
I can give you the short answer and the long answer theratt
short answer: not much
long answer: I copied/pasted this from the top of the thread
What does this mean for most players?
Actually, it doesn't really mean very much. We experimented with before-and-after profit differences, in fact Ray wrote up a little application to show us the differences for any quantities we wanted, based on various prices and demand-dropoff values. For the average moth-load of items (say, 200), the change is not that dramatic. There is some change, you will make a bit less profit, but not a staggering difference. For smaller loads.. say, an Atlas or some such, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference at all.
For those who trade in major quantities, however, the difference is quite significant. When selling 1000 or more of a given item, the profit differences can be quite large (50% or more), escalating with the quantity.
So, in other words, most "normal" trading is just as viable as it ever was. However, mass-stockpile trading is now less viable.
short answer: not much
long answer: I copied/pasted this from the top of the thread
What does this mean for most players?
Actually, it doesn't really mean very much. We experimented with before-and-after profit differences, in fact Ray wrote up a little application to show us the differences for any quantities we wanted, based on various prices and demand-dropoff values. For the average moth-load of items (say, 200), the change is not that dramatic. There is some change, you will make a bit less profit, but not a staggering difference. For smaller loads.. say, an Atlas or some such, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference at all.
For those who trade in major quantities, however, the difference is quite significant. When selling 1000 or more of a given item, the profit differences can be quite large (50% or more), escalating with the quantity.
So, in other words, most "normal" trading is just as viable as it ever was. However, mass-stockpile trading is now less viable.
Rejected is right, and small run trading is how most of us started before the introduction of large cargo ships.
I think that the key to this will be price recovery rate ( demand ). Basics of life , water, foodstuffs , ores , etc should have much faster price recovery rates than luxuries.
Much has been written about tying the price and availability of high end manufactured items to the supply of basic goods as part of a true trade tree, and these changes are a step in that direction.
I think that the key to this will be price recovery rate ( demand ). Basics of life , water, foodstuffs , ores , etc should have much faster price recovery rates than luxuries.
Much has been written about tying the price and availability of high end manufactured items to the supply of basic goods as part of a true trade tree, and these changes are a step in that direction.
One factor that is missing right now is the station's limit on how much resources it will buy. Right now I can sell 50,000cus of water to a station and do it again and they'll gladly take it (forget about profit) without any regard to their storage capacity for required resources.
The station Wanted Item List can help in that respect by detailing the items they require and what their max limit is. The part I don't like is the constant diminishing return for every extra unit sold in bulk to a station. Yes, I agree that if you just sold one unit at one price the station should adjust the price lower, but I think there should be a set unit price when selling within a specified range from the station; in other words their resource limit.
The station Wanted Item List can help in that respect by detailing the items they require and what their max limit is. The part I don't like is the constant diminishing return for every extra unit sold in bulk to a station. Yes, I agree that if you just sold one unit at one price the station should adjust the price lower, but I think there should be a set unit price when selling within a specified range from the station; in other words their resource limit.