I know it probably only matters to like, Joyce Sanders and me, but could someone please work on the trade widgets and system a bit? Not the missions, those are fine - but may we please have more varied widgets and system/faction exclusive widgets? I'd like to buy bionics that are only available at biocom and serco stations and sell them for profit at other factions' commercial and barracks stations. I want to buy a hold full of prayer wheels from an itani station and then be stuck in serco space with nowhere to sell them at a profit. And can we make the variations in price due to the market larger?

As it stands, it makes very little difference where you trade. There is very little reason to do anything but move luxury goods from uit border systems to odia. It makes it really hard to have fun doing trade, especially if you are sick of the trade missions (and by trade 14, bulk procurement is a little soured).

Another idea to make trade a bit more fun would be the alter the scale. Increase the holds of ships by a factor of ten, lower prices (buying and selling), and of course adjust the trade missions and payouts to accomodate it. That way I could diversify my load even without a behemoth. In an Atlas, I would be able to take, say, 160cu of xith along with 160cu of textiles and have a better chance of making a profit. It'd be really nice too if used with the nation-exclusive goods idea. Then I could carry around 50cu of something and still be able to do other trade until I'm somewhere I can sell it at a profit, you know?

Something like this: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9836

Yes, please consider adding some veriety to trading. I'm "only" trade 11 now and, as Pausert has written, it's getting boring. I'm a huge fan of old-school trade games (like "Gazillionaire", "Ports of Call") and would like to see this aspect of VO vastly improved, especially since recent updates have been rather fighting oriented... There have already been numerous discussions about trading, but I'd like to *suggest* a few changes (again) in addition to Pausert's:

- Make the economy a little more dynamic - hauling literally thousands of crates of Plasteel from Nyrius to Dau as a part of procurement missions with no noticable changes of prices/demand/whatever is slightly disappointing.
- Create environment which stimulates competition among traders: items running out of stock, extremely successful deals being announced in the "News" tab, "production" of items depending on the availability of raw materials (a potentially interesting role for miners), and so on...

The economy is already supposed to be dynamic, but I don't think it takes trade missions into account, and it should. "I've brought you 700+ units of this already, don't you have enough yet!?!"

A truly dynamic economy would not only take that into account, but also should force stations to end up running out of some goods (although it could be said that enough were kept in reserve for trade missions to keep happening undisturbed, otherwise new players might have a hard time finding missions).

And yes, Beolach, I think your post would be great. I'd like to see more than that though. Trade really needs a boost. Since I've started, the only things to update for traders have been the behemoth (which, fair enough, is a great update for traders) and the trade missions, which shouldn't be the only thing a trader has to do.

I believe the reasoning behind the trade goods never running out, is that the stations produce all of the goods they sale, and they produce them all at a faster rate than they ever sell them. Which is not realistic, of course, but it has work fairly well so far, but I would agree that eventually it should be changed so that some goods do run out, until the station produces more to sell.

I have heard that already there is a rudimentary trade good crafting system, so that some trade goods are produced from other trade goods, and if you sell the component goods to a station, the cost for the goods made from that component will go down, but I haven't been able to actually see this in action. I think it should be a more pronounced effect, and there should be ways to find out what a trade good is made of. I can guess that simple plastics & steel are used to make plasteel, but I have no way of knowing for sure, and what are the components for a MicroTech Replicator?

I'd love to see some more of that system come into play. Find a station selling Consumer Electronics for a low price, and make a huge purchase, and then sell the components for Consumer Electronics to that station for a high price...

We also need clearer definitions of what stations sell and need. Like a basic mining station setup, selling ores at low prices, and then faction specific add-ons. Same in reverse, for what that station would need the most.

I'd also like to see more rewards for inter-player trade. Faction specific trade goods, that only players in that faction (or with extremely high standing) could purchase could help with this, especially if there were limits on where a player could sell. Say, only Serco players can purchase Serco Cybernetics, and as part of the purchase agreement, they sign a contract saying they will not sell these goods to an Itani station. But, they could sell the goods to a UIT (or maybe an Itani) player, and then the second player would be able to sell to Itani stations.

Right, I like that. Or at least require ridiculously high standing to get them, yeah (like Tung does for their centaur). I'd like to see more rewards for independent trading overall. XP shouldn't be given based on what is sold at the station you end up at - the client should keep track of what price you paid for goods (or 0 for pirated or found stuff) and then give you xp based on the amount of profit you made.

But this is all moot anyway, because trade isn't going to get worked on at the moment, with the new capships and bp missions and leviathans and so forth for the devs to worry about. Like I said in my first post in this thread, only a few of us play the game for the trading. Most people just use trade for standing and to get cash to buy more ships to fight with. But...

If trade were better, there'd be more traders. If there were more traders, there would be more pirates. If there were more pirates, there would be something for the rest of the fighting players to do.

Actually, Incarnate just posted here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10669 saying "There'll be more sweeping changes to the economy and other areas coming up, but I'll get your feedback about that in a separate thread, when it gets closer to happening."

So, while it won't be immediate, it does sound like it won't be long before they do some stuff with it.

That's great. I really hope they do make some updates to trade. Fighting gets old fast for me, but the trading aspect is what keeps it fun and keeps me paying.

Another thing I've suggested before, and would still love to see, is seperate currencies for the three nations. Capital & Commercial stations would have a tab to convert from other nation's credits to the nation that owns that station. UIT credits would have the best exchange rate, while Itani & Serco credits would be able to be exchanged, but would lose some of their value. So if you have lots of Itani credits, and need Serco credits, you'd want to go to a UIT station & convert to UIT credits, and then to a Serco station to convert the UIT credits to Serco credits.

I hadn't thought about that. If they made that variable like cargo prices (based on whatever criteria is reasonable from within a video game economy), you could conceivably make money at it - especially if you were willing to move UIT goods to Itani space, where they would be worth more due to the strength of the UIT currency, etc. That's a great idea.

*hint, hint, devies*

So, I'll give you guys a few secrets you might not know from my experience in TGFT.

You can get all but 2 items from just 2 UIT stations. Thats how powerful UIT is in trade. 3 stations to get any item you want.
Generally, UIT buy prices are the lowest in Vendetta.
Some items are not made at all by an entire nation.
Only 1 station in itani, and one in serco make medical supplies. Five out of seven station that make meds are in UIT.

It's already quite diverse. Enjoy,

> Some items are not made at all by an entire nation.

I know there's at least one (XiRite Alloy), but I really want to see more nation specific trade goods.

> You can get all but 2 items from just 2 UIT stations. Thats how powerful UIT is in trade.
> 3 stations to get any item you want.

And this kinda illustrates it. UIT are such good traders, they have everything. But, that means for UIT players to sell stuff for a nice big profit, they have to leave their own nation, because their nation has everything. And for the trading inside UIT space, you don't have to go anywhere for it, everything is at most 1 WH away.

And even that is fine - I don't mind making big trips. In fact, to make a good profit, that can make the trade more fun. But trade is so limited - why do any of that when you can run Lux goods from UIT space to Grey for such a huge profit? The fact that the economy is only dynamic when it comes to the price, and even then it is within such a limited range, means that trade gets *boring*.

We aren't saying trade is hard. We are just saying that there is not enough diversity to make it entertaining for long. More nation-specific products and so forth would make it more fun to make trade your primary purpose in the game, which makes the game more fun for everyone.