Sell inventory from anywhere from the inventory tab without having to fly to the station.

We have universal communication (station attack alerts, chat, price updates, manu updates)... it'd be nice to sell all those EC-89's in my inventory without flying all over to do it.

+1

Only if you get no profit.

-1. Having to visit stations to act creates more reason for travel. More travel means more encounters with other players and NPCs.

You've already visited that station, carried the cargo and left it fallow. the "no profit" makes no sense.

Also, if you're hoping that someone will fly to Ukari to sell ten EC-89's... that's probably wrong thinking.

You could be waiting for the value of an item to go up. Selling it remotely would beat out someone who is actually at the station. Why would people fly anymore if all they could just place bots in stations and remotely check the value of something and then buy and sell remotely? This is a game; get out there and fly.

No profit would mean that the player actually doing the work of flying station to station would find value in their game play.

Bots? I never said anything about bots.

If you want to move and store commodities around the universe, stockpiling, then selling when the economy improves, good on you! You just "flew around" at risk, even...

I don't understand your negativity to the idea, other than you feel that it will make the universe seem... less populated?

There are ways to not only stimulate the economy, but to encourage trade... got any better ideas? I'd love to hear them, rather than a generally implied "this idea is bunk."

Also, I know the devs have been trying to do some db cleanup lately. It seems to me that there are a bunch of useless/derelict items in database at this point, things like EC-89's that would be nice to have cleaned up.

As a partial solution, maybe free busses and certain commodities should have an expiry; have the station reclaim them as "loaner shuttles" after a week of non-use rather than just sit around and go fallow. I mean, come on, how long can "fresh flowers" stay fresh? Are they in stasis, or what?

"Also, if you're hoping that someone will fly to Ukari to sell ten EC-89's... that's probably wrong thinking."

The world doesn't revolve around you and your worthless bus collection. I, for one, have flown to Ukari to sell dusty Behemoths when I was low on money, and sometimes I travel to Odia and Bractus specifically to check if I should sell off some of my Luxury Goods stockpiles.

Granted, this is a relatively minor issue. I only think it's a worthwhile tradeoff because of the small size of the universe. When the universe is eventually enlarged, the convenience will be worth the small hit to interaction. That's still sometime in the future, though.

"If you want to move and store commodities around the universe, stockpiling, then selling when the economy improves, good on you! You just "flew around" at risk, even..."

Now that you mention it, that's an even better reason to object to this suggestion. It's not that what you describe is inherently bad. The problem is that with the current system of infinite supply, remote selling would enable the wealthiest players and guilds to keep the market perpetually flooded. It would take a lot of work to keep the stockpiles topped off, but it's well within what some of the people and groups around here are capable of. Cranking up demand enough to make that impractical would also make trade far more profitable, resulting in bad inflation. The only real solution would be to make supply finite. When that happens, then something like this might be acceptable.

"-1. Having to visit stations to act creates more reason for travel. More travel means more encounters with other players and NPCs."

Within the scope of worthless inventory, this argument fails to counter the suggestion because there is no station travel activity to threaten. From what I can tell, the suggestion is aimed at helping better manage the sprawling mass of worthless items that clog up the Inventory view. Said inventory items are not valuable enough to worry about traveling around and selling off in the first place, and their accumulation is proof that this type of travel basically never happens.

If the scope of remote selling is limited to items of no or low "game listed" value, I think it has merit. If the scope applies broadly to all inventory anywhere, then it's obviously a bad idea for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps profit from remote selling is halved? or some other limitation listed above...

+1

As Wally and WAF say above, reduce/remove profits for items, or maybe impose a limit on how much quantity can be sold remotely every day. I am not sure if the game keeps track of profit for items that may have been purchased at different prices. If it does, make it 0 profit.

More travel means more encounters with other players and NPCs

Realistically speaking, you go to almost all stations within the verse during most of the day and not encounter a single soul. Except maybe in capitol stations. I'm all for more player interaction but trying to force it by making someone with a huge inventory travel everywhere to get rid of it seems like a negative tradeof. One might also think that remotely selling stuff wouldn't just somehow disappear from a culture that has evolved to achieve space flight.

Remote selling should obviously not be permitted for items in stations you don't have access to(i.e. conquerable and hated factions).

From various plugins I've put together, it appears that the game creates a separate inventory item for every difference in purchase data. For example, you can purchase 100 commodities and the system may sell, you 85 at 1200c each and 15 at 1800c each. The display will show you have qty 100, but you actually have 85(@1200c)+15(@1800c).

I suppose this is how ships show up as separate items, and not quantity 100 EC-89, because you can only buy one at a time. LOL.

Therefore, selling at your original purchase price plus a penalty, or service fee (for ansible usage?) is quite feasible.