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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Ship costs and bounties  (Read 11492 times)

TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #45 on: December 08, 2018, 06:45:42 AM »


Made a quick demo:
- new game with normal start/skip tutorial
- sell starting ship, buy a buffalo
- stock up on the first commodity that seems nice in the starting system
- sell it at the closest opportunity

Sold 280 domestic goods:
- 7500 profit with tariffs
- ~3 days
- 5 fuel used
- less than 1 supply used

Why are you using smuggling as an examaple of trade making profit?
I'm talking regular trade. LEGAL.
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Recklessimpulse

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #46 on: December 08, 2018, 08:30:53 AM »

Well I accepted a mission to sell a world 200 Heavy Armaments for 300k and it only cost me 127k to buy so that was a decent profit it you count the mission you can accept form time to time. 
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Xan

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #47 on: December 08, 2018, 09:02:31 AM »


Made a quick demo:
- new game with normal start/skip tutorial
- sell starting ship, buy a buffalo
- stock up on the first commodity that seems nice in the starting system
- sell it at the closest opportunity

Sold 280 domestic goods:
- 7500 profit with tariffs
- ~3 days
- 5 fuel used
- less than 1 supply used

Why are you using smuggling as an examaple of trade making profit?
I'm talking regular trade. LEGAL.

He literally did, he even explicitly said "with tarrifs"
Did you quote the wrong post?
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StarGibbon

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #48 on: December 08, 2018, 11:26:32 AM »

Assumption: Legal, no-risk free form trade is supposed to be a thing because it was in some other game, is the only way to make money doing trade activities, trade is bad because it's difficult to do this.

Fact: Game straight up tells you it isn't supposed to be a thing, tells you in the hint screen that tariffs will eliminate most profit from sanctioned trading, instead introduces more interesting mechanics of having to dodge patrols, sneak into ports, deal with shady markets, and manipulate market stability in order to create opportunity. Also supplies many profitable low risk trade-style missions that you would have to be really bad at the game not to make lots of  money doing.

So yeah, you can make money doing "legal" trading by exploiting extreme supply/demand mismatches sufficient to overcome tariff.  It will be a tedious grind, and profit will be slim.  Or you could play the actual game with the trade system as intended and actually make money with little effort.
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Draba

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #49 on: December 08, 2018, 01:00:20 PM »


Made a quick demo:
- new game with normal start/skip tutorial
- sell starting ship, buy a buffalo
- stock up on the first commodity that seems nice in the starting system
- sell it at the closest opportunity

Sold 280 domestic goods:
- 7500 profit with tariffs
- ~3 days
- 5 fuel used
- less than 1 supply used

Why are you using smuggling as an examaple of trade making profit?
I'm talking regular trade. LEGAL.

Right there in the quote that's with tariffs and also has 2 pictures, really dunno what to tell you.
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TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #50 on: December 11, 2018, 02:56:00 AM »


Fact: Game straight up tells you it isn't supposed to be a thing, tells you in the hint screen that tariffs will eliminate most profit from sanctioned trading, instead introduces more interesting mechanics of having to dodge patrols, sneak into ports, deal with shady markets, and manipulate market stability in order to create opportunity. Also supplies many profitable low risk trade-style missions that you would have to be really bad at the game not to make lots of  money doing.

If trading is so damn unprofitable, why are people becoming traders?

This is a case of bad design and forcing a specific playstyle.
You can't even do bulk trading to increase profits/blunt the losses due to tarrifs, because no planet actually holds enough goods to fill up even a smaller trader fleet.
The entire thing is laugable.


Quote
So yeah, you can make money doing "legal" trading by exploiting extreme supply/demand mismatches sufficient to overcome tariff.  It will be a tedious grind, and profit will be slim.  Or you could play the actual game with the trade system as intended and actually make money with little effort.

I get it. Play it my way.. OR ELSE. The actual game is smuggling. People who just want to trade can go f*** themselves.
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Deshara

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #51 on: December 11, 2018, 03:09:21 AM »


Fact: Game straight up tells you it isn't supposed to be a thing, tells you in the hint screen that tariffs will eliminate most profit from sanctioned trading, instead introduces more interesting mechanics of having to dodge patrols, sneak into ports, deal with shady markets, and manipulate market stability in order to create opportunity. Also supplies many profitable low risk trade-style missions that you would have to be really bad at the game not to make lots of  money doing.

If trading is so damn unprofitable, why are people becoming traders?

they aren't, they're fulfilling procurement contracts, which the player also can do.
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Quote from: Deshara
I cant be blamed for what I said 5 minutes ago. I was a different person back then

Draba

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #52 on: December 11, 2018, 03:27:33 AM »

...

Yep, just ignore the part that shows you are objectively wrong.
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StarGibbon

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Re: Ship costs and bounties
« Reply #53 on: December 11, 2018, 02:47:22 PM »

The mind-numbingly trivial activity of safely moving goods from goods from port to port without any interesting decisions or consequences is folded into the colony system. That's what they're doing--moving goods in quantities sufficient to profit even through tariffs.  In this respect, so-called "legal trade" is insanely profitable.

On the scale of the player character, the game realizes that trade is, for most people, an extremely uninteresting activity compared to combat, and attempts to throw some interesting wrinkles into the mix. Let's face it, playing Han Solo is far more interesting than playing a UPS driver.  

It's not a question of *playstyle*--the playstyle of a trade focused character is mechanically supported. In the end, "legal" vs "illegal" is simply quibbling over a cosmetic distinction. The game is more ambitious in its trade mechanics than other similar games, requiring more interesting decisions to be made. It could dress these up any way it wanted.

As for roleplaying, even big budget sandbox games have practical limits to the number of RP considerations they can support. Not every conceivable fantasy will be supported. I'm sure that someone will Mod out tariffs, thereby reducing the challenge and  complexity of the trade system, for people who find it cosmetically unappealing.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 04:07:58 PM by StarGibbon »
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