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Author Topic: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)  (Read 16345 times)

Kipcha

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Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« on: October 24, 2014, 11:43:08 PM »

Glitch / Exploit discovered;
When buying in bulk often its more economical to buy in singular transactions.

For example
Buying 20 Rare ore @ 48 C/u should only cost 960. The game wants to charge over a thousand (dont recall how much)
Buying singular is 48. THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE STACK.

As in: 1 Transaction of 20 R-Ore was over a thousand credits.
While 20 Transactions of 1 R-Ore was 960.

Not only is this system broke in that regard but the way the game does not tell you that each ore is costing less both buying and selling means that you have to sell one at a time till your profit margin is reached.

Also 30% Tariffs with no relationship modifier are absolutely damming to most profit margins. It makes me wonder what Alex lives that has a 30% EXPORT tax.

The current system seems needlessly complicated, took a long time to get a hang of and i still dont think have have a full understanding of
http://puu.sh/cpETd.jpg
and how that displays "Production, Demand, Required, Selling"
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Kipcha

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2014, 12:14:45 AM »

Here is a key example of my confusion in regards to the Commodities screen.

Rare Ore
3 icons to the left, non highlighted. "96% of demand met by local supply and stockpiles"
One icon indented to the right of that, Highlighted Green. "Local stockpiles exceeding demand by 44%"
Import Arrow followed by a grayed out single icon "4% of demand met by imports"

I understand that 100% of demand is now being met, 96+4.

I understand that local stockpiles exceed this demand.

But why is the local stockpile not on the right of the arrow? are they just not selling the local stockpile? For what purpose? Why does the AI
stockpile more than is required.

I understand the AI want a stockpile,this is a bad example of just how absurdly large the stockpiles can get, the place only wants 3 units of a product but has a stockpile of 9+? what are the green and red highlights for?

Another thing that has anonyed both me and others is that the
>Intel>Reports>Map>Prices
does not record your recent station visits and since it is not easy to screenshot it takes alot longer to actually do trading requireing a goddamn spreadsheet.

Also a question in regards to price update, are these totally random or is there a way to skew them to actually being useful?

Edit: or actually *** accurate.
I get a price update a station is offering 240 c/u of food. so i buy some at another station.
7x 56c/u of food plus tax comes to 561. (max i could buy)

Get to the station on the other end.

They want *** 51 c/u BEFORE TAX.
Check the market info theyre STILL 55% under supplied.

Not to mention the 748 credits it cost me to ship the stuff. 13 fuel and 8 supplies. (oh and the -2 rep to the independent's because i couldnt pay the thousand credit toll.

Trying to flee from independent bounty hunters still nets you the -2 rep as well.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2014, 02:51:11 AM by Kipcha »
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meric

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2014, 03:31:40 AM »

I agree trading could be more transparent.

Also 30% tariff on each side of the trade is very stiff. like 60%.

There's no way one could make a profit unless there was a shortage somewhere.

I think the tariffs could be varied along factions as well as category lines.

E.g. soft drugs at 50% tariff in hegemony station but only 10% on tri-tachyon ones.

I mean, how can the exports/imports that the planets do behind the scenes get around the problem of tariffs???
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Debido

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2014, 04:17:02 AM »

@ Meric/Kipcha: The 30% tarrif is intended so that trade routes are not profitable, only events are profitable. This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.

Instead look for food shortage events in particular, or destabilised economies in need of fuel that has very paying price for certain resources - there are megabucks to be made. You can make a few million with little effort, literally - if you anticipate market forces and do monitoring with comm sniffers etc. it's much more fun to be continually hunting down trade opportunity/events that may or may not pan out, than grinding a small trade route for profit for a few hours.


As for scaling, not sure, there are a lot of economic flow on effects from that, and potentially the player can get even more profit by virtue of just have lots of cash to buy more items. There is already plenty of opportunity for money now, so it would have to be in consideration of many things either way.

As for display showing the net import/export - it's fine, better than a spreadsheet. I hardly use it if ever because what is more important is the events taking place and supplying to those events for gain.

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TJJ

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2014, 04:54:13 AM »

@ Meric/Kipcha: The 30% tarrif is intended so that trade routes are not profitable, only events are profitable. This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.

Wot? That make no sense.

What's the point of Alex adding a dynamic supply and demand driven economy, if the tariffs make it impossible for the player to meaningfully interact with it?

I'm not rubbishing the system though; it certainly has the necessary systemic complexity for emergent gameplay to appear, it just needs some tweaking.
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Kipcha

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2014, 05:02:42 AM »

@ Meric/Kipcha: The 30% tarrif is intended so that trade routes are not profitable, only events are profitable. This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.
Which turns the game into "sit around outside of a station waiting for event to pop up"
Yeah, nah. The game is more fun having trade routes. a proper dynamic economy would actually have those trade routes but no singular super effecient one. It would be more, 'rotating' between stations. picking up loads dependant on price. However unless the news feed is upgraded significantly and the taxes are lowered this isnt happing. Its a miracle these stations even stay in business. im not talking from a 'realism' point of view but from an in-game point of view, when it costs a trader ATLEAST 800 credits to ship something that makes 2 credit profit. The game would actually sort itself out if given time, profit margins would expand correctly but i suspect npc traders have infinite money or some other DM fiat.

Quote
Instead look for food shortage events in particular, or destabilised economies in need of fuel that has very paying price for certain resources - there are megabucks to be made. You can make a few million with little effort, literally - if you anticipate market forces and do monitoring with comm sniffers etc. it's much more fun to be continually hunting down trade opportunity/events that may or may not pan out, than grinding a small trade route for profit for a few hours.
Sitting outside of a station waiting events is fun? as for comsniffers what difference to they make to normal feeds? The only faction i am not At Friendly or higher with is the pirates. and they dont have any comarrays.

Quote
As for scaling, not sure, there are a lot of economic flow on effects from that, and potentially the player can get even more profit by virtue of just have lots of cash to buy more items. There is already plenty of opportunity for money now, so it would have to be in consideration of many things either way.
Alot more cash to buy more items? % taxes dont work like that.
1 item at 30% tax is still 0.7 items.
10 items at 30% tax is 7 items.
Buying more doesnt increase your profit margins what so ever, infact most of the time larger item purchases HURT your profit margins as the price changes (without you seeing it) meaning you have to buy the number of items you want singularly to work out what your cut-off is for profit.
i would also like to point out here most stations do not require much more than 1 or two items to complete their (non event) demands for that product. The only time it is worth shipping bulk ever is for events.
For example i was shipping Weapons to Ratatosk once when Ratatosk was at 76% not supplied.
Foolishly i bought 40 weapons bought from the lowest price between Valhalla/Ragnar and Corvus (Jangala St.)
How much profit did i get? Well i would've gotten negative because 2 units of Weapons got me a whole 2 credits for my 800+ credit trek from Corvus to Valhalla. After those two units were sold the station still showed "not supplied" but refused to buy weapons at a price higher than Jangala St.
I understand security level may have played a part in this, however i was disappointed that 2 units was what 75% was.

But that still causes the issue i lsited in the first place. How do the NPC's turn a profit when freight charge alone is 800+ for a single item?


Quote
As for display showing the net import/export - it's fine, better than a spreadsheet. I hardly use it if ever because what is more important is the events taking place and supplying to those events for gain.
"its better than hitler, therefore its fine"
Hitler arguments are bad mmmkay.

As for the GUI for trading, i dont overly mind it i would just like a better explanation of what it meant in terms of "what is for sale" and "what the station actually needs" as there are several times the system has thrown my current understanding out of the window to do something rather baffling.

Right now im just making mad bank from bounties. When people are paying 1-3k a frigate plus salvage rights. its Easy money.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2014, 05:09:22 AM by Kipcha »
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facelessminion

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2014, 06:28:47 AM »

The amount that tariffs take away profit-wise is simply ludicrous.  That and the fact that system guards seem to quite happily shake you down for cash several times in a row both seem to just ensure that the only ways to make profits off of the markets are by using just the black market, or going after food shortages - and generally make a far larger profit by doing both!
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meric

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2014, 06:35:30 AM »

I agree with above saying making only events trade-able kind of defeats the purpose of having a dynamic economy.

I think some of the problems mentioned in this thread could be solved through improved UI. e.g. Show the whole demand curve rather than the margin price, *somehow*. (e.g. showing 800 credits per unit even though it's only for 2 units, there after a lot lower.) Maybe even a mini 10 by 20 pixel curve chart. But then marginal demand would probably be costly to calculate, so...

I think tariffs could be varied for some factions, and perhaps for some categories of goods. Changing tariffs could then be another source of events. The price events map UI can be upgraded to show only prices net tariffs (would then need 2 prices for each product. I suppose this could be the reason it's not done.). Could provide more story also - war from tariff increase events, increased import tariff to grow export industry, etc.

Also, since when comm sniffer is installed plus local updates you still get normal prices on the map, I think it should show prices you've discovered organically too. One could enhance profit by 100% by storing away items when cheap and then sell them at shortages, rather than buying at medium-high prices and selling them at shortage price. But I don't always have storage or cash available.

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Darloth

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2014, 06:46:29 AM »

This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.

It's less against you HAVING to grind, and more against you WANTING to grind.  It's certainly very effective at dissuading continual route trading in anything other than food (unfortunately, food has what amounts to trade routes given the regular shortages).
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Histidine

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2014, 07:10:31 AM »

@ Meric/Kipcha: The 30% tarrif is intended so that trade routes are not profitable, only events are profitable. This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.

Wot? That make no sense.

What's the point of Alex adding a dynamic supply and demand driven economy, if the tariffs make it impossible for the player to meaningfully interact with it?
Using this question to jump into a post about my understanding of and suggestions for the trading system:

How it works?
1) The concept of trade is simple enough. Buy low at Planet A, sell high at Station B, repeat.

2) Exporter/importer dyads would realistically be stable for long periods of time, so under normal circumstances you'd just find the most profitable route and farm that continuously. This makes for a boring game. To prevent this, the game has the super punitive tariffs to make regular trading unprofitable; you can't farm the most profitable route because there are no profitable routes.

3) To bring trading back in the game after (2), Starsector has events that raise gross margins to above tariffs, creating a temporary profit-making route. There are several deficiencies with the current implementation:
  • They don't seem to be frequent enough.
  • There isn't enough diversity in current events - only ones in 0.65a are food shortages and general trade disruptions from piracy.
  • Ideally you'd be able to cause an event to take advantage of it, but the tools for doing this are currently limited to nonexistent.
  • Does comm sniffer/secure channel access even do anything? I can't tell. <- that's the problem
  • What Darloth said about de facto food trade routes. "What, another famine on Asharu?"
4) The existence of the black market would seem to undermine (2), because the tariffs are no longer there to prevent Optimum Trading Route. This is ostensibly balanced by the factions eventually hating you and the increased chance of random toll harassment. I don't think it's enough, but I haven't actually tried a smuggler playthrough so I can't say really.

Random thoughts
- I think it's okay if Optimum Trading Routes exist, as long as the bulk of a trader player's income is derived from events and supplementary activities (like bounty hunting on the side). The regular routes will be something people do if they happen to be going in that direction anyway, instead of farming them continuously (i.e. grinding).
- There should be more "comm sniffer" type powers or skills. Cultivating business connections on a planet could give you a heads-up on market trends that are projected to lead to an event in the near future like the  "impending food shortage" intel item that already exists). Passing merchant fleets who are friendly to you could also drop you a tip or two.
- In the future, I'd expect we could have events that permanently alter production and thus trade patterns (a planet gets a new metal refinery, or loses its organics extraction facility, for instance).


Think I'll make a thread in Suggestions for some new event ideas.
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Aereto

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2014, 07:32:23 AM »

This is design intent of the game to avoid you having to grind the same trade route all the time.

It's less against you HAVING to grind, and more against you WANTING to grind.  It's certainly very effective at dissuading continual route trading in anything other than food (unfortunately, food has what amounts to trade routes given the regular shortages).
Makes sense that food is the only thing people always need, and shielded cargo holds might be able to influence goods tolls.

Still... if trade grinds are that difficult (besides faction-to-faction conflicts that made tariffs high), the merchant convoys are bolder than pirates considering the kind of threat they're facing; namely turnpike patrols, pirates, and tariffs/smuggling.
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Debido

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2014, 07:34:37 AM »

yeah, if you guys want a deep and dynamic economy simulator....try X3, it's a good game and it has that, or X:Rebirth if you're a glutton for punishment a chores. The dynamic economy in SS will eventually grow and have more events, so there will always be something for you to focus on. I can see where you're coming from, but I just don't think  an economy that you want would be that fun after a while. I really don't want to have to grind.
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Aereto

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2014, 07:46:49 AM »

yeah, if you guys want a deep and dynamic economy simulator....try X3, it's a good game and it has that, or X:Rebirth if you're a glutton for punishment a chores. The dynamic economy in SS will eventually grow and have more events, so there will always be something for you to focus on. I can see where you're coming from, but I just don't think  an economy that you want would be that fun after a while. I really don't want to have to grind.
X3... I find myself building a ridiculous self-sufficient station complex to fulfill the most basic need of having energy cells for cheap. Then scouting the nearby sectors for potential demand before making an extension. I sell my products for cheap on purpose for steady profit, but once I have freighters on command, distribute to factories in need for higher profits.

Don't get me started in Terran Conflict, since I had numerous capitals defending complexes from any and all threats.

Now that I get that out of my system, you've had me wondering if this game might be able to have stations and factories to build, planet or no planet. I don't have to be the one trading and instead lead a faction with its own logistics strategies. Well, outside of mods, anyway.
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Thaago

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2014, 08:02:23 AM »

The economic glitch is a problem that was reported in the bugs, hopefully it will be gone in the hotpatch.

I think the Tariffs are just fine. Its punishing if you try to buy and sell blindly, but there is still easy money to be made, even without events. Just check whats high/low on the price map (yes its not everything, and it would be really nice if the comm sniffers did more, as I can't tell what they do either), buy and sell. Its very rare that I've looked and found nothing. The opportunities do dry up pretty quickly and the margins aren't that high... unless you sell on the black market. And then there are events, where making a 300% margin after tariffs for 5 days flight is easy on food.

The economy is incredibly dynamic - much more so than in real life, even though it is missing a ton of event types (only food atm). But a dynamic economy is one where opportunities open and close quickly - AI actors are responding to the same things the player is and filling gaps. There shouldn't be large, profitable trade routes/triangles.

One thing I've gathered from Alex's blog posts is that he wants the game to be fun and one of the ways he does this is by completely removing elements that give in game benefits for unfun behavior. He considers static trade routes to be be this (I disagree a bit - I had great fun in OOlite finding them and mercilessly driving up profits), or at least that they don't fit in with the "after the end" tone of the game.
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Nanao-kun

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2014, 08:59:20 AM »

I thought trading was meant to be unprofitable because it would go against lore or something? I don't really remember.
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