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Author Topic: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?  (Read 1861 times)

WhisperDSP

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Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« on: February 27, 2023, 01:11:28 AM »

I find this mechanic confusingly irrational.

Example - supplies:

1 unit = 222cr each to buy
300 units = 226cr each to buy

So because the player is buying more, he's being charged more.

Similarly for selling. Example - heavy machinery:

1 unit = 223cr each to sell
195 units = 191cr each to sell

This sort of sliding-scale applies even at colonies when they have an excess or shortage. Take half their excess? The price per goes up. Fulfill half the shortage? The price per goes down.

At work, when we buy fuel the price is (eg) $2 per liter. It doesn't matter if we're buying 10k or 50k or 100k liters, the price is the price. It doesn't automagically go up to $2.50 per liter. We simply get how much we want at that price.

When we sell food the price is (eg) $5 per kg. It doesn't matter if we're selling 10 tons, 50 tons, 100 tons, the price is the price. It doesn't automagically go down to $4.25 per kg. The buyer simply buys how much he wants at that price.

Please, do not say "supply and demand". That's what excess and shortage are.

Literally right now in my game I'm looking at fuel: Sindria has 3600 available at "21cr each", and Kanta's Den has a shortage of 2000 at "58cr each". I'm not going to get those prices, despite:

1/ Sindria literally making billions of units of fuel - so that 3600 is about 1-millionth of the total aka a drop in the ocean

2/ Kanta's Den literally desperate to fill their drained reserves

I don't understand the mentality behind this at all.

WhisperDSP

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2023, 01:22:47 AM »

Another example, heavy armaments. The buyer desperately wants 400 and is willing to pay 1100-odd credits per.

I show up with 200, half the shortage. I offer one, 1109cr per - they're jumping for joy! "More! More!"

I offer 200, 919cr per. They're saying to me: "Oh yeah, we would like 400, but we don't want that 200 particularly desperately. Take the 919cr per and be thankful."

*mind blown*

CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2023, 02:14:01 AM »

The old school example of this happening on Earth is Silver Thursday and the modern day example is Gamestop.

It must just be supposed that your ships are very huge and credits are very expensive in dollar terms. Calculating

Quote
Let's therefore assume the ratio of crew wages to food prices is constant between our world and the sector. Apparently, an average person on Earth consumes approximately 1.85 kilograms of food per day. A crew member makes 10 credits per month. Food costs 20 credits per unit. An average person in America spends approximately 10% of their income on food. Let's assume this is the same in the sector. So a crew member spends 1 credit per month on food. Therefore, 1 unit of food is enough to feed a crew member for 20 months. Therefore 1 unit of food is equal to 1110 kilograms. Let's round that to 1000 kilograms. Now the food is apparently a lot of different products packaged, and inclusive of distributions costs. Let's say the price per kg is equivalent to Doritos 3D Crunch Chili Cheese Nacho Flavored Corn Snacks though, which are 66.3 ¢/oz at Walmart. So 1000 kilograms of these would cost about $23400.

20 credits is equivalent to $23400, so 1 credit is equal to $1170.

So what is happening is that you are actually moving strategic amounts of resources somehow. I don't think Sindria produces billions of units of fuel because I in fact own Sindria in my current playthrough and I have about 50k fuel available in the stockpiles. Although it is very confusing that my own fleet can use a significant proportion of Sindria's available fuel when there are all the other fleets flying around too; where do they get their fuel?
« Last Edit: February 27, 2023, 02:15:44 AM by CapnHector »
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WhisperDSP

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2023, 02:33:00 AM »

In my (practically vanilla) game Sindria produces 9 fuel "items", or 10 ^ 9 aka 1 billion fuel.

Though perhaps I'm understanding it wrong. I was under the impression that each unit of production was on an exponential scale, so that 10 ^ 9 of y commodity would supply every planet inside the faction that required up to 10 ^ 9 of said commodity.

This might be why I'm becoming confused? Because if what I'm thinking is correct then the amount of fuel that I'm moving is miniscule on the overall Sindiran scale of things. If I'm incorrect then okay, yeah, maybe I really *am* moving a significant amount of fuel or whatever commodity is involved.

CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2023, 02:50:49 AM »

Actually, you are right. By the logic of markets in this game, Sindria must produce a billion times more fuel than a colony that produces 1 fuel (were it to exist), since by the logic of the game's market system Sindria can meet the fuel demands that are one billion times the size of the fuel demands of a colony that demands 1 fuel, which is what the 1 producing colony could supply. However, Sindria does not have ten thousand or a hundred thousand times the fuel available for sale or in stockpiles that a colony of size 4 or 5 producing fuel without a Synchrotron core would. I suppose your fleet might be measuring fuel tanks' volume in exponential units but that doesn't really make sense. It could be that the galactic economy is extremely tight and dependent on just-in-time deliveries which would align with how destroying one convoy can cause a shortage, but how could it be so when it is also kind of feudal and alliances can shift so it seems unlikely Sindria's fuel deliveries would also be incredibly optimized so only 10k fuel is left over from billions. Maybe Andrada just wants to hog fuel I guess and that is why it is not available to individuals in larger quantities (he is still there even if you conquer the planet in Nexerelin - I run 2 mods, Nex and Starship Legends).
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BCS

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2023, 03:13:59 AM »

Please, do not say "supply and demand".

supply and demand

Also I don't know if the whole "every unit produced is an order of magnitude" was ever actually confirmed/intended by Alex, or is it just an excuse players came up with for why numbers don't add up.
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CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2023, 03:16:52 AM »

Please, do not say "supply and demand".

supply and demand

Also I don't know if the whole "every unit produced is an order of magnitude" was ever actually confirmed/intended by Alex, or is it just an excuse players came up with for why numbers don't add up.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/09/19/economy-outposts/
Quote
For example, if a market produces 5 units of Food, and several nearby markets have demand for up to 5 Food, it can meet the demand in all of them. If a nearby market has demand for more Food than that, the Food-producer can meet it partially, still without being used up.

Conceptually, this represents being able to scale production up within a certain range %u2013 keeping in mind that this is (again, conceptually) a logarithmic scale, so 6 units is an order of magnitude more than 5 units, this just about makes sense.

However, this all makes sense if Phillip is hoarding the fuel to eventually threaten the sector with an artificial supernova in its middle if everybody doesn't do what he says, and fuel is not available for that reason. And you posit any number of similar scenarios for all the other commodities at each planet.

Although I suppose that wouldn't be a particularly good threat when even if he built up a devastating hypernova somehow then information about its arrival would be delivered faster than light and everybody could flee faster than light, too. Forgot about that.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2023, 03:23:38 AM by CapnHector »
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AcaMetis

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2023, 04:04:22 AM »

I always interpreted it as the player not having any ins with major distributors on any given market, so they have to chase down small time buyers/sellers who may (not) be as desperate as the next guy over. Meaning if you're selling 600 Heavy Machinery you're basically going down a long list of people who are able/willing to offer increasingly less credits per unit, but who are willing to buy. Conversely if you sign a delivery contract through a contact you'll be offered and paid a flat amount even if you're moving thousands and thousands of goods, because in that scenario there's only the one (likely relatively bigger) person involved.
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WhisperDSP

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2023, 06:08:04 AM »

BCS - ROFL!

CapnHector - yeah I can imagine what might happen if someone threatened a hypernova. Lets take him out before he can set it off. If not, at least we have the joy of shooting them up before we go too. ;D

More seriously, I cannot imagine how a JIT system could be possible at these scales. With a billion units of production it would be trivial to put a million reserves on each planet. Ten million for military stations/worlds. Disruptions would be minor, simply “we need to replace a single shipment, no problem, put the word to the market that we need x amount”.

Which is the disruption and shortages that we try to fill (or engineer).

It is nuts when the producer makes a glut so dumps an excess 1000 on the market at 17cr each. Someone toddles over to buy and its “you want to buy the full 1000? That’s 23cr per then.” It is the complete opposite of dumping on the market.

Then the buyer has put out the word “we need to refill our reserves, get me a thousand at 58cr each!” Someone toddles over to sell 1000 units and the response is “you’re selling us the full amount? We will take it for 43cr - or 28cr after we tax you.” This is the opposite of desperation on their part.

AcaMetis - a pretty-good idea actually. Unfortunately it fails with the Military market. Also logically, a bunch of small traders couldn’t make a blip on the market either way. They would have to form a conglomerate and essentially become movers and shakers as a group.

I’m afraid that I’m not grasping this at all.

CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2023, 06:25:56 AM »

Well, if you assume "units" of cargo are in fact exponential then it makes more sense.

For example keeping to the above calculation of how many kgs 1 unit of food is, let's say 1 unit of food is approximately 1 metric ton per the calculations above. Also let's say it is the density of mayonnaise for convenience so 1 unit of food takes 1 cubic meter of storage. Then a Mudskipper with 70 cargo volume is about the size of a large truck which seems reasonable. But an Atlas has a capacity of 2000 cubic meters so about 52 TEU. This makes it smaller than the smallest of commercial cargo ships, not exactly a hulking giant.

Of course the exponential cargo system does not really work because cargo sums linearly from loot and vessels, but you know, it would make sense of all the rest.
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AcaMetis

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #10 on: February 27, 2023, 07:53:20 AM »

Military Markets I've never interpreted as being completely above-board, despite the name. There's nothing stopping me from buying Heavy Armaments on Sindria's military market and shipping those off to Pather or Pirates or who knows else, despite them being a restricted commodity and me not having any sort of license or papers beyond 10+ relation with the faction. Sure, they can't get away with selling me anything but the puniest of weapons/ships without having an actual commission, but while supervisors are focussed on the big ticket items the relatively small stuff slips through the cracks. Or at least doesn't carry as severe consequences, making corrupted officials more willing to look the other way.

Personally the way I make sense of Starsector's economy is to assume that there's two layers to it. The foreground layer is the one the player directly interacts with through a given planet's markets, which is exactly as wild, corrupted and ruthlessly exploitative as it can get away with. Second is the background layer that the sector's wealthiest and best connected operate in, which the player cannot directly interact with. If they run into issues like lost shipments or overflowing warehouses it's inevitably pushed down the chain until it reaches the foreground layer, at which point an enterprising (player) captain can try to make a profit. A player's contacts are, in essence, middleman that interact with the foreground layer on behalf of the background layer, giving the player a rare glimpse of what the background layer operates like.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #11 on: February 27, 2023, 08:16:16 AM »

I have a vague memory that the price per/unit is not uniform for the entire sale, i.e. the first x units sell for the original high price, and then the price goes down per unit as you sell more, but the first units are still getting the higher price.

Not 100% sure though.
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CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2023, 08:51:24 AM »

Another theory is to interpret the "open market" literally as a particular marketplace that is not in fact seamlessly merged with the planetary economy. Maybe it's a marketplace in the middle of a crater somewhere so people driving spaceships after one Saalian brandy too many do not cause antimatter explosions in a populated area. You are literally dealing with small time traders so if you attempt to sell them a megaton of scrap metal each they won't be enthused and if you insist on buying every last unit of something you will get gouged.

Doesn't explain why trade there could cause a shortage in the economy though.
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WhisperDSP

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2023, 09:00:05 AM »

CapnHector - sadly that doesn’t really work, no. The costs would become exponential, the use of fuel/supplies inversely exponential, things like that.

AcaMetis - no, there’s always a black market to the military as well. And yeah, there’s the Gordon Gecko/George Soros/Enron layer where the real movers and shakers are. Then the complete corruption layer of politics.

Intrinsic_gravity - yeah that makes sense when the player is for eg buying the first 500 units at the “dump” price and everything else becomes “regular” price. Unfortunately the “dump” pricing is variable also.

CapnHector - yah it doesn’t explain it at all. Plus pilots who do such drinking on the job likely wouldn’t be employed LOL.

It appears that there’s no clear “this is why” to the sliding-scale business. I may have to gut the buy/sell code at some stage.

CapnHector

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Re: Why the sliding-scale mechanic on prices?
« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2023, 09:28:04 AM »

Isn't the sliding scale based on shortages/surplus on the planet? The market screen even shows you little icons about how your transactions will affect that. I don't know about the exact scale though, so tell if you find it. So when you are selling to a deficit you are reducing the deficit. All the wacky theories are about the question you posed in the OP, at least as I understood it, that is, why should it be so that selling a few thousand of something affects supply and demand on a planet producing billions of something when it is a drop in a barrel.
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