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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: Markets  (Read 53562 times)

ArthropodOfDoom

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Re: Markets
« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2014, 07:55:59 PM »

This is kind of a weird thought, but OH MY GOD THOSE COMMODITY ICONS ARE SO SWEET THANK YOU DAVID.

Also, patch notes? I don't imagine they will have anything more than what you've written here,
(and I certainly wouldn't want to hold up the update), but it'd be awesome if you already have some/are writing some up.
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Let's say I'm captaining the ISS Slightly Lopsided Isosceles Triangle here.

Alex

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Re: Markets
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2014, 08:37:09 PM »

I am curious though about pirate markets/pirate bases when you're trading with them. I don't imagine there being a 'black market' there...hm...I suppose you'll just have the one sub-market in those cases. Although maybe you could sell medical supplies, food and weapons to the pirates' slaves so they can overthrow the pirate mercenary leaders???

Even a pirate base has authorities, and people doing stuff that those in power wouldn't approve of. I don't think it's significantly different from a regular market in that regard, except that perhaps nothing would be illegal to sell on the open market.

Anyway, I like the UI even if it isn't immediately interpretable. Hm, actually the commodity screen is not that intuitive at all. Granted it's not an X3 spreadsheet, which is good but it doesn't tell me how much demand there is in qty. Looking over the right at top imports. 81% of imports is food or approximately 2900 units which is represented by 5 food icons...2900 ? 5? So there is a demand for about 3000 units of fuel, 600 units of food and 600 domestic goods?

The reason it doesn't is 1) you generally don't need to know and 2) the way the economic simulation works, seeing the number could be misleading depending on the circumstances. It it turns out that you indeed do need to know, some approximation of that number will show up on the mouseover. Right now, that approximation is the icons :)

(It does show up for the imports/exports, yeah. I'm not entirely sure it actually *needs* to be there, either. Perhaps it doesn't, to signal more clearly that the exact numbers don't matter.)

The scale for figuring out the number of icons is logarithmic, btw (base-something-between-one-and-two), since the actual numbers of commodities differ by orders of magnitude. That detailed a comparison of the number of icons across commodities isn't going to work. It's intended to provide detail on the level of "more"/"a lot more". Within each commodity, though, the distribution is linear.



Are those import/export quantities and percentages determined by the engine in response to supply/demand or are they coded in? For example, if we modded in a system/planet that had a large fuel surplus, would it automatically export to Corvus, or would we need to set that kind of thing up?

Determined by the engine, and these change in response to changing stability/events/etc. A new market with a fuel surplus would have far-ranging effects. If it was added dynamically mid-game, though, it'd take a few in-game months for the simulation to reach something resembling equilibrium.


From the hint that the stability could be effecting patrol regularity and composition, am I guessing that something that could be getting a rework are the .faction files/how to make fleets?

Yeah, that's the end-game here. Ultimately I'd like to see fleets being produced by planets based on available blueprints and resources; we'll see how it pans out, though. I'm currently trying out something along the lines of more dynamic fleet generation, but not quite sure how far down that path things will go for the next release.


@frag971: Hmm, I don't think that works. Bringing in data about the player's fleet is too much to try to cram into this screen, especially since you generally won't be carrying that many different commodities, and the quantities are likely to be negligible compared to market stockpiles/production/etc, so screen space dedicated to that is largely wasted. Your mockup is also not displaying import/export information at a glance, which is very important to the health of the market and the role it plays in the economy. The information you're trying to present is also already mostly there in the current layout, once you know what to look for. At a base level: anything green = surplus, anything red: unmet demand; that's easy to see at a glance once you know what it means. ... unless you're colorblind. Hmm, need to think about that. But wait, color-blind mode (in settings.json) should handle that, at least to an extent.

Again, though, there *are* mouseover tooltips explaining everything. So it's just a question of learning the system. I think whether it's intuitive or not at least in part depends on whether you've encountered something similar-looking before, such as, say, MoO2.


This is kind of a weird thought, but OH MY GOD THOSE COMMODITY ICONS ARE SO SWEET THANK YOU DAVID.

Not weird at all, I've been freaking about about it myself. I believe I've said "tiny and adorable" several times over the past week.

Also, patch notes? I don't imagine they will have anything more than what you've written here,
(and I certainly wouldn't want to hold up the update), but it'd be awesome if you already have some/are writing some up.

Yeah, soon. Just need to go through 'em, haven't done as good a job of keeping up with maintaining the list as usual.
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Alex

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Re: Markets
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2014, 09:02:57 PM »

... - my best idea is to make the colours a trading skill learning in the character advancement screen where invensting in a skill would give those coloured outlines telling the player what's good to buy or sell ("green = do it, red = don't do it" kind of thing)

Hmm, yeah. I've been thinking about tying skills into what information gets displayed on the market info screen myself.

It's an interesting question. On the one hand, it's a neat way of managing the complexity of the data presented to the player - at first, they'd only see a little, and would only see more by investing in a skill, which also indicates they're interested in seeing more of that information. On the other hand, what's a good way to think about this, in terms of where you draw the line? For example, why not also tie the available ship actions (i.e. mothball/logistical priority/etc) and available combat assignments to a skill, etc? It'd be easy to go overboard, and the last thing you want is to end up with a game that's unplayable unless you have the right skills. Figuring out the right way to think about this is challenging.
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Debido

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Re: Markets
« Reply #18 on: June 06, 2014, 09:07:03 PM »

If you have hacking skills that make taking comm relays faster, those same 'hacking' skills could be used to hack into local markets and reveal more data. The higher your hack skill, the more corporate/private servers you can download sensitive market data from?
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Debido

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Re: Markets
« Reply #19 on: June 06, 2014, 09:09:07 PM »

Or actually...you know how information warfare has been discussed from time to time? There could be a general skill in that area...
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Thaago

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Re: Markets
« Reply #20 on: June 06, 2014, 09:44:09 PM »

I suppose a skill under the leadership branch could be how many market contacts you have/can place, and they can feed intel?
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Nanao-kun

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Re: Markets
« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2014, 12:19:33 AM »

Nice to see more updates! That looks pretty cool.
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SCC

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Re: Markets
« Reply #22 on: June 07, 2014, 05:16:42 AM »

At a base level: anything green = surplus, anything red: unmet demand; that's easy to see at a glance once you know what it means. ... unless you're colorblind.
How about bright glow behind surpluss/demanded things? Or just big text "SURPLUSS" or "WANTED" above.

About markets: will be possible in late game to plunder someone's station, take all the stolen things to station of someone, who we want to destabilize, sell all the things and, after successful escape, escalate beetwen them conflict because robben faction/station wants to get it's stuff back and the latter faction/station doesn't want to give it like that? It would be an interesting situation. ;)

ciago92

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Re: Markets
« Reply #23 on: June 07, 2014, 06:08:02 AM »

<rampant speculation>
Regional Capital: 30% more demand of most luxury goods
Orbital Station: Ships can be bought and sold
Military Base: Military Class ships can be bought/are produced
Autofactory - Heavy Industrial: Ships are built here, heavy industrial probably means cruiser/caps can be/are built here, all civilian though. maybe some mules or other line blurrers
Organics Complex: Produces and exports supplies? no idea
Orbital Burns: no clue.
Jungle World: Opens up a couple specific exports, no idea which
Population - hundreds of thousands: scaling effect on supply and demand
</rampant speculation>

while I appreciate the overall effects of high and low stability, I don't see much benefit to the player when someone has high stability, unless it's your faction/the faction you joined or those harmful events are "you get robbed in the marketplace and lose 1000000000 credits" or something. I do like the idea of more pirates in a system with lower stability, maybe the event should be you annoy the wrong person and a pirate fleet spawns on top of you (hopefully not too big!) if you escape they block you from the planet for a little while. anyways, rambling, moving on

submarkets are a nice touch, though the Other Consequences definitely need fleshed out to make sure there's an actual Impact to Your Actions

the not-spreadsheet has an interesting look, while I don't know that I'd immediately pick everything up right away I probably could figure it out over the course of a game or two. I like the look, hopefully actually playing with it will give me all the info I need

Commodity detail sounds good, nice to know where they're getting their shipments from. Maybe start naming fleets after specific trade runs so we know who to blockade IE take down all Sindarian Fuel Runners but let the BRDY Supply Convoy pick up their shipment from the planet so we can offload our extra fuel later and still be able to buy supplies from the planet

Overall looks amazing, can't wait to try it out!

Question: how is experience gain going to be handled with trading? I feel like you need some experience to keep it balanced against a pure combat style, but at the same time that does lead to suddenly knowing how to mount extra guns on all your ships because you made mad moolah selling supplies. Some skills make sense (yeah if you spend a lot of time flying around you should be able to increase your burn drive) but others (mah macrosse missile massacre just got even better!) definitely don't. Curious to see how you balance it
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Toxcity

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Re: Markets
« Reply #24 on: June 07, 2014, 07:37:20 AM »

I'm guessing that you can change the names and number of sub-markets? For example you can make a civilian market, black market, and military market. If so you can also change the tariff and items inside the markets?
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MShadowy

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Re: Markets
« Reply #25 on: June 07, 2014, 08:28:56 AM »

while I appreciate the overall effects of high and low stability, I don't see much benefit to the player when someone has high stability, unless it's your faction/the faction you joined or those harmful events are "you get robbed in the marketplace and lose 1000000000 credits" or something. I do like the idea of more pirates in a system with lower stability, maybe the event should be you annoy the wrong person and a pirate fleet spawns on top of you (hopefully not too big!) if you escape they block you from the planet for a little while. anyways, rambling, moving on


I suspect that low stabilities effects likely have greater negative implications (though perhaps not in this release) than a few extra pirates plying a systems space and fewer patrols to deal with them; consider Exar Secundus' situation in the Last Hurrah, where the planet steadily lost infrastructure and essentially became an anarchic decivilized world.  In all probability, actions which reduce stability are likely profitable over the very short term, but disastrous in the long term, possibly up to the point of essentially removing that world from play.
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Toxcity

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Re: Markets
« Reply #26 on: June 07, 2014, 09:06:13 AM »

Question: how is experience gain going to be handled with trading? I feel like you need some experience to keep it balanced against a pure combat style, but at the same time that does lead to suddenly knowing how to mount extra guns on all your ships because you made mad moolah selling supplies. Some skills make sense (yeah if you spend a lot of time flying around you should be able to increase your burn drive) but others (mah macrosse missile massacre just got even better!) definitely don't. Curious to see how you balance it

You could always rp it as someone in your crew upgrading weapons and your ships.
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HELMUT

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Re: Markets
« Reply #27 on: June 07, 2014, 09:29:24 AM »

while I appreciate the overall effects of high and low stability, I don't see much benefit to the player when someone has high stability, unless it's your faction/the faction you joined or those harmful events are "you get robbed in the marketplace and lose 1000000000 credits" or something. I do like the idea of more pirates in a system with lower stability, maybe the event should be you annoy the wrong person and a pirate fleet spawns on top of you (hopefully not too big!) if you escape they block you from the planet for a little while. anyways, rambling, moving on


I suspect that low stabilities effects likely have greater negative implications (though perhaps not in this release) than a few extra pirates plying a systems space and fewer patrols to deal with them; consider Exar Secundus' situation in the Last Hurrah, where the planet steadily lost infrastructure and essentially became an anarchic decivilized world.  In all probability, actions which reduce stability are likely profitable over the very short term, but disastrous in the long term, possibly up to the point of essentially removing that world from play.

I guess a world plagued with anarchy would be a much easier prey for the other factions around, perhaps even a hypothetical player faction in a future update.

Trying to conquer a Hegemony core world would be easier by causing a revolution than trying to go through the dozen Onslaughts protecting it. You'll still have to deal with the Pirates and Ludii skulking around after such an event though.

Remind me of my dirty playstyle when i was playing GalCiv2.
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Megas

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Re: Markets
« Reply #28 on: June 07, 2014, 09:42:53 AM »

Quote
Trying to conquer a Hegemony core world would be easier by causing a revolution than trying to go through the dozen Onslaughts protecting it.
Combat skills need to be weakened (no hull regeneration and other nerfs) and Hegemony fleets need to be stronger (by including skilled captains and occasional higher-tech ships).  Otherwise, the player can defeat an arbitrary number of Hegemony system defense fleets (and nearly everything else) with ease.

As for markets, looks shiny.  No other comments for now since I am a Starsector warmonger.
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Alex

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Re: Markets
« Reply #29 on: June 07, 2014, 12:22:17 PM »

If you have hacking skills that make taking comm relays faster, those same 'hacking' skills could be used to hack into local markets and reveal more data. The higher your hack skill, the more corporate/private servers you can download sensitive market data from?
Or actually...you know how information warfare has been discussed from time to time? There could be a general skill in that area...
I suppose a skill under the leadership branch could be how many market contacts you have/can place, and they can feed intel?

Right. All sorts of stuff like that is possible, I was really more talking about developing a design approach for when it's appropriate (or whether it is at all) for skills to affect what core UI elements are available. That's the part that I think is tricky, since there's such a wide range of things you could do there. More of a theoretical question.


At a base level: anything green = surplus, anything red: unmet demand; that's easy to see at a glance once you know what it means. ... unless you're colorblind.
How about bright glow behind surpluss/demanded things? Or just big text "SURPLUSS" or "WANTED" above.

Hmm. Do you think the outline is not prominent enough? I mean, "outline" is definitely somewhere on the same spectrum as "glow".


About markets: will be possible in late game to plunder someone's station, take all the stolen things to station of someone, who we want to destabilize, sell all the things and, after successful escape, escalate beetwen them conflict because robben faction/station wants to get it's stuff back and the latter faction/station doesn't want to give it like that? It would be an interesting situation. ;)

Mmmmaybe. Still thinking about the implications trade should have on faction relationships.


<rampant speculation>
Regional Capital: 30% more demand of most luxury goods
Orbital Station: Ships can be bought and sold
Military Base: Military Class ships can be bought/are produced
Autofactory - Heavy Industrial: Ships are built here, heavy industrial probably means cruiser/caps can be/are built here, all civilian though. maybe some mules or other line blurrers
Organics Complex: Produces and exports supplies? no idea
Orbital Burns: no clue.
Jungle World: Opens up a couple specific exports, no idea which
Population - hundreds of thousands: scaling effect on supply and demand
</rampant speculation>

About 99% wrong, but it's the effort that counts. Kudos!


submarkets are a nice touch, though the Other Consequences definitely need fleshed out to make sure there's an actual Impact to Your Actions

Yep, they really do.

Question: how is experience gain going to be handled with trading? I feel like you need some experience to keep it balanced against a pure combat style, but at the same time that does lead to suddenly knowing how to mount extra guns on all your ships because you made mad moolah selling supplies. Some skills make sense (yeah if you spend a lot of time flying around you should be able to increase your burn drive) but others (mah macrosse missile massacre just got even better!) definitely don't. Curious to see how you balance it

Good question. I don't have a good answer quite yet. I will say that I don't feel strange about XP being used to improve areas the XP wasn't gained through though, that's just how this sort of system works. Systems that force you to use skills (or at least areas of skills) to improve them have their own problems.


I'm guessing that you can change the names and number of sub-markets? For example you can make a civilian market, black market, and military market. If so you can also change the tariff and items inside the markets?

You mean by modding? If so, then yes, on all counts. For items, there's a callback to update the cargo right before the player opens that submarket.

while I appreciate the overall effects of high and low stability, I don't see much benefit to the player when someone has high stability, unless it's your faction/the faction you joined or those harmful events are "you get robbed in the marketplace and lose 1000000000 credits" or something. I do like the idea of more pirates in a system with lower stability, maybe the event should be you annoy the wrong person and a pirate fleet spawns on top of you (hopefully not too big!) if you escape they block you from the planet for a little while. anyways, rambling, moving on

I suspect that low stabilities effects likely have greater negative implications (though perhaps not in this release) than a few extra pirates plying a systems space and fewer patrols to deal with them; consider Exar Secundus' situation in the Last Hurrah, where the planet steadily lost infrastructure and essentially became an anarchic decivilized world.  In all probability, actions which reduce stability are likely profitable over the very short term, but disastrous in the long term, possibly up to the point of essentially removing that world from play.

That's exactly it, yeah. There'll probably be other reasons, too - definitely thinking about this in terms of "why would you, as the player, want high vs low stability, and how can you make that happen". The latter part might not fully make it into the next release, since I'd imagine a lot of ways of affecting stability wont be trade-related. Stability is really an attachment point for different other mechanics to work off of; right now there aren't too many of those, but that's changing pretty much as we speak.


As for markets, looks shiny.  No other comments for now since I am a Starsector warmonger.

Fair enough :) The next release in general is almost entirely focused on trade and other campaign-level mechanics, not combat.
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