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[Cromodus]

I noticed someting that doesn't quite make sense with the economy.

I have the Starsector + suite of mods installed. In my current game, the Templars have caused a catastrophic crash of the economy in the Imperium sector. Thousands dead, the system will be broken for a while.

What this means is that every planet and station in the system now has 0 stability.

So I went over there, with fuel, metals and ores in the hopes to sell some stuff. On the small outposts, even if there was demande for all my things, the prices were quite low. That makes sense, these people probably don't have any money anymore. There wasn't much on sale either.

However, and this is where I saw a problem, when I visited Babylon, the capital, the prices made no sense.

The station stability is at zero, meaning low prices, but the station supply was also very high. There were 6500 units of food on sale at 11$. If a system was recently crashed I figure they would BUY goods at a very low price because money is in short supply but they would also SELL the same goods at a very high price because they need to hang on to those goods or they need a lot of money.

There was an Atlas on sale. I bought it, I bought and carried the 6500 units of food and many other goods back to my base in Magec and I suspect that very soon, the price for food will rise drasticaly on Babylon, where I'll be able to simply bring back the food and sell it back to them at a high price.

[Alex]

Hi! Wanted to reply here because it's an interesting point, though I think ultimately the simulation is doing the right thing

(There actually *are* two prices, one for buying and one for selling. I might compress that into one price, though, as it's not very important (and, judging from your post, not very apparent). All it does is make "producer" markets pay even less for things they produce, which isn't that important. Keeping two prices around for now in case they come in handy, but it's looking increasingly less likely, and becoming increasingly a hassle to manage UI-wise.)

Moving on from that, there are a couple of things to consider in the scenario you ran into.

First, the goods available for you to buy only represent what that market is willing to sell, not the entirety of what's available. Both conceptually and mechanically, you're not buying their last units of food - if you were, then the prices *would* be very, very high.

Second, the price you're getting is the price at which they've stopped being able to sell these goods to other markets. If the price was higher, they would sell even less and have a higher surplus. So, it's not really a question of what they might want for these goods, but what they can get, given that they're already willing to sell them.

[Megas]

First, the goods available for you to buy only represent what that market is willing to sell, not the entirety of what's available. Both conceptually and mechanically, you're not buying their last units of food - if you were, then the prices *would* be very, very high.

Question:  How come when I buy all of the food from some market, like at Jangala, that they often get a shortage, and then after it ends, I get an investigation alert that I may have caused it (and I did not even sell enough to end a shortage, much less cause a food glut) - just from buying all food from the open market?

[Alex]

The investigation, iirc, only happens if you were buying up food when the shortage was already a possibility.

Aside from that, buying up food will increase the odds of the shortage by decreasing the food stockpiles. You can't buy every bit of food up, but what you do buy still has an impact.

[Megas]

Aside from that, buying up food will increase the odds of the shortage by decreasing the food stockpiles. You can't buy every bit of food up, but what you do buy still has an impact.

That seems like a gotcha or trap for the player.  I never played a game before where cleaning out a (not necessarily obvious) hot commodity from legal/open markets can bite me later.  Will there be more such commodities where cleaning them out can hurt the player, aside from the big dent in my balance?  It sort of feels like a corrupt sting operation - buy something and the authorities bust you for their amusement.

[Cromodus]

Hi! Wanted to reply here because it's an interesting point, though I think ultimately the simulation is doing the right thing

(There actually *are* two prices, one for buying and one for selling. I might compress that into one price, though, as it's not very important (and, judging from your post, not very apparent). All it does is make "producer" markets pay even less for things they produce, which isn't that important. Keeping two prices around for now in case they come in handy, but it's looking increasingly less likely, and becoming increasingly a hassle to manage UI-wise.)

Moving on from that, there are a couple of things to consider in the scenario you ran into.

First, the goods available for you to buy only represent what that market is willing to sell, not the entirety of what's available. Both conceptually and mechanically, you're not buying their last units of food - if you were, then the prices *would* be very, very high.

Second, the price you're getting is the price at which they've stopped being able to sell these goods to other markets. If the price was higher, they would sell even less and have a higher surplus. So, it's not really a question of what they might want for these goods, but what they can get, given that they're already willing to sell them.

You know what, that makes sense. I returned to Babylon shortly after and the food was restocked, now being sold at 43$ instead of 11$.

Alright! Good game.