Picked up again since 2.0 - impressions (esp. trade)

General discussions about X Rebirth.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
Sibilantae
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun, 6. Sep 09, 07:04
x3tc

Picked up again since 2.0 - impressions (esp. trade)

Post by Sibilantae » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 04:18

Hi all,

So I pre-ordered and played on release and despite a positive outlook, I couldn't tell myself it was really worth playing until it had been fixed/updated a bit. So having seen the rather more positive threads on here and news of features I was really interested in (e.g. more direct control of assets) I picked it up again.

Pretty impressed! One thing that really bothered me on release was the trade offer decay - it seemed not particularly intuitive and would require prohibitive amounts of micro to be able to trade on an ongoing basis. So this time I started on Argon Merchant, and began trading. Having not played for a while, the mechanics were pretty dim to me at first but as time went on I got to understand them better, and I'm really, *really* liking it.

The two things I like:
1. If you want information on the goods required by a station, you have to work to get it i.e. close flyby of the pertinent module (correct me if I'm wrong btw). At first I was a bit worried that this would make things overly tedious, but on reflection I appreciate it; it means you invest effort into a given zone in order to get to know it for trade purposes. One thing I wasn't a big fan of in previous X games was, you'd just jump through a gate, deploy a satellite, and leave, and that's all there was to that sector. This way I personally like more.

2. The trade agent system - and I can see the purpose of "engage: smalltalk", clumsy as it is. I love the idea of sitting in my ship and thinking "I need to buy spices in Aerodrome - what's the going rate? Don't want to fly all the way over... hey, I know a guy in the CHOW farm there, I'll just call him." Excellent immersion, though I think it could be done a bit less stilted.

I feel like I'm far better able to engage in the economy in this game than in previous X games.

I'm really keen to get to know Omicron Lyrae, and eventually 'expand operations' to other systems, especially from a trading perspective. Thoughts/reflections?
(Oh no, you forgot to close the parenthesis! Someone might get in!

dmace
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed, 9. Jun 10, 14:33
x3tc

Post by dmace » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 05:36

I never really got into trading in previous X games, I'd just get a sector / uni trader and let them do it for me as I found it quite boring. With Rebirth I have to admit I'm really enjoying the trading now.

Assailer
Posts: 476
Joined: Sun, 25. May 14, 17:45
x4

Post by Assailer » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 06:52

dmace wrote:I never really got into trading in previous X games, I'd just get a sector / uni trader and let them do it for me as I found it quite boring. With Rebirth I have to admit I'm really enjoying the trading now.
That's refreshing to see :) I wish my trader experience would go as smooth as yours. I have tried it several times, my economy just gets stuck. Sometimes it seems it recovers for very short periods (after 2 hours of nothing).

Looks like there will be a new patch, maybe that will fix it. Could it be an 32bit performance problem why it slows down? The 64bit beta seems to work better...

Sibilantae
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun, 6. Sep 09, 07:04
x3tc

Post by Sibilantae » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 07:05

I have to admit I was surprised about enjoying trading as much as I am in X Rebirth.

I think part of the reason might be that in previous X games, under manual trading, you typically traded small amounts at a time relative to what you do in Rebirth, so you didn't directly see the impact of trading large amounts at once as much as you do in Rebirth? So it was a bit laborious...

Haven't played XR for a particularly long time though, so my opinion might change as time goes on.
(Oh no, you forgot to close the parenthesis! Someone might get in!

User avatar
BigBANGtheory
Posts: 3167
Joined: Sun, 23. Oct 05, 12:13
x4

Post by BigBANGtheory » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 07:22

I need to give trading another go I've not invested much time in it since release and yes it certainly was laborious. To me the obvious action was always "why can't my drones go off and explore every detail of the station for me", and I never understood why the interface wasn't more closely aligned (albeit skinned and themed differently) with trading systems in place today in the real world i.e. likes of Bloomberg and Reuters software.

palm911
Posts: 1130
Joined: Sun, 29. Jul 07, 22:52
x4

Post by palm911 » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 07:53

i found that looking for mission is more of a grind than fun.

we should have a computer extension that looks out missions once you are in sector.. (is it implemented?)

game is improving!!
X gamer , one at a time.

ZaphodBeeblebrox
Posts: 1823
Joined: Mon, 10. Apr 06, 20:35
x4

Trade In a Hostile Environment

Post by ZaphodBeeblebrox » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 09:39

I restarted (yet to complete) a campaign, on easy setting. My idea is to get all of the goods I need onto freighters before the campaign advances to far.

So I have made my way throughtout the Albion sectors. Scanning stations and getting trade helpers on those stations.

I have used FIGHT missions to raise rep with the various factions. I now have a PMC police licence (extra cash with every kill). I can legally trade lots of things.

I was lucky to get a lucrative supply mission at +15% for fusion reactors, with no time limit. This has made quite a bit cash.

I have also found the long range scanner very useful especially in those sectors in the very south that are in open space. Nothing like boosting until there are no stations visible and then scanning.

Even found some psychedelic mushrooms!
It was a woman who drove me to drink... you know I never went back and thanked her.

Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.

User avatar
YorrickVander
Posts: 2689
Joined: Tue, 29. Oct 13, 21:59
x4

Post by YorrickVander » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 09:50

With the advances toward fully customised side monitor mods, thanks to NightNord, arc_ and Mad Joker, the potential for actual trade calculation mods (as in find me the best trades and list them) is not exactly just around the corner, but definitely now in the realms of possible. For any EVE players, I'm thinking EVE Central + Element 43's trade finder pages :)
X Rebirth - A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Product

Split irritate visiting pilot with strange vocal patterns.

pr0nflakes
Posts: 734
Joined: Mon, 25. Aug 08, 03:11
x4

Post by pr0nflakes » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 13:41

I found trading enjoyable to a point but the interface and grind eventually got the better of me.
I am also very dubious of the discount system in place. Getting a 65% discount on wares seems very excessive, especially if you add a price bonus at the other end.

I would prefer to see better profit margins for regular trade and less for the scanning small talk mini games.
AMD Ryzen 2700X
Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming
Powercolor RX56 Vega Red Dragon 8GB
16GB Corsair Vengance DDR4 @3200MHZ
Windows 10 X64
https://www.3dmark.com/spy/5058817

pref
Posts: 5589
Joined: Sat, 10. Nov 12, 17:55
x4

Post by pref » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 15:20

Whats so interesting about having a single list to pick manual trades from?
This was the most basic option in X3.
It might be easier in XR at start, but its far less entertraining once you understand how things work.

Requires 0 thinking, just pick the one with biggest profit from that single list of trades and be done with it...

Extremely shallow for my taste.

GCU Grey Area
Posts: 7778
Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 23:07
x4

Post by GCU Grey Area » Wed, 11. Jun 14, 19:42

pref wrote:Requires 0 thinking, just pick the one with biggest profit from that single list of trades and be done with it...
Little bit more complicated than that. Also have to consider quantity of goods which can be bought & sold. Trading with faction A may well have a better %adj than faction B (due to difference in faction rep, smalltalk negotiations, etc), however if faction B can buy/sell a greater quantity it may be a much more profitable option, even if the %adj is lower. Also necessary to consider overheads - high %adj for a long distance trade may not necessarily offset the additional cost of jump fuel compared to a shorter journey with a lower %adj.

Personally really like the XR trade system & consider it to be a distinct improvement. Certainly do a lot more MORT type trading than in any of the old games, in which my trading was generally highly automated (often Hub-based CAG traders hauling intermediates in order to pay for stockpiling huge quantities of weapons, missiles, etc at the Hub). Worked well, but once it was set up I couldn't really say I was doing any trading - it was all entirely automatic. Also, due to the convenience of the queued trading system in XR, I find I do a hell of lot more trade missions (virtually every one I can find), compared to almost never in the old games.

Sibilantae
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun, 6. Sep 09, 07:04
x3tc

Post by Sibilantae » Thu, 12. Jun 14, 00:36

GCU Grey Area wrote: Little bit more complicated than that. Also have to consider quantity of goods which can be bought & sold. Trading with faction A may well have a better %adj than faction B (due to difference in faction rep, smalltalk negotiations, etc), however if faction B can buy/sell a greater quantity it may be a much more profitable option, even if the %adj is lower. Also necessary to consider overheads - high %adj for a long distance trade may not necessarily offset the additional cost of jump fuel compared to a shorter journey with a lower %adj.
Agreed, I'm starting to see this in my interactions too.
Additionally, even apart from this, to list offers and sales for a given ware in a single menu is certainly better than to have to sort through sectors' worth of stations that consume or produce that ware. It's logical to store known offers and sales in this sense, and doesn't present the fake difficulty in previous x-games.

Don't get me wrong, it was a good system before, but not, in my opinion, interesting to engage in.
(Oh no, you forgot to close the parenthesis! Someone might get in!

pref
Posts: 5589
Joined: Sat, 10. Nov 12, 17:55
x4

Post by pref » Mon, 16. Jun 14, 15:48

Yeah right, you have to multiply profit margin with quantity.
Well, that is insanely complex and really makes you think.

Seriously, this is not even comparable to X3 trade. There you had all the options XR has, and enough to manage an empire as well on the side.
Specify conditions for your trades etc... was clearly a superior system in every way.

FYI if you wanted you could do manual trades in X3 as well, which is basically the same - you just never used it because it was useless compared to the other possibilities. Only difference there you did not have the fixed list - so that required some additional knowledge of the game world. Here you dont need to know anything.
Jump fuel vs ecells - same thing again in X3, only difference that economy presented you enough possibilities so that you did not have to worry for jump costs...

Skism
Posts: 2539
Joined: Mon, 22. Mar 10, 21:36
x3tc

Post by Skism » Mon, 16. Jun 14, 16:10

pr0nflakes wrote:I found trading enjoyable to a point but the interface and grind eventually got the better of me.
I am also very dubious of the discount system in place. Getting a 65% discount on wares seems very excessive, especially if you add a price bonus at the other end.

I would prefer to see better profit margins for regular trade and less for the scanning small talk mini games.
I very much agree, don't get me wrong discounts are nice but I would like some well X 3 trade....
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."

-Thomas Paine-

Post Reply

Return to “X Rebirth Universe”