Should (or Does?) Time effect Price?

[sd_jasper]

I noticed the other day that the ship I ordered wasn't getting built. It seems that they needed a few more items, but only a few and nobody was selling to them.

I'm not an expert but from what I can tell buying price is set based on the quantity needed. If you only need a few, then that is considered low "demand" and the price is set low. The problem is that this never changes. Should demand (price) be effected by how long you've been needed something? Wouldn't this help prevent lulls or stalls in the economy?

Am I wrong on how this works? Can something like this be done via mod?

[Hankyke]

If you need something bad enough you set price to highest manually. Managers set price by how mucks you have in stock. More you need, higher the price. Like in real economy. Need it faster, lift the buy price manually higher.

If orders is being put time based then economy would break down cos some (most) factory`s loos money (selling products low priced and buy high priced components).

Sry my english is bad as it is not my native tongue.

Hankyke.

[sd_jasper]

The clarify, I didn't own the shipyard. So, I couldn't set the price of anything. I could have (and eventually did) buy the wares needed and sell them at a loss to get the ship production moving.

My question though is about what NPC stations do. If they just need a few of a particular ware, will this create a stall in their production and thus ripple out to the whole economy? Wouldn't offer price increase over time help fix this?

[TheDeliveryMan]

It would probably suffice if stations would pay max price for resources that are missing to start the next production cycle.

[Lord Crc]

Economy prices are whack. In my current game there fusion reactors are being sold off within a second of becoming available, with long periods without any reactors for sale.

Yet, when the fusion reactor factory releases a new batch for sale, the offering price is -3% to -5%!?!

On the other hand, for 10+ hours, energy cells have been sold at >+20%, yet bought at -60% all over the place...

Clearly there is something very, very wrong with the supply and demand in this game.

[RAVEN.myst]

The min and max price limits are an unfortunate and artificial set of limits - in a "real" free-market economy (yes, I know, "realism" is dangerous to mention in game context, but bear with me) prices usually don't have such restrictions imposed on them, except when government or guild regulated. Even then, when a commodity is in short enough supply and with high enough demand, black-market channels will provide - at "suitably" inflated prices.

The trade offers system of stations in XR is much akin to an auction - everyone makes their bids, and the most profitable one (for the seller) wins - however, these bids are artificially capped, so there is no way for someone to say "right, I *REALLY* want the thing, so... here's TRIPLE what anyone else is offering - how about it?" In a real-life scenario, throwing money at a problem in this manner tends to solve it, but in the X games we are prevented from it. Of course, if these caps were not in place, I think it's almost certain that the economies would spiral out of control with rampant inflation, as NPCs would (or should) also be able to make even higher offers.

[donzi]

The default economy is somewhat out of balance based on the starting factories.

It'll churn along and the player can extract what is needed periodically but the universe has some built in consumption.

Varying NPC and player caused factors can influence the flow of wares.

Time alone isn't a factor. If however supply and demand causes items to pile up then the selling price goes down.

It goes both ways, if player starts to horde something it can impede the creation of something else.

Without building your own sources of the ware(s) the best thing to do IMO is get 100% info on related factories so you can keep tabs on what they need to make the ware that is desired.

This will allow the player to more efficiently deliver resources than the NPC will do, hence the player can keep the NPC factory production going when otherwise it might stop.

With stalled ship production, it's essential to have 100% info on the station (requires illegal scanning) so that it's possible to view the station storage (to see what is missing and stalling construction).

[RAVEN.myst]

With stalled ship production, it's essential to have 100% info on the station (requires illegal scanning) so that it's possible to view the station storage (to see what is missing and stalling construction).

You no longer need this for storage info, as you get that if you have a trade agent on that station (which is essential) - the storage info then becomes known immediately. However, to see consumption, you want to be able to view the production modules, and some of those (mostly armstech stuff like ScanAr Facs and Turret Forges) require a Beholder scan - all the rest (even Fusion Core Fac) don't. The important thing is to scan the production modules and have an agent on the station (the latter you need in any case.)

EDIT: But I still PREFER to get 100% on important stations, anyway

[donzi]

Ah yes. I didn't think of the plain ol trade info as another way to ferret out info.

IIRC though, it'll show demand but station scan/info can give a little more insight by showing storage levels and the production info. That info is also nice reference when thinking of building new stations -- being able to see what will be needed from actual live production of the station type.

But for sure, trade agents are a must for at least RMP, FR, BOW, and anything which becomes important as time goes on.

[RAVEN.myst]

Storage levels are given by the trade agent, but you are correct in that scanning the production modules gives more insight - they show all the resources required for that module including any absent ones (which, if completely absent, won't even show up on the more "general" storage view, but will show as 0/xxxx in the production details).

[Nanook]

Sorry for the inadvertent lock. One of our newer moderators was still learning how to use his special moderator mouse and apparently misclicked.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

@Title No, that's not the problem with the economy and price is already affected by time indirectly:
As long as the station is producing it's reducing the stocklevel of its resources and this way increasing the price the only difference is that stocklevel is easy to calculate but a missing time derived price is not.
The real problems are:
too slow trade ships, if you get something like -60% & +20% on Energy there is nothing wrong with the prices or supply and demand but with delivery.
unbalanced relative productions:
cut crystals are overproduced in AL, because the is no serious demand, in OL Plasma Pumps demand them, but AL's Bio-Optic Wiring doesn't.
Scanning Array|EM-Spectrometer are used in nearly the same amount as RMP by shipyards but only produced as fast as Fusion reactors.

[Lord Crc]

As long as the station is producing it's reducing the stocklevel of its resources and this way increasing the price the only difference is that stocklevel is easy to calculate but a missing time derived price is not.

As I mentioned, in my game Fusion Reactors are sold within seconds of coming on the market. There are long periods with no Fusion Reactors for sale. Yet when a new batch of 50-100 Fusion Reactors comes on the market it does so at -5%.

How does that make any sense? The manager could and should sell it for close to max, only reducing price if the Fusion Reactors are collecting dust.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

This should only happen for URVPartsupply and other stations both needing and producing FR, as the already have a stock, however this is not a bug of the system to set price after stocklevel, but rather of it's implementation.

[Lord Crc]

This should only happen for URVPartsupply and other stations both needing and producing FR, as the already have a stock, however this is not a bug of the system to set price after stocklevel, but rather of it's implementation.

The Ship Fabs do the same as well.

[Assailer]

As long as the station is producing it's reducing the stocklevel of its resources and this way increasing the price the only difference is that stocklevel is easy to calculate but a missing time derived price is not.

As I mentioned, in my game Fusion Reactors are sold within seconds of coming on the market. There are long periods with no Fusion Reactors for sale. Yet when a new batch of 50-100 Fusion Reactors comes on the market it does so at -5%.

How does that make any sense? The manager could and should sell it for close to max, only reducing price if the Fusion Reactors are collecting dust.

Maybe the price is set according to the station stock limits, instead a system wide limit. 100 Fusion Reactor could mean high enough amount for -5%. All in all, economy has been fubar since day one, i have stopped complaining and ccepted the fact its kinda broken As said before, it's impossible to do RL economy when NPC stations cheat in money on demand, so this is probably the best they could come up with.

[Santi]

All wares have a bracket for prices and yes, stock does have an impact on the price of a ware, fusion reactors at -5% is a good price for the seller, they have a range of 27,310 to 31,421 credits, so selling at 29849 seems ok to me.

[Lord Crc]

All wares have a bracket for prices and yes, stock does have an impact on the price of a ware, fusion reactors at -5% is a good price for the seller, they have a range of 27,310 to 31,421 credits, so selling at 29849 seems ok to me.

The point is the Fusion Reactors would have been ripped away even at 31421. Why doesn't the seller try this first? If they're collecting dust, sure, lower the prices. But if you're out of stock when the next batch is produced, it does not make any sense to start out lower than max.

[Santi]

I see your point, abut the top price, but for a ware that is used in the main sink of the economy, some concessions have to be made if you want the whole thing to keep ticking. What price have the buy offers for fusion reactors in your game?

[Lord Crc]

3600 bought for +6% (31421), 2600 bought for +2-3% and a few hundred <0%.