Trade ware prices color coding

[LetMeIn11]

I'm trading with an NPC at a station and they have some wares with green prices. I move the scroll bar to buy these wares, but the green price suddenly turns orange while the price itself doesn't change. Is the game trying to warn me about something or is that just another little bug?

Also, I was supposing that green prices are "low" and "orange" prices are high, but now I'm not sure. When I bought a hand laser for 55k it was a green price but a neighboring station sells it for 50k and it is a yellow price. Are price colors work the other way around?

[LetMeIn11]

Confirmed that Yellow/Orange prices are actually lower.

Also, orange prices turn green when you buy wares too.

[LetMeIn11]

Unconfirmed. Bandages were Orange for 128Cr but now they're light green for 117Cr. I have no clue what these colors mean

[LetMeIn11]

Ok, I've just discovered that in this game even the basic multiplication doesn't work correctly!!! I'm selling 25 bandages for 117Cr and it shows me that I earn 2927Cr instead of 2925Cr!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW?! Even 32bit floats are precise enough to give the correct answer in this range....

[db48x]

Ok, I've just discovered that in this game even the basic multiplication doesn't work correctly!!! I'm selling 25 bandages for 117Cr and it shows me that I earn 2927Cr instead of 2925Cr!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW?! Even 32bit floats are precise enough to give the correct answer in this range....

Is it so terrible for the price to be 117.08Cr instead of 117?

As for the colors, I don’t really know what they mean either. I think green is a good sale based on the last price you purchased it at? Something like that. Ultimately the money stops mattering; if you need Argnu Steaks or whatever for a mission then it doesn’t matter what the price is. Once you’ve found it you purchase it at any price.

[linolafett]

Please avoid quadrupleposting. If you have additional thoughts please use the edit function for the post.

The colours indicate how attractive the sale is compared to the average price of the item/ware.
Green= good deal, orange=bad deal.
Prices are shown rounded, therefore a slight deviation on higher quantities is to be expected.

[LetMeIn11]

Not terrible, obviously, doesn't ruin the playthrough, but very unintuitive. I accidently discovered that while trying to figure out what's going on with colors that's why I was so surprised. Imagine looking for a rationale in coloring and spotting that even multiplication does not behave rationally. Decimals are fine but they're not presented to the player anywhere and it takes like a few ceilings/roundings in order to not leak the internal representation.

As of colors, green = good sell based on the previous buy is probable, but I still haven't had a luck to verify that. And again, someone has spent his time implementing the coloring in order to guide players in their trades, I suppose, but these colors are not simple below average/above average price indicators they're something more convoluted and there are no even tooltips to explain this convolution. The guidance that I need to reverse engineer to understand is not a good guidance. Good sell based on the previous buy if true wouldn't be very useful too because you still need to record prices somewhere to know good buy prices.

I know how to get money in this game, but in this playthrough I want to get it in a way I haven't done before: pure speculation.

[LetMeIn11]

Please avoid quadrupleposting. If you have additional thoughts please use the edit function for the post.

The colours indicate how attractive the sale is compared to the average price of the item/ware.
Green= good deal, orange=bad deal.
Prices are shown rounded, therefore a slight deviation on higher quantities is to be expected.

Thank you for the reply, will avoid multiposting in the future.

I'm ready to argue that something is not working right in this case unless the average price is floating.

Unconfirmed. Bandages were Orange for 128Cr but now they're light green for 117Cr. I have no clue what these colors mean

Will collect more data points this evening.

[Imperial Good]

The colour change is likely due to switching between buy and sell mode. When you look at a vendor it might start showing the prices for you buying the wares from them, so a green colour would represent a low price which is good for your. If you then start to sell that ware to the vendor it changes to yellow or orange because a low price is bad for you. The ware prices of vendors is set randomly at spawn time, and generally for buying from vendors you want vendors with a low price, while for selling to vendors you want vendors with a high price. For some of the more expensive items such as spacefly eggs, it can be worth it to shop around before selling as the extra from a good sale price can be several hundred thousand or even millions of extra credits.

Even 32bit floats are precise enough to give the correct answer in this range....

Generally for currency calculations fixed point maths should be used to avoid floating point error.

[Falcrack]

If you do not own any of the item, then a green number means it is a lower than average price, since you can't do anything other than buy the item, the game assumes you might intend to buy it. Red or orange means higher than average price.

If you already own the item in your inventory, a green number means a higher than average price, since the game assumes you are going to sell it. Red or orange means a lower than average price.

It is clear as mud and sometimes confusing to me when trying to decide on buying and selling inventory items!

[LetMeIn11]

If you do not own any of the item, then a green number means it is a lower than average price, since you can't do anything other than buy the item, the game assumes you might intend to buy it. Red or orange means higher than average price.

If you already own the item in your inventory, a green number means a higher than average price, since the game assumes you are going to sell it. Red or orange means a lower than average price.

It is clear as mud and sometimes confusing to me when trying to decide on buying and selling inventory items!

No, it's not like that. I've never owned the hand laser yet, and it shows 50112Cr as a yellow price and 77810Cr as a green price. So green as a good sell price looks like the intended behavior but it breaks in some cases. I assume the light color variants are messed up when the darker ones work correctly but I still need to collect more data points to verify that.

[Dj_FRedy]

To clarify things even further. The colors are interpolated taking into account the offers, as already noted:
Trader: 'Inventory Items' Menu

Code: Select all

  Buy offer:
     Light green:   price > average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price < average

This menu shows prices formatted 'without' cents.

Station: 'Trade Offers' Menu

Code: Select all

  Buy Offer:
     Light green:   price > average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price < average
 Sell Offer:
     Light green:   price < average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price > average

This menu shows prices formatted 'with' cents.
With respect to colors, when there is both a sell offer and a buy offer for the same ware, the sell offer prevails.

[Falcrack]

To clarify things even further. The colors are interpolated taking into account the offers, as already noted:
Trader: 'Inventory Items' Menu

Code: Select all

  Buy offer:
     Light green:   price > average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price < average

This menu shows prices formatted 'without' cents.

Station: 'Trade Offers' Menu

Code: Select all

  Buy Offer:
     Light green:   price > average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price < average
 Sell Offer:
     Light green:   price < average
     White:         price = average
     Orange:        price > average

This menu shows prices formatted 'with' cents.
With respect to colors, when there is both a sell offer and a buy offer for the same ware, the sell offer prevails.

Now I don't understand it at all.

[Dj_FRedy]

The colour change is likely due to switching between buy and sell mode. When you look at a vendor it might start showing the prices for you buying the wares from them, so a green colour would represent a low price which is good for your. If you then start to sell that ware to the vendor it changes to yellow or orange because a low price is bad for you.

It is the same thing that 'Imperial Good' has posted but represented with a diagram. It seemed to me that it could be understood better, maybe it wasn't.

[LetMeIn11]

Ok. Everything is working as the dev has described (white prices - average, yellowish prices - below average, greenish prices - above average). However, there is still a bug because of which colors where so messed up in my notes. When you drag a slider to buy wares the color of the ware price "flips" (yellowish -> greenish and vice versa). If you proceed with buying wares and reopen the trade dialogue the colors will be restored to their original color.

[thegreybetween]

Ok. Everything is working as the dev has described (white prices - average, yellowish prices - below average, greenish prices - above average). However, there is still a bug because of which colors where so messed up in my notes. When you drag a slider to buy wares the color of the ware price "flips" (yellowish -> greenish and vice versa). If you proceed with buying wares and reopen the trade dialogue the colors will be restored to their original color.

It isn't a bug. Think of it like this: The color is giving you a prompt based on your intended behavior, with the default assumption being "sell". Therefore, a price that is above average defaults to a green color (which is good for you as a seller). HOWEVER, the moment you try to buy it, the color will flip to orange, because you are buying an item that is above the average price, which is bad for you as the buyer.

So, the change in color is the game responding to your behavior because it is giving you a buyer's perspective instead of a seller's perspective once you signal that you are buying.

Put even more simply: Green is always "good" for you and orange is always "bad" for you, but the color that appears when you open the window will be based on assumptions by the game and may not be accurate until you initiate an offer. Once you clearly tell the game you're a buyer, it will show you the color that is relevant to buyers (which may require it to flip if it assumed you were selling when you opened the dialog).

I hope that helps. Happy trading!

[LetMeIn11]

I still believe that it's a bug because there is no color flipping in the ship trading menu.