[Proposal/QoL] Trading station improvements

[vvvvvvvv]

Currently setting up Trading station with many wares is clicky, especially if you want to configure buy/sell prices. There are also difficulties when you want to configure who is allowed to sell what. Below few improvements I think would be useful.

## More detailed trade rules;

Current situation:

Currently there's station-wide rule "Station Trades", which you can override for each ware, in buy and sell orders. Which is clicky. Click to uncheck "use default", more clicks to select the rule.

Proposal:

* "Station Trades" rule remains, and serves as default for all following rules.

Several more rules are introduced. By default they use "Station Trades" rules, unless you override them:
* "Station Buy Orders" --> For things station buys, but does not manufacture.
* "Station Sell Orders" --> For things station sells, but does not consume itself.
* "Intermediate Buy Orders" --> For things station produces and consumes, buy order (if there's shortage)
* "Intermediate Sell Orders" --> For things station produces and consumes, buy order (if there's surplus)
* Docking permissions. --> Who is allowed to dock with station. Traders assigned to the station are always permitted to dock.

Reasoning --> Currently it is impossible to create a station which has traders, uses then to acquire/deliver goods, but does not allow NPCs to dock. Likewise, by default all intermediate goods have buy and sell order which you can't remove, so the usual idea is to disable all station trades, and only manually allow them for "input" and "output" goods. Which is clicky. This system would allow to nab all those cases at once. Docking permissions also allow creation of delivery stations. When NPC docking is forbidden, but NPC trading is allowed, station will use its subordinate traders to trade with NPCs.

## Station trading ships should be considered to be a part of the station.

The main reasoning here is that apparently currently it is possible to end up in situation where station trader cannot trade with commander, because it checks whether trading with commander is allowed. This... to me doesn't make a lot of sense as commander should be the one managing the trade.

## Return home check box.

All station traders will fly back to station, if this is set, after some amount of time has passed during which they have found no trades.

Reasoning --> Currently traders hang around area near last trade, which can be very dangerous.

## Pricing Rules.

Setting manual prices is a pain point. Because you can't set average easily (it is somewhere in the middle), and it is once again clicky.

Proposal --> Let's say that we have "price index" for goods. 0 is minimum price, 50 is average, 100 is maximum. "Pricing Rule" would be either a single such index or a pair of them --> 1 for buy an 1 for sell. Then you'd assign the pricing rules in the same menu where you select trade goos.

This probably shouldn't be done as a dropown, but rather as checkbox matrix, to allow quick configuration of many goods. Or each pricing index could have a section for price configuration. Buy index should round own when calculated, sell one shoul round up, to avoid equal prices by accident.

## Volume rules.

Similar to pricing rules. You have pair of numbers, 0..100, except this is percent. Buy, "buy up to % of volume" and sell "sell above % of volume". Like Pricing index they could be mass-assined to pricing goods.

This does not handle every existing edge case, but should improve configuration of factories and trading stations a great deal.

[Raptor34]

Rather than docking permissions, which really reads more like a band aid anyway, I'll rather they go right to the core of the issue and allow separate settings for station subordinates trade to NPCs and NPCs can come and trade.
Actually while we're at it, let us set different prices at the station and for foreign trade. Like let's say I'm selling Product A, if NPCs come to buy, I'll sell it to them at 80 credits, but my own traders going out to sell can sell it at say 60 credits. Which I'm assuming is part of the reason we don't want NPCs to come but still sell to them, because selling using traders get better prices.
And thinking further, should as well let us set different prices per faction if we want to. I'm not sure what it can be used for, but it sounds useful. Perhaps if we can set lower prices selling to certain factions, including the player, it can work as a sort of priority list.

[Nanook]

...Which I'm assuming is part of the reason we don't want NPCs to come but still sell to them, because selling using traders get better prices....

Aaannnd, your traders don't get skill increases, nor do you increase your rep and trade rankings. Only selling with your own traders gives you all those.

[Raptor34]

...Which I'm assuming is part of the reason we don't want NPCs to come but still sell to them, because selling using traders get better prices....

Aaannnd, your traders don't get skill increases, nor do you increase your rep and trade rankings. Only selling with your own traders gives you all those.

Skill increases is one thing, but seems kinda dumb that you don't gain rep or trade ranks, though does the latter even matter?
I'm starting to think that selling ships not giving rep might not be for balance after all.

[Nanook]

...
Skill increases is one thing, but seems kinda dumb that you don't gain rep or trade ranks, though does the latter even matter? ...

It used to in previous games, I believe. You'd get better deals the higher your trade rank. Similar to your fight rank which used to improve your chances at making an enemy pilot bail. Not sure if X4 does that, though.

[Raptor34]

...
Skill increases is one thing, but seems kinda dumb that you don't gain rep or trade ranks, though does the latter even matter? ...

It used to in previous games, I believe. You'd get better deals the higher your trade rank. Similar to your fight rank which used to improve your chances at making an enemy pilot bail. Not sure if X4 does that, though.

Seems like that was replaced with rep giving you the deals instead. Which is better imo.
But I miss the transport missions. But afaict we don't have those anymore, so rank seems mostly cosmetic now, the fight thing aside.
I'll note that unlike previous games, X4 doesn't exactly shove your rank in your face, which seems to support their lessening importance. Or maybe they do and I afked it away...

[Targ Collective]

You can set up Trade Rules per ware to isolate NPC trade and can even forbid your traders from trading these wares while allowing NPCs of various factions to trade. So you might be selling Stimulants by Terran space and only let NPCs transport them, or only taking food supplies from Vigor suppliers to comply with Vigor monopolies, while your ship technology is funneled directly into your equipment docks and shipyards, or trade docks come to that.

You also have control over pricing and reserve stock. So your production might have the strongest sell trigger by selling everything and the equipment dock or shipyard the strongest buy trigger with the goal of filling resources (you shouldn't expect a profit if using this for NPC trade though).

As I understand it you want a faster, cleaner interface which is great! But your suggestion assumes specific use cases. Here's a counter-proposal: saving trade rules and drone and missile loadouts to the station blueprint. That would mean they would need to be set up once per station, and would need a low-awareness check each time a module is built so that storage proportion, drone capacity and missile loadout grows with the station, and one final parity check when the last module is built.

Particularly for defence platforms this would be a boon, as they will only max out missile and drone capacity deep into the build cycle.

Nota Bene: If you want to isolate NPC traders why would you buy from them? There's a solution for this already: Build one trade station that buys from NPCs and sells to them; or doesn't sell to them perhaps - this will generate profit over time, if you provide startup capital enough to equalise with the market. And your NPC embargo station will only buy these goods from your faction. Trade stations are cheap to build and can have significant capacity. Doing this with one station is currently impossible, but one trade dock can give you NPC reserves for many stations, just top the purchase credits up from time to time.

[vvvvvvvv]

You can set up Trade Rules per ware to isolate NPC trade

At the moment there's no configuration which:
* Prevents NPCs from buying directly from your station.
* While allowing that station deliver stuff via traders to NPCs.

You also have control over pricing and reserve stock.

Sure you have. However, try to configure a trading station with 3 dozen trading wares with current UI.

Here's a counter-proposal: saving trade rules and drone and missile loadouts to the station blueprint.

That does not address several concerns which are the reason for proposal. Specifically you cannot sell buy/sell levels an prices to large number of wares in sane way. I definitely wouln't want prices to be part of a blueprint either.

Ware configuration goes like this:
* Open cell with the ware (click)
* Uncheck "automatic buy amounts" (click)
* Set buy up to (click, drag)
* Impossible to set it to precise value like 25%.
* Uncheck "automatic sell amounts" (click)
* Set "sell all but" (click, drag)
* Uncheck "automatic buy prices" (click)
* Set price (click, drag).
* Impossible to set exact average.
* Uncheck "automatic sell prices" (click)
* Set sell price (click, drag).
* Impossible to set exact average.
* Uncheck "use default rule" for buy orders (click)
* Pick the one you want from the list (2 clicks. Unfold dropdown, select item)
* Uncheck "use default rule" for sell orders (click)
* Pick the one you want from the list (2 clicks. Unfold dropdown, select item)
* Close cell with the ware (click), because it obscures the next one.

So.... 15 clicks per ware. 29 more wares to go.

Nota Bene: If you want to isolate NPC traders why would you buy from them?

Because I want a "darkstore" station or distribution center.

There's a solution for this already: Build one trade station that buys from NPCs and sells to them;

There isn't a solution for this in current UI. And trading stations are extremely painful configure unless they peddle a single ware.

Having separate default trade rules for buy/sell orders for input,output and intermediates, would greatly reduce amount of manual configuration. Having rules for storage levels and pricing would simplify it even further.

[Raptor34]

Saving stuff to the blueprint is interesting. But being able to save a "loadout" is probably easier to use.
For production stations it's whatever, but for trade stations, you'll have the same design for multiple different uses.

[Targ Collective]

Hm. I'm not sure I fully understand your proposal, but I think the Buy and Sell orders can take different Trade Rules so you can filter who buys and sells what the Ware is. In the event that you can't, you can use a trade station as a filter.

You can be as precise with the number of wares as you wish! Simply click the number of the amount of the ware when setting a ratio and type the number you would like.

It would likely be easier on a development side to use the existing system and allow it to save properties to a station blueprint. I do have a suggestion though! If you utilise sector blacklisting then you can strictly control the sectors your supplier station has access to, which could whitelist your destination station and only allow a path to it. Your destination station, and any trade hubs into contraband space, would only utilise NPC trade. I'd strongly advise you, though, to only manufacture goods where they are legal to make and to blacklist territories where they are illegal. NPC factions might strike stations with contraband wares down - they definitely will if they manufacture them. Letting NPCs take the risks, and to manufacture in legal space, is more sensible than trying to force a contraband route - because you can lose reputation and assets fast that way.

Nota Bene: Coffee as a Stimulant is illegal in Terran Space, so for your daily pick-me-up why not take a journey into Coffee House, the Tachyon solution to your morning brew? You'll be Faster than the Speed of Light! Now serving recreational stimulants in a number of areas where coffee is allowed, including Segaran Pioneers space and the liberated Savage Spur Terranside. Superluminal stimulation not guaranteed. Medical care on station in our dedicated habitats. Please note that importing produce into Terran space is prohibited.

Nota Bene: If you do want to set up illegals trade in Trade Stations and they don't get shot down, then a Trade Station that's only allowed to trade in its own sector to load up from your factories and another for your supply line that only allows NPC trade on illegals trade routes may be a solution. You'll need to exclude your own faction on the import and export trade rule for the NPC trade route. NPC traders should be able to buy from the shared trade route and then further the NPC unique supply line.

[Raptor34]

Hm. I'm not sure I fully understand your proposal, but I think the Buy and Sell orders can take different Trade Rules so you can filter who buys and sells what the Ware is. In the event that you can't, you can use a trade station as a filter.

You're missing the point. You can do that, excepting the part where you go out to trade and not let the NPCs come to trade at the station, it's that doing it for a trade station with dozens of wares is a giant PITA.
So it's a QoL thing where rather than manually setting it for dozens of wares you set it on a master setting instead.

Like how you don't really need auto ship replacement because you can manually order the ships and assign them.

[vvvvvvvv]

Hm. I'm not sure I fully understand your proposal, but I think the Buy and Sell orders can take different Trade Rules so you can filter who buys and sells what the Ware is. In the event that you can't, you can use a trade station as a filter.

Let's say you want 20 wares configured to:
* Fill storage up to 80%
* Sell all above 20%
* Buy at no higher than 25%
* Sell at no less than 75%.

25/75% price here refers to min/max base price. I.e. a ware which is 200Cr average, 100Cr min, 300Cr max, at 50% will be average, at 0% min price, at 100% max price, 25% would be 150Cr, 75% woul be 250Cr. "(max_price - min_price)*pricing_percent + min_price". Linear interpolation.

You can be as precise with the number of wares as you wish! Simply click

Too much clicking. Configuring large number of wares right now is a pain.

It would likely be easier on a development side to use the existing system and allow it to save properties to a station blueprint.

I see no reason to think this way.

Besides, as I said, I don' WANT this to be in blueprint. Stuffing this data into blueprint does not address original concern in any way. The original concern was trade wares being pain to configure.

Having "ware configuration preset" would be more interesting, but still does not address things being pain to configure.

You can do that, excepting the part where you go out to trade and not let the NPCs come to trade at the station, it's that doing it for a trade station with dozens of wares is a giant PITA.

Yup. Exactly. Right now you' just give up on ware number 5 an let the manager handle it hoping it'll eventually work out into green. In practice the manager is losing money for many wares. Because his prices are based on storage levels.

[vvvvvvvv]

...
Skill increases is one thing, but seems kinda dumb that you don't gain rep or trade ranks, though does the latter even matter? ...

It used to in previous games, I believe. You'd get better deals the higher your trade rank. Similar to your fight rank which used to improve your chances at making an enemy pilot bail. Not sure if X4 does that, though.

You gain faction rep through trade, and higher ranks unlock discounts. The highest discount is at +30. I think you gain rep through ALL trade, includinging stations and NPCs you own.

You don't get any rep for ships sold, though.

[Targ Collective]

Hm. Too much clicking I get, because I have similar concerns selecting Fleet Wings. I don't mind it so much with stations, because I just need to set the values *once* per station.

Saving to the blueprint is the solution I would favour - there's no reason you can't have a number of identical stations with presets. Or pasting a station's values to another one. Any different solution would need you to group and ungroup entries to change in simultaneity and would rely on ware proportion and price proportion. Stations can be designed to over-produce, under-produce and just trade any ware in the game. That diversity makes one-size-fits-anybody difficult to do. Realistically it's difficult to reduce clicks without also reducing nuance. Much of that nuance has to be there because of how diverse the station building metagame can become.

I've experimented with streamlining an economy of my own to sell at min price to my faction and buy at max price to my faction, and I'm trying a run where the only filters are to reserve trade for my own faction's use. I think the game's default filters are surprisingly robust, and it may be that the only filters I'll really need are those that funnel stock to my trade docks, equipment docks and trade hubs if I want to isolate my factories (and sometimes the trade docks) as points of sale.

My advice is simple: Don't over-engineer. The default values are the same ones the NPCs use and they are usually good enough. If you isolate your points of sale, and your producing factories have only the storage they need, then sell ratios and zero-reserve orders become less necessary. This means you just need Trade Rules, which is two clicks a ware and a dropdown. Being a control freak in a game like this can turn into micromanagement hell so if you don't find that fun, find an abstract solution that ballparks well. if you do you have a fine career in data management and data entry in front of you.

Nota Bene: The difficulty with your proposal, as the game now stands, is that wares are real numbers, pricing varies differently by ware, and you want to change all these values at once with a group selection.

Let's say you have a ware of 650 and another of 5000. These will have asynchronous percentages, which is a problem - 25% of one is not a proportion of the whole of 25% of the other. In other words, there'll be a percentage underrun on one and a percentage overrun on the other.

So do you round up or down?

The computer has to have that decision made for it every time to automate that. Typically you'd want the profitability of the underrun and overrun to be worth more credit within threshold per cargo space sold, which means the game will need a way to program that calculated in.

Automation like this is nice to have, but requires under-the-hood stuff like this *all the time*. You'e seeing a simple percentage slider, while a game developer will be thinking in terms of the digital clockwork that makes it work. What I'm saying is you're asking for a simple thing with a complex solution. Now the math to do this is totally possible. The game just needs to calculate percentage overruns and underruns, where equivalent, so that saleable cargo space is worth more credits. But that requires a cargo profit calculator and a percentage rounder to be built into the game. It might iterate a divide-by-100-and-prune-the-overrun (needed for 1002 units) or prune-the-underrun (needed for 998 units). It'll need to know which to use, and when. It will need the profit gained and lost from underruns and overruns by cargospace/profit so it can juggle to have a profitable tradeoff.

Your simple feature request, in other words, has a complex tail of optimisations to make it work.

All possible. In fact there are plenty of people in the tech industry who could cheerfully solve this in an afternoon (I wouldn't be one of them). But making this work is harder that 'I wish I could set ratios in cargo groups' because computers need every damn number correctly defined to work...

[vvvvvvvv]

The default values are the same ones the NPCs use and

And NPCs have infinite money.

NPC sets prices based on storage levels. In practice that means the manager can drain station money.

Buy at 200. Storage level raises. The price is now 150. Sell! -50Cr per item. Repeat.

This is not a concern for NPCs, because NPCs aren't trying to make a profit. Instead they're building supply chain. So while you're playing a business sim, they're playing factorio.

[Targ Collective]

Trade stations need deep cargo reserves, the deeper the better, and lots of investment.

I'd advise at least one manufactured product that the station can source from you for free.

In a stable market, a Trade Station will sell at one credit more than it will buy. The more stock, the more range that credit has.

So you need to balance with the market; have massive capacity; have either manufacturing profits or an up-front investment. Tiny trade stations will need to have manual values because they are balanced *by* the market. You'll need to really scale up to have them as fire-and-forget profit docks. I've made serious credit on trade stations, but they've been drawing from my stock at zero cost and providing security to both my economy and the NPC market. They do work, but if you're trying to bootstrap from tiny seed capital, why not pull a Boron and do solid-gas trading? You only need seed capital for a station and miners and they'll build up stock for free, which you can sell to the NPC market and then feed to your factories as you home in on the big score, an Equipment Dock and Shipyard of your own.

[vvvvvvvv]

I'd advise at least one manufactured

I'm sorry, but I have plenty of hours in this game, and right now am not asking an advice. I'm reporting a pain point and possible ways to address it which would also deal with many UI shortcomings.

Obviously if you know a way to configure 30 wares in the way I described before using something like 10 clicks, I'm listening.

* Fill storage up to 80%
* Sell all above 20%
* Buy at no higher than 25%
* Sell at no less than 75%.

[Targ Collective]

Well, as I've broken down for you, on a coding side it's about shaving the part of the percentage that doesn't snap to whole numbers across the different product ratios, and doing so in a sensible way (to maximise return on cargo credit). I wouldn't know how to do that through a mod and it's the only sensible theorycrafting I have for this, apart from constructive advice to try and minimise the need for manual data values (factories taking less max cargo than your trade hubs/equipment docks/shipyards so they'll favour supplying and so that trade and ship resources favour buying from supply without having to set values manually).

I've described for you why this would be a problem more involved than the UI, so the Devteam if they want to use this will have a few design notes beyond 'I want percentage sliders for multiple products at once' which in terms of backend is not helpful without an idea of how to make it work with real data, and I *have* given you a ballpark solution which will encourage factories to export while only needing Trade Rules set, to wit, giving them no more cargo space than they need while giving your export hubs deep reserves so that they buy proportionately more than the factories proportionately make.

I have no idea how mods are made or how the Devteam would implement this, but I've tried to be helpful in describing what the math would need to solve and to give you some methods so that you won't need to set so many manual values. I'm not sure what more I can do here.

30 wares in ten clicks I can't give you, but 30 wares that only need trade rules is possible if you use cargo proportions to shape import/export biases. In truth if you need to min/max trade with that many complications then you should think about having independent supply of goods to give yourself some startup capital. Trade station metagaming doesn't need to be more complicated that a big station with an investment of products bought and sold to generate capital as it levels with the market.

Try this: A trade dock that takes in energy cells from some solar plants, and gathers solid and gas resources with a mining fleet with some solid and gas storage modules. The energy cells will build up profits once your solar plants are established, and a station based mining fleet will make profits from gathering and selling resources to the NPC markets. Remember you'll need to set some to gathering resources and some to selling them - this is by design and is one of the reasons solid and gas resource ships are cheaper; they need a ship for both supply and demand where trade ships can do both.

Then put some self-sufficient factories, once you have the blueprints, for station construction; weapons and turrets; engines; shields; resupply materials.

With Terran economy, if you want to use Terran designs, then I've already done the work for you (and if you don't mind using Terran modules for Community stuff i have you covered there too).

Basically unless this suggestion is used you need to minimise the annoyance with the game as it is now. So only use trade rules if you need them; try to avoid needing to set prices and reserve stocks at all. It's perfectly viable if you favour storage in your Equipment Docks, Shipyards and Trade Hubs to bypass storage ratio and purchase price entirely which just leaves Trade Rules for the resources you'll want to reserve for internal trade, typically ship and perhaps station construction resources.

[vvvvvvvv]

but 30 wares that only need trade

No. This does not match the specification.

The requirement was to implement price and volume limits. "Only trade rules" dos not meet the requirement.

And like I said, I'm really not looking for a gameplay advice.

[Targ Collective]

*sighs* I give up. I've tried to give a pass on how your request could be done in the backend, at least an abstract on it, and tried to give you some coping mechanisms so your issue will be less annoying, and because I can't magically provide this feature through a mod, nor command the Devteam to provide it, you're getting nasty.

The fact is that I can't give you this feature.

The Devteam can give you this feature, if they want to, and I've tried to try and logically map how they might be able to (so that if they want to they'll have something more than 'I want group ratios to happen' to work with which is not terribly helpful).

I've tried to give you some workarounds to make not having this feature less painful.

And your response is that you do not want advice. That's fair enough, but I can't give you the feature you want, and not all ware values divide into 100, and not all wares divide into 100 relative to each other, in all the stations players can build, which makes percentage ballparks complicated because the game has to handle the bit that doesn't divide into a hundred to make this work.

To be blunt, I'm not responsible for your wishlist here and Egosoft will only be responsible for this idea if they want to be. How on earth can I match your specification if I have only the most basic of coding knowledge and only access to the part of the game I'd be allowed to mod even if I knew how to code it?

It's clear that however helpful I try to be, all you will accept is a giftwrapped feature request. So I give up. Learn to mod and see if you can put this in the game yourself, then. You can imagine sliding ratios around, but making then work with real data is harder than imagining, as I've tried to explain.

So yes, I give up. Make the feature yourself, if you know how, or hope the Devteam use it. I'm not responsible for your enjoyment. I've tried to explain how this might work; tried to give you some methods to hopefully not need it if they don't use it; but all you're doing is complaining that I can't give you this feature. That's foolish. Your complaints won't change that.