Bestsell Improvements

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 09:25

Best sell has 2 problems.

1. It gives sell prices for things you can't sell (like trade software) which simply adds to the clutter of the display.

2. It only gives sell prices for things you have on board.

Last gaming session, I saw meatsteaks on sale at the trading station for 72 but had NO IDEA if I could sell them in sector for a profit. As it was a trading station, I went there and bought a ship load. The Best Sell then indicated the best place/price to sell them. If the price wasn't good enough, I was able to sell them back to the trading station...but if I'd bought them at a cahoona bakery I would be stuck with them.

I could have gone to each potential buying factory and checked prices buy that's time consuming and tedious.

What is needed is an extra tab that will list all the in sector buy/sell possibilities, listing only those wares that can be bought AND sold in this sector and the current best prices.

For example...

Buy Sell Diff
Argnu Beef 65 96 31
Meatsteaks 75 71 -4
Silicon 556 726 170

I could then see that although silicon is above average price, I could still sell it for a good profit, whereas meatsteaks are near average price but I still can't sell for a profit.

This display wouldn't need to indicate where I can buy/sell as the existing options show this information. In the above example I could then check beef and silicon as potential trading items...

Secondly, how about a best sell for adjacent sectors (if a navsat is in that adjacent sector) based on items aboard ship. If I have a load of ore on board but no buyers in this sector, I could check the adjacent sector bestsells and instantly see the best place to trade. I could do that anyway if I wanted (and navsats were there) it's just long winded micromanagement that could be greatly speeded up if the bestsells was expanded to do it for me...

Any opinions?

NeverSnake · Post by **NeverSnake** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 09:28

Personally I don't bother with bestsell and check things manually. After a while you get to know what factory needs what.

Fatboy1109 · Post by **Fatboy1109** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 09:32

Totally agree, listing all of the possible buy and sell options in the sector would be great and probably not that hard to implement.

i can't remember off hand but when you have the best buy sell locators can't you check prices in other sectors as long as you have a nav sat there, i have a funny feeling that you can? Although you are right this would be tedious and adding sectors into the buy sell screen, that you can arrow key to would be even better.

Sadan01 · Post by **Sadan01** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 09:33

NeverSnake wrote:Personally I don't bother with bestsell and check things manually. After a while you get to know what factory needs what.

I agree. I do this too. In fact, I bought the Best Buy/Sell moddy thingy when I first started playing X2 and found it to be a pain in the arse more than anything else. Trading manually also gives me a sense of that "I am doing something" by checking the stations for their prices, seeing what stations are going to be in need "soon" of resources and how the "supply-chain" actually works.

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 09:45

Yes, if there's a navsat in the target sector you can check buy/sell prices...but the pain is you can only check sell prices of stuff you are currently carrying.

I've taken to using the disco to drop navsats in each sector (takes a while though) which helps enormously.

CeeBod · Post by **CeeBod** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 12:14

I'd just like to see the best buy/best sell displays tidied up myself - Why are crystals, microchips, and quantum tubes stuck in with every single upgrade, weapon and shield being sold by the equipment docks? Why does best sell show every single upgrade I have fitted on my ship every time - it's impossible to make profits buying and selling any of the upgrades that are either installed or not, as they can only be bought from equipment docks at avg price, and speed/turning/cargo upgrades can't be sold at all - so why do they clutter up the display too?

Whilst we're on the subject of changing these displays, how about adding some personality to them too? - They're only available from the Teladi - who are obsessed with profit, so how about they display the biggest price variance at the top of best buys as some kind of advert - "Bargain of the day is Argnu Beef from Bernard Kho's at Cattle Ranch Alpha - our beef is bootiful! (Price=61Cr) This helpful message brought to you by the Teladi Profit Guild."?

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 12:36

Bargain of the day, nice idea.

Agree with general clutter. As I'm in the throes of a new game and trading like mad, I'm finding things are badly grouped and cluttered. It's only taken me 3 months to notice this enough to mention it...

It might also help if some lines were colour coded, red for below average sells/above average buys perhaps? Maybe green,yellow,orange or similar for prices near good extremes??

It's not as if I'm not entitled to the information and I can get it if I can be bothered, but it would make the game far easier if the information was more cleanly presented

It might also be nice if all the sales prices from all factories in the sector were shown. Three SPPs might show as...

SPP Alpha Energy 16
SPP Beta Energy 9
SPP Gamma Energy 11

I could then see that for buying, either Beta or Gamma were the best bet depending on the nearness of the factory. It's much more informative than just saying Beta is cheapest (if it's on the far side of the sector) and it beats all the keypressing of popping inside each factory in turn and checking the prices manually...

canazza · Post by **canazza** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 12:38

i like the best sells when i'm mining silicon. I jump around a few sectors, and usually one place has a 700+ selling, giving me around 100,000 for one go

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 12:56

Hey, I'm not saying the bestsells/buys should go...just that it could/should be improved...

I buy them as soon as I can - and I buy spares for my disco just incase I lose one in a battle. It's a real pain to not have them...

Jasperodus · Post by **Jasperodus** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:06

There's a script in here somewhere.

Is it possible to spoof the sales locator into thinking you have 1 of every type of cargo, I wonder?

Alternatively, a fully-fledged alternative to best sales giving a list of product sales opportunities listed by station and/or product? (once you work out how to do one, I guess the other is simple enough)

In this scenario, you might have sector as the argument.

An alternative would be a script focused on one product taking a choice of any product as an argument.

Jasp

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:10

So, I'm tempted to shift this over to the scripting forum so the clever chaps there can have a look and say whether what you are looking for is possible. What do you reckon people?

Jasperodus · Post by **Jasperodus** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:13

Sounds sensible to me.

I'm tempted to investigate one of these ideas as my first serious foray into scripting anyway.

Jasp

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:18

I thought it might be a script idea...but not the sort of thing I would be capable of doing (yet).

Yep, move it to scripting...

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:21

Moved.

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 13:41

If anyone is brave/foolish enough to try scripting this, I can assist with ideas and beta testing...

Jasperodus · Post by **Jasperodus** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 14:09

I'm going to see what I can come up with as a preliminary tonight.

Any further ideas beyond my own thoughts?

Jasp

3iff · Post by **3iff** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 15:31

From my original thoughts, I'd like a fully comprehensive report based on the sector I'm currently in...to see what if anything can be traded in sector for a profit, assuming I have a relatively empty ship. See my earlier thread posts...I just want to see what is cheap and how much I could sell it for all on the same page. I don't need to see where exactly to buy it from as the best buy/sell will tell me that.

Finding what I can buy to sell out of sector is already handled by the existing upgrades, although a quick scan of adjacent sectors (those directly connected by gates) would be great IF it can be done easily.

I aim to try trading in a dolphin soon (need another 100k at least) and I would not be wanting to fly between sectors too often - at least until I get a jumpdrive.

Good luck...

Jasperodus · Post by **Jasperodus** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 17:11

Yup. I've made a note of your post.

The info you want is readily available through scripting, no doubt about that.

The hard part will be displaying it, I think.

I'll aim to get the info gathering and reporting done tonight and prolly have the results sent to the player log in the first instance. Whether I'll have time to work on a better display is doubtful.

I'll report in the morning.

Your adjacent sectors idea is a logical progression. Something like...

Buy Sell Diff Sector Distance
Argnu Beef 65 96 31 Beefeater Prime 1
Meatsteaks 75 71 -4 Slowpoke Cowpoke 1
Silicon 556 726 170 Chipshop 1

So here, Buy is the best buying price in the sector the player is in; Sell is the best selling price within the specified gate distance; sector is which sector that is; distance is how many gates that happens to be within the limit specified in the script argument.

I put distance in because, you could make the script scan further out from your present location. Less useful if you're steaming to sectors (because any further than 1 or 2 gates and the prices may change radically) but much more useful when you get a jumpdrive. It goes without saying that if you enter 0 as an argument the script will operate on the player sector only.

Actually, it's prolly worth just working on this idea from first principles rather than the limited version.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes...

Jasp

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 17:44

Just as an fyi,
Xai corp may be working on something along these lines. If you check their site, you'll see they're working on something called:
Misc.Commands.Software MK1 v1
Project Details:
Factory orders, Various Ware searches, damage reports etc.
harag9 - Project Manager

might be worth pm-ing haraq9 to make sure you aren't duplicating effort. Xaicorp turns out very well tested, useful scripts in my opinion. I'll plug their stuff every chance I get.

http://www.error691.com/Xai

Cheers.

Jasperodus · Post by **Jasperodus** » Wed, 17. Mar 04, 19:21

Thanks for the heads up. Delving into the command descriptions reveals a slightly different focus based on choosing a product and getting a report back. (Which is something I mused would be an option above and I'm glad Xai were way ahead and are near to completing it.)

Wheras 3iff would like a more general survey of what's available based on the player's current position.

That's what I intend to look into doing.

Jasp

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Bestsell Improvements

Bestsell Improvements