About the trade and smuggling

Shockwave · Apr 14th 2012

Yeah, I have no idea how your calculation worked, OP, but trade in Crossfire is a disaster.
I've spent some time (since PX got excluded from gameplay) researching CF, and I can't find anything fun.

In my opinion, the cargo pod trade combined with the radically decreased train cargo space and that god-awful inertia that turns trains into pinballs and no-break-overshoots, have ruined all trade and smuggling.

- I havent' seen the Station Blueprints move from Kusari space to Omegas route since 1.9 came out (this is an example of a BMG). I haven't seen any SoS-run or Cali-Earth-run days that made all the fun.
It'd take an APC or Armored Transport about 10 minutes to unload the train, and that's AFTER I fly half way across the sector, face police, pirates, radiation, tradelanes, asteroids, NPCs and the potential loss of 22M for loading cargo that will profit only 15M (should I succeed to transport it to the target, and that amount is divided between the APC/AT person and me).

- With the double less cargo space and no viable routes, mining for Alien Organisms, Niobium, Gold and Diamonds (mining vulgaris with train turrets, not with a miner) is simply not worth the time (max profit some 12M on a good day), even if you do have a mate in a miner to make your life easy AND the drop-off point is relatively close. VIPs, prisoner run doesn't exist for ages; it's also simply not worth the time, with the cargo pods being safe and attached even if you die.

- Escape pods from NPCs still remain as pricy as ever, can't complain there.

These are just my observation, but please correct me if I'm wrong on some or all of these, I could use the info.

Rex Nebular · Apr 14th 2012

Container runs: I also had a problem with the inertia bug and pinball effect doing the New Tokyo - New Berlin run. Flying through the clouds in Sigma messed with the inertia, then when you come out, you have to fly through asteroids in New Berlin. My solution was to switch to the New Tokyo - New York container run. Trade lanes all the way, no clouds and no asteroids. Takes a little longer but I can fly the entire way using auto-dock [point, click and go]. Average hourly profit: 50 million.

Smuggling: Now that smuggling liscences are require to smuggle, it more of a role-play mechanism than it is a way of making large sums of money. While you were in PX, did you make large sums from mercing? Likely not. I smuggle in my scout ship with a 50 unit cargo hold. Not to make credits but to get police and pirates to chase me all over Sirius.

Drale · Apr 14th 2012

I agree with Shockwave... And OP has already something in mind about "container run". But like you, i have also noticed about BMG, and mining... Smuggling licence became useless because of container, and lack of BMG routes... And not saying that i'm mining type exactly, but i also couldn't find decent mining route...

**Martind Forlon** · Apr 14th 2012

about trading and smugle yes, this all is already openned in staff area here. about train flying no. Train can be used very well if you know how to fly with them. I have spent in 1.9 in train alot hours and also in rocky nebulas so I can say it is possible learn how to get nicely through even if used full cargo and full containers load at once.

Husker · Apr 14th 2012

for me BMG is good, containers is good, cargo value 1:2, 1:3 etc is not good, my vote for miners 5k cargo (in 1.82 i earn 2000 M on nubium and AO cca 250 hours in train => effective mining cca 50 hours) .

i think players want cca 50 mils per hour for any trade or mining.

this is big task for OP and dev team => fine trade tuning.

only report

edit
inertia is not to bad for me. sometimes it's just boring, because it loses 3-4 minutes per route...

Shockwave · Apr 14th 2012

Quote from Rex Nebular

While you were in PX, did you make large sums from mercing? Likely not.

Wrong.

Still, smuggling just to piss cops off is ok when that's your intention. Mine isn't and never was. If I wanted to piss cops off, I'd tell them to piss off or just go to Arena.

If I'm going to invest 20M in cargo of BMGs and take the risk of being shot down and losing all that, I expect at least 20M profit from it, maybe even more. Smuggling is high risk but high pay endeavour, you need to make money to hire mercs to serve as shield.

I am aware that balancing a trade system isn't easy...

Michael · Apr 14th 2012

More profit/easier money would mean people starting to sit with 2Bill filled chars and get bored in Arena... again.

Don't be greedy. You can earn enough money for a month of battles in few hours, and with dedication somebody can make 2 Bill chars again. Balanced trading is different than high profit runs. Those runs should appear in certain days when the dynamic economy will work.

Shockwave · Apr 14th 2012

Quote from /V\ichael

More profit/easier money would mean people starting to sit with 2Bill filled chars and get bored in Arena... again.

Instead of sitting around being bored in Tokyo? Which is happening already? There's a reason I made this topic.

Quote from /V\ichael

Don't be greedy. You can earn enough money for a month of battles in few hours, and with dedication somebody can make 2 Bill chars again. Balanced trading is different than high profit runs. Those runs should appear in certain days when the dynamic economy will work.

I never said there has to be an SoS-equivalent run every day (15 or 24 day cycle it used to be, if I remember correctly, with about 3-4 days in between major smuggling routes). In the meantime, you still cuold earn good money off VIPs, prisoners, niobium, alien organisms and such, which you can't now.

I'm saying that the things as they are now do not offer balanced trading. Smugglers have no reason to smuggle and do the domino effect on RP when there's nothing to shift around.

I also know that there's enough money to be made in matter of hours for days of combat. However, if I'm a smuggler, my primary objective isn't going around shooting people (it's fun, but not what I'm there to do), it's to smuggle, i.e. to make money. My ultimate goal is to have ALL my chars have 2 billion (unlikely, but still a goal).

Robbers Dog · Apr 14th 2012

is the dynamic econmy broken ? ... the only money maker is containers ..

just a thought .. could it be done so the contianers .. profit moves location .. like the commodaties does ... so u buy them one day from New berlin .. and have to run them to new tokyo
and the next day the same containers have to go to texas to make money .. instead of the same old route ?
is this possible ?
also when mr pirate shoots your nice eyecandy containers .. instead of empty air .. some thing actuly drops of like the cargo that is suppose to be in them .. could that be done ?

or pehaps make the normal commodaties actualy worth the bother ..

Michael · Apr 14th 2012

This is a topic told by OP in the last meeting, the next, incoming, meeting is to collect the solutions players bring to this and the other topic OP brought in.

IF you got a solution to this, visit the next meeting and tell it directly to OP The next and final step for players would be agreeing on a solution...

Saying that the current economy is a fail won't help.

@Robbers, temporarly yes, no dynamic economy. That about containers is doable after the economy goes dynamic, that's what it means, that routes change every day(or other time ammount).

That the containers drop something when being shot, I'm not sure if it's possible, probably yes but still, not sure, as there is a possible limitation to player generated stuff. Good idea, but it should be something precious for players to care about those items

Shockwave · Apr 14th 2012

Code

$increased_cargo_for_train = true;
$inertia = false;
if (dynamic economy == true) {
$occasional_super_smuggle_route = true;
$rotate_mining_across_closer_stations = true;
$good_legal_commodities = array('VIPs', 'Alien Organisms', 'Niobium', 'Gold', 'Diamonds','Light Arms', 'Silver', 'Crystals', 'Sol Artifacts', 'Tobacco', 'Whiskey', 'Coffee');
$rotate_good_legal_trade_across_stations = true;
} else {
$moderate_profit_routes = true;
$medium_and_far_smuggle_routes = true;
}

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About that. And, occasional SoS-type superroutes, that would appear sometimes, they should all have an alternative route for smuggling, one that is less profitable, a bit longer, but in a different sector than that route. (If you remember, the LA (Cali) -> Earth (Sol) run had an alternative in Leeds -> Omicron Alpha route.)

Michael · Apr 14th 2012

inertia = true it's a thing everyone has to adapt to.

Cresthen · Apr 14th 2012

Well I fairly would like my train neither to drag 5 km in random direction after hitting the tiniest piece of rock, nor to gain the angular speed of 720 degrees per second when some NPCs bump you while you are docking.

Vishnu · Apr 14th 2012

Theres spacebar mouse flight for a reason I dont see any need to turn inertia off

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Apr 14th 2012

fine
and now i am at the point that i understand nothing anymore

first I get told that mining sux in CF1.9 compared to CF1.82 which i can not understand at all since:
1. with CF1.9 ive raised the effective cargo volume of the ships (including trains)
2. with CF1.9 ive introduced mining ships and mega roids
3. with CF1.9 ive drastically raised the loot from dynamic asteroids
so with other words there is no logical reason why mining should be worse in CF1.9

then I am being told that Cargo Containers are the problem... well
1. it is true that with CF1.9 the value of these pods increased (which i have already confirmed to reduce that again)
2. cargo containers do not belong to the dynamic economy for good reason (they would completely unbalance the market if they were)
so whats still the problem with that now?

and now its the BMG market?
why did i even spent 3 weeks balancing the commodity market including the BMGs if everything is suddenly crap ?
We discussed how the CF market should be and also about BMGs before I released CF1.9.
YOU people wanted that BMGs are fixed and based on stations which also house unlawful factions. THATS WHAT I DID.
YOU people wanted a balanced normal commodity market without 1-2 super routes which reduce RP just to a few systems. AND EXACTLY THAT IS WHAT YOU GOT.
And YOU people wanted to have a BMG market with fixed and slightly better profit than normal routes. EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE NOW.

It does not matter how I do it... you will always complain about stuff and tell me that the last version was better even if the facts speak against it.
I wonder sometimes what you are refering to sometimes.
Trading with trains in CF1.82 was better? How could that have been since you could only load half of the cargo that you can carry today in your cargo bay with Crossfire 1.82?

I am not sure what your observations are based on... but if you compare them with the real changes on the mod you probably would recognize they the observations can not be true.

Another thing:
People complained that trains suffer by the new inertia settings sometimes.... well... the inertia plugin was removed from the mod one month after the CF1.9 release (after I asked you for opinions)

Fact is... I will not change the market
not only for the fact that the changes done for CF1.9 can not be undone anymore but also for the fact that it is impossible to please you

next to that it is probably the best moment to tell you that the CF2.0 development is already 2 months behind the shedule and we have made almost no progress the past month (and i dont see many reasons to think that this will change anytime soon)

Husker · Apr 14th 2012

interesting thread

ok ..for uber co0l ID u need:

1 vhf cca 60 M (150 M on that charfor munition) and 50 hours for full maped...............210 M + 50 hours
1 vhf with cloak device 360 M (+150 M) and 50 for full maped.................................510 M + 50 hours
1 vhf for npc hunting 60 M (+50 M) and 2 hour for all eq and guns.............................110 M + 2 hours
1 BS 300 M (+100 M) and 2 hour for aal eq and guns.............................................400 M +2 hours
1 BS with cloak device 600 M (+100 M) and 50 hours for full maping............................700 M + 50 hours
1 train 50 M (+100 M)and 50 hours for full maping................................................50 M+ 50 hours
1 VHF storage char min 500 M => veteran type storage..........................................500 M+ 2 hours
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
7 chars...............................................................................................2480 M and 206 hours play
add time for earning money (effective trading or hunting NPC)........................................min 150 max 250hours
suma 2500 M and 360/460 hours of play (10/16 days)

i think this is start point for discusion about trade/time/RP etc

edit :
post in same time OP.

in 1.9 i earn 1000 M without any problem.

Cresthen · Apr 14th 2012

Ok I got it.
Please don't change anything and concentrate on CF 2.0

Michael · Apr 14th 2012

@Cresthen: Well, Shockwave is who started and continued this, no need to feel guilty You had a point in what you said, about trains not being compatible with inertia

@OP: This is why I said (at the Mass Effect thread) that no game can be perfect, even if it's technically great. Somebody always has something to say against/complain.

Gunny · Apr 14th 2012

Coffee has lost it's value, so that's a bit irritating, so now I need to figure out where my next rackett is going to take place. I am not suggesting by any means, that SBC (Sirius Bucks Coffee ) is a franchise ( yes I have investors) that participates in illegal commodity trading, pod-trafficking or selling babies shoes at an outrageous price, but we do take part in capitalism. The hostile take-over of The Daed Tea Company ( formerly Marauder Tea Traders ) has proved to be quite lucrative with at least 7 routes that yield a nice profit. Of course this requires the use of employees, in which I have 9.

Now I know Rex is onto 3 "routes" on a regular basis and while I have only caught him on one, his days are numbered. It would greatly benefit pilots to seek trade with Rex and learn these routes, as it would certainly boost the economy, while garnering the attention of the local law enforcement.....did I mention these routes are train friendly? If you don't search for the money, you will never find it.

So in a effort to boost the economy, I am going to lay out a plan of financial freedom, called the " G-spot Stimulous package", where I will BUY 5 trains for 5 new "traders" this weekend, however, you must be a freelancer who is willing to partake in the smuggler RP and make it fun. Rex is a good coach too, so I am sure i can employ his mastered skills of piloting finesse.

Michael · Apr 14th 2012

Quote from Gunny

G-spot Stimulous

hmm, that sounds wrong

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