I... think I know what you mean... now.Victor Tombs wrote:Just Google, "What does the fox say", fox. It's had wide exposure now but at the time Katawa introduced me to the song they had only just released it. Katawa had a knack of finding the bizarre, quirky and downright rude on the internet. He had me in stitches and my stomach turning on many occasions.fox wrote:Um, what song?
But it feels like I am late. Like I was de-iced yesterday. Like I am some kind of dinosaur... and... gosh, my forearms look short...
Agreed, my descriptions leave something to be desired. But I would like to see you, pawing on the keyboard like I do. Think it is easy?Cornflakes_91 wrote:Fox, the way you describe it its still broken, just mot the economy but the market interface.
I say again that the economy is not broken. The devs purposely left open or semi-open spots in it so the keen player would find opportunities to make money. The economy is not ruled by a script, it is truly dynamic and it truly adjusts to the consequences of actions and inactions. The only part of the game in which the economy is somewhat biased is during the initial period, because the stations are [still] living off the initial conditions and stock amounts set by egosoft for the various economies. It is like a matchstick: you provide the initial spark to ignite the burning, but then it keeps burning on its own. Unlike a matchstick, the economy will not run out of fuel because it is self-suficient, even if it has its slow moments.
If I (or someone else, like a random enemy attack) destroy a mining ship, the station owning that ship is not going to receive Ore and other basic resources. They may run out of stock and their production halts. The AI will react by commissioning the construction of other mining ships which will then be tasked to resume the gathering of resources (or if she finds an importer of such basic resources she may buy them for a short term fix. You may even be *that* guy, showing up with a yummy supply of minerals). Speaking of ship-building, this may take a while of course. And what if the shipyard is actually busy in building ships for another client? Or what if the shipyard itself is missing one of the base wares it needs to build the commissioned ships? Shipyards are just as part of the economy as every other station and ship is.
If the player uses his freighters to trade goods between systems (the classic "middle man"), he is essentially moving wares from one economy to another. In the long run this can cause a shortage of goods in one local economy, and the saturation of the market in another local economy. In the former case you would see a high demand for goods otherwise normally available; in the latter case you would see one or more stations halting production of goods because their stocks remain unsold. Again the AI will find ways to balance it all out, provided that you let her. Or you may just happen upon them and offer the help they need (buying/selling as appropriate) incidentally lucrating out of it.
None of the system economies is perfect. This is by design, otherwise you would find no spot for building your own stations. All economies have one or more weakness that is for you to identify and exploit. One system in particular has a very broken economy. Many things are missing in there. That system is perfect for the player that seeks a challenge and is willing to build a whole infrastructure to get the economy back up and running. Naturally this will need some inordinate amount of Credits, which is perfect for those indecently rich players who need an excuse to burn money.
Again I expressed myself in suboptimal way. You only need a Trade Agent in each station. You do this one time per station, and it lasts forever. And all of your trade agents everywhere will forever give you real-time updates of the wares being sold and bought, and at which price. That is how you build your personal net of informants.Cornflakes_91 wrote:If the player has to jump through three dozend hoops to get basic commodity price info theres something wrong with the interface.
The scanning of stations has nothing to do with it. Scanning comes into play if you want to know exactly what a station is producing, how much of it, and when will the next batch hit the market (so you could promptly reserve the stock for yourself, before others, in case the ware tends to disappear fast -- for example). _Collaterally_ this scan data also allows you to identify problems with stations when they are not producing something. At that point you can choose to intervene and solve the issue quickly, or let the AI do it as it normally does, but it may take a while because their intervention is generic and not aimed like the one you might enact. That is it.
I agree that the trade interface could use more improvements. And they are coming, if slowly.Cornflakes_91 wrote:A proper interface like the one in eve online and some filtering like "show me buy offers sorted by urgency" with urgency defined by how low the stock of the station is and the lower in the resource pyramid the factory is.
It is already very usable. You easily find buyers and sellers, and you can sort them by type, by distance, you can even filter things by name (there is a text box in which you type the filter). And you can sort it by margin, because the more a station is willing to pay for something the more they need it (think: urgency).
You can also reduce the trade offers to those pertaining a single station, by clicking on the very station in the map (more precisely you click on any of the "Trade offer" icons visible on the station in the map) and the trade interface will narrow to what that precise station is buying and selling.
The options for a pleasant user experience are there, believe me.