Oolite Commerce Worksheet

[drink]

Because of the difficulties with tracking commerce in the game, notably that the system does not track diddly squat, I have developed an excel spreadsheet which I use to track commerce. In the event that it will be useful to others I have placed it on my website:

http://www.hyperlogos.org/project/oolite-commerce

Feel free to check it out, let me know what you think (in email not here), file bug reports or make feature requests, etc etc.

[Wiggy]

Hmmm. not quite sure what the purpose of this is.

As you point out, the trade figures change, so next time you go to a given planet, the data will be wrong.

Or am I missing the point?

One of the great things in the game is that you don't know what the price will be with any certainty. Running dope between two worlds - sometimes the price is high at the selling world, and sometimes the bottom has fallen out of the market. There are no certainties in this world - and that makes it fun!

[drink]

The values tend to vary from time to time, YES. However, they tend to stay in the same ballpark. This worksheet shows you the average values for each planet. Thus you may make a little more or a little less, but on average the values will be correct - that is, the more you visit a given planet, the more correct the average values are, provided you paste the values into your worksheet.

Anyway, if you don't see the point, then it's not for you. Why naysay? I've found it useful, which is why I created it, so obviously it's useful to someone.

There's always someone who's got to tell you why you're wrong...

[Roberto]

OK, I'm gonna try and find the middle ground

I can see the point of having a spreadsheet (for those who want to quickly accumulate some hard cash - probably in the early stages of the game), but Wiggy is right in the sense that (as far as I know) there's no need to record all the prices each time you visit a different place.

This is because (again, as far as I understand it), no planet is unique in terms of how its economy operates. Rather, each planet's fixed "economy value" (plus other randomly generated values) determines what its prices will broadly be like. In other words, all "Mainly Agricultural" planets will behave the same as each other (on average) over time, as will all "Rich Industrial" planets, and so on. It's explained here - I hope my understanding of it is correct!

A spreadsheet with a sheet for each galaxy and a row for each planet showing the average prices of all the commodities would be very handy - it's just that you shouldn't need to visit more than eight separate planets (a few times, obviously) to acquire all the data you need:
Poor Agricultural
Average Agricultural
Mainly Agricultural
Rich Agricultural
Poor Industrial
Average Industrial
Mainly Industrial
Rich Industrial

*EDIT* I've never been sure whether "Mainly" is better than "Average", planetary wealth-wise...

Long term, I think an OXP that introduces greater complexity to the whole trading system (perhaps introducing a few more commodities and "economy types", and unique behaviour for various planets) would be an excellent (and original) addition to the game.

[dajt]

I've never found any point in trading between anything other than rich industrual and poor agricultural planets. Everything else seems middle-ground with minimal profits to be made.

Narcotics may be the exception to this, I don't know how their price is set. But as far as I can tell for most commodities, the majority of planetary economies are "atmospheric filler".

[AndySlater]

20 years ago when I playing Elite on the C64 I started out keeping records - until I understood the patterns, then I stopped.

I think what drink has done is an interesting excerise but the bottom line is: does it tell us anything that we don't already 'know'?

Because of the way the galaxy data was/is generated, there are 'strange' things in there. For example the planet Isveve (galaxy 1) is described as "reasonably noted for its inhabitants' eccentric shyness and its inhabitants' eccentric shyness". My guess is that the repetition was not intentional and is an annomaly caused by the way the data is being generated.

So, drink, did the exercise show up anything that we might not have predicted? Is there are way of making a fortune that we might have overlooked?

[Wiggy]

Anyway, if you don't see the point, then it's not for you. Why naysay? I've found it useful, which is why I created it, so obviously it's useful to someone.

There's always someone who's got to tell you why you're wrong...

Sorry if you felt I was poo-poo-ing you. This was not intended.
I didn't say that you were wrong - I asked what the purpose of it was.
I did even say that I may not have fully grasped the concept.

[Roberto]

Dajt - that's been my experience too. I'd definitely love to see a more sophisticated system, with more commodities - as long as it didn't prevent newcomers from turning a profit fairly easily. If it's possible to do, and someone's up for the job, maybe we could collectively decide on, say, another 33 commodities to add to the exisiting ones. (I'd definitely have thrumpberry juice in there!)

*EDIT* And, of course, thrumpberry juice prices would fluctuate more wildly, as - while there'll always be a fairly consistent need for and supply of food generally - TJ will soar in value when the crop yield is low, and be worth next to nothing on a planet whose celebrity chefs have suddenly decided Ribena is much nicer with chicken (or something)...

I'm thinking of Trading Places btw, which was on a couple of weeks ago...

[Captain Hesperus]

*EDIT* And, of course, thrumpberry juice prices would fluctuate more wildly, as - while there'll always be a fairly consistent need for and supply of food generally - TJ will soar in value when the crop yield is low, and be worth next to nothing on a planet whose celebrity chefs have suddenly decided Ribena is much nicer with chicken (or something)...

And there's always the planets controlled by religious governments that outlaw normally legal commodities (Liquor/Wines, Furs, Luxuries, Radioactives, etc.), an OXP that introduces a system where you can buy rumours regarding different planets' foiables ("I hear that the government of Orerve are going to outlaw booze 'cos drunken Asteroid miners keep tearing up the tourist spots. A wise man might make a fortune on the Black Market." or "With all the unrest on Xeesle, Narcotics have become legal. Don't bother shipping 'em, the prices will be through the floor."). I remember playing Tradewinds and there was this system, although I don't know if you could impose a time limit of some kind.

Captain Hesperus
"Onward, fellow Black Marketeers! We go to make our fortunes at Orerve!"

[drink]

Sorry if you felt I was poo-poo-ing you. This was not intended.
I didn't say that you were wrong - I asked what the purpose of it was.
I did even say that I may not have fully grasped the concept.

Well I'm willing to accept that we just had a communications failure

To be honest the most useful thing it's doing is developing a more accurate galactic average which is handy.

But also if you must for some reason make a hop between two systems you can see at-a-glance what commodities you should carry so you can make a profit. Also if you are jumping from, say, industrial to industrial to agricultural, you can see before you even make your first jump which of the industrial systems has the best prices on things needed in the agricutural system, so you can make more money.

The funny thing is that the accuracy increases as you play, but of course it also becomes less useful as you play because making that extra hundred credits is a big deal in the beginning and pretty irrelevant later on. But still, it's not totally useless. Just mostly