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For Planetfall locations, could they have lots of local produce to sell, but little capacity to buy? May a bit cheaper to purchase some goods planetside, but no real market for selling, as that forms part of their agreement with GalCop, and the majority of interstellar trade must take place under GalCop's watchful eye?

phkb wrote:

For Planetfall locations, could they have lots of local produce to sell, but little capacity to buy? May a bit cheaper to purchase some goods planetside, but no real market for selling, as that forms part of their agreement with GalCop, and the majority of interstellar trade must take place under GalCop's watchful eye?

Hmm, ok I understand that some planets could have an airport concept with goods inside (planetary market) and goods outside (interstellar market).

Some planets could decide there is no customs between the two, so the price would be the same, and the volume would be important, expecially the planets not part of galcop (anarchies for example).

Some planets would like protectionnism, so they would have the two markets, even if they're not part of galcop.

Maybe some of the planetary markets could specialise in exporting goods that are illegal under galcop rules ?

A dictatorship may be willing to sell 'troublemakers' as slaves for example.

I'm no economist but I see it as each particular market existing because it can occupy a niche that others can't.
So perhaps at space bars it's easier to hand over illegal goods with no questions asked. Perhaps at rock hermits, the prices of precious metals are not much better but the quantities available are higher. Luxuries and liquor/wines might have a reason to have a presence at casinos, a big win might need celebrating (even 1TC might seem excessive but that stuff has got to arrive somehow...)

Mohawk's idea about different planets within the same system each having their own economy is interesting but brings up a few complications: how to do it; why leave the system etc. Could be solved I expect but there's an alternative and perhaps simpler reason for some to visit those planets: quantity.

They don't even need to offer prices quite as good as at the main station, as long as tgeir is sufficient demand for some ships to come looking fot more of what they've just picked up at the main station. That way tge limit of goods available to you at the main station creates the niche for the other station markets to exist.

Anyway, I'm glad this stuff is being discussed and thank you spara for taking it on.

A little bit of technical detail about PlanetFall may be in order here. It uses a neat trick so that when the player approaches the surface, a station is spawned at the player and player docks that station. When the player launches from the station, the station entity is removed from system. This behavior has the consequence of the planet side market to be initialized every time the player lands on the planet. It could be circumvented with some scripting to cache markets, but it could also be seen as a feature. I'll rather see it as a feature, unique to the OXP.

However, Thargoid has gone through quite some trouble defining different kinds of markets for 21 different types of locations. I'm inclined to just convert those old market definitions to the new system. This way, the only thing to ponder is the capacity of planet side markets. I would go for 127 that is the size of the main market and is a big market in in-game perspective.

If that does not raise any objections, I'll get onto it. If someone wants to do something more sophisticated or ambitious, please raise your voice and I'll step aside.

I would like to see larger markets on planets for Anacondas and  big traders. I think up to 1000t depending on planet radius and population - the highest capacity need both maximal planet size and population which is rare. Techlevel is used too many times to be used again imho.

Maybe productivity is usable to set the refill rate of the market.

By the way, I would love to see planetfall markets develop!

Norby wrote:

I would like to see larger markets on planets for Anacondas and  big traders.

Now that you got me thinking, I think it would make sense that planetary landing would be limited to relatively small ships only. In practice that would probably better be Cobra III and smaller ships. And that way planetary markets could stay about the same or a tad smaller than what they were in pre-1.81 versions of Oolite.

I see your point about hauling bigger quantities and for these big ships SuperHubs could be a solution. How about scripting it so, that SuperHubs could only sell and buy in big quantities? Something like multiples of 50 units or something.

@ Spara. As I'm no expert at all on implementing the market mechanisms I would like to ask if you can help me in applying a sensible market system to the super hubs.

And Also things I like to add to the Superhubs which are currently not there:

>parcel contracts
>passenger contracts

And this in a way that you have other contracts than the main station. Not special contracts but other.

pagroove wrote:

@ Spara. As I'm no expert at all on implementing the market mechanisms I would like to ask if you can help me in applying a sensible market system to the super hubs.

Sure, I'll be happy to help. Do you have some ideas that you want to discuss in public or should we continue via PM?

pagroove wrote:

And Also things I like to add to the Superhubs which are currently not there:

>parcel contracts
>passenger contracts

And this in a way that you have other contracts than the main station. Not special contracts but other.

Currently these are limited to main stations only. There's no stopping in snatching and modifying contract scripts from core game though.

The markets discussion can go in this thread or in the Superhub oxp thread as my PM box is 98% full.

But I saw some sensible ideas as duplicating the main market. Do you also have some ideas for specific missions that a SuperHub can generate. I like them to become a bit more than just a pretty station.

EDITED to ADD:

Maybe trade missions like bringing stuff from Hub to Hub?

spara wrote:

SuperHubs could only sell and buy in big quantities?

Good idea, but enough if limited to 10 units imho and the currently required TL14 system is too high to become to the common trade center of planets. Maybe either TL10 or planet size or population or production is over the average then should be a hub near the planet.

Additional planets should have also but only the radius is unique for each planets and probably not all planets in the system should get one regardless of a high TL or system population/production.

Planets without atmosphere aka moons should not have any.

I love the idea due to [wiki]Andromeda[/wiki] can dock also without problems:

pagroove wrote:

my PM box is 98% full.

You can make room if you select "Rules, folders & settings" in the left menu of private messages, then "add folder", then go back to the inbox, then scroll down to the bottom, "mark all", then drop down the "Mark/Unmark as important", change to "Move marked to" and press Go.

pagroove wrote:

But I saw some sensible ideas as duplicating the main market. Do you also have some ideas for specific missions that a SuperHub can generate. I like them to become a bit more than just a pretty station.

Maybe trade missions like bringing stuff from Hub to Hub?

I'll need to mull this over a bit, but here's what I'm currently thinking:

* Market of same or double the capacity of the main market. That would mean 127 or 255 capacity. I'm tempted to go to 255 as that has not been done yet and it would fit nicely into the background story. Prices would be the same as the main station so no profit from zipping in between. With 255 capacity the default quantities will be the main station quantities doubled. I'm thinking about tweaking them with a formula like 2 * Math.random() * quantity. That would mean low quantities on main station => low quantities on SuperHub, high quantities on main station => anything from 0 to quadruple quantities on SuperHub.
* A new type of contract that would be a blend of courier and cargo contracts. These are special cargo contracts from SuperHub to SuperHub that take space, but are not tradeable in commodities market. Successful delivering will affect both, courier and cargo contractor reputations. Pods OXP has some nice content descriptions that could be borrowed for flavor.
* Because of these contracts the populator needs to be rethought. I would say that a chart should have about 10 systems with SuperHubs for contracts to be functional and at the same time keeping the station rare enough for it to be a bit special.

How does that sound?

- A larger market would benefit the players with larger capacity ships so it should be worth trying.
- Those missions seem like a good idea
- I want to keep max 10 Superhubs per Galaxy otherwise they are appearing at too many places.

Also::

- As Superhub are also sience and tech centers. Could missions also ask you from picking up multiple shipment which are then recombined in the SuperHub?
- Should a Superhub be able to craft some items by combining one or more market items? It would be nice if there is a since center where you can develop your own items. But this would be ( I think) difficult to implement.

Anyway good ideas. and lets continue this discussion in the Superhub thread as this is about all secondary markets .