Proposal for 1.82: support for economic changes

[Thargoid]

Why not just put an indicator in the column (say "I", "E", "R" or "-" for import only, export only, restricted or nothing, for example) and then put the full text description on the info page?

[cim]

Am I correct in my understanding that the the possible legal statuses are:

• Clean
  Import illegal
  Export illegal
  Both import and export illegal

Yes (also the size of the penalty can vary - Narcotics are twice as illegal per TC as Slaves or Firearms - but that's secondary information). The screenshot below experiments with Thargoid's letter idea.

That being said, If I had to view the info for each commodity individually just to get the same sort of detail I currently get at a glance from Market Observer I would find that very frustrating, so some way of customising what's displayed in the list would still be appreciated.

Difficult. There's only enough space for Market Observer to do what it currently does because the prices and commodities in Oolite 1.80 are capped to 102.0 credits and 127t station capacity.

For simplicity I've put a few different "long" things on the same commodity here, whereas in practice they'd probably be on different items, but there's really not room for an extra column. (Maybe a very short one, but I don't know how much use that would be)

The only option I can think of to get significantly more space is to redesign the "docked" HUDs so that the six extra lines at the bottom become available by having a separate docked HUD layout which moves the few dials needed while docked (missiles, fuel, clock) to be outside the window. That would require every OXP HUD to make the same sort of changes, of course - or at least, making everything that goes in that extra space optional and conditional on a "HUD is okay with this" setting in the hud.plist.

It would also be useful to be able to buy and sell, commodities, and change the selection from the info screen.

This should be possible. I'll add it to the list.

What I think would be useful to display somewhere, be it on the listing or on the info screen is how much of a carried commodity is contracted cargo.

Easy enough for the info screen - as above, I don't think there's enough room on the listing.

An easy way to sell all but the contracted amount of a cargo would also be appreciated.

Making shift-sell and shift-buy stop at the current contracted amount on the first use shouldn't be that difficult.

[Thargoid]

Looking at it on screen, "Im" and "Ex" (or something slightly longer like Imp/Exp, or "Im Only/Ex Only) might be better, as the column width is already wider due to the header width. My concern could be that "I" for import only might be misinterpreted as "illegal" instead.

Or perhaps use symbols, like arrows (maybe something suitably 3D into and out of the screen for import and export if you want to start screwing around with the font) and a cross or skull & crossbones for restricted/not allowed?

Just to throw a few other ideas around anyway.

[cim]

Looking at it on screen, "Im" and "Ex" [...] might be better,

Yes, that does work better. Matches up the length fairly nicely with the "-", too.

[Zireael]

I love what I'm seeing here!

Uh, about additional columns - guys, we have those pretty thick black parts on right and left of the docked HUD, maybe it could be used up? Or is it dependent on resolution?

[cim]

Depends very much on resolution (or window size).

The guaranteed displayed area doesn't stretch much beyond what's already used (if you set your window to 800x600 or another 4:3 ratio, what you see there is the area guaranteed to be shown at any window size)

[spara]

Depends very much on resolution (or window size).

The guaranteed displayed area doesn't stretch much beyond what's already used (if you set your window to 800x600 or another 4:3 ratio, what you see there is the area guaranteed to be shown at any window size)

But it could be an OXP thing to add extra information to the sides for widescreen users.

[Wildeblood]

Personally I think the best way is to just highlight anything that's not completely legal in red, and then leave specifics of the legality to the information screen.

So obviously right.

What I think would be useful to display somewhere, be it on the listing or on the info screen is how much of a carried commodity is contracted cargo.
An easy way to sell all but the contracted amount of a cargo would also be appreciated. As an example, If I am running a contract for 505kg platinum, and another for 250kg platinum , and I'm carrying 800kg of platinum, and want to sell the non-contracted portion of it, I have to first visit the Mission screen to see the value of the contracts, manually add them up to find the total, then switch back to the market screen, select the commodity in question then hit the left arrow 45 times to sell the excess.
Needless to say I find this to be somewhat tedious, especially when I'm running more than half a dozen contracts at once.

What proportion of players actually use cargo contracts? I have never had a single request to make Trading Assistant/Autotrade compatible with the contracts system. People have at various times expressed an expectation that I jump through hoops to make it work with New Cargoes, Hypercargo and Market Observer, but no-one has ever asked for what Neelix described above.

[Diziet Sma]

What proportion of players actually use cargo contracts? I have never had a single request to make Trading Assistant/Autotrade compatible with the contracts system.

Going by the posts in various discussions over the years, loads of them.. but most would probably not make use of the Trading Assistant/Autotrade OXPs anyway. Certainly I haven't.. largely out of concern that it might inadvertently mess with my contract goods.

[Switeck]

What proportion of players actually use cargo contracts? I have never had a single request to make Trading Assistant/Autotrade compatible with the contracts system. People have at various times expressed an expectation that I jump through hoops to make it work with New Cargoes, Hypercargo and Market Observer, but no-one has ever asked for what Neelix described above.

Since cargo contracts are part of the main game, it's worth doing, especially if it's easy to do.

I do cargo contracts when I'm playing the game "seriously".

[tinker]

Looking at the new proposed table of goods brings up an idea I had some time ago.

If the station has none of an item available AND you have none to sell then suppress that line so you are only looking at things that could be traded now. For the example above 4 lines would not be shown which would allow some more space without having to redesign the huds.

[spara]

The more I look at the preview pic, clearer it gets. The only practical way of showing the extra info that Market Observer currently shows is to put it on the sides. Commodity name does not flow to left and the legal column is also limited. It could be done with the current method of using Messages, if the view is readable from js and sorting/filtering would trigger an event.

Purely hypothethically speaking, there could be something like mMFDs (market MFDs) on the sides that could be filled with market data. For every commodity there could be two extra data fields (left and right) and the width of the mMFDs would be either fixed to certain number of chars like with MFDs or maybe it could be scalable depending on the screen width. An OXP could then fill those extra fields with data it wants to show. If there is more OXPs that want to show extra data on the market screen, something similar to the MFD cycling might be handy.

[Zireael]

@spara: *points to cim's post on sides above*

[spara]

@spara: *points to cim's post on sides above*

Yes. It would naturally be oxp only/widescreen only.

[cim]

If the station has none of an item available AND you have none to sell then suppress that line so you are only looking at things that could be traded now. For the example above 4 lines would not be shown which would allow some more space without having to redesign the huds.

There's a filter option which does that, but depending on how many extra goods OXPs have defined it might well not get any space back.