Economy Scanner showing -S +B on every system

[wererabbit]

Title pretty much says it all. I found several Gravitino Balls and am only able to procure ~8500 credits for each.

I've been to several systems and it appears that the npcs are all basing their buying prices off the local galactic market price, making it almost pointless to bother walking upstairs to check the galactic market.

When I look at my Economy Scanner, I'm showing a variation of S: -10, B: +10 to S: -18 to B: +23 across several hundred systems in my vicinity.

I see no, zero, nada, zilch system with a positive factor on the Sell.

How reliable is the Economy Scanner and did something break in the most recent patch?

I'm a relative noob at NMS, admittedly, so any advice/thoughts would be helpful.

[japp_02]

The S and B from your economy scanner means
B=best Buy reduction value in %
S=best Sell overprice (profit) value in %


Only these exoctic materials marked with a green icon are tradable for profit between systems, other items will change slightly but not worth trading, and most often you must buy them over average price.
How the economy exactly works is still not explained in any good guide, but the gamepedia wiki gives a good description (a description is not a guide however):

https://nomanssky.gamepedia.com/Economy

Here's what I found out:

In every exotic product, look at the PURPLE description text, it will tell you who needs the product and will buy it from you at the highest price provided the system is healthy enough. It means you will chose in the galaxy map an appropiate system with the best S value.

If you sell 1 time something with profit, the prices in that system will drop and stay down indefinitly.
This means you have 1 run only for a product in the same system. You must fill your ship and freighter with as many goods as possible and sell them all in 1 run at the space station or trading post. Do not sell to a single NPC because you cannot sell from your ship to him.

I hope this helps, you will soon figure it out clearly :)
The comming patch will increase trading profits.

[FAArscape]

Originally posted by japp_02:

If you sell 1 time something with profit, the prices in that system will drop and stay down indefinitly.
This means you have 1 run only for a product in the same system. You must fill your ship and freighter with as many goods as possible and sell them all in 1 run at the space station or trading post. Do not sell to a single NPC because you cannot sell from your ship to him.

That's the most crappy 'economic' system I've ever heard of in a game (or IRL, for that matter).
I could, maybe, have some undewrstanding if I were to totally flood a system with stuff..over and over....
But this.. :/

[japp_02]

Originally posted by FAArscape:

Originally posted by japp_02:

If you sell 1 time something with profit, the prices in that system will drop and stay down indefinitly.
This means you have 1 run only for a product in the same system. You must fill your ship and freighter with as many goods as possible and sell them all in 1 run at the space station or trading post. Do not sell to a single NPC because you cannot sell from your ship to him.

That's the most crappy 'economic' system I've ever heard of in a game (or IRL, for that matter).
I could, maybe, have some undewrstanding if I were to totally flood a system with stuff..over and over....
But this.. :/

Just for fun, i did some testing. I have sold with profit about 50x an item worth 10.000 with a 10% price profit. After that the item price dropped and by selling I would make about 1-2 percent profit only. Selling again 50x items would make the new selling price -15% under average.
I think HG wants us to travel and not stay forever in the same systems to make profits easy, especially when using the teleporters, that's why they introduced these 'price droppings'. While I do understand they do something against exploits, the resulting economy is as unrealistic as it can possibly. There should be a kind of Stock Market governing global prices and it must be influenced by random events that impact prices. In wealthy systems, prices should go up only slightly if you buy and drop slightly when you sell; in medium or poor systems the same increase/decrease should be more important as well as the product quantity available.

Currently there's only a huge price drop and nothing else, that's NOT enough for a good economy.

[FAArscape]

Originally posted by japp_02:

Originally posted by FAArscape:

That's the most crappy 'economic' system I've ever heard of in a game (or IRL, for that matter).
I could, maybe, have some undewrstanding if I were to totally flood a system with stuff..over and over....
But this.. :/

Just for fun, i did some testing. I have sold with profit about 50x an item worth 10.000 with a 10% price profit. After that the item price dropped and by selling I would make about 1-2 percent profit only. Selling again 50x items would make the new selling price -15% under average.
I think HG wants us to travel and not stay forever in the same systems to make profits easy, especially when using the teleporters, that's why they introduced these 'price droppings'. While I do understand they do something against exploits, the resulting economy is as unrealistic as it can possibly. There should be a kind of Stock Market governing global prices and it must be influenced by random events that impact prices. In wealthy systems, prices should go up only slightly if you buy and drop slightly when you sell; in medium or poor systems the same increase/decrease should be more important as well as the product quantity available.

Currently there's only a huge price drop and nothing else, that's NOT enough for a good economy.

IF the game had been a 'REAL' MMO or that the so called economy would have ANY kind of negative impact on other players...then...maybe...I could have some little understanding for that kind of 'economy' rules.
But as it is now, no way it's ok to totally ruin it like this in a, basically, sinmgle player game...with some, very minor, 'multiplayer' aspects.
It's just plain evil/stupid to rig the so called economy like this... :(

[wererabbit]

Ok, thanks for the explanation and link.

Just so I'm understanding this completely:

The S & B mean Best Profit Potential and Best Buy Reduction for the respective system economy as the seller and purchaser, not for me as the seller and purchaser. Is that right?

I'm seeing a drastic ~30-50% drop on same item sales when I sell from my spaceship inventory, then swap to my personal inventory, in the same transaction window.

From that, I'm surmising that the game is not intelligent enough to allow the player to sell more than one transaction of the same item from the two inventories in the same session.

So in order to maximise proftis, I will need to consolidate everything I'm selling in my ship. Great.

And once I've made a sale of a single product, that screws over the entire economy indefinitely so I am forced to sell in a different system, so no real trade routes exist, nothing reliable anyway. How incredibly short-sighted.

Whoever developed this as a great gaming strategy needs to be beaten with a wet noodle for several hours.

Here's hoping they fix it in the future.

[Sanquin]

I still don't get it...which one indicates being able to buy at low price, and does a number need to be high or low?

[japp_02]

The S & B prices are for YOUR perspective as a B(uyer) or S(eller).
The higher the 2 numbers without + or - , the better for YOU.
So just look for the 2 highest numbers depending if you want to B(uy) or S(ell).

If one item is green in the dialogue, it's good for you, if its' white it's neutral, if it's red it's bad for you. Until there it should be self-explaining I think.
Now, just be aware that if you buy something at good price (green), you can sell it ONLY ONCE in another system for profit. If you would try more than once, you wouldn't profit anymore.

Also for common items like Iridium, Gold, Copper etc.: If you sell at one place in your system the price will drop and stay down, so do not sell the same stuff too often in the same system.

BUYING stuff will not impact the prices. Humm....maybe that's good in NMS because you would get mad otherwise :)

[jonnin]

I also took a stab at trading some stuff that I found for almost 1500 per under average. I was able to make over 2500 per unit. Say I had a 40 slot ship (free slots, low tech big hauler) .. that is 40 * 5 * 2500 = a lot of trouble for 1/2 a million. It costs you 2 warp cells too, one to find a seller and one to find a buyer, and it means filling your hold so you have to have a cargo only ship..... its useless.

I havent seen anything to indicate you can beat 2500 / unit profits regularly either.

[japp_02]

The profits you can do in 1.35 are meager, the max profit I have made is around 200k. For such a profit, go on a planet and scan plants and creatures with upgraded scanners.

[Sanquin]

Originally posted by japp_02:

The profits you can do in 1.35 are meager, the max profit I have made is around 200k. For such a profit, go on a planet and scan plants and creatures with upgraded scanners.

You can earn a lot more. I just did a run where I filled my 48 slot ship up with an item that I could buy at -9% price, and another item at -23% price. (87 of one, 100 of the other I believe.) I ended up earning 4m from that run.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by Sanquin:

Originally posted by japp_02:

The profits you can do in 1.35 are meager, the max profit I have made is around 200k. For such a profit, go on a planet and scan plants and creatures with upgraded scanners.

You can earn a lot more. I just did a run where I filled my 48 slot ship up with an item that I could buy at -9% price, and another item at -23% price. (87 of one, 100 of the other I believe.) I ended up earning 4m from that run.

Yes, of course. I have only a 36 slot Explorer B, and most of the slots have 5 upgrades for weapons etc. So currently I'm also limited to only 1 ship.
If you own a freighter and more ships you have the luxury to buy all different goods in a system and stock them (and even in your exocrafts!). You then return to the space station with your ship carrying the different items each time.
But all this is time-consuming, I don't think it's worth that much. Well I can do it while my farming plants are still growing :)

[Sanquin]

It's faster than mining ore, but it's also slower than crafting living glass once you've set up a base. I think it's more a matter of what you like doing, rather than what is best. I personally don't mind checking the market at systems I go to to see if I can buy up something nice to sell in the next system. Doesn't take too much time or effort.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by jonnin:

I also took a stab at trading some stuff that I found for almost 1500 per under average. I was able to make over 2500 per unit. Say I had a 40 slot ship (free slots, low tech big hauler) .. that is 40 * 5 * 2500 = a lot of trouble for 1/2 a million. It costs you 2 warp cells too, one to find a seller and one to find a buyer, and it means filling your hold so you have to have a cargo only ship..... its useless.

I havent seen anything to indicate you can beat 2500 / unit profits regularly either.

sell repeatedly in one system to tank the value completely.

buy from that system and sell to different systems since the price wont go back up again.

profit. (but not as much as just scanning plants)

[wererabbit]

I've been making a tidy profit mining gold and emiril and killing sentinels. Each sentinal floater nets about 500+ credits worth of pugneum (150 cr per) + 15-35 nanites or + 14k module. Land on a hostile planet with plenty of carbon and roll in the dough. Add to that any sentinel kill missions for additional profit.

[Sanquin]

Originally posted by wererabbit:

I've been making a tidy profit mining gold and emiril and killing sentinels. Each sentinal floater nets about 500+ credits worth of pugneum (150 cr per) + 15-35 nanites or + 14k module. Land on a hostile planet with plenty of carbon and roll in the dough. Add to that any sentinel kill missions for additional profit.

Certainly you can make money that way too. Just...more slowly. about 500 units per sentinel is barely anything, but it does very slowly add up.