Problem with Trading Prices

[[S.C.] Worsin]

I figured i would try out trading goods because someone in a post told me you will ALWAYS make a profit buying from a factory and selling to a trading post/station. So i find a Body Armor factory and figured i would sell to a Military Outpost.

The problem is:

Body Armor Factory sells for 99064
Military Outpost buys Body Armor for 96767

Now it doesnt take a mathematician to see this isnt going to be a profit.

Am i missing something here?

[Aurelia]

The only thing I can think of is standing. I've not seen any traders selling for +%, nor buying for -%. I suppose it could be possible that it's simply rare though. Do you happen to have a trading module equipped? View the prices via the trade module menu, and see where the %s are.

Supply also has a minor effect on this, but i've not seen it be enough to make a difference between making profit and not. It's only ever determined how much profit I've made.

[Philonious Rex]

the rates are certainly variable. I usually use the trading module in the ship to tell me which deals are worth doing, or check the buy and sell prices before purchase. I think in general if you buy a good at -xx% then you can probably find somewhere to sell it for even or +xx%. They probably should not have used the word "always". Other outposts might even have better rates, so I wouldn't give up on it. Trading is certainly profitable but I generally don't buy something unless I already know where I will sell it and for how much.

And I don't think that -% or +% is rare, I definitely am seeing that very commonly. It's possible the variances get greater the closer to the center you get? But the profits are out there for sure.

[[S.C.] Worsin]

Yeah i have exotic Trade module equipped and my screen for this sector shows...


Buy From Stations Tab:

Fusion Generators selling for +41% with 12191 available
Body Armor +16% with 0 available

So both of these are +% for selling and 1 has plenty available so it would seem scarcity isnt a factor here.

[Aurelia]

Well aren't I the fool.
Hopping in and taking a second look did not take me long to see that I'm incorrect. I don't recall ever seeing this before though.
There are far more profittable trades than non-profitable, but those non-profitables are definately there.

Thankyou for this post and the correction.

[[S.C.] Worsin]

OMG i just made 6 mill profit in 1 trade...ok time to up my game and build a dedicated cargo hauler lol

[Locklave]

It's always nice when there is a thread on the topic you were going to ask about on the front page.

[Bankoleva]

LOL... This is funny. I literally turned 5 million into 325+ million literally selling body armor from factory to military outpost.

No seriously.

It was the only trading I've done this entire game.

I was orignally using the trading system to hunt materials for a 2k dps lazer turret and saw the trade deal with a 50k profit per unit. For that much profit I was more than happy to take a side venture. Did a run and to my surprise, thanks a massive relation increase (dealling 5 million in trade tends to make people love you i see) the profit margin increased to more than a 2x factor. But for 61k and sell for 133k. Even more surprising is that it only depreciated slightly over the 5 or six runs I made. In 45 minutes I had over 300million.

Trading is rediculous at this point. The factory sold way too much (thousands) and the outpost bought up to 25k units all at a +50k price variation. Definitely needs tightening in some way.

I will also say that this was a random luck shot on my part. I saw other military outposts that didn't buy at such an extreme high and factories that had a higher sell point. But I've also seen other products with insane profit margins at extreme quantaties. additionally those values aren't fluctuating and are VERY static and lasting. I can literally go back to the same factory and outpost and repeat the same trade for relatively the same profit.

[[S.C.] Worsin]

@Bankoleva Haha thats awesome. yeah i agree that trading is maybe a little too profitable. I just made a huge cargo hauler and my first trip in it i went from 42 mill to 87 mill. I doubled my net worth in 1 trip.

[Philonious Rex]

It could use balancing. Some runs suck a lot, and some are off the charts rediculous. I also find the sheer number of different commodities a bit crazy, plus the fact that there is so little overlap between stations.

Also it's a bit strange that there are no resource loops, like mining requiring no resources? You would think that they would require energy cells, and drill bits maybe? Any way all I can say is at least it's functional, and it's not very prone to total collapse.

Some military bases have rediculously low maximum stock, I saw one that could only hold less than 25 of everything. Military base, 0/12 Guns... right.

[Bankoleva]

It's RNG and procedural gone wild. Its great for a unique experience but what we're witnessing is the reason some of these things needs parameters and limits.

Or maybe even a timer/refresher of some kind. I wouldn't mind the extreme's if they were temporary and rare. Finding a super sweet deal and taking advantage of it before it times out. These extremes that are seemingly permamnent in my game.....

Additionally, depending on how you play, you don't even need that much money. I got that 325 million and have never dropped below 300. I've outfitted 5 ships with crafted turrets and still have 300 million to spare. The game doesn't have any/enough money/resource sinks yet. You eventually just end up with a massive account and nothing to do with it.

[Philonious Rex]

Theoretically there is no limit on potential crew cost. So, there is always a ship you could build that would burn through any amount of money. Whether that ship is necessary in any way in the game that's another question but just saying crew is a constant money sink, and it has a potentially unlimited burn rate.

[[S.C.] Worsin]

Originally posted by Bankoleva:

It's RNG and procedural gone wild. Its great for a unique experience but what we're witnessing is the reason some of these things needs parameters and limits.

Or maybe even a timer/refresher of some kind. I wouldn't mind the extreme's if they were temporary and rare. Finding a super sweet deal and taking advantage of it before it times out. These extremes that are seemingly permamnent in my game.....

Additionally, depending on how you play, you don't even need that much money. I got that 325 million and have never dropped below 300. I've outfitted 5 ships with crafted turrets and still have 300 million to spare. The game doesn't have any/enough money/resource sinks yet. You eventually just end up with a massive account and nothing to do with it.

Well in its current state without mods there is not a lot of use for building stations so if all you do is build ships to get to the center then ya you dont need much money.

However, if you plan on building manufacturing stations for your own turrets, which currently is the only truly viable way to make weapons given the RNG nature of the availability of resources, you end up spending a TON of money.

My current playthrough im using a few mods that allow building the turret factory and the one that allows production to continue when your not in the sector so i will need hundreds of millions to do this.