Buy/Sell small improvements

[clint]

Hi
I have got (for now) proposal of one small improvements for buy/sell screen.
Could you add right mouse button for bigger qty.
Left Mouse button - 1 pcs.
Right mouse button - 10 pcs or if you want to sell it could be 10% of your qty.
I know that now price are the same for buying and selling.
but I think this will change and then I could be very useful.

[BTAxis]

I shouldn't think the selling price will ever be different from the buying price. This game isn't primarily about resource management, so there's really no point having two prices.

[clint]

OK I respect your opinion
but I think it could be more interesting
now we can use store as warehouse.
Different prices could prevent this.

and now selling always 5 pcs is irritating.

I didn't mention that THIS GAME IS FANTASTIC   

Does anybody know why at latest V2.2 game freezes at first terror mission?
At previous version everything was ok (at this matter).

[BTAxis]

I'm not entirely sure I understand your concern with the storage facilities. You think they can somehow be used as an exploit?

As for the buy/sell increments, I think you're right. It might be nice to have a control for this. A classic method is click for one, shift-click for ten. You can open a feature request for this on the feature request tracker if you want.

[Punkiee]

The stores acts as storage facility. As a result, you dont manage your inventory. Thats correct. I dont see the added benefit from introducing storage management. It is yet another feature and it doesnt add much to the game and can even become a nuisance because you spend to much time watching the stocks.

With respect to the quantity, there already is such a control in production. The double arrow allows for greater quantity's. It sure is useful but we have to cling to one system. That being said, the option to use shift click is appealing. It would eliminate the need to put single and double arrows for everything that clutter the screen.

The game freezes? Can you repeat it? Did you try recompiling? Can you provide a log of the output?

[clint]

About sell/buy equipment
Now I can "transfer" equipment from base to base by selling/buyinng them.
It does not take any money, it does not take any time.
Why should I transfer items? buying selling is faster

If you could add different prices for buying selling we will have two options:
1. sell at first base and then buy this stuff at second base but you will loose money - (fast expensive way) - different prices
2. transfer stuff by "transfer" without costs (cheaper) but it takes time. (one, two day(s))
This decision could be live/dead 

About frozen game:
I use file from: http://mattn.ninex.info/?page=Download
UFO:AI 2.2 developement version (Windows) 353MB (2.2 trunk - rev 11767 - 2007-09-15) (md5)

Game always freezes at first terror attack mission (Tabelbala). It doesn't matter which map. small, medium, big
I can only close aplication by task manager. Sometimes I can even shoots aliens. It crashes at my first turn or at alien first turn.
I can't switch to console, at console log is nothing special
I install previous version (from 11.09.2007) and I pass this mission without this problem.

[Mattn]

that's a good point. we will discuss this.

about the freeze: already fixed in svn

[Shade]

that's a good point. we will discuss this.

As a suggestion from the peanut gallery-- You have about a half a dozen global factions. How about, one market per global faction where:

-The item 'base-price' to buy varies +/- 10% from the global 'list-price' set at the beginning of the game, per global faction.
-The item sell price = regional 'base-price' - 15% (Since the item is 'used', the vendor needs to make a profit, etc.)
-Keep roughly the same number of items in the initial market as there is now (since your base is only in one place at first), but retard the 'item growth rate', as there will be per global faction markets.

This:
-Limits programming overhead, since you're not writing a global trade simulator.
-Encourages item transferring of 'cheap' items, but the 20% variance in 'base-price' vs. the 15% markdown on sell price makes it hard to turn much in the way of a profit through simple trade. (You'd have to buy 'way underpriced', then sell 'way overpriced'.)
-Encourages players to build a global network of bases.

Edit: For brownie points, once a month you could give each item a one in ten chance of changing value by +/- 1%, but be bound by the +/- 10% maximum variance. (The drunken sailor example says that prices shouldn't run away, but...)

[BTAxis]

I seriously doubt it would have a big impact on gameplay or that it would encourage players to build bases all over the globe, because
1) The cost in bases is always going to be such that any market advantage you can get from it is going to look like peanuts and
2) The market will cease being significant after a while because all the equipment you get is either salvaged from the aliens or produced by PHALANX' workshops. And as we have decided earlier, the selling price of PHALANX produced items is always going to be lower than the cost involved to produce them.

[Punkiee]

A big part of the costs are static and are not refined to materials one can buy/sell. The upkeep of a base, the construction cost of buildings are in RL fluctuating because they use materials that can be bought/sold. In ufoai those costs are fixed. Labor also has a fixed price. Therefore a market wont influence total cost a lot and wont impact the gameplay.

Encouraging more bases by bringing in advantages that are tied to a location is a good point. However because a market is but a small influence in ufoai, the differences in the regional market would have to be huge. Which isnt viable because, just like in RL, you would make a lot of money by buying it somewhere really cheap, transferring it and selling it really expensive. Tuning the transfer price isnt good either because that takes away the whole advantage of building local bases to have a worldwide cheaper supply.

Not building a lot of other bases should impact the funding received from nations though. If you try to keep it all up with only a few bases then funding should drop in the unserved nations way faster then the served nations go up. This funding problem should have a large enough impact to slow down your research/production. When this happen you cant win the arm race against the aliens who have a higher pace of evolution. Building more bases -> your funding stays high/grows -> you can outpace the aliens in the arm race.

This requires a constant and careful tuning of the funding balanced with the research/production/building cost. It also requires the alien race to en strengthen, to modify itself at a certain pace. This pace can be partly dictated by the diffculty level and partly by the players success.

[BTAxis]

Not building a lot of other bases should impact the funding received from nations though. If you try to keep it all up with only a few bases then funding should drop in the unserved nations way faster then the served nations go up. This funding problem should have a large enough impact to slow down your research/production. When this happen you cant win the arm race against the aliens who have a higher pace of evolution. Building more bases -> your funding stays high/grows -> you can outpace the aliens in the arm race.

With this I agree, but it should not be a matter of how many bases you have in what territories. It should just be a result of missions that you fail, ignore or fail to catch because they're outside your radar range. It's all about results, not the way the player achieves it.

See also the wiki proposal about Scoring.

[Shade]

I seriously doubt it would have a big impact on gameplay or that it would encourage players to build bases all over the globe, because
1) The cost in bases is always going to be such that any market advantage you can get from it is going to look like peanuts and
2) The market will cease being significant after a while because all the equipment you get is either salvaged from the aliens or produced by PHALANX' workshops. And as we have decided earlier, the selling price of PHALANX produced items is always going to be lower than the cost involved to produce them.

Your points vis-a-vis my idea an affirmation of exactly what I intended.

This game shouldn't be a global economics simulator, nor should being an 'trading wiz' heavily impact play-- That's not what this game is about (IMHO). A per faction system is more a 'flavour thing'. A way for the prudent to save a little bit here or there, and occasionally turn a profit. (With only requiring a minimum of developer resources.)

As far as the 'selling price of PHALANX produced items is always going to be lower than the cost involved to produce them.' that's not really neither here nor there-- No? (Actually that makes good sense given that you have 'workshops' not 'industrial factories'.) With that being said, this is just my idea to add some flavour, and it's not like I'm coding it up right now, so it's not like I have much of a say.

[clint]

I see that small improvements are growing
But I thought only about really small improvements.
1. Different price for selling /buying
- it is easy to add: sell price = buy price - 10% (for example)(or 20%)

                                                    base   buy/sell      market   buy/sell
- It could be clarity at screen: Pistol     5         </>           6        400/360
LMB - 1 pcs. RMB - 10 pcs

2. I think new items in game (new technology) which were not sell yet and you sell them should disapear from market for some time.
- If something is rarely price is very high or this you can not buy
if you sell first plasma pistol, etc. it sholud disapear from market for month or two or It should not be available at martek until you sold specific qty.
- If you have new technology at one bases and you want to use it you have to transfer them to other bases, not just sell them and buy.