Trade Mechanics

[roidepoloterre]

Hello everyone !

I have known this game for quite a long time now, but have only recently started to play it again.
Let me tell you what went through my mind :

I was playing on standard settings, a quite enjoyable game, but noticed that, really, the UN was clearly not giving me much to fend with. Each country giving me enough to buy, what, 60 grenade launchers per months ? The funding was clearly too low as far as I was concerned.
But then, hey, the UN's always been this way, just like any government, there's never enough funding, so you have to do with it ! Besides, about 400.000 credits per months is quite an important sum, let's be honest. We're just heavy consumers.

So, when I noticed I had a workshop, and that there was an option to sell items, my mind just screamed : Paul, why don't you craft some high-tech items and sell them ? That could be a great addition to your income, since your workshop doesn't always have things to do !
And so I started doing just this. And then I noticed one thing : The crafting price is always equal to the selling price.

It can arguably be true for such items as an assault rifle, for which there already is a mass-production chain. But for some technology we have just researched ? That no one else possesses ? Sold at the price it was built ? It really bugged me.
Besides, even for such things as a handgun, the price ought to be lower than the price of the market (Or equal, in a state of perfect "concurrence" - mixing studies in french with describing them in english is quite hard -, assuming the marginal cost doesn't depend on Q) since production costs only represent the costs of the materials used to manufacture said items - and these materials are usually always the same : our manufacturers' salaries are paid separately.

So, something that would in my opinion be great to implement would be a trading system in which you could sell new, high-tech wares and make a profit out of it - but perhaps not for too long, as companies would re-do the reverse engineering that we already did on aliens !

[anonymissimus]

Belongs to the frequently proposed and rejected things, probably.

Disassembling alien ships costs only the worker salary, the parts can be sold to make profit.

[roidepoloterre]

If it does, then my apologies to the devs.

You indeed can do that, and you can also sell any looted equipment for a profit. But why can't you sell something as "new" as a laser rifle or an electromagnetic gun without making any ?
It still seems quite strange to me.

[geever]

We don't wanna make economy a central point of the game, you know it is not a Tycoon^(TM) game.

I would allow a slight profit, but only if we had a dynamic market model where the prices go down as you sell more and more - so it  is not abusable...

-geever

[roidepoloterre]

Well, I'm an engineering major, but I did have economy lessons.
Reading your answer, I'd say you guys don't have any economist with you ; would you like me to make a market modelization ?

- roidepoloterre

[geever]

Well, I'm an engineering major, but I did have economy lessons.
Reading your answer, I'd say you guys don't have any economist with you ; would you like me to make a market modelization ?

That would be nice. I imagined something like in XCOM-3 but some of its issues fixed (like selling great amount at a time).

-geever

[Rodmar]

Hello,

However, the sell/buy system can be over-used as :

• a free, insta-transfert mean between bases for any sell-able ware;
• a free, huge storage space when your base stores are full, or just before a Base defense mission of doom is likely to happen (an Harvester heading right to a poorly defended, full storage base). Thankfully, AM can't be store that way!

Note that it's the same for employees: it's faster to "fire and recruit again" when you want to transfer some from base to base.

Either,

• the "free service" feature could be alleviated through a lower selling price (e.g. a 10% vendor commission that is deduced from market (buying) price). Instead of bothering with double price columns (buy/sell), I'd just add less money to the treasury, and the player would be informed of this mechanism through a hint.
• the "instantaneous" feature could be removed with a few hours (or days) delay before he sold ware appear on the market;
• sold alien and PHALANX-specific ware could be slowly "destroyed" (used) by the market, the same way that mundane ware seems to be slowly "regenerated" (produced) by the market over days (e.g. while you don't have to produce any mundane ammunition, it wouldn't be a nice idea to sell all your plasma grenades, thinking nobody would buy them for themselves before you might need them).
  

Effects and costs would be effective once the Buy/Sell window is closed.

[geever]

Sell prices are already 10% lower than buy prices. Delay in receiving goods from market is planned, also plan to make it impossible to hire back a fired employee. Stay tuned.

-geever

[Rodmar]

Btw, I just saw the v2.6 trade window screenshot, and all is better displayed.