the dude that posted right after my last reply you're forgettign something. if you go to ur inventory and ur commody or w/e cargo thing. click on a commodody and there will be a trade route button. all the known planets will be listed according to buying prices. (from highest to lowest, lowest being ont he bottom of the list).......so theres really no landing and stuff, just set cruise engines and stuff.
-I trade for a living, rouges piss me off, come get me, catch me if you can, i will leave you in the dust, or you'll die trying, take your pick.-
@Heretic Inc. We trade because we own.@
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Once more: Trading
This is a free discussion forum on Freelancer. This is the place to discuss Freelancer issues NOT covered by the other boards!
55 posts
• Page 4 of 4 • 1, 2, 3, 4
Thu Feb 27, 2003 11:25 pm
I have to agree the static pricing thing is pretty lame...I have played quite a few good games that involved trading(Trade Wars 2002 and High Seas Trader come to mind), and those games are ancient history(trade wars was a MUD...text only except for ascii graphics!! great stuff 
).
I'm not 100% sure on this since i haven't played the demo in a little bit, but I don't think that quantities available even fluctuate at the ports...which is the least that should have been implemented so that you can't do the same cargo route over and over again without having to wait at least a little while for a station to build/trade more of a certain good. Actually the system in Trade Wars worked quite well...ports had various quantities of the 3 cargo types, which replenished slowly over time, but as you drained it the prices changed and the profits decreased the more you sold to a port as they got saturated with product.
This system is VERY simple and immensly adds to trading as you have to exploit a good route when you can find it, but you can't use it 24/7. This isn't "Railroad Tycoon" difficult or whatever, it simply gives more value to trading other than finding a route that will always give you X profit per item, it forces you to explore more(without being difficult) instead of just mindlessly doing the same "best" route you found over and over ad infinitum. But that's just my opinion.
).
I'm not 100% sure on this since i haven't played the demo in a little bit, but I don't think that quantities available even fluctuate at the ports...which is the least that should have been implemented so that you can't do the same cargo route over and over again without having to wait at least a little while for a station to build/trade more of a certain good. Actually the system in Trade Wars worked quite well...ports had various quantities of the 3 cargo types, which replenished slowly over time, but as you drained it the prices changed and the profits decreased the more you sold to a port as they got saturated with product.
This system is VERY simple and immensly adds to trading as you have to exploit a good route when you can find it, but you can't use it 24/7. This isn't "Railroad Tycoon" difficult or whatever, it simply gives more value to trading other than finding a route that will always give you X profit per item, it forces you to explore more(without being difficult) instead of just mindlessly doing the same "best" route you found over and over ad infinitum. But that's just my opinion.
Fri Feb 28, 2003 12:03 am
Guide to making a great space-sim game...
1) Take Privateer 2 and add the combat control scheme from Freelancer. Make the mouse controls a lot more customizable and allow the use of a joystick.
2) Take Privateer 2 and add a multiplayer aspect to it. I fear this was the trouble with Freelancer in that the developers had to spend a lot of time making a good net code and found out it would be hard to manage a dynamic economy and all the good stuff that was in Privateer 2. They should've made the single player game awesome and then just left out the dynamic economy or whatever it is that would make the MP hard to manage, and then if they did figure it out they could add it in with patches.
3) Finally, call the game Privateer 3!
But seriously, the space-sim community would grow leaps and bounds if someone out there would take the foundation that was Privateer 2 and expand on it. The trading aspect was outstanding (i remember having a notebook full of my trade circuts where i'd make my way around the entire galaxy), so keep trading similar. You could hire wingmen to either escort you or help you complete a mission, expand on that idea. There was just too many good things about Privateer 2 to be left out of any similar space-sim game. And Freelancer just reminds me too much of that game that i can't help but make a direct comparisson.
1) Take Privateer 2 and add the combat control scheme from Freelancer. Make the mouse controls a lot more customizable and allow the use of a joystick.
2) Take Privateer 2 and add a multiplayer aspect to it. I fear this was the trouble with Freelancer in that the developers had to spend a lot of time making a good net code and found out it would be hard to manage a dynamic economy and all the good stuff that was in Privateer 2. They should've made the single player game awesome and then just left out the dynamic economy or whatever it is that would make the MP hard to manage, and then if they did figure it out they could add it in with patches.
3) Finally, call the game Privateer 3!
But seriously, the space-sim community would grow leaps and bounds if someone out there would take the foundation that was Privateer 2 and expand on it. The trading aspect was outstanding (i remember having a notebook full of my trade circuts where i'd make my way around the entire galaxy), so keep trading similar. You could hire wingmen to either escort you or help you complete a mission, expand on that idea. There was just too many good things about Privateer 2 to be left out of any similar space-sim game. And Freelancer just reminds me too much of that game that i can't help but make a direct comparisson. Fri Feb 28, 2003 12:34 am
What I meant about the calculations was that the computer is not only just doing the stations, but also having to route convoys to react to the supply and demand. If something happens to the convoys, then you have a cascade effect that can start folding in on itself. Remember the old saying about chaos theory that a butterfly moving the air in Mexico can make a Hurricane in the Gulf? It's like that. Oh, and I have a Bachelor's degree in CIS, so I know how numbers are calculated and all about 3d graphics.
So you should damn well understand that a hyrbid like I suggest would work damn well without using much resources, neither ram, nor clockcycles, changing a few variables each time a player activate a trigger is not a big thing isn´t it
compared to the infos the server has to send out and coordinate euch time a player shoots when other players are in the same area ...
I never, in both of my last post spoke of an absolue simulation, cause I know damn well that this gets abit more complicated
but a low end eco modell to run under the game engine is no problem at all, as I suggestest.
btw for those battlecruisers that would come if a trade lane gets blockaded
I guess not :p
Anyway as those fl eco is damn fast, getting for 30 minutes no supply means A LOT. they have to produce something, and they have to sell something, else it would be total absurd, the stations would have to be alot bigger in the inside than the outside
if those resources get not aswell transported in some way out of the station, so some missing frighter of the same resource typ screw up the internal stations eco.
aswell a constant extra deliver of just one resource, could change the demand ... or have you ever bothered to check actually what those frighters deviler over time to a station
(btw that way youc an already camp for a station, just wait, and scan until a frighter with h-fuell or alien organsimen or what ever is damn expensiv in the area comes along)
Fri Feb 28, 2003 1:18 am
Apoc:
I rather take the level 15 combat mission. There is more to life than making money. At a certain point in the game you won't NEED money. Ever thought of that.
If you know what they are. Are you really that stupid to give away an advantage like that. Anyway if implemented dynamic pricing would either reduce your profits which makes your point moot or too much of a hassle to deal with.
If you have to ask than you don't know anything about multiplayer games.
LOL
And you can lieing all you want, trading is not boring, and its in mp anyway the only way to make fast your buck. Just compare the newbie trade run in the starter frigther to lets say a level 15 combat mission
I rather take the level 15 combat mission. There is more to life than making money. At a certain point in the game you won't NEED money. Ever thought of that.
the trade runs makes you 30 000 credits
If you know what they are. Are you really that stupid to give away an advantage like that. Anyway if implemented dynamic pricing would either reduce your profits which makes your point moot or too much of a hassle to deal with.
And as for mulitplayer, can you please explain me why you should play pirate?
If you have to ask than you don't know anything about multiplayer games.
LOL
Fri Feb 28, 2003 1:31 am
Guide to making a great space-sim game...
1) Take Privateer 2 and add the combat control scheme from Freelancer. Make the mouse controls a lot more customizable and allow the use of a joystick.
How people can see things with rose colored glasses amazes me? Privateer2 was a critical and comercial FAILURE (Erin Roberts left Origin soon afterwards). Compared to Privateer it was boring and simple. The trading was simple (go to three planets with largest transport available) a dead cow could do it and combat was simple "turn and burn" that people got sick of (and which led to the dearth of space sims today).
2) Take Privateer 2 and add a multiplayer aspect to it. I fear this was the trouble with Freelancer in that the developers had to spend a lot of time making a good net code and found out it would be hard to manage a dynamic economy and all the good stuff that was in Privateer 2. They should've made the single player game awesome and then just left out the dynamic economy or whatever it is that would make the MP hard to manage, and then if they did figure it out they could add it in with patches.
What dynamic economy? Prices fluctuated by 10% and sometimes a special event happened that if you were in the area you might be able to take advantage of it. The game was still boring.
3) Finally, call the game Privateer 3! But seriously, the space-sim community would grow leaps and bounds if someone out there would take the foundation that was Privateer 2 and expand on it.
No it wouldn't the game was flawed from the beginning.
The trading aspect was outstanding (i remember having a notebook full of my trade circuts where i'd make my way around the entire galaxy), so keep trading similar.
You gotta be kidding me. You wasted your time because there was only ONE good trade route.
You could hire wingmen to either escort you or help you complete a mission, expand on that idea.
The wingmen had brain dead AI. It wasn't a problem because the enemies had brain dead AI. Freelancer actually has some decent enemies.
There was just too many good things about Privateer 2 to be left out of any similar space-sim game. And Freelancer just reminds me too much of that game that i can't help but make a direct comparisson.
Good you can play Privateer 2 and the rest of us will play Freelancer and we will all be happy then.
Fri Feb 28, 2003 6:42 am
Privateer 2 was only a failure because it was released at the wrong time. The marketing for it was horrible, i didn't even hear of the game until my friend showed it to me a year after it was released. The space-sim community was close to nothing at that time.
Nobody that spent any serious time playing the game stuck with ONE trade route. Reason: Take goods from planet A, sell them at planet B. The travel back to planet A is waste of time if you're not transporting anything worth while. So you find goods on planet B to sell somewhere for a profit, and the only place at planet C. So it continued like that until you got back to the starting point for the really good route.
The dynamic economy was nothing more that a 10% fluctuation, but it was neccessary. The only thing that mattered was that the prices changed, regardless of how much. Its neccessary for those who enjoy trading for it to feel a little more "realistic" than static prices. I know this (because i didn't get bored within 20 minutes like i did with Freelancer) and the rest of the Privateer fans know this. And if you think trading was easy, try trading with the largest transport in Privateer 2. You relied on the "brain dead" wingmen to kill the "brain dead" enemies. I can't count how many times those fast ass enemies towards the end of the game tore me apart while i was trying to transport my black market stuff.
When i got bored in Freelancer i would change the pace and find a new line of work to do. But no matter what i did (i even found myself sitting in an asteroid field shooting rocks and tractoring in its contents) i would get bored of it within a half hour. With Privateer it took a long time to get bored with what you were doing, and when you finally changed what you were doing you were hooked on the new activity for a long time again. But honestly, the whole issues on being bored with a game is a matter of opinion, which is what any forum is all about. But you can't deny the similarities of the two games, and when you compare and contrast, Privateer is still the winner.
If ANYTHING was flawed about Privateer 2 it was the code. And that is something which can easily be fixed with todays programming. To be honest, i would play Privateer while you play Freelancer, but i can't because it was DOS and i can't run it with XP.
Edited by - Rein of Kaos on 28-02-2003 06:46:51
Nobody that spent any serious time playing the game stuck with ONE trade route. Reason: Take goods from planet A, sell them at planet B. The travel back to planet A is waste of time if you're not transporting anything worth while. So you find goods on planet B to sell somewhere for a profit, and the only place at planet C. So it continued like that until you got back to the starting point for the really good route.
The dynamic economy was nothing more that a 10% fluctuation, but it was neccessary. The only thing that mattered was that the prices changed, regardless of how much. Its neccessary for those who enjoy trading for it to feel a little more "realistic" than static prices. I know this (because i didn't get bored within 20 minutes like i did with Freelancer) and the rest of the Privateer fans know this. And if you think trading was easy, try trading with the largest transport in Privateer 2. You relied on the "brain dead" wingmen to kill the "brain dead" enemies. I can't count how many times those fast ass enemies towards the end of the game tore me apart while i was trying to transport my black market stuff.
When i got bored in Freelancer i would change the pace and find a new line of work to do. But no matter what i did (i even found myself sitting in an asteroid field shooting rocks and tractoring in its contents) i would get bored of it within a half hour. With Privateer it took a long time to get bored with what you were doing, and when you finally changed what you were doing you were hooked on the new activity for a long time again. But honestly, the whole issues on being bored with a game is a matter of opinion, which is what any forum is all about. But you can't deny the similarities of the two games, and when you compare and contrast, Privateer is still the winner.
If ANYTHING was flawed about Privateer 2 it was the code. And that is something which can easily be fixed with todays programming. To be honest, i would play Privateer while you play Freelancer, but i can't because it was DOS and i can't run it with XP.
Edited by - Rein of Kaos on 28-02-2003 06:46:51
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