Why are Hull Parts buy orders so cheap if they're in demand?

[oddible]

Hull parts are one of the scarcest materials in my game right now and the margin between buy and sell orders is negligible. This doesn't seem to reflect an accurate market condition. I checked the Hull Parts factories - they're full up on refined minerals and graphene so there's plenty of mats coming in (they're full on everything for that matter). It seems the market is a bit hard coded for prices such that demand doesn't accurately move the price far enough - like there is a cap.

I really don't get it. Egosoft's solution was to spam Hull Parts factories everywhere - its like they forgot how their own game works Ain't no one selling cuz they've got the buy price capped at 272 and Wharfs aren't paying more.

[CBJ]

All prices in the game move within defined ranges. I'm sure it might sound fun to have a completely free economy with no limits, but in practice it's hard enough to make one that stays functioning most of the time even with limits.

[oddible]

Got it. So the problem is intruduced because the sell price is rising because of the demand but the buy price is capped. I guess the nice thing is it means the player has room to produce and sell in a flooded market.

[jlehtone]

Hull parts are one of the scarcest materials in my game right now and the margin between buy and sell orders is negligible. This doesn't seem to reflect an accurate market condition.

If a hull part factory had full stock, in game it would sell real cheap. IRL, the only factory with product would not sell at 130cr, nor at 272cr. It could ask for 27000cr per unit. Take it or leave it.

The price of a resource is expression of demand: shortage means high price.
The price of a product shows availability: the more you have, the cheaper you sell. If you have nothing to sell, then you ask high price.
Demand (what potential buyers are willing to pay) has no direct effect on the pricing at the manufacturer.

If you own a station, will you sell at bottom price when your stock is full, or do you set the price manually to max? (I presume you can still play robber baron, unlike the NPC.)

[oddible]

Hey jlehtone, long time no see - Returning after a long hiatus it is funny to see familiar faces still playing!

Hull parts are one of the scarcest materials in my game right now and the margin between buy and sell orders is negligible. This doesn't seem to reflect an accurate market condition.

If a hull part factory had full stock, in game it would sell real cheap. IRL, the only factory with product would not sell at 130cr, nor at 272cr. It could ask for 27000cr per unit. Take it or leave it.

The price of a resource is expression of demand: shortage means high price.
The price of a product shows availability: the more you have, the cheaper you sell. If you have nothing to sell, then you ask high price.
Demand (what potential buyers are willing to pay) has no direct effect on the pricing at the manufacturer.

If you own a station, will you sell at bottom price when your stock is full, or do you set the price manually to max? (I presume you can still play robber baron, unlike the NPC.)

You've literally described the opposite of what is happening in game and why I complained

If a hull part factory had full stock, in game it would sell real cheap. IRL, the only factory with product would not sell at 130cr, nor at 272cr. It could ask for 27000cr per unit. Take it or leave it.

Isn't this backwards? In the real world, if the demand was high, producers could charge a LOT. In game, even though the demand is high, Wharfs REFUSE to pay more than 272, however because demand is high producers are selling higher and higher. It gets to the point where you have a stalemate. The producer is trying to sell at 269, the Wharf refuses to pay more than 272, the auto traders see too little profit and don't even bother to pick up.

If you own a station, will you sell at bottom price when your stock is full, or do you set the price manually to max? (I presume you can still play robber baron, unlike the NPC.)

Sadly no, again, this exactly my complaint. The HIGHEST PAID PRICE can never be more than 272 for Hull Parts, doesn't matter if you produced them or someone else you can never get more than that from a buyer.

I get why they're doing it - it introduces a lot of complexity into the economic modeling in the game - it does great some problems as well however.

[dtpsprt]

I can give you a Real World answer to that... Exactly because they are in big demand in huge quantities. Just look how many Hull Parts are needed to make a Destroyer, let alone stations etc or taking into account the Hull parts for M and S ships that die like flies in the various battles. Going into the Hull Part trade (without a station of your own producing them) the Hull Part Stations want to limit your "influence" and create space in the market for their own traders....
For example an Incarcatua (the biggest trader in Cargo size) can take about 3,000 Hull parts, with an average gain margin of 20 per part you get 60,000 profit per pop, which can be just 10 Km apart, that means instantly (like 5 mins)... That's almost 1 mil per hour. Then, if the Hull Part is moving smoothly and everybody focuses on this the ship and production and Station build will halt again because there will not be enough traders (or transports) to carry the other necessary building stuff. This is why one has to put many stuff in the things to buy in their traders.

[Ormac]

If a hull part factory had full stock, in game it would sell real cheap. IRL, the only factory with product would not sell at 130cr, nor at 272cr. It could ask for 27000cr per unit. Take it or leave it.

Isn't this backwards? In the real world, if the demand was high, producers could charge a LOT. In game, even though the demand is high, Wharfs REFUSE to pay more than 272, however because demand is high producers are selling higher and higher. It gets to the point where you have a stalemate. The producer is trying to sell at 269, the Wharf refuses to pay more than 272, the auto traders see too little profit and don't even bother to pick up.

so the trading braket is not representing what the market is willing to pay.

it's shouldn't matter that the margin is so small at that moment in your example as the manager whill just keep converting the refined metals and graphene into hull parts until a trader comes along because the margin is then acceptable. If the factory has the resouces it needs to maintain production.

Because un pegging the unit price due to high demand will create run away costs for everything produced.

[Raevyan]

Imagine the sell price had no limit. With them being so rare, it would greatly increase station building cost. Early on that might be an issue.
And then there is the player that sells stuff... It is already too easy to get credits and reach the point where credits don’t matter. When the margins get higher that just becomes even easier.

[Gavrushka]

I think the slight difference is that in the real world, production isn't quite so volatile, and the market is far better placed to predict future demand, with their ships and other transports not as likely to be shot down by Mad Max or Space Terminators. - In other words, supply and demand are more closely married, and there isn't a sudden and unexpected surge in demand because a competitor went gone blew up a hundredty-eleven factories, so he did. Keynes and Smith wrote some gubbins on how it all works.

Oh, and real life factories are run by flatulent old men paid ridiculous sums of money, not some alien dude you picked up wandering around a space station whose entire vocabulary consists of hello, greetings and I won't let you down.

Oh, and Skynet doesn't set prices in the real world economy.

[Imperial Good]

The issue with Hull Parts is more that of transport rather than availability. In some more remote sectors there will be factories selling them at minimum price. However these are not being moved to the stations with maximum demand. Politics also plays an important part since all the huge quantity of hull parts that end up in remote ANT and ARG stations are not even available to ZYA who is highly hull part starved due to how expensive their ships are.

[jlehtone]

FRF in my game has a factory that (a) a has huge stock and (b) is full almost all the time, i.e. at bottom price. The NPC do not seem to buy much from it, and it is far from where I'd like to deliver.

in the real world ... supply and demand are more closely married

This. They are not married in the game.
A producer in game has no idea whether consumers have demand or not. Producer knows only that ships occasionally buy.
The "market" does not agree on price; each producer and consumer has its own price, completely decoupled from galaxy-wide supply/demand status.

That setting on price is an another major difference between game and IRL.

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Factory -- trader ship -- Wharf

Factory sets a price. Wharf sets a price. The ship decides which factory and wharf it visits, but not the prices.

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NVidia -- K-Mart -- you

NVidia sets a price. K-Mart sets a price. You decide whether you buy from K-Mart (or keep saving). K-Mart does not come to you, willing to sell at the price that you name.
OR

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Farmer -- K-Mart -- you

K-Mart sets the prices. Farmer has no real options. You decide whether you buy from K-Mart (or quit eating).

You, the consumer, can haggle a bit and/or "shop around" different *-marts, but you don't "set the buying price" that the shop "agrees to".
In the game the Wharf sets the price. In huge demand every Wharf and build site happens to have the same (capped) price.
The "competition" is then won by something else: amount requested, faction politics, distance?

The producer is trying to sell at 269, the Wharf refuses to pay more than 272, the auto traders see too little profit and don't even bother to pick up.

That involves a question: Do NPC Traders behave like player traders?

Lets go back to X2. NPC Stations did have traders -- buyers. The consumer did decide how much they would pay at most, but since they did send the ship out, they effectively chose the cheapest offer that producers had.
Player's station traders could sell too, and thus they could see the demand (unlike the NPC).

The player's auto-trader (Trade Mk3, aka UT/ST/LT) chose a "trade run", where it saw profit.
X3 had NPC Free Traders, but they did not act like UT. Did they not do "(1) Buy something. (2) Try to sell what I have"?
That approach is not "profitable haul". That is two disconnected transactions.

I have not observed the X4 NPC traders enough to know how they behave.
If they are like the earlier games, then lack of profit (or even loss) will not stop them from hauling wares.

Oh, and Skynet doesn't set prices in the real world economy.

There are Anti-Trust Laws to stop Skynet, are there not?

[Raevyan]

It also seems that there aren’t enough NPC traders around to move all the wares. It also seems, that if the player buys Hull Parts, NPCs immediately deliver to you. Looks like they prefer selling to player.
A couple of distribute wares trader with only Hull parts should get them moving.

[RodentofDoom]

Stations follow a fairly simple economic model
They do not consider the prices set by other stations or active construction zones
All resources and products have a pre-set minimum and maximum price
Stock Limits are determined by the total amount of storage space available at the station

When a resources stock level is low, buying prices will trend towards the upper limit
When a products stock level is high, selling prices will trend towards the lower limit

So a station producing Hull Parts is going to set it's Selling Price based entirely on it's own current stock levels
Essentially it operates in isolation from the rest of the universe