Version: 6.20
Language: English
Modified: No
Game Start: Budgeted Start
Problem:
Commission and discount bonuses apply to all wares bought or sold on trade stations, this has odd side effects, such as:
Hacking terminal on Trade stations gives no discount, removes existing ones, and prevents obtaining new ones.
Stacking a discount with the high relation discount, can cause a station to buy wares from the player for less than their minimum pice. This is obviously detrimental rather than beneficial.
How to Reproduce:
- 1. Take note of the standard prices of wares on a trade station.
(Example: Ware prices at start of a new game, before any discounts/commissions.) - 2. Scan data leaks on the trade station until you get a discount, take note of the new ware prices.
(Example: Ware prices after data leak discount, but before hack) - 3. Dock at the station and hack the engineering termnal to give you a VIP discount/commission bonus, take note of the ware prices after the hack. They are back to their pre-discount prices.
(Example: Ware prices after both data leak discount AND hack.)
For the second (but related) issue:
- 1. Get high reputation with a faction so that you have the reputation discount.
- 2. Scan data leaks on a trade station until you obtain a decent discount.
- 3. Check prices of wares. Some buy offers may be below the minimum price of a ware because both discounts have applied to buy orders, rather than only sell orders.
(Example: Missile components are being bought below their minimum price.)
Before discount, before hack (to show the prices before the discount):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ERzXPy ... sp=sharing
After discount, before hack (just check the prices, and then hack the panel after loading):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vn4VXh ... sp=sharing
Notes & Research:
This only appears to happen on trade stations. On stations that only buy and sell a limited amount of wares are unaffected, and commissions will only apply to buy orders, and discounts only to sell orders.
Though they do still apply discounts to all sold wares, and commissions to all bought wares, rather than just the ones that trigger the discount. So receiving the water shortage commission bonus on a station that buys wares water in addition to other wares will increase the price of all wares, not just water. Whether this too is a bug is hard to say.
It appears that because the hack discount gives both a commission and discount bonus at the same time, and due to the fact that commissions and discounts apply too all wares station wide on trade stations, they cancel each other out.
It looks to be a measure to prevent a station from selling a ware below what it is buying it for, stopping a player exploiting the discounts to make infinite money without ever leaving the station by buying and selling back the same ware. It could apply to other stations that both buy and sell any of the same wares, but I wasn't able to easily create that scenario on other AI faction stations to test.
My full research, and the reason I found this bug - My Steam FAQ