Will we be able to see which ships are "incoming" to a station/trade deal, with ETA?

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Vandragorax
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Will we be able to see which ships are "incoming" to a station/trade deal, with ETA?

Post by Vandragorax » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 13:11

So an interesting point is brought up (miraculously) from that long jumpdrive thread :P

Scenario:
We spot a long trade route asking for a small amount of highly profitable goods and decide to take a punt at it.

Problem:
How will I be able to tell whether other ships are already flying this route to try to provide the goods required by the economy? If I take the route now, but say it takes my trade ship 30 mins to fly there, will someone else beat me to it at the last second because they happened to leave 1 minute before me?

Possible solution?
I'm thinking some kind of UI element when looking at the station to show "incoming ships" with an estimate of their cargo and how many jumps away they are (ETA?) would be exceptionally useful in planning to see if we can fulfil this request before an AI trader does. Heck another ship might even just be 5 mins away and by the time I'm done planning to fulfil the trade, it's already filled up the station's cargo completely and I can't offload any of my goods.


Is this a problem? Should we then have to find somewhere else to sell? Should we be only taking trade routes where there is a massive hole in the market to minimise the risk that an AI trader will fill it up first?

Previously of course we 'could' jumpdrive there and fulfil the trade probably before the AI can make it, but this might not be the case anymore.
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Post by Skeeter » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 13:47

So a kinda flight info thing u see at airports are you thinking but for stations in x4? Interesting idea.
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Post by Vandragorax » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 14:42

Yeah something like that. I am not sure what the underlying code says about trade missions, perhaps they will block all AI taking the same goods there to allow the player time to deliver stuff. If it is, however, completely open then there could be "race conditions" as it were against other traders doing the same run which might be highlighted by no longer having player jump drives.
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Post by Buzz2005 » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 15:31

well if you "book" it like in XR its a done deal so to speak and AI will not see it, unless you cancel il or be destroyed

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Post by Palanor » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 16:08

Anybody ever traded before? How about communicating with the buyer? Thats what merchants do today. My representative goes to the buyer . Negotiates a price . Seal the deal then the company transport the goods . Not the other way around . We are in the future here we suppose the communications have evolved also.

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Post by PowerPC603 » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:16

X Rebirth fixed that issue by reserving goods when a buyer finds the goods.

When a station produces goods, they are available to buy.
If you decide to send a trade ship there to buy the available goods, they are put aside for your ship at the current price.
That batch of goods won't be available to anyone else so no NPC ship can "steal" them by being faster to arrive than your trade ship.

Let's take an SPP for example, which has 4800 energy cells in stock.
You send your ship there from the other side of the universe to buy 800 energy cells.
Now the station will only have 4000 energy cells avaiable to anyone else.
Even if your ship takes a year to arrive, those 800 energy cells will still be there for your ship.

On the other hand, this creates a new issue: scarcity of goods.
Everyone needed the materials in X Rebirth for building stations (can't remember the name exactly), but they were always sold out.
As soon as a new batch became available, an NPC found it and sends a ship there.

You're sitting there in front of the station without anyone leaving or coming in and still those goods "disappeared" magically.

But those goods are now reserved for that npc ship and you can't buy it anymore.

Now, if there is a list of incoming ships (either buying or selling), you could locate those ships, follow them and steal their goods.
Or destroy them to make that reserved batch of goods available to your ships.

If this list is implemented, you should also be able to see what they are coming to buy/sell and how much.
Perhaps also the region where the ship is located.
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Post by linolafett » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:21

A trade is "reserved" as soon as you confirmed the trade.
The ship can take hours to get there but will be guaranteed to get the wares at the agreed price.
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Post by Vandragorax » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:27

That's all very well for buying, but how about selling?

Does it also reserve the cargo space for my trader to unload?

I'm talking about when I am looking on the map and notice a station is very low in a specific type of wares. I think I can get those wares to that station and make some money, but there's currently nothing stopping an AI already being on-course for that same station to sell wares also. They might get there before me and fill up the station so that I can physically no longer unload wares onto it myself to sell to them.
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Post by PowerPC603 » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:30

I think this works the same way.
Storage space for unloading (selling) will also be reserved, otherwise ships would become stuck trying to keep selling their goods at a full station.
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Post by Falcrack » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:45

linolafett wrote:A trade is "reserved" as soon as you confirmed the trade.
The ship can take hours to get there but will be guaranteed to get the wares at the agreed price.
I like the reserved trade system, with one caveat. There should be some sort of a timer involved. In other words, there should be a reasonable amount of time, based on distance between the two points, for the trade ship to come pick up the items, or drop off items. If that ship is destroyed or seriously delayed and the trade cannot be completed in the time window, then the trade deal should be canceled and made available to other NPCs again.

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Post by UniTrader » Mon, 26. Mar 18, 17:58

Falcrack wrote:
linolafett wrote:A trade is "reserved" as soon as you confirmed the trade.
The ship can take hours to get there but will be guaranteed to get the wares at the agreed price.
I like the reserved trade system, with one caveat. There should be some sort of a timer involved. In other words, there should be a reasonable amount of time, based on distance between the two points, for the trade ship to come pick up the items, or drop off items. If that ship is destroyed or seriously delayed and the trade cannot be completed in the time window, then the trade deal should be canceled and made available to other NPCs again.
iirc there is a timeout of 3 or 5 hours in XR for this (and an abort if a Trade is impossible on traderun beginn and on arrival, for example in case the Caorgo bay was destroyed and there is no more Cargo/Empty Space or if there are not the required wares in Cargo ). no idea about X4, but i think it will be similiar..
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Re: Will we be able to see which ships are "incoming" to a station/trade deal, with ETA?

Post by LittleBird » Tue, 27. Mar 18, 14:07

Vandragorax wrote: I'm thinking some kind of UI element when looking at the station to show "incoming ships" with an estimate of their cargo and how many jumps away they are (ETA?) would be exceptionally useful in planning to see if we can fulfil this request before an AI trader does. Heck another ship might even just be 5 mins away and by the time I'm done planning to fulfil the trade, it's already filled up the station's cargo completely and I can't offload any of my goods.
That would eliminate some kind of uncertainty in trading. But incomplete information is essential for a trading system.
In other words such an UI would be to powerful.

What about firm statistics you can receive that give you graphical information about the past X hours? So you can assume when a good trading opportunity occur.
Alternativley your suggested UI could have an error term. But I'm strictly against an UI that simply shows you guaranteed completed trades.
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Re: Will we be able to see which ships are "incoming" to a station/trade deal, with ETA?

Post by ajime » Wed, 28. Mar 18, 03:59

Vandragorax wrote:So an interesting point is brought up (miraculously) from that long jumpdrive thread :P

Scenario:
We spot a long trade route asking for a small amount of highly profitable goods and decide to take a punt at it.

Problem:
How will I be able to tell whether other ships are already flying this route to try to provide the goods required by the economy? If I take the route now, but say it takes my trade ship 30 mins to fly there, will someone else beat me to it at the last second because they happened to leave 1 minute before me?

Possible solution?
I'm thinking some kind of UI element when looking at the station to show "incoming ships" with an estimate of their cargo and how many jumps away they are (ETA?) would be exceptionally useful in planning to see if we can fulfil this request before an AI trader does. Heck another ship might even just be 5 mins away and by the time I'm done planning to fulfil the trade, it's already filled up the station's cargo completely and I can't offload any of my goods.


Is this a problem? Should we then have to find somewhere else to sell? Should we be only taking trade routes where there is a massive hole in the market to minimise the risk that an AI trader will fill it up first?

Previously of course we 'could' jumpdrive there and fulfil the trade probably before the AI can make it, but this might not be the case anymore.
Err.. this feature is already there in station menu's in X3, without the ETA of course, just the current sector location and wares to buy of the inbound ship name. Can't remember the exact menu name. haven't booted my TC for a long time.

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Post by StoneLegionYT » Fri, 30. Mar 18, 14:19

Awesome to hear. As someone who did not really touch Rebirth I'm really enjoying learning the little features from it making it's way into X4.

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