Commodities... how to fix??

[RobertHuntingdon]

I appreciated the efforts of Aaron and crew to make it easier to work with in 1.15, don't get me wrong. The commodities screen is a huge help, and I'm happy they did it. But I think they still stink like raw sewage. They just don't give enough profit to be worth the trouble.

First off, it's hard to get enough stock to make the trip worthwhile. I had to fly back and forth between three separate spacedocks in a sector about 10 times each to get half a cargo load.

Second, it's hard to find a route, and most of those you do find are so long they're not worth sneezing at. Six jumps just ain't worth it IMO. Even if the profit rates were quadrupled.

Third, after spending maybe half an hour flying back and forth between various spacedocks to load up on the commodity I want to trade, I then go three or four jumps away and start selling. When I calculate out my profit, it almost always comes out to right around 6,000 credits. I can get 150% more for a single mission and do two more missions at the same time!

In short, it seems waaay too hard to run commodities for barely enough profit to sneeze at.

So how do we fix that? I don't know -- at least not for sure. I'd like to make it so that commodities sold for less and bought for more, first off. Not sure how to do that. Second I'd like to make buying a more common event. It seems everybody and their brother is selling but nobody ever seems to be buying. But again not sure how. Finally, I'd like to make shipyards sell more per visit. Instead of 3 to 6 I'd say 12 to 18 available for sale... or more.

To prevent it from becoming overpowering I'd probably quadruple most product sizes, meaning you'd have to devote a good chunk of ship space to cargo holds to carry a full load in all three bays. It would become more risky since you couldn't carry as much equipment. That part, unfortunately is easy... but what about the rest?

RH