Selling water

[Zanotirn]

At the moment you still get forced water sales even on a high-water world.

E.g. my current play in on a hot Hydra planet with 25% water coverage and 3200 mm average rainfall, all hexes I can see have rainfall at least in hundreds, but my SHQ can get hundreds of credits per turn selling water, and on turn 20 I already have over 6K credits, mostly from this. This kind of breaks the economy. I understand that the price will go down with more sales, but I think that the initial price of water should be adjusted based on water sources in the region/planet, and above an average few hundred water per zone per turn the price should be just zero from that start.

[phyroks]

Think in some game few version back I had issues in large planet, where those turns that market decided to buy some water it had 0 credits left as so much was force sold to it. Market should not buy water in planets with lot of rainfall would be the easiest fix.

[BlueTemplar]

What is "lot" ?

"Not wanting to buy" is already currently accomplished by water having a low price.
(There is no such thing as "force selling", if the water price is so low that the traders don't want it, the water over your storage limit is just going to be lost.)

I'm very surprised though that he didn't manage to crash the water market a lot sooner than getting ~6k credits out of it.

This might be a similar issue as with "rare" earths, which early game every regime sells, and no regime buys, because there's excess of supply and no demand, but the price takes a long long time to get down to unsalable, if ever ?

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Maybe on the first turn the traders should start with low stockpiles (100 for each item for each SHQ ?) of Fuel/Metal/Water/Food/Rare Earths, priced 0.01 Credit/item above minimum for selling to them ? (Is that 0.10¤/item ?)
(If it is even possible for these two conditions to hold at the same time ?)

For Radioactives, Machines, and High-Tech Parts the starting prices are probably fine as they are ?

[phyroks]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
There is no such thing as "force selling"

This is the moment when price goes from nothing to 0.01c or similar and instead of it being lost it is sold off, but it was enough to empty the market out of money. So it did happen in 2-3 turns cycles and was annoying. I haven not played on water planet in resent months so dno how it is now with largest planets and rain fall.

Also even the game calls it force selling

[phyroks]

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[Zanotirn]

Just to clarify, not all of that 6K is from water sales, (some came from advancing troops), but most of it is.


Water is the only resource with real problem, given that
1) On some planets its income can be very high even early on, when it's more disruptive to gameplay
2) Having water being sold around on a world where water is abundant and no major region is lacking in it is simply counterintuitive
3) This happens without any effort from the player or even private economy

Fuel and food and also be overabundant in some scenarios, but they don't run into these particular issues.

I'd say that either water needs a special rule, or the price should get a couple more decimal points, so even thousands sold at 0.0001 cr/unit will not be noticeable.

[zgrssd]

This sounds like a Bug and should propably be reported as one.

The market running out of credits is a huge problem. I think with normal selling there is a limit to demand which should avoid that - it is possible forced sales ignore that limit, causing issues.

[phyroks]

Credit system should have large overhaul, perhaps salaries being tied to size of your regime instead of fixed values and scaling? As money is trivial in the end (usually).

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, I get that it's "forced" in the sense of the SHQ being forced to sell it rather than lose it, not in the sense of the traders being forced to buy it, but it could be misleading in this context.

Why do you think that SHQ auto-sales work differently ? You too yourself can easily have more items in stock than the traders have money to buy them all, or even one type of them, it seems to be routine from mid-game ? (It would be nice if strengthening your private sector gave traders more spare money too, I guess this might already be the case ? EDIT : heh, ninjaed...)

This is the moment when price goes from nothing to 0.01c or similar and instead of it being lost it is sold off, but it was enough to empty the market out of money. So it did happen in 2-3 turns cycles and was annoying.

*This* is weird. Normally, for a price to go up, *someone* has to start buying again. *Who* is buying (salt) water on Waterworld ??
(Are you sure there wasn't a regime stuck in a remote desert or something in that game ?)

[Soar_Slitherine]

The population buys water from the traders for luxury consumption, so there is always some demand for it. The traders get their credits by selling items to the population or neighboring regimes' traders, so they can have trouble acquiring them if they can't find a large enough market for their items.

[phyroks]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
(Are you sure there wasn't a regime stuck in a remote desert or something in that game ?)

This would mean that they get more money than lose, and would not end up with low credits. But I have never seen a game where the traders would not be ready to buy stuff again in few turns, so dont know what you are basing the idea that they would never buy if no one needed it. More like something consumes it and its out of your control.

But this is the reason why I have not been playing on planets with lot of rainfall for long long time.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Yeah, I get that it's "forced" in the sense of the SHQ being forced to sell it rather than lose it, not in the sense of the traders being forced to buy it, but it could be misleading in this context.

Why do you think that SHQ auto-sales work differently ?

It is supposed to work the same way. But have you every actualls seen "sold X to the traders, but had to drop the rest because nobody was buying it" in the SHQ tooltips?

And the buy limits are supposed to keep the traders from going bankrupt. But they might be set too high for that.

There are many wasy in which the game could have a bug here.

[BlueTemplar]

The population buys water from the traders for luxury consumption, so there is always some demand for it.

Right, but the values that I've seen per zone and per round there are typically under 10, sometimes in the low hundreds - while at the same time you would get 5000/round/zone with surface water access, not counting rain !

dont know what you are basing the idea that they would never buy if no one needed it. More like something consumes it and its out of your control.

On what seems realistic to me. But likely there's indeed some mechanic like this...

But have you every actualls seen "sold X to the traders, but had to drop the rest because nobody was buying it" in the SHQ tooltips?

Yeah, pretty sure I did. Will post a screenshot once/if I see it again.

[Zanotirn]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

This sounds like a Bug and should propably be reported as one.

The market running out of credits is a huge problem. I think with normal selling there is a limit to demand which should avoid that - it is possible forced sales ignore that limit, causing issues.

Back in my QA days it would be something I would report to the devs as there was a significant chance that an aspect of the game worked contrary to design intent, but it's likely not a bug in a strict ISTQB sense (unless there was already something implemented to combat this behavior and it's not working right). I'm not sure where Vic draws a line for bugs though.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Zanotirn

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

This sounds like a Bug and should propably be reported as one.

The market running out of credits is a huge problem. I think with normal selling there is a limit to demand which should avoid that - it is possible forced sales ignore that limit, causing issues.

Back in my QA days it would be something I would report to the devs as there was a significant chance that an aspect of the game worked contrary to design intent, but it's likely not a bug in a strict ISTQB sense (unless there was already something implemented to combat this behavior and it's not working right). I'm not sure where Vic draws a line for bugs though.

I just report things with as much information as possible (and try to have a savegame ready if he asks for one).
And let him decide if that is working as it should.

[Thomas8]

It happens most likely because Private market is not getting water from rainfall/ocean tiles and rivers (while your Regime cities will get it that way). So people are still buying water from market but if there is no private water/ice mine then only way to fill the market with water is by your Regime selling it.

Proposed workaround - X units of water from natural rainfall will go to the Regime (500 units maybe ?) and everything above would be split 50/50.

That on desert planets - Regime will take dibs to rare natural water sources - but as water will become more and more available through normal means in environment - then it will become available to private market.

Otherwise you can always head-canon that private market is paying taxes for use of rainfall water (something that exist in real world).

[BlueTemplar]

But currently the private sector doesn't *really* use water...

I was thinking about the same thing :
fb.asp?m=5034522

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Well, the problem is that then you'll have to send water to troops, and the Supply Received tab already has trouble to fit everything...

No, IMHO the current abstraction where water is part of the food (unless by sub-zero xenoplants, yum, tasty ammonia !) is good enough.

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However maybe the private sector should be taught to consume water for its farms and domes and taught to build ice mines ?

Also to gather rain & river & lake & seawater, and to buy & sell normal water ?
(They already know how to buy special water.)
EDIT : No, gathering would be too complex on the UI too, just have them use "Emergency Water" by default ?

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
[...]
But have you every actualls seen "sold X to the traders, but had to drop the rest because nobody was buying it" in the SHQ tooltips?
[...]

Not the SHQ -
(will probably have to wait until I manage to get rid of this zone, as it seemingly gets priority for selling ?)
- but same thing :