I am wondering if anyone else has noticed if port values change from day to day? On several servers I have seen values change while doing buydowns for megarobs and also doing PPT. Has anyone else noticed this and if so is there a formula for port value changes and if so does this have an effect for reds doing things like SDT or SST?
Speaking from the farmyard. [?]

quote:Originally posted by Father Cajone

I am wondering if anyone else has noticed if port values change from day to day? On several servers I have seen values change while doing buydowns for megarobs and also doing PPT. Has anyone else noticed this and if so is there a formula for port value changes and if so does this have an effect for reds doing things like SDT or SST?
Speaking from the farmyard. [?]

What sort of values? Are you talking about maximum product amounts? How much have you noticed them changing?

What I was referring to is price changes when buying products at ports. An example is one day a port might be selling 250 holds of equipment at 14,700 creds and another day the same port might be selling at over 15,000 credits. In other words...do the buy/sell prices at ports change or have I just been imagining what I seem to have been observing? If prices do indeed change...would this affect bust ratio in any way for reds?

what i have noticed so far i might be seeing things to but what i have noticed is prices do change in the game buy the values of how much they are buying or selling as well as random prices changes along with it... just like fighter and shield prices change throughout the game as it is played figs one day might be cheap and the next real expensive.. in some days it is better to buy them you can get more with the same amount of cash.. makes the game more interesting i beleive...... or it could be my imagination too

port prices do vary, but its random within a range _for each offer_ (rather than changing consistantly over time)- for eq the range is about 1500 credz for 250 holds. Port prices also vary with experience, so if you're playing blue, you may notice different prices on days where you've been busting planets vs those you weren't.

Dr. Bad

or maybe the port has a less amount of equipment than the day before, and you are noticing the price change because they aren't selling as much now.

likwid

quote:Originally posted by Father Cajone

What I was referring to is price changes when buying products at ports. An example is one day a port might be selling 250 holds of equipment at 14,700 creds and another day the same port might be selling at over 15,000 credits. In other words...do the buy/sell prices at ports change or have I just been imagining what I seem to have been observing? If prices do indeed change...would this affect bust ratio in any way for reds?

I think Dr. Bad answered the price question pretty well, just thought I would add that the price a port is selling or buying product at has nothing to do with busting.

quote:Originally posted by bdavey

port prices do vary, but its random within a range _for each offer_ (rather than changing consistantly over time)- for eq the range is about 1500 credz for 250 holds. Port prices also vary with experience, so if you're playing blue, you may notice different prices on days where you've been busting planets vs those you weren't.

Dr. Bad

Ports also use a bell curve for the value of products, meaning that the offer is higher when the volume is 85% than when the volume is at only 15%.

quote:Originally posted by Kemper_3

quote:Originally posted by Father Cajone

What I was referring to is price changes when buying products at ports. An example is one day a port might be selling 250 holds of equipment at 14,700 creds and another day the same port might be selling at over 15,000 credits. In other words...do the buy/sell prices at ports change or have I just been imagining what I seem to have been observing? If prices do indeed change...would this affect bust ratio in any way for reds?

I think Dr. Bad answered the price question pretty well, just thought I would add that the price a port is selling or buying product at has nothing to do with busting.


Dr. Bad did answer the question quite well. It seems that the higher the experience of however does the buydown is then even using a tight haggle for worst prices gives better prices for buydown and might not spend enough for red to megarob. Hence if blue was blowing planets for building then exp is higher and spends less. I have also found from others that higher exp does not affect the prices for selling off products at other ports. Thanks!

For more information on ports (like price changes, how experience matters), check my website.

http://www.tw-cabal.com/strategy/economy2.html

-Traitor
"They probably heard about it from me." [:D]
visit http://www.tw-cabal.com

Don't forget the "Hump Day" specials. On Wednesdays in the game, not actual reality date, the Wednesdays in the game fictional date, they offer a better price for selling or buying items at the ports. Something left over from when the Martins wrote for TW2002.

Unless this has changed in recentyears (lol, can you tell i'm a n00b to Gold tw's) the port prices actualy cycle through days. I did extensive analysis of the ports a few years ago, and although I'm not sure how much of it is still valid, it APPEARS that the following two facts reamin:

(1) Port prices cycle through 7 days, with (game-day) Wednesday being the best day, Saturday the second best and so on through a fixed cycle

(2) Port prices for self-built ports are always the same (what they call -60 MCIC now) and you can write predictive algorthtims based on day of week to always get the maximim possible price

I'm trying to find the CD with my old tradwars articles and scripts on it; they used to be widely circulated but i dont see them around any more. I wrote quite a bit about ports and how to gain edges from them in various ways. I'm also curious about whether or not my algorithms for self-builts still works.


Now for the trivia question of the day (this has ben driving me nuts ever since i came back a few weeks ago): It seems to me that evils used to get -47 align and +24 exp for 250 holds. I had written a CLV analyzer that told me how much my opponents were cashing based on alignment changes, and I seem to recall using using these numbers, but until I find my old tradewars stuff to confirm this, this is driving me nuts.

Does anybody remember these amounts as being correct, or is my mind just playing tricks with me? We're talking MBBS circa 1995.

galaxi


[edit: estimated date i played mbbs was off by a bit]

It is my understanding that the way ports operate has changed in recent years, making it MUCH harder to get the 5 exp prices (which is different from maximum price). The reason "they" call it MCIC (Maximum change in cost) now is because that is what the values are called in tedit.

READ

http://tavern.homeip.net/TWGS/haggling_lessons.cfm


Day of the week no longer has any affect whatsoever on port prices.

The only things that affect port prices are: MCIC value, trading percentage, number of units being haggled, and (for ship based trades, not planet negotiations) trader's experience and a small random factor.

Well, now that I am thinking of it...does anyone have any theories on busting? Some days seem worse then others or perhaps different ports and their effects on the "random" art of busting when stealing?

Big12ozHOG