player shop module improvements (compiled suggestion)

[HolyCookie]

so we have a shop module which should make us able to run a proper shop.
but i don't really agree with that. the shop has rarly costumers, as it has no icons.
also the storage is a bit too small to make real profit.

suggestion 1:
a rather simple solution for the costumer problem: make an option to change the map icon from station to shop and from shop to station. this makes it possible for people to exualy find player shops.

suggestion 2:
connecting storages to a shop increases all storage by 1000.
the storage block can't be used when connected to a shop, this makes it possible to get the ores of those big miners that mine 200k or something.

suggestion 3:
a shop as option to spawn, just like a ship and a station, it has it's advantages and disatvantages.
the shop is immume
nothing can be docked to a shop
no factory can be placed on a shop
no power/shield can be placed on a shop.
this makes it possible to have many shops, no risks and costumers

suggestion 4:
you can link a factory to a shop and a shop to a factory (and refiner and assembler).
this way, the factory can produce goodies like shields from the bought raw ores and sell them in the shop.


i like suggestion 3 the most, though it isn't totaly refined.
suggestion 1 is a thing that is the least you can do

 

[Blaza612]

I like all of them, if they were all implemented, it would gives shops MUCH more flexibility. But one other change I would make, is that when NPCs are added into the game, they can automatically produce items and stock shops with the items produced.

Another change that would improve customer experience, is having the shop only display what's in stock. The owner will be able to see every item they can put in, but the customers can only see what's in stock/what the owner wants to sell (could be an extra option) allowing people to have specialized retailers. ^_^

 

[AtraUnam]

Rather than just increasing the max number the shop can count to it should actually be able to draw from linked plex storages in order to refill its stock. That way we can have factories automatically placing items into shop storage without the player having to move them across.

 

[HolyCookie]

Rather than just increasing the max number the shop can count to it should actually be able to draw from linked plex storages in order to refill its stock. That way we can have factories automatically placing items into shop storage without the player having to move them across.

when I came up with these suggestions, I had it in my mind, I wanted something to e.g buy ores and sell shields.
but I forgot about it :D

 

[DivineEvil]

Utility and vanity is fine but... I'm not sure if its solves shops problem in any degree. First of all, the problem of player shops is that there's overwhelming and utterly disabling competition with Trade Guild shops. For any player-run shop who might want to get their prices higher to earn profit, theres hundreds of TG shops selling stuff for a prime cost. To make player shops any good in a frame of proposed ideas, they first need to become a definite unit of in-game trade, otherwise everything said prior is futile.

- TG must be really rare. Like, maximum one shop per system. The further you go from Galaxy center, the less likely it should be that there's even one. This ties to the general standing overpopulation with stations. Average amount of space junk floating around in every system of Starmade world is astonishing and ridiculously overshot even for a superdeveloped area.

- TG shops must be discovered. All stations should be concealed, and information about their presence must be local, just as any other information, and not shared among players by default. Players has to use Scanners to detect stations and visit them to determine what kind of stations have been picked up.

- TG stock must be very scarce. Each shop should ever have only the random half of possible items and the maximum amount of those items should be based on item's prime value. Standard Trade Stations must either being completely replaced with security/military installations without a shop in them, or must possess almost non-existent stockpile of goods and provide no profit for selling most of those goods to them.

- A good addition to the shop system would be a Trade Requests. Player would be able to place a trade request for a given type and amount of an item, and server would periodically search for these items sold in player shops and provide the information to the requester if such are present in some config-determined range.

If these points are taken care of, then perhaps we can speak about utility/vanity aspects, which would be intergrated into shop system and give us more control of NPC-driven shops as well.

 

[BDLS]

-snip-

suggestion 1: Good.

suggestion 2: Good as well. The limit sucks. I would actually prefer to keep all my stuff in a shop module for personal storage if I could, as opposed to a ton of different chests.

suggestion 3: Nah, too exploitable. I'd probably just spam dickshops all around my enemy's space.

suggestion 4: Sounds good.

It was cool back when the TG would restock your shops for you (bug?). You got a small amount of everything when they visited. So all the small little decorative blocks and stuff wouldn't be too much of a hassle to go out and find, or make with your factories. Maybe be able to have a TG membership that burns stored shop credits, but you get that service.

 

[HolyCookie]

suggestion 1: Good.

suggestion 2: Good as well. The limit sucks. I would actually prefer to keep all my stuff in a shop module for personal storage if I could, as opposed to a ton of different chests.

suggestion 3: Nah, too exploitable. I'd probably just spam dickshops all around my enemy's space.

suggestion 4: Sounds good.

It was cool back when the TG would restock your shops for you (bug?). You got a small amount of everything when they visited. So all the small little decorative blocks and stuff wouldn't be too much of a hassle to go out and find, or make with your factories. Maybe be able to have a TG membership that burns stored shop credits, but you get that service.

now you say it.. people always find exploits.
what about this: you can put 1 shop in a system, the system has to be owned by your faction.
can't exploit that.
[DOUBLEPOST=1437256159,1437255827][/DOUBLEPOST]

Utility and vanity is fine but... I'm not sure if its solves shops problem in any degree. First of all, the problem of player shops is that there's overwhelming and utterly disabling competition with Trade Guild shops. For any player-run shop who might want to get their prices higher to earn profit, theres hundreds of TG shops selling stuff for a prime cost. To make player shops any good in a frame of proposed ideas, they first need to become a definite unit of in-game trade, otherwise everything said prior is futile.

- TG must be really rare. Like, maximum one shop per system. The further you go from Galaxy center, the less likely it should be that there's even one. This ties to the general standing overpopulation with stations. Average amount of space junk floating around in every system of Starmade world is astonishing and ridiculously overshot even for a superdeveloped area.

- TG shops must be discovered. All stations should be concealed, and information about their presence must be local, just as any other information, and not shared among players by default. Players has to use Scanners to detect stations and visit them to determine what kind of stations have been picked up.

- TG stock must be very scarce. Each shop should ever have only the random half of possible items and the maximum amount of those items should be based on item's prime value. Standard Trade Stations must either being completely replaced with security/military installations without a shop in them, or must possess almost non-existent stockpile of goods and provide no profit for selling most of those goods to them.

- A good addition to the shop system would be a Trade Requests. Player would be able to place a trade request for a given type and amount of an item, and server would periodically search for these items sold in player shops and provide the information to the requester if such are present in some config-determined range.

If these points are taken care of, then perhaps we can speak about utility/vanity aspects, which would be intergrated into shop system and give us more control of NPC-driven shops as well.

most of that doesn't work, because the most servers have a spawn shop that restocks every 15 minutes or so.
the way i want to make profit from it is: buy ores for a better price that makes costumers come, and also we can hold more then, so the costumer doesn't need to hitch hike from shop to shop. and then i'd manufacture these ores into shields and other stuff that we need or that we can sell with profit. this makes a good way for both miners that sell ores and factions that are too lazy to mine.
i bet there is some gap where you can buy ores and sell what you made from it for profit.

 

[DivineEvil]

most of that doesn't work, because the most servers have a spawn shop that restocks every 15 minutes or so.

Refusing to restock shops won't solve anything - new players would still be able to find shops everywhere to get stuff that is sold-out in a spawn shop. Other players are buying spawn shops out because they're just lazy to find shop as its easier to get to spawn and buy all they want. They use other shops solely as money farms.

the way i want to make profit from it is: buy ores for a better price that makes costumers come, and also we can hold more then, so the costumer doesn't need to hitch hike from shop to shop. and then i'd manufacture these ores into shields and other stuff that we need or that we can sell with profit. this makes a good way for both miners that sell ores and factions that are too lazy to mine.
i bet there is some gap where you can buy ores and sell what you made from it for profit.

- It ties to the availability of factories and ease at which one can make one. In general, the main issue is ugly crafting recipes we've stuck with. - - I've never in over a year have stumbled upon a miner, who would sell anywhere near the 50k ores to the limit we have now. To be serious, I had several miners working for my faction, and their combined effort never filled up my shop to the max, even with demand-based value being set, and every single player, who asked for a shop, was in fact always looking for another trash can to dump rocks and lava into and earn some money at my expense.
- There's such a gap, it's called "i'm a noob and I need money for my station, so I mine some ore and sell it". Other than that, it is too easy to establish a functional factory to give a process of refining and manufacturing to give any additional value to the products. Since vast majority of available ores are used to produce few specific goods, their price is always tied to the value of these goods.
- Costumers are people who make costumes. People seeking a trade or service are CUSTOMERS.

 

[kiraen]

I've liked all these suggestions so far. But here are my personal comments.

• Shop icons - this can be a simple colored dot added to the edge of the station icon. This allows for expanding the icons to include Factories, Shipyards, and anything else the devs add.
• Connected Storage/Factories - This seems like the easiest way to implement stockpiling and automated factories. There are already plans for a Cargo update that will be making some changes and what I think they have planned will make this almost necessary. I imagine it will also be tied in to Shipyards somehow.
  
• Spawnable Shops - I don't see the need, but I also can't think of a reason why not. As long as it is balanced to avoid the previously mentioned spam shops, go for it. But I think they would have to be fairly expensive in Faction Points, not credits. It might also need another blueprint category. Or are we talking about a predefined satellite structure?
  
• Limiting Stock Displays - I like this, but if the shop sells it, it should be displayed whether it's out-of-stock or not. That way people know they can check back later. But if I'm not buying or selling, it doesn't need to be on the list.

My additions

• Shop Ranges - I don't like the range of shops, it makes no sense to me that people can transfer goods to and from my shop without any actual physical connection. I don't think it should adjust automatically to the size of the base. I'll settle for a config option, but I would rather be able to customize it per base. (gravity too, off topic)
• Multiple (Faction) Shops - I would like to have either different shops for different faction settings, or be able to adjust prices and access based on faction settings. Allies can buy shields and weapons, friendlies can buy weapons at a slightly higher price, neutrals get an even higher price for weapons and they can't buy advanced armor, enemies can only buy dirt at unreasonable prices.

 

[HolyCookie]

Refusing to restock shops won't solve anything - new players would still be able to find shops everywhere to get stuff that is sold-out in a spawn shop. Other players are buying spawn shops out because they're just lazy to find shop as its easier to get to spawn and buy all they want. They use other shops solely as money farms.

- It ties to the availability of factories and ease at which one can make one. In general, the main issue is ugly crafting recipes we've stuck with. - - I've never in over a year have stumbled upon a miner, who would sell anywhere near the 50k ores to the limit we have now. To be serious, I had several miners working for my faction, and their combined effort never filled up my shop to the max, even with demand-based value being set, and every single player, who asked for a shop, was in fact always looking for another trash can to dump rocks and lava into and earn some money at my expense.
- There's such a gap, it's called "i'm a noob and I need money for my station, so I mine some ore and sell it". Other than that, it is too easy to establish a functional factory to give a process of refining and manufacturing to give any additional value to the products. Since vast majority of available ores are used to produce few specific goods, their price is always tied to the value of these goods.
- Costumers are people who make costumes. People seeking a trade or service are CUSTOMERS.

ever heard of dyslexia? or English is not my native language.
bruh

that first part: why do you copy what i already sai.

the second:
I've been mining very much 2 months ago, i had 200k ores/shards per kind.
i had to go from shop to shop to fully stock it. and no i wasn't noob, i was going for richest.
I've once sold 500k rammet to some guy.

enemies can only buy dirt at unreasonable prices.

lol xD

 

[DivineEvil]

ever heard of dyslexia? or English is not my native language.
bruh

If you'd had dyslexia, you would no need to put up the second point. You would simply said, that you have dyslexia.
English is not my native language either. I'm Russian.
It is interesing how it was my last point, and now it's your first.

that first part: why do you copy what i already sai.

To bring up the idea, that you're mixing up causes and effects. If principles I've brought up would work, there would be no need to have an "infinite" spawn shop, since players would manage their own shops gladly.

I've been mining very much 2 months ago, i had 200k ores/shards per kind.
i had to go from shop to shop to fully stock it. and no i wasn't noob, i was going for richest.
I've once sold 500k rammet to some guy.

I'm mining a lot right now, but I get rich by selling products, not ores. Again, selling ores is a way to earn quick cash to start-up. It's far more efficient to sell variable goods to fill up these same 50k. Shops need an ability to set a limit for particular items at most, but increasing hard cap above 50k is nothing but a pathway for people to sell more stuff, that you dont need at all on in large amounts. There's nothing wrong about selling 500k ores, but it is wrong to sell these amounts at shop, as you can just take away all the credits from it, which will make it useless for selling anything else until redeposited.