Awrite, so stream of thought about trade gayme design:
core principle in such a trading puzzle (excluding sim and larp stuff) should be some kind of non linearity
ideally interacting iwth an optimization problem
rock paper scissors in space and time
concept puzzles we have:
BUY
TRANSPORT
SELL
lets exclude from the design the sell and transport side, imagine a game where you only buy shit
the goal is to buy is much shit for as low price as possible and stuff it into a limited cargo
the simplest form on the buy side would be the amount and price of a good
eg in endless sky/escape velocity the
supply is unlimited,
price flat, max
cargo fixed by count
now we introduce non-lin optimization:
SUPPLY is hard limited by local production/import/factionrelation?, can be less than your hold (eg partrician2 has this, starsector has production)
supply can be higher if buying from other traders or black market, at nonlin price jumps and the amount available is not predictable
supply is not unter player control (yet) but production in port would behave nonlin, eg double production -> x4 supply
the optimization on player part is deciding where to dock knowing the production sources for diff goods, eg:
port1
prodA=3
prodB=7
port2
prodA=6
prodB=4
if production was linear you would know that both generate ~10 suppy and pick the one where more expensive goods are available
but if its nonlin, you dont know, you can approximate
a ship now has a
CARGOHODL with a fixed volume but also max mass (eg approaching infinity has this kinda...)
if you buy goods, you have to optimize for count (or rather profit per unit) not overall money paid
and decide how to maximize count, ie by many low volume goods, which are medium mass or low mass but high volume
the max count limits are from the ship cargohold parameters (endless sky has mass and "volume" for ship components but not trade)
its even possible to introduce some kind of inventory tetris for different cargohold layouts, but when buying possibly 1000s units its not "realistic"
i guess one could argue that goods come in standard containers and those could be tetris'ed into layout, its a kinda lame puzzle though... it would differentiate ships even more though
PRICE depends on supply, and amount of units bought, and amount of money spent
spending 10 credits gives a 1% lower price, spending 100 credits gives 2.314%, in this vein
but spending 100 credits for 10 iron gives 2.314% +0.1% from 10 iron while spending the same 100 credits for 77 syringes gives 2.314% +1% becaues of the higher count of units
making this discount into an optimization problem would require absurd rebates thouhg... so i dunno
i have not mentioned goods that are triggering sensors, are illegal, slow you down, limit supplies and range, etc
because we are desiging exclusively on the BUY side now
also not mentioned are character abilities or similar that would modify eg supply, eg faction relation could give more supply or better price but at the cost of the other faction
what i think would be the most gameplay irl time spend on is cargohold stuffing with optimization towards count vs volume vs mass
the inventory tetris would need to be really tightly designed
how to makes this more fun without being repetitive... the ship always keeps its shape... and the cargocontainers should be realistically the same form...