Trade Overhaul

[baronjutter]

Love the game and love a lot of the quality of life features that are being added.  A raid or seige used to be a nightmare of dealing with so many junk items, but now I can set up standing orders at my smelter or crematorium to burn/smelt garbage and types of items I don't need.

I also love that items have quality/hp now, it adds a new dynamic to the game and I really hope crafting is further developed so that we can produce more items our selves or repair existing items.

But what is continuing to be a chore and not feel "right" is trade.  The whole dynamic with the orbital beacon and a vast outdoor field of items feels like a kludge.  This is what I would propose:
Orbital trade beacon becomes the actual destination and source of traded goods, it has no range, colonists generate hauling jobs to move traded items to and from it.  The trade interface shows ALL items in your colony available to sell (or limited by a user defined range).  So if you want to sell 5 pairs of pants to a trader it doesn't matter where the pants are, you sell them and it generates a hauling job to the trade beacon.  You don't get any money right away, but as your colonists haul those pants to the beacon, silver is deposited around the beacon. 

OR

Just go with the DF system.  Have the trade beacon function like a DF marketplace.  Click on the market place and get a UI similar to the trade screen which lets you order things hauled to it, which you can then sell to trade ships.

It would also be nice to be able to set up "standing orders" for your trade beacon.  Instead of telling your smelter to smelt every club or every weapon under 50% HP, have a standing order to sell them.  The first trader that comes along is auto-sold the items that match the criteria.  You could even set up buy orders the same way.  "Buy metal up to 500" or "sell potatoes over 5000" but of course with the downside being that you might not be getting the best deal.  A little bit like an anno game.

I supposed you could replicate the latter system already in the game by making custom stockpiles, but it's a huge UI pain in the butt to set up a custom stock pile every time a trade comes, then cancel it afterwards to put all your items away.

Also, now that items are more important I think we could use some better storage options.  Something like a shelf or crates.  The weapon rack is a good idea but it's no more efficient than a stockpile, the benifit of the shelf should be storage of far more items than 1-per-tile.  For instance make it so a weapon rack can store 6 weapons.  Or just make a "shelf" building that functions as a 3x capacity storage zone.

[MrWiggles]

Reconfiguring how items rest on the ground, is probably no small feet. DF has to constantly tinker with stacking issues. Its why coins are a no no, as the dorfs brains just can't handle them very well.

[amul]

Trade beacons now operate indoors, but purchased items will still be delivered outdoors somewhere nearby. For best better results, place your first beacon at least partially outdoors and then add more trade beacons wherever you would store things anyway

[baronjutter]

Trade beacons now operate indoors, but purchased items will still be delivered outdoors somewhere nearby. For best better results, place your first beacon at least partially outdoors and then add more trade beacons wherever you would store things anyway

Woah, well that's an interesting bit of news!  Thanks!

[Ketzal]

Is that intentional or a bug?

[amul]

Intentional. I saw it mentioned in the change log. Took me about six months of game time to adjust my thinking. Couple that with the new deterioration rates (which I apparently MISSED in the change log) and most of my battle spoils had turned to rags before I caught on.

[Ketzal]

Good to know.  In my current world I didn't want to use the indoor beacon since I thought it was a bug.