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RimWorld => Ideas => Topic started by: Serenity on September 02, 2016, 05:33:05 AM

Title: Control over trade caravan position
Post by: Serenity on September 02, 2016, 05:33:05 AM
Why do trade caravans love to park themselves right on my defense line? They stay for a few days and a couple of times where caught in a raid. While they can slow down an attacker, they are likely to take casualties. It would be nice to designate a "trader spot" or something like that where they stay. It could have a certain radius and be outside so there is enough space. Visitors move inside the colony so I don't see why traders can't do the same.
Title: Re: Control over trade caravan position
Post by: nccvoyager on September 03, 2016, 07:57:14 PM
Running with your suggestion here, if you don't mind.

  A "trading station" object.  Build it for a certain amount of resources, you place it in a room.
  That room then takes the name of "trading depot" and influences trades.
  If the room is beautiful, clean, well lit, and a comfortable temperature, you can get up to 5% better trade prices.
  A neutral room would convey no bonuses or penalties.
  Otherwise, if there is nothing but blood, vomit, rubble, rough stone floors, rock chunks, rotting corpses, and mechanoid bodies lining the room, it's dark, and freezing/scorching temperature, you could get up to 10% worse trade prices.

  This would allow you to control where traders spend time, and would also allow you to work on something to increase your trade profitability a bit.
Title: Re: Control over trade caravan position
Post by: SpaceDorf on September 04, 2016, 02:38:10 PM
Yep, thats something we need.
Rooms are in the game, room condition recognition is in the game, all we need is a
spot to place where the trader of the group goes to.

You then could build a whole guest complex around the spot, give beds a fourth option for guests
and we made poor Orions Hospitality mod useless.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=11444.0 (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=11444.0)

Also while looking up who made hospitality I found that the "Modder-Fullfill-Wishes-Foundation " made this one : Trading Spot
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25579.0 (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25579.0)

But it should be in vanilla anyway .. I could not imagine DF without the Trade Depot Fortress





Title: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: greggbert on October 18, 2016, 04:44:05 PM
Problem:  Traders idle in dangerous/inconvenient places, get killed by turrets, invaders, mad animals, and friendly fire.  There's no good reason for it, and you can exploit it to get free stuff and all your animals back.

Solution:  Allow building of a trading spot, similar to marriage spot or party spot.  Traders AND VISITORS will wander to the spot and idle there until they're ready to leave.  Ideally you could put tables and beds there and beer/food with nice art work too and they don't have to sleep in toxic rain or eat in a pool of blood.  Perhaps a good experience (saw beauty, ate fine meal, slept in comfortable bed) would improve your faction relations so you could get back into the good graces of angry factions.

Also would be nice if traders can use doors.  Not sure if they can now.  But trading spot more of a priority.
Title: Re: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: ArguedPiano on October 18, 2016, 05:40:04 PM
There is a mod by theubie that does just this:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25579.0
Title: Re: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: Serenity on October 18, 2016, 05:50:18 PM
And the Hospitality mod does some of that stuff for visitors. You can build nice rooms for them, improve your relations (and worsen them) and some other stuff.
Title: Re: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: Alenerel on October 18, 2016, 08:31:25 PM
I would prefer to have it in vanilla.
Title: Re: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: Serenity on October 18, 2016, 08:39:46 PM
The Trading Spot mod is very nice, but also easily abused. You could kill caravans and then buy back good will from the factions. And while that's also possible now given that they usually stay right on your defense line, that's probably why you won't see such a feature in vanilla.
Title: Re: Trading Spot - Place where traders will stop.
Post by: Thane on October 18, 2016, 09:09:39 PM
Just increase the penalty if they die at the trading spot.

-45 relation, "Your Hotel is a House of Horrors! The Blue Shamans are Appalled!"
Title: Trading Spot
Post by: zeidrich on January 01, 2017, 06:16:42 PM
You can make a party spot.  You can make a marriage spot.  But when traders come, they just stand wherever.

This is annoying because when you trade, they drop their things in the rain where they lose condition until you can haul them away, but they seem to avoid my roofed areas.

Could we have a trade spot, where traders will hang around and we can put a roof over?
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: Thirite on January 01, 2017, 06:22:23 PM
There's a mod for exactly that somewhere on the forum but it really ought to be part of the base game.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 01, 2017, 06:24:37 PM
Discussions over that mod demonstrate well why you'll probably never see it in the game; It's super easy to exploit. The modder recognizes it as well, but he's said that it's not his job to try to make the mod harder/impossible to abuse; If you add a mod and use it to easily ambush settlers, then that's on you.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: deslona on January 01, 2017, 06:26:23 PM
There is a mod that does this. But I agree. It should be in the core game. I hate having my pawns load the caravan or going outside the base to trade/collect trade items.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25579.msg259985#msg259985

As for abuse, if several caravans die, make it so no more will come (No we don't want to go to your colony, it isn't safe).
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: Jstank on January 02, 2017, 10:43:08 PM
Your right that a trading spot can be exploited, but a caravan launch spot needs to be a thing because there is no way to control where your caravan is loaded up for the journey.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 02, 2017, 11:30:48 PM
There's a caravan spot mod, too. I only have a Steam link, and a search on the boards here doesn't seem to find it. I haven't had to use it but maybe once, since I haven't done many caravans since I tamed muffalo, but it seems to work alright.

CaravanSpot by xhatti (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=826824646)
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: faltonico on January 03, 2017, 12:11:46 PM
I can't really complain (yet) because the game is not released (yet), but a lot of people from this community (me included) is depending on mods to fix a lot of bs this game still has, but yet again, i can't complain until the game is released, those matters can be fixed in due time, but I do hope that Tynan listens to the people that do complain (I don't believe that suggestions can be effective, otherwise most of the mods i use would be in the base game already).
I use the trading spot to safeguard my guest from raids and other stuff, but i do know it can be exploited, for instance, i gassed 3 caravans just for the lols xD

The way to fix the exploitability on the trading spot is to make the plopping of said spot to fulfill certain conditions. for instance:
- There should be no treats in a certain radius (turrets, traps, ieds, wild animals etc.) from the spot.
- The location, if enclosed, should have an unblocked exit not ridden with traps and It has to be vented outside.
- Temperature on the spot has to be comfortable for all of the pawns/animals of the caravan.
- There has to be no drugs lying around the spot
- The moment any of those conditions fails to be fulfilled:
*with a caravan already on the spot: They would instantly become aggressive and will try to sap its way out of the map.
*With no caravans on the map: The trading spot will disappear.
- If you can't have a suitable spot to locate said spot, the caravan will fall back to default behavior.
- And many others that i can't really predict -_-'

I can't imagine the work it would take to implement all of that, and it would probably need a lot of conditions more. So, just use the current trading spot mod and solemnly swear to the Rimgods that you wont cheat it.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 02:34:10 PM
Quote from: faltonico on January 03, 2017, 12:11:46 PMSo, just use the current trading spot mod and solemnly swear to the Rimgods that you wont cheat it.

Aaand this neatly sums up why the feature will not likely make an appearance in Vanilla; In Vanilla, there's this idea that the game should be balanced, and if you *can* take advantage of how the game works, then that's fair. With modding, you're basically choosing the game you want to play, so if you put in a feature that makes the game easier, then that's on you if you use it in that fashion.

Individual modders may choose, of course, to try to make their mod "balanced" or harder to exploit, but that's an individual choice, and simple mods like Caravan Spot and Trading Spot often don't even bother.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: faltonico on January 03, 2017, 03:22:21 PM
Quote from: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 02:34:10 PM
Quote from: faltonico on January 03, 2017, 12:11:46 PMSo, just use the current trading spot mod and solemnly swear to the Rimgods that you wont cheat it.

Aaand this neatly sums up why the feature will not likely make an appearance in Vanilla; In Vanilla, there's this idea that the game should be balanced, and if you *can* take advantage of how the game works, then that's fair. With modding, you're basically choosing the game you want to play, so if you put in a feature that makes the game easier, then that's on you if you use it in that fashion.

Individual modders may choose, of course, to try to make their mod "balanced" or harder to exploit, but that's an individual choice, and simple mods like Caravan Spot and Trading Spot often don't even bother.
You decided to ignore the rest of the post.
Ok.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 04:19:01 PM
Ok but doesn't assaulting a friendly caravan lead to negative goodwill and eventually hatred from other settlements? Doesn't that just lead to more raids? Is that not inherently a counter to "don't exploit this" because all you're really doing is shooting yourself in the foot?
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 04:21:32 PM
Nope!

It turns out you pretty much always get enough loot to buy your relationship back up via the Comms Console.

Note: I've seen lots of discussion about this 'tactic' but I've never done it myself; I know that there was a recent change that should make this tactic somewhat less attractive, but it didn't make it seem like it was good enough to prevent it; Additionally, if you arrange an "accident", it doesn't cause bad relations with their faction at all.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 04:32:05 PM
Quote from: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 04:21:32 PM
Nope!

It turns out you pretty much always get enough loot to buy your relationship back up via the Comms Console.

Note: I've seen lots of discussion about this 'tactic' but I've never done it myself; I know that there was a recent change that should make this tactic somewhat less attractive, but it didn't make it seem like it was good enough to prevent it; Additionally, if you arrange an "accident", it doesn't cause bad relations with their faction at all.

Well then before something like this is added to the base game, this type of exploit would definitely need to be addressed.

Perhaps the trade spot should be a single tile that invites only the caravan representative (the one you interact with) into the Home Zone, while the rest of the caravan members/animals remain outside. This prevents ambushing the entire caravan, and if something should happen to the Caravan Rep then the caravan would begin it's assault on your colony from outside

I also think that once goods are purchased, the Caravan Rep should return to the caravan and physically haul the goods to the trade spot, and then it would be the responsibility of the colony to haul purchased items to their respective stockpiles, and to haul silver/sold items to the trade spot for the Caravan Rep to haul back to the caravan. It might take some time if you've purchased a lot of items, but it would be worth it to prevent exploits. The whole instant dropping/vanishing of potentially hundreds of items never quite sat well with me.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 04:41:52 PM
Quote from: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 04:32:05 PMThe whole instant dropping/vanishing of potentially hundreds of items never quite sat well with me.

Wait, what?

Unless I'm not understanding what you're talking about, you already have to haul all of the purchased items/silver back to your stockpiles. This is the primary utility of the Trader Spot mod for me; I've never had to deal with traders congregating in killboxes, because I don't make killboxes. I just hate having to haul everything from whatever stupid place the game decided to make the traders congregate back to my stockpiles, especially when the items I purchased are perishable. I use Trader Spot to tell them to congregate near my roofed stockpile and front door, so I can more easily haul my purchases back.

Plus, it sort of helps keep them out of my crops and food; Not entirely though, as they sometimes take some really, really cockamamie routes to my trade spot, like going around to my back door and tracking through my whole base to the Trader Spot in the front.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: Sirportalez on January 03, 2017, 10:27:22 PM
They just shouldnt drop their stuff, problem solved. (Lore: It got destroyed while fighting.)
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 10:29:06 PM
Quote from: DariusWolfe on January 03, 2017, 04:41:52 PM
Quote from: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 04:32:05 PMThe whole instant dropping/vanishing of potentially hundreds of items never quite sat well with me.

Wait, what?

Unless I'm not understanding what you're talking about, you already have to haul all of the purchased items/silver back to your stockpiles. This is the primary utility of the Trader Spot mod for me; I've never had to deal with traders congregating in killboxes, because I don't make killboxes. I just hate having to haul everything from whatever stupid place the game decided to make the traders congregate back to my stockpiles, especially when the items I purchased are perishable. I use Trader Spot to tell them to congregate near my roofed stockpile and front door, so I can more easily haul my purchases back.

Plus, it sort of helps keep them out of my crops and food; Not entirely though, as they sometimes take some really, really cockamamie routes to my trade spot, like going around to my back door and tracking through my whole base to the Trader Spot in the front.

When you trade with anyone, the items and silver you are selling disappear immediately. That's the part that I was referring to when I said it didn't sit well with me.

With a trading spot, both parties should have to haul their respected items to the trade spot and then exchange them. Since the trade spot will likely be close to a player stockpile (or at centrally located at the very least) the colonists won't have to travel far, but the caravan rep will have to travel back to the caravan to grab their share of items and silver to haul into the colony. Effectively the trade spot is a neutral ground for both parties to bring their items, rather than instantly teleporting player items away and dropping caravan items outside of town.

I suppose you could just dump the spot inside of your stockpile but that seems kinda clumsy to just let a caravan rep wander in your warehouse.

Basically my thoughts for fixing the exploit are to slow the process down and blend the current vanilla caravan mechanics with the concept of a trade spot at the same time, the bulk of the caravan stays outside to prevent abuse, but the one trader you interact with (the one with the question mark) comes into the colony and waits for you at the trading spot. So if a player does try to exploit the spot, at best they will get 1 free kill.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: Jstank on January 03, 2017, 11:22:00 PM
Why not have the caravan, after you make the trade physically walk to your various stockpiles and drop off the stuff they owe you!
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: schizmo on January 04, 2017, 04:10:08 AM
Quote from: Jstank on January 03, 2017, 11:22:00 PM
Why not have the caravan, after you make the trade physically walk to your various stockpiles and drop off the stuff they owe you!

Cuz that's weird and invasive, it doesn't make sense to allow complete strangers to rummage around in your things. It's bad enough that they sometimes come into your kitchen and eat your food.

Also takes all responsibility off the player, the player should at least have to take SOME responsibility when trading. The idea is to enhance the current mechanic not completely flip it.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: A Friend on January 04, 2017, 04:15:16 AM
The thing is that you'll only be able to pull this off so many times that you'll end up not having anyone visiting to trade anymore.

I say add it in.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: DariusWolfe on January 04, 2017, 12:09:23 PM
A Friend: See above, my comments about the Comm Console exploit. It makes this cheat effectively unlimited, and would need to be dealt with before any of this becomes feasible in Vanilla.

schizmo: I see what you mean, now. It'd be kind of a pain in the ass, but I think it would go a bit toward mitigating the exploitability of the Trader Spot. I think it'd be kind of a bitch to code all of that in tho', so even if Tynan were to take this suggestion, I think it'd be a while before we see it.
Title: Re: Trading Spot
Post by: Serenity on January 04, 2017, 12:39:24 PM
Quote from: schizmo on January 03, 2017, 04:32:05 PM
Perhaps the trade spot should be a single tile that invites only the caravan representative (the one you interact with) into the Home Zone
The issue for me isn't just about needing to walk to the caravan and hauling the stuff in. It's also about the caravans always parking themselves right on your defenses and getting caught in the crossfire when an attack happens
Title: Issues with Visitors/Traders
Post by: Griffin on May 15, 2017, 03:56:02 AM
Hello Tynan.

First of all let me start out by saying how happy i am, that my character got included in the game. Its so much fun, to keep yourself alive, allthou i wish the stats of the character wouldnt be completly random at all times.

Anyways, one thing ive noticed while putting nearly a 1000 hours into the game, is that when traders and visitors comes from the outside to visit you, they seem to head straigth towards your base. And usually they gather around the kitchen.

For me, who am a really big OCD player, and enjoys to build symmetrical this bothers me ALOT! .. take for instance a colony thats super super tightly squizzed and not alot of room around, this means that every caravan that comes basicly either stands outside the base or rigth within one of the important doors/rooms..

couldnt it be done possible for a player to put down either a building /tradeing post/ or a /tradeing spot/ so that the AI would seek towards that spot/building? .. that way you have the chance to keep them out of harms way, say for instance when a animal decides to go mad, while you have traders around, usually your hunters start shooting, and sometimes accedently hits the caravan people.. witch is rather frustrating.. :/

It should be pretty easy to implement..

Please? :)
Title: Re: Issues with Visitors/Traders
Post by: Calahan on May 15, 2017, 04:38:08 AM
Quote from: Griffin on May 15, 2017, 03:56:02 AM
... that way you have the chance to keep them out of harms way...
Welcome to the forums Griffin ^^

I've merged your suggestion for a "trade spot" with an existing thread on this suggestion. Please can you use the search function next time (as per forum rule #9) to check if your suggestion has been made already before creating a new thread for it. (if you use the advanced search you can restrict the search to just the suggestion forum, and limit it to thread title only. Both of which should help you find existing threads on a specific suggestion).

As to the idea itself. If you check this thread you'll likely have the answer as to why this isn't in the game already. That being too easy to exploit, and due to the opposite of your above quote extract. Since not all players have "good intentions" when it comes to guests ;) And if players can direct where visitors / caravans go, then some players will "accidentally" put them in harms way and acquire themselves some free loot in the process (or are more than happy to accept the relationship consequences in return for said loot).

I'm not sure if Tynan has officially commented on this being the reason why there's no trading spot in the game, but it's probably a good educate guess as to why there isn't. If you do want this feature though then I believe there are a few mods that add it (there are various links to such mods earlier in the thread).


Edit - I've merged a few different "trade spot" suggestion threads into one. @ All - What I said above applies to everyone. Please can you use the search function to check if your suggestion has been made before creating a new thread for it, as we don't need several separate threads all making the same suggestion. Thank you.