More User-Friendly Trade System

[Ildac]

As it stands, if you want to trade something, you have to designate a stockpile by your trade beacon and set it to accept all items of the type that you want to trade.  Even if you prioritize the specific items for trade, you're still going to get colonists running off with things you'd rather just keep in your stores.

That's annoying as hell.  I propose an idea that's already been used in another game to great effect; Dwarf Fortress.

Simply give us the ability to flag specific items for trade.  Any stockpile touching a trade beacon will be designated as a "trade goods stockpile", and any goods flagged for trade will be hauled there.  This eliminates the mad rush for every single product of a certain type (I'd really just like to get rid of that club, but it's taking all of them), and allow a more organized trade.

[Kaelent]

An easier version of that is to just make any item in a stockpile appear in the trade screen. When traded the colonists haul it to the beacon and when everything is in place THEN the trade occurs. This makes hauling for trade a bit more important as the ship could leave and cuts out the loophole of a trade taking place and the items being traded away never making it to the beacon due to player intervention. No cash, no goods. Also annoying raiders tossing a Molotov and burning up all my silver.

If you REALLY wanted to complicate things then making a trade could then spawn visitors who collect the goods for you. Of course the temptation to capture them would be a bit too great. Imagine that you purchased a slave and the slave ship collectors came down to collect the silver you used as payment and get captured themselves, then sold back to the slave ship.  Sweet sweet irony.

[Ildac]

An easier version of that is to just make any item in a stockpile appear in the trade screen. When traded the colonists haul it to the beacon and when everything is in place THEN the trade occurs. This makes hauling for trade a bit more important as the ship could leave and cuts out the loophole of a trade taking place and the items being traded away never making it to the beacon due to player intervention. No cash, no goods. Also annoying raiders tossing a Molotov and burning up all my silver.

If you REALLY wanted to complicate things then making a trade could then spawn visitors who collect the goods for you. Of course the temptation to capture them would be a bit too great. Imagine that you purchased a slave and the slave ship collectors came down to collect the silver you used as payment and get captured themselves, then sold back to the slave ship.  Sweet sweet irony.

I believe in beauty in simplicity when it comes to things like this.  Dwarf Fortress does it right.  Rimworld should emulate their method, because it is so much more user-friendly.

[Sartain]

Imagine that you purchased a slave and the slave ship collectors came down to collect the silver you used as payment and get captured themselves, then sold back to the slave ship.  Sweet sweet irony the remaining slavers nuke you from orbit with their high-powered Glitterworld space weaponry

[Bargeral]

Agree it needs improvement. Not sure I want to ditch the zones for per item flags. I think the zone structure is the heart of the game.

Maybe:

Drop Beacon:
Creates a zone for traders to deliver goods to. First Beacon created will accept any goods. Players may create additional beacons and set priority and type as with other zones and traders will drop purchase in the correct area. If the correct area is full trader will drop in other drop zones. If all drop beacon zones are full traders may drop outside near the zone, or at random points on the map or even the wrong colony with a dialog message telling the player. (Hey, don't blame us. We delivered! Thanks for the goods!) The Drop Beacon will have a unique ground tile with landing lights etc.

Auto Beacon:
Creates a zone for automatic sale of goods at default prices. Any items in this zone will be bought by traders that are not otherwise contacted at the standard base price in silver. If the trader is contacted any pending sales can be backed out and the items sold or not as usual. Social standing does not effect items in the Auto Beacon zone. Trade ships may not buy all goods and will still be effected by the limited intersted in certain items just as in the trade dialog. The trade beacon area will have a unique ground tile similar to the Drop Beacon area. Once the trade ship leaves the area any Auto Beacon sales that were pending are final.

Beacon Beacon:
Items in this area are assumed to be for sale and will show up on the top section of the trade screen. This allows the player to see items ready to go.

Vault:
A special zone that only accepts Gold and Silver and prevents visitors from picking up. (Note, introduce visitor stealing gold and silver.) All gold and silver in the vault is available for sale, but new gold and silver must be manually moved there.

Trade dialog:
Will have an area at the top for items that have been placed in Beacon Beacon zones.
Will have an area below for all items in inventory. Regardless of zone.
Will have Plus and Minus buttons for each item (+5, +25 etc)
Will have Plus and Minus ALL for each item.
Area for Auto Beacon sales that are pending at the very top when applicable.

[Ildac]

My entire problem with the trade system is that you cannot specify which items you want to trade without either dragging all your crap out to the beacon or having an open-air stockpile.  The above suggestion does nothing to remedy that.

[Bargeral]

Part of my suggestion is to have the entire inventory show up on the trade dialog. (2nd bullet point under trade dialog.) So you'd be able to trade anything anywhere. The above would let you setup some automatic trades without needing to run someone back to the radio. You'd have to drag stock around for that. And if you wanted to prioritize so you didn't sell all you guns but didn't have to think about it you could drag the excess to a beacon and leave the main stock in you storage. Both would show up, but separately so you can decide.