Supplying agreement

    I've been playing the game for a few mounts and I find the concept great but lacking player interaction. Maybe I mist the idea of the offer hyperlink, but on way would be to contract supplying agreement with other players.


    If one player is constantly producing a product, instead of sending the lot to the market once a while, he could post an offer stipulating the quantity, the quality, the frequency of delivery, starting and ending date of agreement.


    On the other hand, if one player is desperately in need of a product, he could post a request for the same conditions mentioned above.


    Once a player finds an offer or request that satisfies his needs, he send an invitation to the other player and negotiations can start. They negotiate on price and penalties if the above terms and conditions are not respected during the contract validity.


    Of course, there would have to be an automatic function that allows the offering party to send the items to the requester. Once the products are received, the cash amount would be transferred to the offering party. If for some reasons the quantities or qualities of the products are not respected, than the offering player would be penalised according to the negotiated terms and conditions.


    I think it would be a nice addition to the game.


    Phantoman

    I'm not sure whether you're not aware that those things already exist, or whether you're looking for a more direct automated system of going about it.


    As it stands, to make such arrangements, we either:
    * contact a player that we notice is a frequent seller/buyer at the right price on the market through an in-game message to see if they're interested
    * arrange it on the chat
    * post in the appropriate sections here on the forum to see if anyone's interested


    We sell directly to the individual company in the same way that we send products to the market, but we change the field that normally says "market" to that company's name. It shows up in their "Offers" screen, where they can choose to accept or decline the shipment.


    Or are you talking about improving upon that system?

    I think he means that he would like to be able to put up a standing contract. Like, have some kind of classified ad section and be able to post the item your requesting, the price your paying for it, and the amount of that item, and if possible have it be automated, so where he can specify how many month the contract will last and the products are automatically sent to him every month.



    I like the idea all the way up to the automated every month thing. You can guarantee that the person will produce the same amount of product every month, due to upgrades, etc. I think be able to specify your product and price as an order to be filled, might be helpful, but I also think it may hurt the supply and demand of the market and game.

    Bingo Leguvan!!!


    The idea would be to have an automated contract agreement between two parties. It differs from the actual offer system by periodically and automatically delivering the products to the requester on a monthly basis. This method would secure the requester’s supplies with desired quantities and qualities and would secure the offering player a steady income.


    There are many advantages to this supplying agreement. One is to concentrate a player’s industries on its core business (raw goods, semi-finish products or end products) depending on its research level instead of having to sustain the entire chain of production from raw goods to end products (more building for final production = more money). It would help to stabilise the market price. The actual market would become a spot market for bulk exchange only due to over production. I think the spot market would still be in demand because player suffering production lose during building upgrade could buy products in order to keep up with own demand.


    I think it would be a great addition

    I would think that having a contract system that had the contracts last over a period of WUs would put some companies out of business. If two companies come together on a good contract that just eliminates the chance for another company to counter bid. Effectively there would be a string effect where a bunch of companies are connected, not needing outside products and new companies or ones that just get caught outside the loop have no way to bring in enough income to keep the company afloat.


    If that made sense to more than just me....

    Indeed, strings of companies would be connected together and as long as everyone keeps their share of the bargain, things should go smoothly. It would be interesting to see what would happen in case of delivery problems. Although chances are very slim, some companies could go bankrupt. These companies in difficulties could rely on the spot market to temporarily obtain what ever products they need in order to reorganize their chain of purchase. That would bring more interaction if not alliances between players. Pushing idea further, a reliability score could be established based on contract fulfillment. This score could indicate the requesting player if the offering player is serious or a joke. The contract would rely on trust just like in the capitalism world we live in…


    Before you set up an industry scheme in order to offer a product on a contact bases, a detailed study of the market offer is necessary. For instance, I know now that plastic or rubber is rare commodities and I’m sure some players would be willing to have a secure delivery. This is the perfect situation for a contract agreement.


    I don’t really know what else to say to support the idea, but I believe the developers should look over the possibilities for such a contract system. If they need my advice or assistance, I would be more than happy to help. Voilà…


    Phantoman

    I remember this being discussed some time ago (probably a long time ago :P). One of the reasons this was not implement is that players think the automatic feature would save them too much work. With the manual system, it is much more player interaction, with players required to log onto the game at a consistent pace and send the goods to the other player.


    Right now, the game sees contracts / private offers between players about the same as selling on the market. Selling on market requires manual control, ant therefore, private trades between players should as well.
    The implication is that selling in shops is encourage because that is pretty much the steady automatic selling method in IT.

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