Re: [htsserver-devel] finally start implementing the trading engine

[Uwe H. <uh...@bi...>]

On Thu, Jan 20, 2000 at 01:15:29AM +0100, Sven M. Hallberg wrote:
> > 
> > Maybe we should even store all this data in plain arrays, as the
> > *number* of goods won't change dynamically during the game,
> > only the *contents* of the array will change.
> 
> What data are we talking about here actually?

The array of goods. Members like 'amount' or similar, will change during
the game, but the number of goods won't.

So we could say:

good_t good[20];

This '20' won't change during the game, I think.

goods[19].amount (for example) *will* change.

 
> > The details of calculating the price based on demand, supply and maybe
> > some other factors, is something we need to put lots of thought into,
> > because this is what is the most important thing in a trading-game, I
> > guess :-)
> > I'm currently reading some texts about economy, price, value, markets
> > etc. to get a feeling for this topic. I hope I can use some of that
> > stuff in htsserver...
> 
> What I was thinking about was not having a set price for a given good in a
> given town but to generalize the entire thing through 'offers'. Because in
> reality nobody sells anything to a town.

Yes.

But there should be some AI-traders who will *always* accept your goods,
because else, it can easily happen that you're waiting for hours for
someone to buy your goods, and can't buy new ones, because you need the
profit from these goods noone wants to buy...


> > We should do both. Have a base economy (rather statical, stays roughly
> > the same over longer periods of time, normally) and AI-controlled
> > traders, who behave quite like human players:
> >  * they drive around
> >  * buy/sell stuff
> >  etc.
> 
> I think we could really completely substitute the 'base economy' with AI
> traders.

Not really. AI are good and will certainly be implemented, but having a
certain population with needs for goods makes the whole economy more
realistic I think.

> > Separated from the server? Guess not.
> > I don't really want to have to fork() 30-100 new processes which act as
> > AI-traders and probably even connect via sockets and use htsprotocol...
> > 
> > I think these AI-traders should remain in the server.
> 
> That's right. But I pretty much like the idea of really "populating" the
> world.

Yes.

 
> > > 	long supply;		/* similarly to the above, somehow resembles
> > > 				 * how much supply of this good the market
> > > 				 * seems to be holding currently. */
> > 
> > This belongs in the server. The client doesn't know about supply/demand.
> > It only sees the price of a good, not how much demand there is for it.
> 
> I thought of this as the client's prediction of supply/demand based on the
> movements he's seeing on the market.

OK. That belongs in the client of course.


> > Buying and/or hiring depots/warehouses should definately be possible.
> 
> I think it would be practical to not explicitly hire depots. I'd do it like
> this:
> 
> If you receive goods, pick a place to put them. Dialog like this:
> 
> Received 15 units of wheat. Store where?
> - Freighter "Ilse"
> - Freighter "Carmen"
> - Local Depot
> 
> If you choose depot, just bill the player a certain amount (town specific) of
> money every so-long. But then, it would be nice to be able to really buy
> storage for a lump sum if you want to. We might handle that case this way:
> 
> Remember how much storage space a player owns in a specific town. Let him
> buy/sell storage at some price. Let him store stuff there at no cost. If he
> stores more units in "Local Depot" space than he owns, charge him a fee for
> every unit exceeding his own capacity.
> 
> Sound good?

Yes.

Maybe we should add a restriction on how much depot space a trader
can hire (?) Maybe depending on the wealth of the player (the richer, the
more people trust in him and the more storage they offer)...


> We should put together a concept draft about all this in the near future...

Yep.


Uwe.
-- 
Uwe Hermann <uh...@bi...>
http://www.bingo-ev.de/~uh1763/index.html
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:wq