(Edited to show colours against new forum background)
Thinking about the "I don't want to sell to someone on the other side of the map" problem...
How not to do it: If we had just one variable,
Max distance, when we set up offers, then it serves a purpose, but it doesn't really reflect good business. We don't want to completely filter out deals that might stand a chance of going ahead.
A better design would be a sliding scale that compensates the person dedicating the caravans for the trade. I propose a simple yet versatile formulation of two variables in addition to the
Unit Price:
Basic range, and
Cost per caravan per hour. To make the UI really simple, both of these can be set as global in your town's Marketplace, rather than needing to be filled-in every time an offer is created.
Basic range is how far you are willing to go without charging for the delivery.
Cost per caravan per hour is the delivery charge incurred for each hour that a caravan is outside the
basic range, based on the current default caravan speed.
The UI can dress this up whichever way is convenient. I suggest showing just the "total cost" (not its components) to people looking to accept offers, based on their current town. Those creating an offer should enter it as "
Basic range" and "
Cost per caravan per hour"
An alternative to
Cost per caravan per hour is simply
Cost per 100 squares, but I feel that charging for
time rather than
distance better indicates the inconvenience of delivery.
[Posting this realising that devs have probably already designed Trade v2.]
Edited by Albatross - 09 Aug 2012 at 14:36
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Market offers - a fair price for distance?
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for Albatross for a great idea...
