The Cabal's Secret Hideout

 

PART 2: Understanding Ports

To understand TW, one must understand ports.  Below is a typical SBB port as seen from within the game:

Sector : 1995 in uncharted space.
Ports : Cabal's Hideout, Class 3 (SBB)
Warps to Sector(s) : 952 - 2465

When you port there, you get the following:

The Usurper docked 6 minutes ago.

Items	Status	Trading	% of max	OnBoard
-----	------	-------	--------	-------
Fuel Ore	Selling	2610	100%	0
Organics	Buying	950	100%	0
Equipment	Buying	2100	100%	50

You have 3,451,542 credits and 0 empty cargo holds.

We are buying up to 2100. You have 50 in your holds.
How many holds of Equipment do you want to sell [50]?

Here is what that same port looks like from within T-Edit:
Port number: 1484
<A> Name: Cabal's Hideout
<W> Last ship to port: The Usurper
<T> Last robbed by : Traitor
<B> Class: 3
<C> Ore: 2610
<D> Org: 0
<E> Equ: 0
Productivity (units per day)
<F> Ore: 261 <G> Org: 95 <H> Equ: 210
Maximum change in cost (percent)
<I> Ore: 61 <J> Org: -60 <K> Equ: -51
< > Accumulated Trading Credits: 240

WARNING: I suggest you do not change values <F> through <K>!
The INITPORT.EXE program will adjust those values for you.

KEY:
B: See here for more detail on port Classes.
C, D, and E: These settings control how much product is actually on the port.  Note how C in this example is at 2610.  That means that there are 2,610 holds worth of Fuel Ore on the port.  D and E are at 0, indicating that there is no Organics or Equipment available.  When the port is buying a particular product, and that number is at 0, it means that the port is at 100% and ready to buy up to its maximum.  When the port is selling product, and that number is at 0, it means the port is at 0%, and can't sell you any product.  These numbers never go negative.  
F, G, and H: These settings are what control how much product the port can sell or buy.  The amount of product that they can handle is equal to 10 times the number.  So, in the above example, this port can buy 950 holds of Organics and 2100 holds of Equipment.  It can also sell 2610 holds of Fuel Ore.  The maximum value of these numbers is 3276 (32,760 holds worth) in MBBS mode, and 6553 (65,530 holds worth) in Gold mode.  These numbers don't go negative either.  These numbers explain why you can only upgrade ports 10 units at a time.  (This can be a painful lesson to learn if you want to put 250 units of EQ on a port for some SST'ing, and you forget the 10 to 1 conversion.  Instead of 22,500 credits you spend 225,000!)
Accumulated Trading Credits: This is how many credits are actually on the port.  If you were to try to rob this port, it would only show 618 being available.  Remember the 11%?  This is where it is.  One thing to remember about running MR's is that however many credits you put into the port, they will be there when you go to rob it.  It's a good idea to keep track of how much you put in, so you can be sure to rob it all back.  There has been rumors about the Accumulated Trading Credits disappearing over time.  I have tracked a port for 48 hours, and can safely say that this doesn't happen.  
I, J, and K: Maximum Change In Cost (MCIC).  These are the interesting settings, and what this section is mostly about.  These settings control the PRICE of product on the port.  Positive numbers indicate that it's selling that product, negative numbers mean it's buying.  The further away from zero the number is, the more the product costs if it's selling, or the more it pays if it's buying.  The closer to zero the number is, the cheaper it is to buy product, but the less it pays for product.  50 or -50 is "average".  Player created ports ALWAYS sell at 50, and buy at -60.  If you ever noticed that your own buy ports seemed to be better than most ports, it's because you were right!  The full range is -100 to 100.  So, what's the difference between -30, -50, and -65?  Take a look at the chart below to get a general idea.

Setting for Equipment	Amount offered for a 32760 hold planet trade (from a MR)	Amount they will accept	% difference
-30	3,733,821	3,845,836	3.0%
-40	3,978,374	4,141,487	4.1%
-50	4,217,031	4,436,317	5.2%
-60	4,449,791	4,734,578	6.4%
-65	4,563,959	4,883,436	7.0%

There are several things to notice in the above chart.  First off, there is a big difference between how much the -30 port offers, and how much the -65 port offers.  830,138 credits difference, and it's 1,149,615 credits if you haggle!  Then take a look at the % difference.  Notice the pattern?  If you know the MCIC number, you know how much you can haggle, often to the credit.  (it's actually significant out to like 5 digits, but I chose to round for the sake of simplicity.  The port will actually accept slightly more than what I put there, but it's not worth figuring it out to the credit.)  I chose to use a buy port with a planet trade for this example, because planet trades are always consistent.  There will be more charts to come that explain why I stopped this chart at -65. :-)

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

If you aren't doing a planetary negotiation, then the amount that a port will offer is based on the Maximum Change In Cost (MCIC) and your experience.  The more experience you have, the cheaper things are to buy, and the more they are worth when you sell up to around 1,000 exp.  After 1,000 experience, there doesn't seem to be a difference  between 1,000 exp, 10,000 exp, or 1,000,000 exp.  See the following chart:

Current Exp	Average Amount Offered for 250 holds of EQ at a 50 MCIC Port (Sell Port)	Difference between each successive offer		Current Exp	Average Amount Offered for 250 holds of EQ at a -50 MCIC Port (Buy Port)	Difference between each successive offer		Current Exp	Average Amount Offered for 250 holds of EQ with 100% planet trade at a -50 MCIC Port  (Buy Port)
0	11,760			0	32,405			0	32,181
100	11,443	317		100	32,779	374		100	32,181
200	11,219	225		200	32,963	184		200	32,181
300	10,953	265		300	33,077	114		300	32,181
400	10,774	179		400	33,277	201		400	32,181
500	10,476	298		500	33,582	305		500	32,181
600	10,173	304		600	33,723	140		600	32,181
700	9,965	208		700	33,976	253		700	32,181
800	9,613	352		800	34,206	230		800	32,181
900	9,426	186		900	34,474	269		900	32,181
1,000	9,097	329		1,000	34,646	172		1,000	32,181
1,100	9,118	-21		1,100	34,657	11		1,100	32,181
1,200	9,102	16		1,200	34,734	77		1,200	32,181
1,300	9,156	-54		1,300	34,655	-79		1,300	32,181
1,400	9,061	95		1,400	34,710	55		1,400	32,181
1,500	9,130	-69		1,500	34,739	29		1,500	32,181
10,000	9,217	-87		10,000	34,697	-42		10,000	32,181
20,000	9,134	83		20,000	34,672	-26		20,000	32,181
30,000	9,145	-11		30,000	34,688	16		30,000	32,181
40,000	9,062	83		40,000	34,600	-88		40,000	32,181
50,000	9,223	-161		50,000	34,651	51		50,000	32,181
100,000	9,142	81		100,000	34,657	5		100,000	32,181
1,000,000	9,082	60		1,000,000	34,757	100		1,000,000	32,181
4,500,000	9,095	-13		4,500,000	34,721	-36		4,500,000	32,181

This chart was made using 2 scripts, one that reset the port after a trade (back to 100%), and one that did the actual trade.  These are the offered prices, not the haggled prices.  Each experience value was run 20 times, and I took the average.  I re-ran all the tests 5 times, for a total of 100 trades at each exp value.  The averages were consistently within +/- 2%.  

Notice that Planet Trade Offers NEVER change.  Also keep in mind that Alignment has nothing to do with it either.  I've tested this at -4,000,000 and 4,000,000 alignment, and at every 10k increment in between.  Based on this chart, you can see that the PPT'er with 1000 exp is going to make more money than the guy with 0 exp.   

It shouldn't take you long to come to the same conclusion that I did once I realized how experience and MCIC worked.  If you want to make real money, you have to find buy ports with LOW MCIC's, like -60 or less.  Particularly if you are planning on going through all the trouble and expense to upgrade them for Planet Trading or MR's.  

PORT GENERATION

By now, you're probably wondering how to find a -80 buy eq port, right?  Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.  I need to touch on how ports are generated in TWGS first.  Port numbers and sector numbers are not directly tied to each other.  When the game pre-generates ports, it assigns the ports to random sectors.   (So port 1522 isn't going to be in sector 1522.)  Interestingly, there are more class 1, 2, and 3 ports than any other type.  For a standard bang (40% port density and 95% built ports), there are 1900 ports generated.  4 of those ports are the special ports, so that leaves only 1896 ports.  The chart below shows their distribution.  

Port Class	Quantity of Ports with Port Bang Settings at 40% total and 95% built	Percent of Total Ports	Quantity of Ports with Port Bang Settings at 80% total and 95% built	Percent of Total Ports
1	378	19.94%	758	19.97%
2	379	19.99%	759	19.99%
3	379	19.99%	759	19.99%
4	189	9.97%	379	9.98%
5	189	9.97%	379	9.98%
6	189	9.97%	379	9.98%
7	94	4.96%	189	4.98%
8	99	5.22%	194	5.11%
Totals:	1896	100.00%	3796	100.00%

I banged 20 games with each of the port settings, and got the same results every time.   It's roughly 20% for 1-3, 10% for 4-6 and 5% for 7 and 8.

I also tracked the MCIC numbers for all the ports and found the following:

Product Type	Low MCIC for Buy Port	High MCIC for Buy port	Low MCIC for Sell Port	High MCIC for Sell Port
Equipment	-65	-20	20	65
Organics	-75	-30	30	75
Fuel Ore	-90	-40	40	90

These maximum and minimum numbers were consistent regardless of the number of ports.  That means that you will never find a Buy EQ port better than -65.  Sucks, huh?  So, I decided to track the frequency of ports, and found that the distribution was flat, and that you can expect there to be approximately 21 equipment ports for each value of MCIC, 21 organics ports for each value of MCIC, and 19 fuel ore ports for each value of MCIC.  However, you're just as likely to find a -65 EQ, -20 org, -90 fuel port as you will a 20 eq, 75 org, 20 fuel port.  Basically, in an average bang, there will be 126 buy EQ ports at -60 or less.  The only way to find them is trial and error.  I will tell you that while it's a pain to track down the -60's, it's worth your while to AVOID the -20's!  If you aren't getting at least 34,500 credits for 250 holds with 1k or more exp, (or 32,181 for a 250 hold planet trade) you shouldn't bother working with that port.  Two more charts, showing the value in credits for all product at various MCIC settings.

SELL PORTS:	MCIC VALUE
	90	80	75	70	65	60	55	50	40	30	20
Normal Trade Fuel Ore, 250 holds	1,092	1,754	2,082	2,407	2,730	3,049	3,361	3,675	4,302	N/A	N/A
Normal Trade Organics, 250 holds	N/A	N/A	3,768	4,406	5,054	5,696	6,330	6,964	8,189	9,414	N/A
Normal Trade Equipment, 250 holds	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	8,787	9,945	11,059	12,190	14,434	16,603	18,725

The above chart assumes Zero experience, the sell port is at 100%, and no haggling.  

 

BUY PORTS:	MCIC VALUE
	-90	-80	-75	-70	-65	-60	-55	-50	-40	-30	-20
Normal Trade Fuel Ore, 250 holds	10,678	10,226	10,030	9,772	9,517	9,293	9,035	8,791	8,276	N/A	N/A
Normal Trade Organics, 250 holds	N/A	N/A	20,144	19,646	19,176	18,698	18,184	17,712	16,659	15,634	N/A
Normal Trade Equipment, 250 holds	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	34,647	33,701	32,853	31,910	30,108	28,257	26,380
Planet Trade Fuel Ore, 250 Holds	10,920	10,465	10,233	9,998	9,759	9,518	9,273	9,025	8,520	N/A	N/A
Planet Trade Organics, 250 Holds	N/A	N/A	20,350	19,879	19,401	18,918	18,428	17,931	16,920	15,884	N/A
Planet Trade Equipment, 250 Holds	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	34,829	33,958	33,075	32,181	30,360	28,494	26,583

The above chart assumes zero experience, the buy port is at 100%, and no haggle.

Those two charts show average numbers.  The exact numbers, except for the planet trades, will vary somewhat because ports offer around 25 different prices for any given amount of product.  I have a much more detailed chart that covers all the ranges, and what each of those offers are, but there isn't room on my site for it.  This information should cover about 99% of the situations you might encounter anyway.  Well, enough about ports.