[MOD 0.13] Black Market (sell and buy on the market)

[binbinhfr]

Infos

• Type: Mod
• Name: Black Market
• Description: Sell and buy items on the universal black market using trading chests, choosing the frequency of exchanges and related fees. You can now sell your overproduction and buy items that you don't want to craft by yourself. You can also use these chests as a paying shipment system.
• Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.13.17
• Locale: english
• Multiplayer compatible: tested on a headless server.
• Tags: Trade, Commerce, Market, Stock exchange, sell, buy,
• License: You are free to use and distribute this mod and also to modify it for personal use, but not to release a modified version without permission (unless visibly not maintained anymore).
• Portal download : https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhfr/BlackMarket
• Youtube tutorial for german speaking player : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDxspjBNfo

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
For a long time, I had the idea of introducing money and trading into a mod, something like the Auction House of some popular games. But not easy to implement this between players because Factorio is not a MMO, and you do not have 10000 players on the same map, willing to exchange goods... So I thought about something like an automatic stock exchange.
And then I found this old Galactic Trade mod that was very close to what I had in mind. I tried to make GT work under 0.13 but it was no so simple and finally too much work to enter a big code I did not write and was not adapted to new features of 0.13, so I prefered to create a new mod from scractch, a little bit different.
But anyway, I want here to give credit to GT for the source of inspiration, and the fact that it was the pioneer.

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION
Black Market gives you the opportunity to sell and buy items on the Universal Black Market. The currency is Universal Coin (Ucoins or u).
You can use special Trading Chests to sell any items you put into. And other Trading Chests to buy items, respecting a list of orders. The Universal Black Market Company takes care about delivering these items. You can now sell your overproduction and buy items that you don't want to craft by yourself. You can also use these chests as a paying shipment system through the map.

Now you can even do the same thing with fluids and energy, using trading tanks and trading accumulators.

Like any other Factorio building, these trading chests can work automatically, but on a lower frequency : once every 1h,2h,3h,4h,6h,8h,12h or 24h. At the end of every period, they sell their contents, or they purchase their orders. It remains your job to fill the selling chests and to empty the buying ones.

But like always when money is involved, you have to deal with intermediates (the famous "Universal Black Market Company", but you can called them crooks to be short), that are taking their little due for the packaging, the transportation, the marketting, the customs fees and a lot of other small expenses that you don't really want to understand...). The particularity of these taxes is that their rate increases with the frequency of the transactions. The more transactions you make in a day, the more taxes, from 4% for 24h to 20% for 1h... And of course, you have a tax when you sell, but also when you buy... We warned you : this is black market... But there is still room for a little profit for yourself

Every chest has its own GUI, and there is also a main menu, giving general informations on your credit, balance between sales and purchases, average amount of taxes, etc., that can be called by clicking on the main button in the top bar (a golden Ucoin).

Note :
- For selling and buying periods, the day is reset at noon, not at midnight. So if you sell once a day (24h period), sales will always occur around 12:00.
- You can choose to sell or buy immediatly, but the tax is high : 25%
- Note that selling and buying frequencies are per chest. But you can also set them all at once from the main menu.
- You can choose to automatize each chest independantly. Bu you can also set them all automatic from the main menu (or disable them). In the main menu, you can also use the "pause" checkbox to momentary pause the automatic transactions.
- Near the top main button, you can read your current credit in Ucoins.
- When you first install the mod, your credit is 0, so obviously you have to sell a few items before buying some...
- It's also obvious, but if you do not have enough credits, buying chests cannot realize their purchase orders.
- When holding any item in your hand, the upper credit line shows the price of the item instead of your total credit.
- You can browse through the list of prices using the Show button.
- Prices of each item is determined using recipes, prices of ingredients, amortization of technology, cost of energy and a commercial margin. Basic resources value is 100u. There is a button to export a list of prices to the scrip-output directory, in a CSV spreadsheet format.
- Remember that the price of an item is always greater than the sum of the prices of its ingredients. That's why you can do profit. You are selling your transformation work as an added value.
- There is an initial prices list construction lauched in background when you installed the mod or when you change other mods configuration, to detect new objects or non existing objects.
- Prices are dynamic : they evolve using a simplified law of supply and demand. The more players sell one object, the more its price decreases ; the more players buy one object, the more its price increases. This dynamic pricing is for the whole map, not only one force. When untouched, an object price return slowly to its original price.
- You can withdraw some cash from your account by buying Ucoins items : there is no fee on such a purchase, and you will get Ucoins items in return in the chest. You can use these Ucoins items to give money to a player from another force (using TradingChests mod for example). You can also deposit some cash on your account, selling Ucoins items with no fee.
- Hover your mouse on buttons and labels to see tooltips.
- To display the hour of the day, and be aware of transaction times, I recommand installing my TimeTools mod that provides a clock in the top bar.

Todo :
- add a fixed tax for every transaction, proportional to the highest sold or bought techno , to counter multiplication of chests abuse (for transportation). Or maybe a regular rental fee for every trader on the map, that would have to be paid whether the trader is used or not.
- add a power consumption on chests, for the same reason.
- send some values to the circuit network.
- propose a list of contracts to realize : a production goal in a limited time, with a money bonus at the end. Give a better bonus if the deliver time is less than expected.

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Download
For Factorio 0.13.X :
Please use the portal for downloads (see link above or use ingame mod install/update).

[JudgeArcher]

this looks nice and ill download it now but is there a way making trader lvls? when you earned your first 100k you can purchuse better items, after 1 mio even more and so on. thisway you need to trade if you want to buy high class item like red or blue chips. in trading you are holding back your best pieces for your best customer.

[JudgeArcher]

i have a bug, i can buy all items for 100u instead of their price. the price for selling was ok .

[binbinhfr]

i have a bug, i can buy all items for 100u instead of their price. the price for selling was ok .

thx for report, corrected, please update

[binbinhfr]

this looks nice and ill download it now but is there a way making trader lvls? when you earned your first 100k you can purchuse better items, after 1 mio even more and so on. thisway you need to trade if you want to buy high class item like red or blue chips. in trading you are holding back your best pieces for your best customer.

These levels does not seem realistic to me. On a market, if you have the money you can buy anything. Nobody asks you for a licence, espcially on a black market

But infact, if you think about it, there is some kind of inner level limitation : look at the prices of items. There are quite exponential. So if you want to buy for example an armor MK2, it's 15Mu (without taxes). If you are just beginning the game, you'll have to sell a lot of low level items to buy this one... So, like in real life, you are limited by your own bank account.

[Doskan]

I have an issue with this mod (probably a conflict with another mod, but...) dependencies "freetools" are missing, and whenever i start a game or load, got an error , on_init: __Blackmarket__control.lua:166: attempt to perform arithmethic on field 'amount' (a nil value)

[depeter]

This looks like another very nice mod that I'll be trying out soon!

Aside from the primary elements (mini-game of wealth collection, and the utility of being able to get some items without actually crafting them yourself, or maybe even researching the prerequisites), it also has many secondary elements :
Slightly more intricate way of destroying items (similar to Flare Stack, Void Chest, ...) in the sense that it is probably a bit more work to set up (but in return you get coins)
Similarly, it can sort-of substitute for the various recycling mods
And even, to a degree, Compression Chests and various other storage-related mods
It also potentially obsoletes most transportation/logistics concerns, and possibly even most resource collection

It's so multi-functional and powerful that it's probably pretty difficult to really enforce balance without impacting non-cheaty ways of using it. In the end it's going to be up to the players to use it in a way that seems fun to them...
That said, depending on what your plans are, some possible enhancements might be :
*A kind of supply-and-demand mechanic that slowly reduces profit margins to almost zero unless you evolve your business once in a while. Note that this has the added side-effect (or benefit, depending on your point of view) of automatically (if slowly) compensating for the use of modules
*A way to directly buy/sell power (to complete the multi-functionality )
*Long-term business deals that essentially function as a sort of additional quest / mini-game. Similar to the Challenges mod, or certain end-game mods, or Versepelles Outpost mod, albeit without the physical transportation aspect. Can just be random, but could potentially also be (partially) story-based

[binbinhfr]

I have an issue with this mod (probably a conflict with another mod, but...) dependencies "freetools" are missing, and whenever i start a game or load, got an error , on_init: __Blackmarket__control.lua:166: attempt to perform arithmethic on field 'amount' (a nil value)

Hi,

freetools is not a problem : it's an optional dependencies, just for my testings.

can you please post your mod-list.json file so that I can see what other mods you have.
there must be somewhere a recipe with products but no amount. very strange.

can you test this version and tell me if it's better :


you should have a debug info, saying "no amount ...", please tell me the complete message, it will help finding the problematic recipe.

[binbinhfr]

Slightly more intricate way of destroying items (similar to Flare Stack, Void Chest, ...) in the sense that it is probably a bit more work to set up (but in return you get coins)

It's easy to setup : selling chests do not need any configuration. Juts put one on the ground, put things in it and they will dissapear, giving coins in return

Similarly, it can sort-of substitute for the various recycling mods
And even, to a degree, Compression Chests and various other storage-related mods
It also potentially obsoletes most transportation/logistics concerns, and possibly even most resource collection

Yes, you can use this mod for a lot of things, that's why I put taxes, because this "power" should not be totally free...

A kind of supply-and-demand mechanic that slowly reduces profit margins to almost zero unless you evolve your business once in a while.

I do not really understand what you mean by "evolve your business".
But what I had already in mind is a progressively diminishing selling price if you sell too much of one item : it would mimic the law of supply and demand. And if you stop selling this kind of item, the demand will slowly increase back and the price will return to its optimal value. But well, it's not really in the "spirit" of factorio, where everything should be automatic and stable : if you let your factory run 1 night, the balance should stay the same (unless a resource is depleted)

A way to directly buy/sell power (to complete the multi-functionality )

I like it : I put this one in the todo list, that already contains the Trading Tank to directly sell/buy fluids.
Using accumulators, we should be able to sell amount of electricty and buy some. But with solar-panels, it will be a free money income... So elcetricity price will have to be low...

Long-term business deals that essentially function as a sort of additional quest / mini-game.

what would be the benefit/motivation for the player to do these quests ?

[depeter]

I do not really understand what you mean by "evolve your business".
But what I had already in mind is a progressively diminishing selling price if you sell too much of one item : it would mimic the law of supply and demand. And if you stop selling this kind of item, the demand will slowly increase back and the price will return to its optimal value. But well, it's not really in the "spirit" of factorio, where everything should be automatic and stable : if you let your factory run 1 night, the balance should stay the same (unless a resource is depleted)

You could run the buy-iron-ore - smelt - sell-iron-plate thing all the time, but the longer you do it, the lower your profit margin would become, for example from 10% at first to only 1% after a few real-life hours. But if you switched to something else (say, green circuits), you would be getting big profits again (at least initially). Then a few hours later you could again switch to something else (or, now that the iron market has stabilized again, back to iron).
As for having to be automatic and stable, I agree on the first, but not entirely on the second. Predictable yes, but stable, not necessarily. After all, ore patches run out, and oil wells deplete until they reach their minimum yield. Obviously, with default settings, it should probably always remain worth it even in a set-up-and-forget style, but the more actively managed style could allow those who like that to earn a little bit more.
Heck, you could even have some kind of additional (not entirely predictable) price fluctuations (supposedly due to the influence of other buyers and sellers) to allow people to identify "hot" markets and jump on them.

Long-term business deals that essentially function as a sort of additional quest / mini-game.

what would be the benefit/motivation for the player to do these quests ?

The main benefit would be having fun, an additional thing to do for players who like that kind of thing Having small intermediate goals to (optionally) work towards, providing reason to tweak/expand the factory a bit can be nice. Especially if it's the sort of thing you could do (or at least set up) in a single game session, as it gives you something to focus on in the short term (which can be nice for players for whom the rocket launch or the entire sandbox-concept is a bit too long-term / open-ended).
This kind of long-term deal might offer higher (and/or more stable) profit. With the trade-off that you might be tied to specific products that your partner(s) want to buy, at every stage.
If you go for the story-based route, seeing the story unfold would be an additional motivation. A new colony on in a nearby star-system needing supplies to expand their settlement, with a few lines of back-story about the evolution of the colony every time you reach a next stage.

[binbinhfr]

the longer you do it, the lower your profit margin would become

In marketing, the profit margin is something that you choose to fix by yourself. I prefer to let this value fixed and to implement the law of "supply and demand", making prices vary. depending on how much you sell or buy. I could introduce other players in this overall price fluctuations.

Heck, you could even have some kind of additional (not entirely predictable) price fluctuations (supposedly due to the influence of other buyers and sellers) to allow people to identify "hot" markets and jump on them.

I already thought about that with cyclics variations, but if you want to play with these fluctuations, you have to identify them, and like for the stock exchange, it means having some graphical tools that are not available for modders. So I gave up this feature. And once again, I want these chests to be automatic, like the rest of factorio. And here, you want a human choice to sell/buy at the good moment. Of course I could introduce automatic detection tools, but then everything will become transparent and all this huge developement would be useless.

The main benefit would be having fun

I can understand this, but by experience, most players need some kind of a reward.

This kind of long-term deal might offer higher (and/or more stable) profit.

Yes, I coud integrate a diminishing bonus depending of the time you take to deliver the order.
Quite a lot of work to implement this one anyway...

[depeter]

Fair enough, both would indeed probably take quite a bit of work, while being a bit of a leap from the base concept of the mod

I just loaded it up, and I noticed it doesn't quite cover all recipes. Are any things intentionally excluded?
I'm still trying to figure out a pattern, but one thing I've noticed is that the gems from Bob's (as well as everything depending on them, like advanced Laser Turrets etc) are not in the list. Roboports and robots (even the vanilla ones, although due to mods their recipies are no longer vanilla obviously) also seem to be missing, although some of their components are in.
Obviously even the current partial coverage that I have is nice, as all the basic stuff seems to be in.
EDIT: after uninstalling a few mods (including some recycling and replication mods that probably contained a lot of recipies) I now have a bunch more things to buy in a new game, including robots, but still no gem-related stuff.

I also don't know how easy it would be to implement, but a search feature, similar to the one in the tech tree or crafting UI, could also be useful.

[binbinhfr]

Fair enough, both would indeed probably take quite a bit of work, while being a bit of a leap from the base concept of the mod

the prices fluctuation is doable.

I just loaded it up, and I noticed it doesn't quite cover all recipes. Are any things intentionally excluded?

not at all.
only hidden recipes are excluded.
all item recipes that appears in the classical crafting menu should be here.
even fluids are evaluated, even if you cannot buy or sell them for the moment (but their value is used in other "solid" items recipes)
Personaly, I have the roboport, price 260.000 in the first subgroup.
I also have both robots.

Can you send me your mod-list.json and also the CSV file obtained by clicking on "export" ?

[depeter]

I'll repeat the edit from my last post here, since you had already posted while I was editing : after uninstalling a few mods (including some recycling and replication mods that probably contained a lot of recipies) I now have a bunch more things to buy in a new game, including robots, but still no gem-related stuff.
Zip from after that mod removal, let me know if you also want me to reinstall the mods I originally had and try again. Contains mod json, price export, and your debug log (I uncommented some debug prints in your main lua file) : https://wsi.li/gkL4pnCksYU6
Sorry for the tons of mods again

[Airat9000]

good! who is mod cooled in galactic trade?

[binbinhfr]

I had problems with recycling and replicator mods (even if I thought these problems were solved...).

The problem is that these mods are introducing loops in recipes.
My mod trys to find out which is the "original" recipe to craft an item, in order to compute its price from its logical/original ingredients.
Example :
a recycler mod will introduce a recipe that crafts iron-plate from a green circuit. But this is not the good recipe to use for computing price of iron-plate. I need the original iron-ore to iron-plate recipe. And there is no way to identify it in factorio data...
Same thing with replicator than can craft anything from a special ingredient. I must avoid these recipes.
So I implemented a way to detect this looped recipes and to avoid them, but it seems that it does not always work and that I deleted too many recipes...

PS: you sent me a list of your mods when there is no problem, because I see the roboport recipe in the CSV.
You have so many mods...
Could you progressively one by one reinstall these special recycling/replicators mods and tell me when the robots disappears from the prices menu ? And send me the CSV file at this moment ? I probably did not test alls these special mods... (i tested boxing, dark matter and omnibarrels)

[binbinhfr]

good! who is mod cooled in galactic trade?

Ooops, could you please rephrase your question, because I did not get what you mean (I'm french...)

[Airat9000]

good! who is mod cooled in galactic trade?

Ooops, could you please rephrase your question, because I did not get what you mean (I'm french...)

example
link
viewtopic.php?f=120&t=19850&p=192141&hi ... de#p192141

fix in
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30791

[binbinhfr]

ha ha, I missed this update !
Anyway, the item interface of GT was very simple and a lot of work to rebuild, and there was some features that I found illogical like "upgrading for less taxes", so I prefered developing my own mod, with the possibility to extend features to trading tanks, power-trading, etc... So now you have the choice !

[Airat9000]

ha ha, I missed this update !
Anyway, the item interface of GT was very simple and a lot of work to rebuild, and there was some features that I found illogical like "upgrading for less taxes", so I prefered developing my own mod, with the possibility to extend features to trading tanks, power-trading, etc... So now you have the choice !

oooo very nice idea! wait update

It would be nice to make a user-friendly interface, so that would be more convenient to buy) all the products from all the mods.
And by the way there is an idea that I have to buy could be just what is already learned or discovered in technologies for realism and less cheating.
and buying resources could also be.

Хорошо бы сделать удобный интерфейс, для того что бы удобнее покупать ) все товары от всех модов.

И кстати есть идея у меня что бы покупать можно было только то что уже изучено или открыто в технологиях для реализма и меньше читерства.

и покупать ресурсы тоже можно было бы.