Why no trading?

One of the nice things about sunless sea was the trading gameplay. Things differed very slightly in price, allowing you to fill your hold with mushroom wine before you leave london, and sell it elsewhere, then come home laden down with sapphires or stygian ivory or coffee or somesuch, to sell in london

Now, on its own, trading would be rather drab, and it certainly wouldnt work as the sole means of making income. But trade routes gave you a reason to visit certain ports in certain orders, and carefully plan out your route before leaivng home. It gave an extra factor to think about, ontop of quest and exploration, when deciding where to visit

So i am sad to see that this mechanic seems to have been entirely gutted for sunless skies.
Firstly, the cargo hold is now tiny. A mere 10 spaces in the starting train. I always thought cargo holds were too small in general. seeing them shrunk even farther is unfortunate. There’s a certain joy to carrying a vast hold full of wierd oddities, nd always having something useful onhand for various requests and requirements. It’s why i actually modded sunless sea so the dreadnought had the same capacity as the cargo ship

Secondly, and this is a really baffling decision, everything is the same price now!
When i go to the lush port avon, and buy wood or seeds straight from their orchard, the prices are identical to buying them from the bustling urban markets of new winchester. The verdant mushroom forests of hybras don’t engender any cheaper prices - food costs the same there as anywhere else
Aside from making trade impossible, everything being the same price also nullifies a lot of strategic decisions. In Sunless Sea i’d often plan a route to go past the iron republic or MT palmerston, to buy cheaper fuel. Or zail near the carnelian coast to buy up supplies at a slightly reduced rate (and bring cofeee home to sell in london)

It seems like all of this gameplay has simply been removed, and not replaced with anything. there’s less depth to things now

Oh we still have a variety of new and interesting trade goods. The bronzewood, the stained glass, the carefully packed munitions, et cetera
But we can barely carry any of it, and anywhere we sell it will only buy it at-cost, with zero profit

I’d like to see a return of trading. Perhaps even a better, more dynamic trading system, with prices that fluctuate every couple weeks so old trade routes need to be re-thought
edited by Nanako on 8/31/2017

Trading is on the list of things that haven’t been implemented yet! What is and isn’t implemented so far is discussed here:
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic25047-early-access-what-to-expect.aspx

I assume that there will also be more ways to increase the hold space to come.

Indeed - I recall that the introduction storylet welcoming you to the game mentioning that things are more difficult now than they will be later.

i’m glad to hear trade is coming!

Although the description of it on that page seems odd. it sounds like the plan is something based on random events. maybe this means that they’re not going to change the store prices, but just have random things like the roser’s market where you can buy/sell cheap?

I found that system too unreliable personally, never really got much use out of the roser’s market

I think the random events and the trading are separate things that are coming.