I'm sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but it asks some good questions about Discovery 4.85 (only being run by one server now). Most Discovery servers are currently running Update 3 of the 4.86 Beta, but the problems with using Companion with Discovery are the same and have actually gotten worse. I'll create a new thread to discuss the latest problems with Discovery 4.86, so I'll limit my discussion here to those problems that were also present in 4.85.
I started playing Discovery 4.85 in August after a three year absence from Freelancer/Discovery mod. I had some trouble with getting kicked for "possible cheating" from servers due to differences in the dynamic prices (mostly ore prices), so I used Companion to analyze the ore prices on the servers where I was most active: GC (i.e. official server), PTC, USA and UK.
YmerejO42 was probably playing Discovery 4.85 on the UK server since that was the only server AFAIK that paid $10,100 for silver ore at Narita Outpost. If he had checked Companion without being connected to a server, the prices for silver ore would've been listed based on the default prices (i.e. the prices a server would have without being modified by that server's admins) for 4.85 that were identical to the default silver prices. Some servers didn't modify their prices, so silver ore there would sell for the default silver prices. Companion would use those numbers unless it imported from a running game. YmerejO42 must have checked the prices for silver ore while he wasn't connected to a server, so Companion showed him the best default price for silver ($1793 at Planet New Tokyo) instead of the best price for silver ore on the UK server ($10,100 at Narita Outpost).
One of the problems with the dynamic economy in Discovery 4.85 (and which hasn't changed in 4.86) is that if a player goes from one server to another server, the prices in the running game from the first server can affect the prices that the player sees on the second server. The more servers that a player visits during the same session, the more his data gets corrupted, so he will be more likely to sell something for an invalid price and get kicked for "possible cheating."
The prices for scrap metal in Discovery 4.85 provide the best example, since players had more opportunity to sell scrap metal and encounter this problem. 4.85 scrap metal price examples: GC (official server): $2400 Fuchu Prison/Valetta Shipyard/Tripoli Shipyard, $1800 BPA Newgate, $1200 Bornholm Depot/Invergordon Space Port, $600 Vierlande Prison, $5 most other bases; PTC: $4506 Invergordon Space Port, $3626 Thunder Bay Depot, $5 all other bases; UK: $3626 Thunder Bay Depot, $3200 Fuchu Prison/Tripoli Shipyard, $3120 Valetta Shipyard, $2400 BPA Newgate, $2200 Bornholm Depot, $1500 Invergordon Space Port, $800 Vierlande Prison, $5 most other bases; USA: $7120 Valetta Shipyard, $6400 BPA Newgate, $5500 Invergordon Space Port, $5200 Fuchu Prison/Tripoli Shipyard, $4200 Bornholm Depot, $3000 Vierlande Prison, $5 most other bases.
If I played on PTC first in a session, then all of my scrap metal prices would be listed at $5, since I hadn't been to the two Junker bases that gave better scrap metal prices on that server. If I played on GC first where most characters have the Fuchu Prison price of $2400, then I switched to PTC, I would think that scrap metal was worth $2400 on Fuchu Prison on PTC because that was what my corrupted player data would show me. As soon as I would try to sell scrap metal at Fuchu Prison, the PTC server would kick me for "possible cheating." I thought that PTC was changing their prices on a daily basis, because one day the Fuchu Prison price for scrap metal would be listed as $2400 (actually the GC price, since I had played there earlier in that session), up to $5200 the next day (actually the USA price, since I had played there earlier in that session) and down to $3200 the following day (actually the UK price, since I had played there earlier in that session). That left me so confused that I asked the head admin on PTC why the scrap metal prices there were changing so often. He said that my player files were corrupted by data from other servers and he insisted that I reinstall Freelancer from scratch. I did that, but that didn't fix the problem. That's when I started analyzing why this was happening and why Companion wasn't giving me accurate prices.
Since the scrap metal prices were so different on the PTC server when compared with the others, that is where those who played on multiple servers had the most problems. I nearly got banned there because of this. I started using Companion to check prices regularly and noticed that the results would be different based on which servers I had visited during the current session. The only way to be sure of accurate data was to check prices during my first visit to a server in a new session without having visited any other servers during that session. Otherwise, I would be seeing data combined from multiple servers. That is why I wrote down the ore prices from the four servers where I was most active and which had the most variation in (mostly ore) prices.
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