Expand allowable empty trade runs to an entire planetary system

[Kjasi]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Right now, if I want to find the best en-route trades, I need to check a huge array of sources and destinations. This means checking all sources at New Babbish against all the drop-offs of where I'm headed. If I'm heading towards Port Olisar, I also have to check the drop offs at Grim Hex, to see if I can find something better. Often, I'm okay dropping off in the same city, planet, planetary system or moon system. An example of this is would be saying "I'm in the city of New Babbish. I don't care which of the 3 stores I buy the recommended item, but I would like to end up somewhere in the Crusader Planetary system." This would translate into getting an item from Admin, the TDD, or the Trading Console, and taking it anywhere in the Crusader system. (Be it Grim Hex, Port Olisar, or ArcCorp Mining Area 141.) Right now, I have to check all those destinations one at a time, and try to remember which gave the best deals.

Describe the solution you'd like

Right now, we have "Stanton > Crusader > Yela > Grim Hex > Admin". I would like to be able to select "Stanton > Crusader > Yela > Grim Hex", "Stanton > Crusader > Yela", or even "Stanton > Crusader" as a destination. (Doing the same with starting points would be helpful as well.) This would return a list (similar to the trade routes) of options I can choose from.

[Kjasi]

I see this is labeled as Help Wanted. How can I help?

[EtienneLamoureux]

Currently the system allows for empty trade runs between close-by locations (locations are considered closed if they are on the same planetary body, or in orbit of that body). That's why you can get admin -> trade terminal in Port Olisar as possible route leg in some cases.

Would your use-case be satisfied if the definition of close-by locations would be expanded to an entire planetary system? The tool could then suggest you an empty run from Port Olisar to somewhere on Ceilin, go close to your destination and do an last empty run over there too.

I'm asking because that would be more in-line with the implementation (although with its own challenges). En-route is already one of the most costly tool to run in the backend, and without a defined origin and destination it would take too long to return a result (my internal testing shows up to 4 minutes).

[Kjasi]

Ah, I get that my concept probably would take up too much computing power... But yeah, limiting it to a single planetary system with an empty run (or two) in there to my final destination would be a good solution.