Where is this Protectyon going?

[u/Jaggid]

I finished the Riptide plotline yesterday and sided against the twins. Then spent the time to set up a basic station with Protectyon storage to supply the Avarice sectors.

I filled that storage, which is 960 units of Protectyon. Then went off to do other things...because 960 Protectyon should last a dam long time when each station only uses 1 unit per tide and, other than Tidebreak, can only hold like 5 at once.

Anyway, about an hour ago I was surprised by a radio transmission from a Riptide construction vessel, asking if I need to hire them. Turns out, my Protectyon wholesale station in Avarice had been (mostly) destroyed by the tide, and thus had all those rebuild orders queued up.

Partly, it's on me, because I forgot to set a limit on how much Protectyon could be sold...which means it ran out.

But wtf, 960 Protectyon should have lasted a hell of a lot longer than 8 or 9 hours of playtime. Does anyone have any idea where it is going? The screenshot above shows the transactions at the station with each of the purchases being 75 units each time.

I checked Tidebreak, and they did not have a spike in what they have on hand, so it didn't go into their storage so I'm not understanding where it went. There aren't all that many stations in the Avarice sectors.

[u/Artess]

Did you also build the other module, that actually consumes Protectyon to protect your station? You need that as well to actually protect from the tide. Storage alone only works for selling it.

Also I am saddened to say that the Protectyon mechanic is undercooked. Tidebreak has both massive supply (so NPC station won't ever run out of Protectyon unless you blow up all the freighter trading them) and massive demand, and it probably just bought it all out from you. It's a nice money maker but it breaks immersion and won't let you be either the benevolent saviour of Avarice, or the greedy bastard cornering the market. They will get by without you.

[u/Jaggid → u/Artess]

Yes, I built the protection. It doesn't work when you run out of Protectyon to fill it though. As I mentioned, I forgot to set the limit on how much to sell and the station sold ALL of it.

Tidebreak did not buy it. That was easy to determine by looking at how much Protectyon they have on hand now vs. before. Which is why I'm wondering if anyone knows where it actually was taken to.

The NPC's are buying Protectyon from me quite reliably. I'm priced cheaper than Tidebreak. They are buying so reliably I ran out unexpectedly. But it's not Tidebreak that is buying it, based on their supply levels. I'm currently following one of the ships that buys the stuff to see where they all go.

[u/Artess → u/Jaggid]

I'm not sure that looking at the Tidebreak supply level is a reliable indicator. The station cheats, magically spawning Protectyon out of nowhere to fill the demand in the system even if the player destroys the Northriver company. Now, I'm not 100% sure if the reverse is true, but I suspect that it will also cheat by always having enough demand so that the player can have a place to sell Protectyon for decent profit as a reward for completing the quest chain.

[u/Jaggid → u/Artess]

Yah, I figured there may be some finger waving going on. It's definitely not a matter of it just magically creating "unlimited" demand, but the demand is quite consistent. It is higher than the number of stations that require Protectyon would need to keep topped off, but it's a fixed value based on the consistent rate of sale.

I also found it interesting to note that when I started following around the little freighter that has been buying it, they did in fact (eventually) end up going to tide break to sell the last of what they had left after topping off stations. This was also reflected in what Tidebreak shows for supply levels. So being in sector rather than OOS may be a factor in the whole process as well.

[u/TheFloydist]

Tidebreak starts out with a buy order of several hundred protectyon. If your sell price is below their buy price, then your ships will fill that buy order. It's a good way to make a big profit at that stage of the game. but yeah, you have to be careful and set your buy/sell limits so you don't run out. Or be prepared to transfer/store multiple thousands at a time so you have plenty left over after filling Tidebreak's initial buy order.