Price command

The PRICE command quotes the cost of a specified quantity of an item at the planet currently being orbited.

PRICE amount item

For example:

PRICE 10 MISSILES
PRICE 500 FOOD

A quote does not move cargo or cash. Use BUY to complete the purchase.

Pricing

At another player's planet, the item must be offered for sale and enough stock must exist above the owner's configured reserve. The quote uses the planet's configured per-unit selling price.

At the player's own planet, the item does not have to be enabled for public sale. The full planetary stock is available to its owner, and the quote uses the sysop-configured base price rather than the visitor price set in planetary administration.

The planet must be settled. On the normal pricing path, the shared routine also checks available stock and the player's cash. If the complete quantity is unavailable or unaffordable, the command reports that condition instead of displaying an ordinary quote. ge-next's over-capacity quote described below is the exception: it calculates the requested price and warns about cargo space without first requiring that complete quantity to be available or affordable.

PRICE does not accept a planetary password argument and does not perform the password prompt used by BUY. It reveals the offered price without carrying out the protected transaction; the password or team access is still required when the player actually buys the goods.

Classic own-planet display bug

Classic GE calculates the total cost of goods from the player's own planet using the correct base price. Its PRICE output nevertheless prints the planet's visitor price in the each field.

For example, suppose missiles have a base price of 20 credits and the planet's visitor price is set to 50. The owner enters:

PRICE 10 MISSILES

Classic calculates the total as 200 credits but can describe the quote as 10 missiles at 50 each for a total of 200. The arithmetic used for the total is correct; the displayed unit price is not. The equivalent BUY completion message already selects the base price correctly for the owner.

ge-next 0.1 corrected the PRICE output to select the same unit-price source used by the calculation. In the example above, ge-next reports 20 each and 200 total. Quotes made by visitors continue to show the planet's configured visitor price.

ge-next also permits a price quote even when the requested cargo would not fit aboard the ship. It displays the price and separately warns that the ship lacks room. Classic stops at the cargo-capacity failure and does not show the quote.

Price command

Pricing

Classic own-planet display bug

See also