Trade Price Improvement

Trade Price Improvement is a stat: When this person acts as a trade negotiator, buy and sell prices are improved by this percentage. Its default value is 100%.

Factors[edit]

TPI is affected by the following:

Social skill: Multiply the base TPI value by the pawn skill level times 1.5%. Affect the base TPI value multiplicatively.
Talking: 90% weight, allowed defect of 0.05 and a max at 100%, meaning improvement over 95% does not affect trade prices. Affect the base TPI value multiplicatively.
Hearing: 90% weight, allowed defect of 0.20 and a max at 100%, meaning improvement over 80% does not affect trade prices. Affect the base TPI value multiplicatively.
Psychic reader: Add 10% of the pawn's Psychic Sensitivity to the base TPI value. Affect the base TPI value additively.
Drug Use: Essential precept Add 10% of the selling (*0.6) market value to the final price, only for selling drugs. Only social and hard drugs are affected, medical drugs like Luciferium and Penoxycyline do not receive the selling price improvement. Affect the final selling price value additively, cannot be modified or modify other bonuses. From my testing, it can allow to bypass the 39.5% TPI cap but very slightly. At 39.5% TPI this precept only add 1% of the base market value to the final price.^{[More testing needed]}
Ranching: Central precept Add 10% of the selling (*0.6) market value to the final price, only for selling animal products. Despite saying "animal products", this only applies to meat, leather and wool. Eggs (fertilized or not), milk, insect jelly and fish are not affected, while human meat, human leather, twisted meat and dread leather are. Live animals are not affected. Affect the final selling price value additively, cannot be modified or modify other bonuses. From my testing, it can allow to bypass the 39.5% TPI cap but very slightly. At 39.5% TPI this precept only add 1% of the base market value to the final price.^{[More testing needed]}
Giving the leader role to a pawn provides a +2% TPI. Affect the final TPI value additively, cannot be modified or modify other bonuses.
Trading with others faction’s settlement via caravan provides a +2% TPI. Affect the final TPI value additively, cannot be modified or modify other bonuses. Can affect the TPI to go past the 39.50% cap.
Inspired trade provides a +18% TPI. Affect the final TPI value additively, cannot be modified or modify other bonuses.

TPI is not affected by pawn beauty, nor Social Impact buffs such as from the bowler hat.

As of 1.6^[Confirm?] the TPI is capped as 39.50% as to prevent being able to buy for less than you can sell.

The formula for calculating the buy price modifier(i.e the percentage of the item's value you will pay) is $buy price modifier = 60%*(100%+TPI)$ .The equivalent formula for the sell price modifier is $buy price modifier = 140%*(100%-TPI).$

Social Skill	TPI	Sell Price	Buy Price
0	0.0%	60%	140%
1	1.5%	60.9%	137.9%
2	3.0%	61.8%	135.8%
3	4.5%	62.7%	133.7%
4	6.0%	63.6%	131.6%
5	7.5%	64.5%	129.5%
6	9.0%	65.4%	127.4%
7	10.5%	66.3%	125.3%
8	12.0%	67.2%	123.2%
9	13.5%	68.1%	121.1%
10	15.0%	69%	119%
11	16.5%	69.9%	116.9%
12	18.0%	70.8%	114.8%
13	19.5%	71.7%	112.7%
14	21.0%	72.6%	110.6%
15	22.5%	73.5%	108.5%
16	24.0%	74.4%	106.4%
17	25.5%	75.3%	104.3%
18	27.0%	76.2%	102.2%
19	28.5%	77.1%	100.1%
20	30.0%	78%	98%

How to calculate TPI[edit]

The TPI is calculated as follow:

Base value: 100%
Social: *(Skill level*1.5)%
Talking: if inferior at 95%: *(Talking ability with 90% weight)% | else: *100%
Hearing: if inferor at 80%: *(Hearing ability with 90% weight)% | else: *100%
If has a psychic reader: +(10%*psychic sensitivity)
If has Inspired trade: +18%
If is colony leader: +2%
If trade with settlement: +2%
If relevant precept: +10% (selling only)

To use this calculation, convert the % value of the game by multiplying it by 0.01.

The calculation for TPI is : ([BV]+0.1x[PS]) x ([SL]x1.5) x (1x(0.1+0.9x([T]/0.95)) x (1x(0.1+0.9x[H]/0.8) + [IT] + [L] + [TS] + [P]

Multiply by 100 if the value is wanted in %.

The TPI is capped at 39.50% and can only be exceeded if trading with a settlement and/or having relevant precept and selling.

Variable	BV	PS	SL	T	H	IT	L	TS	P
Meaning	Base Value	Psychic Sensitivity	Social Level	Talking Ability	Hearing Ability	Inspired Trade	Leader	Trade with Settlement	Precept
Used If	Always	Has psychic reader else 0	Always	Has T<95% else 0.95	Has H<80% else 0.8	Has inspired trade	Is leader	Is trading with settlement	Has relevant precept and is selling

Trade Price Improvement Milestones[edit]

The list below shows the milestones of TPI:

The minimum TPI a pawn can have is 0%.
A TPI of 30% is the maximum value you can reach using only the Social skill.
A TPI of 39.50% is the maximum value you can reach as it is capped at this value (bearing a few exceptions.)
A TPI of 39.50% is reachable with a pawn having a Social skill of 15 and a Inspired trade.
A TPI of 40% is the maximum value you should aim for selling stuffs since the game prevents the selling price from being higher than the purchase price, so a higher TPI than 40% means selling for less. (This is the point where the selling price is equal to the buying price, 84% of the market value.)
A TPI higher than 100% is useless since the minimum buying price is $0.50.

Maximizing Trade Price Improvement[edit]

The Trade Price Improvement can only be maximize by installing Psychic reader on your pawn and improving their's Psychic Sensitivity since you are stuck at 30% with only the Social skill.

An easy way to get to 39.5% TPI is to use a pawn with a burning passion for Social and the Psychically hypersensitive trait and give them a Psychic reader.

If they are a Sanguophages or have the relevant Genes (Deathrest and Psy-sensitive), you can give them a Psychic sensitizer and deathrest them with 4 Psychofluid pump to increase their Psychic Sensitivity, reaching 39.5% TPI.
If they don't have the relevant Genes, you may instead give them a Psychic sensitizer and a combination of Eltex apparels and gears to reach a Psychic Sensitivity of 317% or above to reach 39.5% TPI. You may also assign this pawn as your leader in order not to require as many Eltex gears.Colony leader requires Psychic Sensitivity of 250% to reach 39.5% TPI.

Getting a TPI of 39.5% with a Social skill lower than 20 and no relevant Genes, is really difficult, as example a pawn with a Social skill of 18 need the leader role, the Psychically hypersensitive trait, the implants Psychic sensitizer and Psychic reader, a Legendary Eltex staff, Eltex skullcap, Eltex robe, Eltex vest and Eltex shirt to reach 39.5% TPI.

^[Outdated] With the Drug Use: Essential precept or Ranching: Central precept, you can technically sell items at a TPI higher than 40% since there +10% TPI are not counted toward the "selling price not being higher than the buying price" cap. Even if a TPI of 50% is unreachable because maths, a TPI of 47% is achievable and shoud be aim for as it is the new equilibrium between the buying and selling prices. This 47% TPI is achievable by geting a colonist to a TPI of 37%, by using informations of this page, and trading items affected by the precept of your Ideoligion.

If you manage to get a TPI higher than 40% you can literally get everything traders have for free. As an example, all traders buy Insect jelly, so you can sell it for $6.72 a piece at 40% TPI then buy it back at $6.50 a piece with a TPI of 42%. With TPI now capped at 39.5%, it only work when trading with others faction’s settlement, giving a +2% TPI ingoring the cap, and equipping, removing gears from your trader between exchange.

Numbers in Trades[edit]

When you trade, your TPI in the top left corner is rounded to the nearest integer. To see the real TPI that is used for calculation, check the information tab of the pawn.

When trading, hovering over an item's price will display the modifiers of its value. Even if listed, modifiers like Inspired trade will not affect the price beyond the 39.50% TPI cap.

The price of items shows went trading in rounded to the nearest integer or the second decimal if the price in lower than $10, but the exact value is use for the total price calculation. For example buying Insect jelly with a Social skill of 0 will show a price of $11 even if the game use the exact price (8*1.4=$11.20) so buying 3 Insect jelly will cost $34 instead of $33 as the total price of a trade is always rounded to the nearest integer.

Version history[edit]

0.17.1546 - spread made much wider, but social skill also has a much greater effect on it.
1.1.0 - Trade price improvement from negotiator is now reported on the trade screen.

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