Travel Update - Selling items back to abroad shops resets restock timers

There seems to be a consistent way to artifically prevent items from restocking, by selling them back to the abroad shops. 

I'll use Hawaii as an example, because I could observe players doing it there, but I assume it works at other destinations too. 

It seems to not matter, if it's a black market item (like Turtle Shell in Hawaii) or regular item (like Orchid in Hawaii). 

Shark Fins and Turtle Shells got a restock time of ~60 minutes since last friday (after depleting, they need ~60 minutes until a full restock). 
Orchids already needed ~60 minutes before friday.

The system now seems to start the restock timer new, if a player sells their item back to the shop.
I observed several times, how a stock of an item got empty and about half an hour later, someone sold 1 - 3 units of that item back to the shop. Technically the item was "back in stock" (with those few units). A few seconds later, that item was sold out again. This "mini restock" seems to start a new restock timer, starting the full ~60 minutes once more.

Most recent observation:

Orchid:
Empty: 16:38 TCT
Expected Restock: ~ 17:38 TCT
Mini Restock by 1 unit: 17:04 TCT
Empty again: 17:04 TCT
Actual full restock: 18:04 TCT

I hope it is not intended to work like this. 
Otherwise, it would be nice to have a confirmation that this is indeed intended, so we can get prepared for easy supply manipulation that will occur.

I see the biggest manipulation potential for places like UK and Canada (Japan/South Africa) for Xanax with the 2 hour restock timer. 

A dedicated player could just sit and wait there, selling 1 Xanax back to the shop every hour and prevent it from restocking over 20 times. 

The same goes for things like Patagonian Fossil with the ~12 hour restock timer, which could be prolonged even more.

Especially once the next update allows us to bring items abroad, you could just fly to that destination bringing 1 of that item with you to sell it, purely to restart / manipulate the restock timer.

This is not only about the consistency of restock timings, but the supply of abroad items in general.

Great Job Prof, I hope your keen eye and outstanding commitment to fairness instead of exploitation results in compensation from the devs wink wink nudge nudge




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Just as an info, I witnessed what seemed like another "attempt" by someone, but it didn't delay the restock.

So just letting you know: your fix seems to work.

It seems this may still be an issue?

Xanax in South Africa usually restocks every 1hr 45 mins, but it took about 4 hours.

During that time some Xanax was sold back to the shop. (times displayed in GMT+1)

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Thanks for confirming. Are you able to comment on why the restock times has changed from 1hr 45m, to 4hr?

Are you sure it didn't actually restock but nobody had refreshed the page during the few seconds it took to sell out?

(There were a LOT of players sat in SA who are buying everything profitable immediately, and with the newspaper advising to buy xanax...)

Please tell me if I should open another post, because it is a different bug than the one I mentioned in the first post of the thread and has nothing to do with selling back of items to the shops.


To add some info (or rather clarification) on the post above from Dieselblade: 

Xanax restock times is usually 2hrs +-10% (or something close to that), so 108-132 minutes from when it sold out.
Other travel Items have different timers.

I witnessed it before on very rare occasions on other destinations (like Canada), that the restock "skips" one cycle and moves to the next one, so we get the 4 hr restock time that Dieselblade mentioned.

Now since yesterday in South Africa, we had that same thing happen several times close to each other and with different items (I only watched Xanax + Uncut Diamonds), which makes me believe it has something to do with the stock getting sold out quicker than usual.

To clarify: this isn't us missing the restock, because it is sold out super fast or something, the restock just doesn't happen.


I was able to observe the following for yesterday and today: 

Xanax (~120 min restock timer):
Yesterday:
Empty: 12:09 TCT - Expected Restock: ~14:09 TCT - Actual Restock: 16:14 TCT

Today: 
Empty 02:36 TCT - Expected Restock: ~04:36 TCT - Actual Restock: 06:33 TCT


Uncut Diamonds (~60 min restock timer):
Yesterday:
Empty: 18:06 TCT - Expected Restock: ~19:06 TCT - Actual Restock: 20:12 TCT
Empty: 21:30 TCT - Expected Restock: ~22:30 TCT - Actual Restock: 23:36 TCT

Hope that helps to figure out if that "Skip" is intentional or a bug.
As said, I only ever witnessed that very rarely before, for example with Xanax in Canada and I think only when it got sold out in under a minute before (but there are other times when its sold out in Canada very fast, where the next 2 hour restock works just fine). 
If I should make a new post, tell me.

Thanks for your input Admin IndyCision