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Economy questions - 11/11/2010 6:24:08 PM

Nikolaj

Posts: 140
Joined: 5/1/2010
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Status: offline

I'm still playing this game from time to time, but every time I play it, I find that some things just don't make sense. I'm not sure if it's the game, the documentation or just me, but I find that I often lack a basis for the decisions that I need to make in the game. The part of the game that I understand the least is probably the economy, so here are a few questions. Hopefully, someone will be able to answer them.

1) In my current game, I have ~60 colonies. I have built small space ports in most the systems that I control, and one large space port in my home system. This worked well for a while, and the economy screen showed a space port income of several hundred thousands for a while. Then, all of a sudden, it showed 10k, then 0. Have all my civilian traders stopped using my space ports? Because, as I understand it, the space port income is actually a sort of tariff that's paid every time a ship docks. Why it would fall from several hundred thousands to zero, for no obvious reason, is beyond me.

2) The bottom line number in the economy screen (the one on the left, showing the public finances), that show the income/loss doesn't seem to correspond to the income/loss number in the top right of the main screen. Shouldn't it?

3) In relation to number 2, does anyone know what time period is the basis for income (and tech advance)? Is it a month? A year?

4) Unrelated to economy. Does anyone know how, and if, I can automate my fleets, without turning fleet formation over to the AI?

Post #: 1

RE: Economy questions - 11/11/2010 6:40:43 PM

Merker

Posts: 208
Joined: 7/3/2010
Status: offline

Yo, I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability

1. Space port income comes from build orders made by the private sector. In short, you get paid for every freighter they build at your spaceport. For every spaceport you build, the private sector builds a number of ships, and so you get a certain income. I don't know the exact numbers but there's a thread around that explains everything, if I find it I'll post the link. So, as long as you keep building spaceports, you will keep getting spaceport income. I believe it's also related to exploitation of rare luxury resources, since in one of my games I had huge income after mining the loros fruit.
Also, I think the number of freighters per spaceport increases with the size of the spaceport. So you might try upgrading some of the small ones to medium.
You also get income from fuel bought by freighters from your empire, but I don't think that registers.

2. The main screen income indicator I believe shows income for that month from all the stable sources of income like colonies, and such, minus the stable expenses.
The economy screen indicator also takes into account temporary income sources like space port income, tourism and foreign trade.

3. Don't have an idea, but I think it's per month

4. Yes you can, just select the fleet and click A(or whatever hotkey you have for automate ship command). The fleet will patrol around, refuel, resupply, and, if you have attack set to AI control, it will attack on its own. If it has a base, it will keep guard over a range of 1 sector(the square lines in the galaxy map), and will resupply at that place only.

Cheers

(in reply to Nikolaj)

Post #: 2

RE: Economy questions - 11/11/2010 11:08:27 PM

Jeeves

Posts: 940
Joined: 9/28/2010
From: Arlington TN U.S.A
Status: offline

1) If you have economic woes, consider building more constructors. Although the empire pays their maintenance, you will get cash from the civilians every time a project is built for them. Furthermore, the increased supply of resources will unclog your economic pipeline. This allows your spaceports to actually BUILD the ships for the civilians rather than just starting to build or queueing them for build.

2) If your civilians lack cash, they cannot build things. Consider cutting the tax rate down to 1% on all colonies with revenue less than 20k, so that the civilians have the money to buy more ships. Larger colonies (except for your home world) do quite well at 14% tax more or less. On your home world, tax at 14 to 33% rather than 50%. Now notice the increased population growth rate.

3) The tax automation is BONKERS, don't use it. The economic report is defective, take everything it says with a grain of salt, except for ship/base maintenance costs. On THAT it is very correct.

***EDIT***: You start paying maintenance on something when it finishes building. If you start builds on a LOT of things simultaneously, (for example 18 capital ships costing 7k each to maintain), then you have a nasty surprise coming at you when they finally are completed. Suddenly maintenance jumps by 126k!

4) When you change tax rates there is always a lag of about a month until the change actually takes effect. I think that taxes are collected on a monthly basis by your empire. I am almost sure that ***maintenance*** is PAID seven times a year. *** Edited ***

5) Your foreign trade bonus is applied to all transactions between you and another empire. It increases from the time when you first got the free trade agreement until the % bonus reaches 20%

6) Anytime that goods pass through one of your spaceports, you get a bonus % of the transaction which depends upon the technological level of the commerce center at the transaction spaceport. So if you fail to upgrade your oldest spaceports as the years pass by, you will be losing an enormous amount of cash

*** EDITED*** 7) Revenue for a colony = population * development level * (1- corruption % as a FRACTION) * (quality factor - 50) / scale factor

8) So what you want to colonize is independent colonies, high quality factor worlds, and worlds with luxuries or ruins, and try to stay near your capital. Was that news?
*** EDIT*** in the process of colonization, you need to get as many different strategic resources as possible from each of the systems which you colonize. In each colonized sector of the map, you want to be self sufficient in all strategics, and as many luxuries as possible. The sector boundaries are not really important, what I mean is within a reasonable distance of every colonized system get as many different resources as possible.

I am in the process of writing a game strategy guide, currently at page 33 of an estimated page 50. Once it is approved by the staff, you will find much useful information in it. I am doing this project for free, because I really like the game.

< Message edited by Jeeves -- 11/12/2010 12:47:06 AM >

(in reply to Nikolaj)

Post #: 3

RE: Economy questions - 11/11/2010 11:19:56 PM

adecoy95

Posts: 420
Joined: 3/26/2010
Status: offline

i dident realize corruption had such a large impact on income, i thought it was mainly used to cause colonies to rebel.... can it be used to force empires to remain small.. or will all worlds no matter how far from the homeworld never cost the empire anything to maintain as long as they are above 50% quality?

< Message edited by adecoy95 -- 11/11/2010 11:20:32 PM >

(in reply to Jeeves)

Post #: 4

RE: Economy questions - 11/12/2010 12:11:02 AM

Jeeves

Posts: 940
Joined: 9/28/2010
From: Arlington TN U.S.A
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: adecoy95

i dident realize corruption had such a large impact on income, i thought it was mainly used to cause colonies to rebel.... can it be used to force empires to remain small.. or will all worlds no matter how far from the homeworld never cost the empire anything to maintain as long as they are above 50% quality?

Based upon experience :
Suppose I have a home world at the center of the galaxy. I have 100 systems 127 colonies. In my home system is a very small population colony which I planted. I track its corruption as the years pass by. What I find in a 1400 system galaxy is that my empire corruption increases by about 1% per 16 systems planted. Then at about 64 systems, it suddenly starts increasing at 1% per 4 additional systems planted. In that game, I certainly brought my expansion to a screeching halt! - 13% at a small colony in the home system...

***EDIT*** The empire wide corruption factor is a hit on every colony, not just those which you added most recently. So unless you expect to increase empire revenue by at least one percent by planting another 4 systems after that 64th one, you might actually DECREASE your empire revenue when you plant another four systems!

*** Yet another EDIT *** I always have "Way of the Ancients" as my government. If you have a different form of government, then your experience might be different...

There is another contribution to corruption factor based upon the size of the population at a particular colony, but that one is relatively unimportant.

Also I determined that there is a corruption factor based upon distance from the capital - about 3% per 1000 map units from the capital. That gave systems at the edge of the map a total corruption of about 45-50%. They are MUCH less profitable than those near the capital. Even so, you might want to take a loss rather than let an AI empire have a choice system...

Arggh no, when the quality factor is less than 50%, then not only do you not collect taxes, you have to PAY the population to live there! Suppose you have two equal population, development level, and corruption worlds. One has quality of 75%, the other has quality of 25%. What you will see is that you have to PAY (a negative revenue) people the same revenue on the 25% as you are collecting on the 75% quality world.

EDIT - As i said, I am writing a strategy guide (on my own initiative) which is about 2/3 done. Questions like these will be answered in detail in it. If you just wait a couple/three weeks, it should be posted then, provided there are no problems in formatting it for the forum.

< Message edited by Jeeves -- 11/12/2010 12:55:07 AM >

(in reply to adecoy95)

Post #: 5

RE: Economy questions - 11/12/2010 1:20:49 AM

Nikolaj

Posts: 140
Joined: 5/1/2010
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Status: offline

Thanks a lot for the help guys. Lots of useful information here. I usually just colonize whatever I can, but I guess I should probably rethink that approach, as well as my idea of building space ports in the majority of my systems.

@Jeeves: I'm looking forward to reading your strategy guide. You said that I receive a fraction of the revenue, every time goods pass through one of my ports (I wasn't aware that the tech level of the commerce center mattered - excellent tip). Do you know where in the economic report that's listed, or is that one of the parts that are broken?

(in reply to Jeeves)

Post #: 6

RE: Economy questions - 11/12/2010 1:35:21 AM

Jeeves

Posts: 940
Joined: 9/28/2010
From: Arlington TN U.S.A
Status: offline

I stopped noticing the labels, but I am pretty sure that both the payments for civilian ships and the revenue from the commerce center are lumped together as "spaceport income". The income from sales to other empires is given as "bonus". I am busy at the moment, can somebody else crank up the game and LOOK at the labels?

I think that my strategy guide will knock your socks off, revealing mysterious of the game which you did not even suspect. I did not (and have no intention of doing in the future) do any reverse engineering. But 2000 hours of game play gives me a level of awareness probably unmatched except for the game's developers...

EDIT - LOL I really need to turn off spell check/auto correct on my browser. That is MYSTERIES not mysterious. LOL

< Message edited by Jeeves -- 11/12/2010 1:53:26 AM >

(in reply to Nikolaj)

Post #: 7