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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> The War Room >> Costs

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Costs - 2/5/2011 11:42:20 PM

ggf31416

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Joined: 1/6/2011
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From converting the component stats in a system of lineal ecuations and running them in a symbolic mathematics program (Maxima) and testing I figured out that the formula for calculating the manteinance costs of a ship in vanilla DW 1.0.6.0 is:

ManteinanceCost = 1 + ( 2 * ResourceCost + 1.5 * Size ) * ( 1 - CC ), where ResourceCost = Sum(Amount * Price) for each resource

and CC is the Manteinance Savings from the Command Center (for example 0.15 for 15%)

Manteinance Cost for Construction Ships is 3 * Normal Manteinance Cost

From posts in the forum we know that

PurchaseCost = 8 * ResourceCost

My questions are:

How are fuel costs calculated?

Does the expansion uses the same formulas?

< Message edited by ggf31416 -- 2/5/2011 11:55:24 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Costs - 2/6/2011 7:56:21 AM

Data

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Joined: 1/3/2011
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First of all, good work on the maintenance aspect.
Not sure who can give you an answer with as many precise details for fuel or the expansion.....I think you'll need to get on the expansion and let us know

From what I do know, the fuel cost is calculated based on the caslon or hydrogen resource costs and that is based on the actual scarcity or lack of it....don't know of any modifiers that apply to it though

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to ggf31416)

Post #: 2

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 12:47:48 PM

ggf31416

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Purchase Cost in 1.5.0.8 seem to have increased to 10 * ResourceAmount * ResourcePrice. As the minimal resource price is 5/6 or 0.833... (displayed as 0.8) the minimal purchase cost is 8.33x the resource amount.
Maintenance Cost seem to have been reduced to 2 * ResourceAmount * ResourcePrice + 1 * Size.
That means that at the start of the game (when resource costs start at the minimum) a ship with 10 maxos blasters (total 90 resources and 50 size) and nothing else should cost:
10 * 90 * 5/6 = 750 to build
(2 * 90 * 5/6 + 50) + 1 = 201 to maintain (if the race and government doesn't have maintenance bonuses/penalties)

Please someone confirm that you get the same numbers in your computer.

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 3

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 1:40:31 PM

Data

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750 to build
171 to maintain

it's expected that maintenance is lower than initial build cost. Same 90 resources and 50 size but note that I also had two sources for gold and nekros stone and one for helium.
We should compare tests and make sure that we edit out any sources for the resouces that make the component.

< Message edited by Data -- 4/8/2011 1:43:09 PM >

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to ggf31416)

Post #: 4

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 5:19:21 PM

ggf31416

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Did you use a government (like Despotism or Military Dictatorship) or a race with a ship maintenance bonus?
The ship designer takes into account the race, government and command center (if any).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Data

750 to build
171 to maintain

< Message edited by ggf31416 -- 4/8/2011 5:21:49 PM >

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 5

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 7:04:05 PM

Data

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I was a democracy with no maintenance bonuses....let's control all the variables and set the prerequisites so that we do the exact same test. Given your observations I still think it's hard to have maintenance costs higher than purchase costs...but let's test and make sure.

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to ggf31416)

Post #: 6

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 7:41:29 PM

ggf31416

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If I use democracy I get 241 (+20% maintenance from government). I get 171 with Despotism (-15% maintenance from government).
Either your DW has 30% less maintenance than mine for some reason or you clicked Despotism instead of Democracy.
I think it makes more sense to test with monarchy, which has normal maintenance.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Data

I was a democracy with no maintenance bonuses....let's control all the variables and set the prerequisites so that we do the exact same test. Given your observations I still think it's hard to have maintenance costs higher than purchase costs...but let's test and make sure.

< Message edited by ggf31416 -- 4/8/2011 7:44:29 PM >

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 7

RE: Costs - 4/8/2011 9:57:29 PM

Data

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You were correct, I got so used to a particular game setup that I forgot I set everything on random the last time...so actually I don't know what race / gov I had on the previous test but your reverse engineering reveals the gov quite nicely

To redeem myselef this time I did pay attention and used an Atuuk monarchy and I got 750/201. Also, two sources for gold and one for helium and nekros this time; with 0.8 price for all three.
Even after removing all the sources for them and running the game at 4x for a while the prices didn't change so 750/201 seems to be it.

< Message edited by Data -- 4/8/2011 9:58:04 PM >

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to ggf31416)

Post #: 8

RE: Costs - 6/17/2014 6:55:58 PM

Tormodino

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I can see how maintenance would fluctuate by resource price if you were required to repair/rebuild a ships components, but does maintenance price really vary by current resource price even when a ship is not being worked on?

I might have misunderstood something here.

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 9

RE: Costs - 6/17/2014 11:47:15 PM

Aeson

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The maintenance costs aren't the repair costs for a ship. Maintenance is the abstraction of the work required to keep the ship in operational condition under normal use (i.e. noncombat use). This may be anything from repainting the hull to replacing lightbulbs in the corridors to replacing bad capacitors in the weapon banks - the normal work required to keep the ship in working order when someone hasn't blown a hole in the ship. The maintenance costs listed for a ship are the estimated yearly costs of maintaining that ship, based on the current costs of the resources required for the components, some fraction of which will be "repaired" or "replaced" during the not-actually-appearing-in-the-game annual maintenance work done on the ship. It is this fraction of the ship's components that you pay for when you pay the maintenance bill for the ship (along with the assumed labor required for this, and also the stockpiles of spare parts for the ship that we can assume your empire purchases for its fleets).

This isn't the cost of fixing combat damage, this is the cost of normal maintenance work. You can go for decades within the game where 90% or more of your fleet never sees combat and yet still you'd pay these maintenance fees for each and every one of your ships. The game may not show you that your ships are wearing themselves out by all that cruising around that they do, or that they're wearing out the gun barrels, missile launch tubes, and laser capacitor banks through gunnery drills, or straining the power systems, or patching holes from micrometeor impacts, but these types of things are there in the abstract, as represented by the maintenance bills for your fleet.

(in reply to Tormodino)

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RE: Costs - 6/19/2014 9:30:48 PM

BlueTemplar

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It would seem that maintenance doesn't actually use resources (for replacing those component parts that are supposedly "used up" and you need to "replace" by paying money for the resources they are made of), and repairing doesn't use either resources, or money.

(in reply to Aeson)

Post #: 11