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Game Economics - 4/19/2011 10:04:48 PM

Undecided

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I've been playing DW for the last few days, and some questions came up that I could not find the answers too via Google or manual browsing. I'm hoping some of you DW veterans can answer these.

1) What do the % values beside resource icons represent in the planetary details window? I had assumed it meant concentration (how much yield you get per mining module) since the AI seems to favor high % yield planets, but I couldn't find anything in the manual to confirm this theory.

2) If my above assumption is correct, do high % yields also guarantee the planet has high reserves, or are the two unrelated when it comes to random planet generation? And does planet size affect yield or reserves significantly?

3) Do resources deposits (on planets, asteroids, etc) deplete over time as a mining station extracts them? Is it the same when planetary colonies mines the resource?

4) How fast do resource deposits deplete (if ever)? I has previously assumed it was linear and finite, but I ran an experiment yesterday where I placed a mining base (with 10 extacters) over a moon containing gold. After letting it run for 6 months straight, I used the game editor to check the "Qty" values before and after. I was surprised to find that the moon's gold "Qty" did not deplete -- and actually increased slightly.
EDIT: It seems to make much more sense that Qty is the planet's cargo (stuff already mined and awaiting piuckup), and not actual resource reserves left on the planet.

5) Are there any other factors other than the number of mining engines (and maybe cargo space) that influences extraction rates on mining stations? For example, would placing a mining station over a large planet instead of a small planet with the same % resources result in a higher extraction rate?

6) How do you determine how fast a settled colony mines a resource? Never been able to figure this one out. With mining stations you could just count the number of mining engines, but you can't do that with colonies.

If you know the answer to any of these, please chime in. Thanks in advance!

< Message edited by Undecided -- 4/24/2011 8:40:26 PM >

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RE: Game Economics - 4/20/2011 6:37:11 AM

adecoy95

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i believe that the % shows how much of your mining ships mining rate you actually get for each resource. obviously this means that if you have rich worlds where it adds up to more than 100%, your mining ships will be extracting at a higher than normal rate.

i don't think that resource deposits ever deplete, at least i have never seen them do so.

i have not done much testing with mining stations over top planets, but i don't see why it would not work if you needed a lot of a particular resource.

i think that all colonies have the same mining rate (effected by that % thing, see above).

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RE: Game Economics - 4/20/2011 8:42:56 AM

Data

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Confirmed on all of the above, welcome to the forum Undecided....hope we'll see you brother, Decided, also here

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RE: Game Economics - 4/24/2011 8:39:35 PM

Undecided

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Thanks, guys. It's good to get my fangs back in a good open-ended 4X game. Sadly they seem to be less popular nowadays due to their niche appeal, but anyways, another question:

Is there any particular reason I should favor many low-yield mining stations (as the AI seems to) as opposed to placing just one super-station with 10 extractors over a on top of a few high % asteroids?

At first glance, the super-station idea seems superior. There's the sheer savings in maintenance costs, not to mention more efficient travel logistics (freighters only need to visit one mine instead of douzens across multiple systems), and it's far easier to defend one base than a douzen. But since the AI seems to favor the small-base, many stations spam approach, I feel as if I have to be missing some factor that makes my idea moot...

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RE: Game Economics - 4/24/2011 10:49:59 PM

Data

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The idea is sound...the first thing that comes to mind is distance, as your empire grows having one source in a remote location could impact your delivery. But with carefull SP layout you might overcome this as well.
It needs to be tested, I may also miss something but the idea sure sounds interesting.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/25/2011 3:44:12 AM

martok

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Undecided

Thanks, guys. It's good to get my fangs back in a good open-ended 4X game. Sadly they seem to be less popular nowadays due to their niche appeal, but anyways, another question:

Is there any particular reason I should favor many low-yield mining stations (as the AI seems to) as opposed to placing just one super-station with 10 extractors over a on top of a few high % asteroids?

At first glance, the super-station idea seems superior. There's the sheer savings in maintenance costs, not to mention more efficient travel logistics (freighters only need to visit one mine instead of douzens across multiple systems), and it's far easier to defend one base than a douzen. But since the AI seems to favor the small-base, many stations spam approach, I feel as if I have to be missing some factor that makes my idea moot...

Perhaps the AI avoids this approach due to the "all your eggs in one basket" syndrome? By building a number of smaller stations instead, the AI is reducing its overall risk.

I've no idea. That's only a guess on my part.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/25/2011 4:17:26 AM

Undecided

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Good point. Especially since the AI may not have the predictive capability that humans when calculating where raids are likely to occur.

< Message edited by Undecided -- 4/25/2011 4:22:05 AM >

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RE: Game Economics - 4/25/2011 2:59:25 PM

Apheirox

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Umm, you don't pay for mining stations. The private sector does. You pay to put up the station but not the maintenance.

< Message edited by Apheirox -- 4/25/2011 3:00:12 PM >

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RE: Game Economics - 4/25/2011 9:16:47 PM

Undecided

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I had always thought more maintenance costs for private sector meant less money for them to invest, hence less money/transactions for you to tax. At the end of the day, that still means you're paying maintenance indirectly, as higher maintenance still reduces your revenue stream. Isn't that the case?

If not, I'll start arming my freighters and mining stations like battleships and fortresses.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/25/2011 10:04:15 PM

Data

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That should be the case yes, but no one has taken such an undertaking to prove it...altough I think a small and controlled testcase will do.
So, are your fortress stations and your battleship freighters ready?

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 3:58:17 AM

Undecided

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Ran some tests. In a nutshell: don't worry. (For me, at least) ship maintenance accounted for only about 7% of expenditures for the private sector, when giving everything a few shields and a weapon. You could probably arm them to the teeth for no more than 20% expenditure -- which sounds like a lot, but is not. Since at maximum tax rates you can take no more than 50% of their income, they have at least the other 50% to pay for ship maintenance and buy new ships with. It appears virtually impossible to bankrupt the private sector unless you or the AI does something very stupid, or you have a crippled economy (due to unlucky starting location, high corruption, etc).

Given the huge >50% income safety net the private sector has, this entire aspect seems to be intentionally designed. Probably as a safe guard against a bad AI running its economy into the ground. So, yeah, it appears you can afford to heavily arm your mining bases and freighters to the point of rivaling dedicated war ships -- if you have a decent economy backing you, of course.

The only foreseeable problem would be fuel logistics, as a fully armed freighter may consume upwards of three times the normal fuel once you give it additional reactors. But even that shouldn't be a problem if you have plenty of fueling stations.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 4:47:38 AM

cookie monster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Undecided

Ran some tests. In a nutshell: don't worry. (For me, at least) ship maintenance accounted for only about 7% of expenditures for the private sector, when giving everything a few shields and a weapon. You could probably arm them to the teeth for no more than 20% expenditure -- which sounds like a lot, but is not. Since at maximum tax rates you can take no more than 50% of their income, they have at least the other 50% to pay for ship maintenance and buy new ships with. It appears virtually impossible to bankrupt the private sector unless you or the AI does something very stupid, or you have a crippled economy (due to unlucky starting location, high corruption, etc).

Given the huge >50% income safety net the private sector has, this entire aspect seems to be intentionally designed. Probably as a safe guard against a bad AI running its economy into the ground. So, yeah, it appears you can afford to heavily arm your mining bases and freighters to the point of rivaling dedicated war ships -- if you have a decent economy backing you, of course.

The only foreseeable problem would be fuel logistics, as a fully armed freighter may consume upwards of three times the normal fuel once you give it additional reactors. But even that shouldn't be a problem if you have plenty of fueling stations.

Interesting... Never really thought about them having 50% income leftover.

The problem with fuel logistics is the player can control his fuel stores but what the AI has in it's colonies/space ports is a different matter. If they have no fuel then an ''armed'' freighter can't power it's guns. Plus they may request remove military forces from our system. I dont know whether it goes by equipped weapons or type of ship. But then again they ask me to remove my explorer/gunships so any ''weaponised'' ship will trigger this.

After game experience I am now gonna equip all private sector ships with shields the Area of Effect weapons are damaging my ships when they are caught in the middle of a fight in neutral territory. And triggering that darned annoying pop-up. Plus my constructors have got better things to do than fix tiny little freighters.

I am gonna upgrade my mining/gas mining ships to greater capacity and mining engines. They can only carry about 900 resources in stock config. They need more storage. Problem with greater storage is the storage compartments are made from steel and polymer which are probably the two most required strategic resources in the game.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 5:12:45 AM

Data

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Good work, Undecided, thx for the feedback.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 6:59:09 PM

Undecided

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cookie monster
Interesting... Never really thought about them having 50% income leftover.

The problem with fuel logistics is the player can control his fuel stores but what the AI has in it's colonies/space ports is a different matter. If they have no fuel then an ''armed'' freighter can't power it's guns. Plus they may request remove military forces from our system. I dont know whether it goes by equipped weapons or type of ship. But then again they ask me to remove my explorer/gunships so any ''weaponised'' ship will trigger this.

After game experience I am now gonna equip all private sector ships with shields the Area of Effect weapons are damaging my ships when they are caught in the middle of a fight in neutral territory. And triggering that darned annoying pop-up. Plus my constructors have got better things to do than fix tiny little freighters.

I am gonna upgrade my mining/gas mining ships to greater capacity and mining engines. They can only carry about 900 resources in stock config. They need more storage. Problem with greater storage is the storage compartments are made from steel and polymer which are probably the two most required strategic resources in the game.

I should clarify: the 200-300% fuel consumption the armed freighters/bases would have is the maximum fuel consumption (e.g., only when in combat guns blazing). Although freighters cannot use more than one weapon, so it's really only the mining bases you can heavily arm and have to worry about fuel. But even then, both your freighters and mining bases can offset higher energy requirements just by adding solar panels, so if you plan carefully, you can make it so there's no increase in fuel consumption.

Something else to note: The freighter AI has a tendency to make cargo runs with only partially full cargo holds -- which I assume is based on how much of a particular resource is available for pickup at their departure station. So remember to scale your mining bases' cargo capacity and number of extractors so that they can take advantage of your new freighters' expanded cargo. Otherwise, you may just end up wasting space.

Additionally, consider consolidating starports to further prevent partially empty freighter runs (due to insufficient cargo space at space ports). See here for my particular strategy.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 7:37:33 PM

cookie monster

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The space port cargo room is the planet. I don't know if there is a limit to a planets cargo capacity but it's alot.

I also don't know if the standard amount of cargo holds is necessary on a space port, maybe they help with cargo transfer from the planet.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 8:03:21 PM

Data

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Yes, the planet cargo capacity seems to be unlimited. And yes, you can have SP without any cargo bays at all; this is how I design them by default, they are redundant when the SP is over a planet.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 8:25:01 PM

cookie monster

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So when is a space port not over a planet?

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 8:27:23 PM

Data

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When you edit it somewhere else

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RE: Game Economics - 4/26/2011 11:46:15 PM

Undecided

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Really? Well that frees up a few hundred units of space I can fill with more shielding. Yay.

Now I have some new questions, this time about taxation:

The manual claims that colony income is just (population) x (planet quality), but there must be some other factors at work. Even with an no starports, no corruption, no bonus culture, etc: I have a 8% Quality planets with 0.08 billion people making several times more than a 30% quality planet /w 1 billion people. This is just one example, however; such irregularities are common place. So:

1) What am I missing here?

2) Are all planets under 50% quality hardwired by the game engine into always run negative or near negative? I can't think of any other reason a 17% and 48% planet pull in the same revenue.

3) If #2 is true, is there any reason to colonize a <50% quality planet other than establishing system sovereignty? Should I just not bother colonizing <50% planets in systems I already control?

3) Is the culture % value of a planet just a synonym for development %?

4) Regarding luxury goods, is it the case that they are entirely useless beyond increasing your own planets' development rating? I ask because "foreign trade" seems to only ever bring in less than 0.5% of my annual income, even when I have FTA's with 20 other nations. They also don't add anything to planetary revenue (I tested this with the game editor, stripping a 300 billion pop planet of all resources).

5) How come the occasional planet has 130% culture instead of 100%? I can see now visible ruins, buildings, or listed effects to account for this.

6) Does the Expansion Planner's "Your demand" column only pertain to shipbuilding demand? Or does that column only show shortfalls rather than demand? I ask because all my luxury demands seem to be at 0.0k for my massive empire, even those for super-luxury goods I do not have any stock/sources of.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/27/2011 6:11:11 AM

Data

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1) What am I missing here?
development

2) Are all planets under 50% quality hardwired by the game engine into always run negative or near negative? I can't think of any other reason a 17% and 48% planet pull in the same revenue.
yes afaik

3) If #2 is true, is there any reason to colonize a <50% quality planet other than establishing system sovereignty? Should I just not bother colonizing <50% planets in systems I already control?
I do it for resources, if I really need them

the other 3) Is the culture % value of a planet just a synonym for development %?
yes

4) Regarding luxury goods, is it the case that they are entirely useless beyond increasing your own planets' development rating? I ask because "foreign trade" seems to only ever bring in less than 0.5% of my annual income, even when I have FTA's with 20 other nations. They also don't add anything to planetary revenue (I tested this with the game editor, stripping a 300 billion pop planet of all resources).
pretty much so, yes

5) How come the occasional planet has 130% culture instead of 100%? I can see now visible ruins, buildings, or listed effects to account for this.
never seen this but the in the planets and bases screen that colony has a development breakdown, can you post a screenshot for it so we can check it?

6) Does the Expansion Planner's "Your demand" column only pertain to shipbuilding demand? Or does that column only show shortfalls rather than demand? I ask because all my luxury demands seem to be at 0.0k for my massive empire, even those for super-luxury goods I do not have any stock/sources of.
luxury needs in the expansion planner is not yet really clear, it may be that the game doesn't consider them needed. For sure "Your demand" column does not only pertain to shipbuilding demand, shortfalls is the best explanation so far

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RE: Game Economics - 4/27/2011 1:01:11 PM

Undecided

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3) If #2 is true, is there any reason to colonize a <50% quality planet other than establishing system sovereignty? Should I just not bother colonizing <50% planets in systems I already control?
I do it for resources, if I really need them

Couldn't you get higher yields by using mining stations, though? I haven't compared the numbers, but I think that settled planets have a fixed rate of extraction, where as mining stations can be given anywhere from 1-200 mining engines, letting you scale production to an almost exploitive scale.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/27/2011 1:56:37 PM

cookie monster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Undecided

3) If #2 is true, is there any reason to colonize a <50% quality planet other than establishing system sovereignty? Should I just not bother colonizing <50% planets in systems I already control?
I do it for resources, if I really need them

Couldn't you get higher yields by using mining stations, though? I haven't compared the numbers, but I think that settled planets have a fixed rate of extraction, where as mining stations can be given anywhere from 1-200 mining engines, letting you scale production to an almost exploitive scale.

Build mines for resources, <50% planets run at a deficit, a higher deficit at larger pop levels, plus your passenger ships feed them population, so you lose good pops to a bad world, when they could go somewhere good and make you money.

You would have to micro the constructors to build such a monster they don't have the cargo space for such a large mining base.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/27/2011 2:42:00 PM

Data

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Not really sure if you'll lose pop to them as there are many othe factors that affect migration. If you keep their happiness low enough by increasing the taxation for example you could prevent migration.

Having a colony increases the chance of freighters visiting than having a mining station from what I've observed. Plus you can place a SP at a colony to increase the chances for freighters making trade runs.

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RE: Game Economics - 4/27/2011 2:46:09 PM

cookie monster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Data

Not really sure if you'll lose pop to them as there are many othe factors that affect migration. If you keep their happiness low enough by increasing the taxation for example you could prevent migration.

Must have been the 5 passenger ships which approached and left population that confused me while I was testing.

Having a colony increases the chance of freighters visiting than having a mining station from what I've observed. Plus you can place a SP at a colony to increase the chances for freighters making trade runs.

Probably due to requests for luxuries.