Some economic tips... (Full Version)

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Erik Rutins -> Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 5:56:41 PM)

Copied from a thread in the support sub-forum:


A few more tips - I just ran a test game, got to 15 colonies and made sure to do some things to make the economy tank (overstretched on colonization, overbuilt all kinds of ships and bases, didn't make any particular resources a priority for construction). I was able to recover by doing the following:

1. Took control of some colony tax rates and adjusted them, including on new colonies, to generate some additional revenue without creating too much discontent (note that you need to balance tax rate increases against compliance and happiness, which is why it's often best to leave this automated, but in an economic crisis taking control can help as the automation always likes to keep new colony taxes very low).

2. Scrapped some bases I had discovered and taken control of but which weren't doing much for me. Scrapped all but one construction ship (they are quite expensive). Scrapped a few destroyers.

3. Traded away some technology to improve some alien race attitudes to form some additional free trade pacts and push an existing free trade up to a mutual defense pact. Traded some other techs for straight cash to help the bank account.

4. Found one strategic resource using the expansion planner that was fairly high in price due to supply being below demand and using the cash I gained from tech trades, built another mining station to add another source of supply, which helped reduce the price on that.

5. Kept my fleet parked so that it wouldn't use up fuel. Used Escorts on automation for minor tasks.

6. Traded for more galaxy and territory maps to open up new sources of strategic and luxury goods for my private sector.

7. In going through my ships I also found a few that had been damaged and were effectively adrift. Rather than paying for the fuel and time to send a construction ship to repair them, I simply scrapped them to save money.

The combination of these things got me back into the black in about 15 minutes of play on 2x speed. As my colonies continued to develop, my position grew more comfortable.

This is not to say there couldn't be a bug, but if there is one there it seems manageable with careful play and fairly subtle in its effects. If you see this happen to you again, please do upload a save as that will be the best way for us to figure out what you are seeing.



Shark7 -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 6:04:48 PM)

Erik in your opinion:

1. Would you be better served to build lots of small ships or a balanced mix of ships?

2. Would you be better served to assign a fleet to protect important areas (IE 1 escort at each mining station etc), or simply patrol the systems with light ships, only calling in the big boys when necessary?



Erik Rutins -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 6:15:27 PM)

Some of this depends on how you have your empire setup and how much you want to manage yourself rather than automate, but...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7
1. Would you be better served to build lots of small ships or a balanced mix of ships?


Early on, I tend to focus much more on Escorts and Frigates. My Destroyers are generally just for my initial fleet. Note that I also like to customize my designs a bit and build "Heavy Escorts" that are a bit more effective than the default kind. I automate all of these and I find they provide very good coverage overall with respect to piracy and minor threats.

I will use my fleet of 4-5 destroyers early on to take out pirate bases, major space monsters (only if they're a real problem, some of those big ones can be quite expensive to defeat) and occasionally invade an independent planet that resists my colony ships.

quote:

2. Would you be better served to assign a fleet to protect important areas (IE 1 escort at each mining station etc), or simply patrol the systems with light ships, only calling in the big boys when necessary?


I tend to keep my fleet in my home system early on when I'm not using it on a mission. I find that leaving the Escorts and Frigates to automation works well and I rarely mess with them other than to make sure I've built enough to cover my needs. If I want to manage some of them manually, I will spread them around a bit, making sure that each station/base has at least one Escort on local patrol. The Frigates I would keep perhaps a small fleet of 2-3 per system as a response force if I manage it all myself. If systems are close to each other, one such fleet could be a response force for more than one system, but usually keeping them in the system works best for rapid response.



theonlystd -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 10:48:45 PM)

bleh im still not understanding how i can go from making 30k to negative -30k so fast.

Only thing i've built maintenance wise on top of what i started with was some escorts,exploration ships and a couple small ports and a constructor..

I've disbanded said construction ship,unhired agents,disbanded 70% of my troops. And still losing 30k Which means i need to disband over half the military.. And as said i started with these and was making plenty of moeny.




After poking around im guessin the problem is my capital.. It used to bring in over 100k Revenue now its making less than a planet with 1/5th the population... 43k compared to 49k..Cant set the taxes any higher tho or they get mad..So what should i do about that?





Webbco -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 11:13:29 PM)

theonlystd, I just sent Erik a savegame where I have exactly the same problems and have done the same things as you to try and alleviate the situation. Keep your eyes open for a reply once he's seen it...



Hyfrydle -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 11:19:35 PM)

I have just run a game on full automation and let it do it's thing and the economy is now in the red. This is without any input from myself.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 11:20:48 PM)

Can you upload a save file? We've got a game running on full automation on another system here and it's in the black. I'm wondering if there are some issues specific to race or galaxy settings and there are more combinations than we can really test blindly.



Hyfrydle -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/26/2010 11:42:50 PM)

Will upload now Erik. Its the Mortalen Empire.



theonlystd -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/27/2010 12:15:24 AM)

Uploaded mine to just incase.


I got back into the green for a bit by upping taxes some more.. But then my capital got all upset.. At this point its giving like 19k Rev when its not rebeling .... And it holds 60% of my total population..

So any heads up to what im doing wrong would be helpfull...




edit-It appears my capital isnt getting any luxury resources or all be used else where.

My other planets seem to have enough? While my capital basically has none..

Any ways i can go about fixing that?



Pita -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/27/2010 3:01:25 PM)

I also suddenly went into the red. After becoming a good 30k in debt I looked to the forum for advice. At first I felt it was too simple, and the quick damage control that I did didn't seem to make a change, but surely enough my loss slowly turned into a positive and now my cash flow is better than it has been the whole game. Thanks!



Erik Rutins -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/27/2010 3:06:49 PM)

Hi guys,

The tips above should be a big help, but we also found (and think we've fixed) an issue that was affecting the prioritization and distribution of luxury resources in some cases, which could also cause the income crash. We'll get an update with that fix out as soon as possible. In either case it is recoverable, so stick with it and your income should turn positive again.

Regards,

- Erik



Andy Mac -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/27/2010 11:34:45 PM)

I am struggling with Taxws on the planert screen % x total value implies I should be getting 50k tax revenue when I go to the empire screen I only get 7k not sure what I am doing wrong



Xmudder -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/28/2010 12:42:22 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

I am struggling with Taxws on the planert screen % x total value implies I should be getting 50k tax revenue when I go to the empire screen I only get 7k not sure what I am doing wrong


7k might be your net income after expenses, look to a higher line that says 50k or so income from taxes. The next column is how much income is left over for the civilian economy.



Andy Mac -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/28/2010 12:59:40 AM)

I dont get it same thing happens in every game I get to 5 or 6 colonies and then my tax revenue tanks and its game over



lordxorn -> RE: Some economic tips... (3/28/2010 2:25:27 AM)

Cool Erik, because I have been running into the same problem. I even went through the pains of writing down all the luxury resources so it is easier for me to track down which one I haven't exploited yet. I had my empire up to six different luxury resources until the big negative hit.



Hard Sarge -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/2/2010 3:40:46 PM)

I'm not sure

I notice, that all of the other races are broke too, so if the AI can't manage the Ecc, I don't think it is working as intended

Space Ports bring in money, and then all of a sudden, just stop

I am hitting 50 K in Maint cost, I got 8 Combat ships, no spies, and I think I cut the troops down to 6

early on, I was getting by, but selling tech, but they as broke as I am (worse)

(build a resort at a interesting place, a ring planet is interesting, but, you can't build one at the planet, but you got to build it away from the planet, so, what, every 150 years, when the planet's Obit comes back around, you may get some people to show up ?)

really, like the game, but too much silly/stupid stuff keeps coming up to ruin it



Fishman -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/2/2010 9:01:45 PM)

Space ports bring in money and then stop because the main chunk of change comes when people buy new ships. When they stop buying ships, the cashflow dries up. The solution is to give them a newer, better model of ship to purchase. My solution to getting my economy up, however, is to arm merchant cruisers. If you arm all your freighters, you don't even need much of a navy, because anything that bugs your freighters and mining ships will get blown to bits. In fact, since spaceports are such a major congregation spot for merchant cruisers, you don't even need to arm spaceports anymore, anyone trying to attack you will have to fight his way through a bunch of merchant battlecruisers: Merchant cruisers with battleship guns on them.

The drawback? Due to a possible bug, other races hate those things. But being able to chuckle evilly everytime someone picks a fight with one? Priceless.



Nameless -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/3/2010 12:42:50 AM)

High price of an strategic recourse from which your ships are made can create an economic crash (also for all AI). 



Hard Sarge -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/3/2010 5:54:21 AM)

will say, very odd

went back in, hit the editor, gave me and all of the races I knew, 50k cash advance, then my short war with the Bugs ended (I trade him cash and tech, got peace and the planet we were fighting over)

which, said planet, allowed me to land on some new types of planets, and my ecc took off, and I am getting rich now ! ?

my Merchants are getting sicking rich

guessing, maybe a lot of the complaints are based on luck and not being in the right place at the right time



Resan -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/3/2010 12:01:52 PM)

Well so far, I think all of mine ecco crashes are due to to high a price on stuff. Steel, Lead and such.

Upkeep price depends on current "buy price" it seems. So when the "buy price" go up, so do upkeep.

I had the upkeep go from around 100k to about 20k with the same fleet, from doing a bit more mining.



idgar -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/3/2010 5:13:20 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

(build a resort at a interesting place, a ring planet is interesting, but, you can't build one at the planet, but you got to build it away from the planet, so, what, every 150 years, when the planet's Obit comes back around, you may get some people to show up ?)

Make sure you right click directly on the planet/moon with the rings with a constructor selected and choose the "Build at Planet/Moon xxx" option when you order the build. My resorts follow the planets around just fine.

Edit:
If there's already a resort base at the planet you can't build another one so the option won't appear. I'm guessing the same applies to asteroids but not sure about the black holes and neutron stars.



Interesting -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/4/2010 9:03:22 PM)

For Black Holes and Neutron Stars you just need to build it inside the "circle".

Zoom in or out untill you see the circle around the Black Holes.

Not the circle you see when you select the Black Hole!

Never right click a Black Hole and select "Build at BlackHole xxx" your ship will get sucked in and destroyed.  Just build inside the circle, but far away from the BlackHole selection circle.





Xenoform21 -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/4/2010 10:34:09 PM)

This is true, but i think i found an exploit to avoid having a ship sucked into a black hole.

A construction i manually ordered to build at a black hole ventured too close to the event horizon, and it was slowly drifting towards the centre of the hole. I thought, heck, lets try to at least do something to save all those components and that expensive ship.

Long story short, if you see a ship getting pulled into a black hole, order it to warp a short distance away. So long as it's not too close to the centre it should hyper-jump to safety.



BigWolfChris -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/4/2010 10:51:50 PM)

Only really an exploit if the game is supposed to prevent hyper-jumping when in the event-horizon of blackholes (Which would technically make it a bug I suppose lol)



shalis -> RE: Some economic tips... (4/22/2010 2:33:44 PM)

I've played several games soo far on 1.03 and ya i noticed the same patterns.

Seems to be a combination of things. During your initial colonization expansion you have to keep in mind that each planet you colonize will be recruiting troops. Also increase in colonies affects the need for more private sector ships which puts a drain on strategic resources (at the beginning this can mean a big drain on cash flow since you don't have those resources), AI also likes to construct plenty of mining bases and (in 1.02 it happened haven't checked in 1.03) sometimes misplaces them so they end up being a useless massive drain on your cash flow (1k maint a pop).

just my 2 cents on why the economy keeps going to the red even when i have a displayed positive cash flow of 40k- 80k.



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