Thesis: The rate of consumption of goods is too high for freight travel time in most game galaxy scenarios.

[ClassicAz]

I mathed it out in of my posts below. Pretty convinced at this point.

Thesis:

The rate of consumption of goods is too high in most game galaxy scenarios. As the number of colonies increase, your logistics needs quickly exceeds the abilities of freighters at most tech levels to make the required number of trips to provide luxuries to the colonies. This is currently only resolved in my testing by acquiring the wormhole drive.

Test Cases:
a) 10x10 1000 Irregular Galaxy map (one of the lowest density/sparse maps you can create - you can see further details of this game in my AAR thread)
b) 700 6x6 Dual Ring (one of the locally, highest density maps you can create)

In test case a) we have the we have the second to last hyperdrive, cargo size and cargo throughput. Our spaceports are all designed for maximum throughput.

testcasea1.png (287.78 KiB) Viewed 1833 times

As you can see, the development level is quite low.

testcasea1l.png (1.06 MiB) Viewed 1833 times

Here is the associated empire layout.

In test case b)
We have the wormhole, last cargo throughput, and second to last cargo storage, so similar tech for test case a), except for the significant wormhole. The spaceport design is more or less the same as well.

testcaseb.png (208.02 KiB) Viewed 1833 times

Test case b development, is markedly better, and the highest I've ever had since DW:U. In playing test case b, logistics was quite good because of the tight logistics in the outer ring. As I expanded into the inner ring, my supply lines became drastically over stretched. This would be a good thing, except for the fact that I had the last Kaldos Hyperdrive upgrade, quite an advanced hyperdrive. I quickly beelined to get the wormhole drive, and we arrived at the development situation we see above.

testcasebl.jpg (366.04 KiB) Viewed 1833 times

The Problem
Under investment in hyperdrive tech and cargo throughput should lead to supply problems. However in many galaxy generation scenario settings, no amount of research will fix these issues without the near instantaneous travel of freight the wormhole drive provides, due to significant rate of consumption relative to the travel time.

So how to fix:
We can't fix travelling sales problem.
Increasing hyperdrive speeds may lead to unintended side effects.

We can abstract freight, but this is probably a significant rework of a core function of the game.
We can increase the number of freighters, but this might add to an already overloaded game engine.

So I think the most elegant solution is to decrease consumption and production. This would minimize the number of required freight trips (a nice side effect is to reduce the sim load) and give the freight time to get the goods to where they need to go before they are consumed. It would also make individual actions (such as piracy) against freight ships more impactful.

[Bloodly]

It probably doesn't help that freighters don't often use their full capacity. 1 freighter fulfils 1 order, and specifically that order, and colonies rarely ask for multiple goods at once.

I wish we could give tech to Empires in the editor, because I wonder if having max cargo storage is actually helpful, given that often it isn't used.

[ramnblam]

Is this even a problem? Some colonies are going to have more reliable supply of specific luxury resources over others just for the fact of their location. Is it reasonable to expect close to perfect equal resource distribution throughout an entire galaxy? Probably also makes colonising marginal worlds less attractive as well which I see as a positive.

[ClassicAz]

Is this even a problem? Some colonies are going to have more reliable supply of specific luxury resources over others just for the fact of their location. Is it reasonable to expect close to perfect equal resource distribution throughout an entire galaxy? Probably also makes colonising marginal worlds less attractive as well which I see as a positive.

Supply issues are good. But it should be possible at reasonable tech levels to supply your planets. It's the difference between no income and 1m income in the higher difficulties. It also makes securing things like Loros Fruit meaningless if they never make their way to colonies because of the freight bottleneck (which cannot be currently removed).

[iancmtaylor]

It would also make individual actions (such as piracy) against freight ships more impactful.

I do like this.

[Pocus]

If you really want to understand what is going on, you can't just make the assumption the issue is from travel time, without checking these other issues

1 - Freighter load. Follow a few freighters and note where they go and with which load. My experience is that they are very often at 10% capacity, Just-in-time is good, but not to this point.
2 - Overall goods distribution. Follow a mining station and note all freighters going to it and where they will go afterward. You'll note that 99% of the time, they will bring back their goods to the nearest spaceport or colony. Which would not be a big problem if ...
3 - ... If spaceport/Colonies acted as hub, which they don't. Watch over a given spaceport/colony, and in particular watch a luxury with a large stockpile (probably coming from a nearby mining station). Then see how freighters never redistribute it to other colonies.

From my experience (3) is the main problem, followed by (1). And not 'travel time'. Instantaneous travel time with faults in the distribution algorithm is not the magic wand solution. Something must have broken during beta or late beta, as I believe betas would have reported that.

Does it means the game does not work? No ... It's just that compared to a working situation, the dev levels of all planets (player or AI) are much lower than what they could achieve. But somehow, this is 'ok-ish'. Everybody is treated the same way, and you get less income, and the AIs too.

[ClassicAz]

If you really want to understand what is going on, you can't just make the assumption the issue is from travel time, without checking these other issues

1 - Freighter load. Follow a few freighters and note where they go and with which load. My experience is that they are very often at 10% capacity, Just-in-time is good, but not to this point.
2 - Overall goods distribution. Follow a mining station and note all freighters going to it and where they will go afterward. You'll note that 99% of the time, they will bring back their goods to the nearest spaceport or colony. Which would not be a big problem if ...
3 - ... If spaceport/Colonies acted as hub, which they don't. Watch over a given spaceport/colony, and in particular watch a luxury with a large stockpile (probably coming from a nearby mining station). Then see how freighters never redistribute it to other colonies.

From my experience (3) is the main problem, followed by (1). And not 'travel time'. Instantaneous travel time with faults in the distribution algorithm is not the magic wand solution. Something must have broken during beta or late beta, as I believe betas would have reported that.

Does it means the game does not work? No ... It's just that compared to a working situation, the dev levels of all planets (player or AI) are much lower than what they could achieve. But somehow, this is 'ok-ish'. Everybody is treated the same way, and you get less income, and the AIs too.

I've been carefully following and discussing the freight problem on the discord for a couple of weeks now. I think I am pretty across the problem. In any case, my conclusion is based on extensive testing and discussion across multiple games. As I said in my post, I am not trying to solve the travelling sales problem (which is obviously a contributing factor). Just things that we can easily change right now to alleviate the problem.

I would argue things are not okayish, AI desperately needs income to follow its automation routines. I also never said the game didn't work?

[Litjan]

Great analysis!

My (noobish) observation here is: Does it all matter?

It is entirely impossible to keep track of the MILLIONS of different goods in the game, it appears that they are just added to have MOAR stuff - the gameplay is not enhanced by having dozens of goods. It is just fluff. Who cares what a good is called and what effect it has? It is mined automatically, transported automatically, gives an automatic bonus and just adds a few percent to colony growth or happiness.

It is cool the first time you play, but really adds no gameplay value (as you don´t need to defend a specific mining resource because it has a UNIQUE effect, ect.)

Same for fuel - I seem to have a CONSTANT lack of Caslon, yet everyone drives around the galaxy just fine. And that is a good thing, because what could I DO if I really have ships running out of fuel? I already mine all the Caslon I can. Going to war to conquer more would not help, because I would have MOAR territory and need MOAR fuel as a result.

101 of game design is to present the player with interesting choices to solve interesting problems. Resources is just a backdrop for the game, individual resources are too inconsequential to make the player care, the list of resources is huge and inflationary and few (if any) resources have a profound effect on your empire.

[Bloodly]

Well, the game's economy is based off:
1. Keep the trade lanes moving. Keep the freighters safe so they can feed(Although raw food isn't really a good...) the ever-hungry colonies.
2.Create more markets-more colonies to feed and get money off.

I suppose 3 is 'get the freighters in and out as fast as possible-make sure there's no jams slowing things down. No freighters means no money means no fleets or troops means you are hurt. You don't want freighters sitting doing nothing, but you also don't want Development to be draining away such that you're not seeing the extra money that you're 'meant' to be getting.

[OloroMemez]

Great analysis!

My (noobish) observation here is: Does it all matter?

Atm I'd say it doesn't. But that's part of the problem. You've got super luxuries not being distributed properly and only being sent to a couple of planets. Meanwhile freighters are bringing 200 of it, giving the colony 40, and dumping the rest.

As for all the rest of the resources, if it fully doesn't matter if you lose access to a major strategic resource, or if it's next to impossible to actually have a threat to your resource security, then the whole point of a resource system is pointless. We might as well dumb everything down to minerals and credits and be Stellaris.

When I try and sell people on this game, I mention how there's so many resources types and that each resource is used in different amounts for each component, and that the cost is dependent on the resource cost. So it's a possibility to wage economic warfare by targeting resources that your enemy uses in their ships.
Well, that's a straight up lie compared to the reality of the game. And I wish it was actually true.

1. Resources are too common. Without scarcity there's no motivation to wage war.

2. If resources and supply lines can't be targeted, warfare is just zerg invading worlds as fast as possible. Missed opportunity.

3. If resources aren't distributed semi-efficiently, getting super luxuries is anti-climactic (combined with trade barely giving any income from it), because all you get is a disappointment sandwich.

4. Game performance chugs. Can have thousands of freighters present, all of which are barely using their cargo capacity.


So trying to fix resource distribution would address items 3 and 4, and provides potential to item 2. If there's less resource usage AND presence in the galaxy, the logistic AI doesn't need to be as efficient.
Then there's a lower number of freighters you need. And if you increase the amount of cargo they use, maybe a small military ship can actually achieve something by blowing up a single freighter and stopping 2000 worth of an important construction resource from making it to your spaceport.

[ClassicAz]

I've created a tool after some extensive discussion on this topic. It considers an idealised scenario where you have 1 colony with a given population, and given number of requested lux resources. Using real world data, it assumes an average cargo holding/throughput per trip, and determines the number of freighters per luxury good route.

For a given hyperdrive tech, it basically tells you what your maximum mining station range is, if you expect it maintain supply at the colony. The short answer is.... not very far.....making trading basically impossible with current settings imo.

https://discord.com/channels/8115849768 ... 2671485954

Here's a worked example for tier 2 gerax.

Supply Range Calculator DW2.png (27.1 KiB) Viewed 1603 times

[AKicebear]

When I try and sell people on this game, I mention how there's so many resources types and that each resource is used in different amounts for each component, and that the cost is dependent on the resource cost. So it's a possibility to wage economic warfare by targeting resources that your enemy uses in their ships.
Well, that's a straight up lie compared to the reality of the game. And I wish it was actually true.

I think this sums up my main gripe with the mechanics well. There is incredible complexity in the systems, but in the end its mostly noise. It is infinitely easier to rush invade a planet than cripple supply lines due to the number of orders involved. There is also immediate positive feedback invading a planet - whereas if I cripple their supply chains I really have no idea.

Perhaps there should be some indication of how badly I've destroy their supply chain, via a system message "XXX Empire loses 2/3 of Caslon supply, galactic market prices spike"

I hope the developers tinker with this, as well as modders - I think the latter will be more willing and able to make big experimental (and sometimes awful) changes that are too risk in the main release versions.

[Dudok22]

I have few things:

It would be nice if you could designate something like a hub for cargo. Then there would be freighters that would go and mostly just fly cargo from mining stations --> hub + fuel from hub --> mining stations route. Then there would be freighters that would fly from hub --> colonies or other hubs if fuel range is not enough and back with stuff needed at the previous hub. Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but sometimes I see freighters flying empty to the other side of my empire to pick up 1000 steel instead of just waiting a little for a freighter that's much closer. idk how fixable this problem is tho.

It would be nice if some of the technologies really needed some rare resources and then you would have the less advanced but cheaper tech you can make with the common resources. It feels that the tech tree was almost designed for that because of all the parallel and basic tech upgrades like the gerax drive vs all the others specialised ones or the talassos shields vs corvidian or the proton engine vs acceleros etc. Having something like "super strategic" resources (well you would want them much more common that the super luxuries but still much rarer than the regular strategic) Things like this would also make interstellar trading much more interesting as now diplomacy could be used to sell or embargo certain resources depending on what tech you are comfortable providing to other empires.

It's true that the amount of different luxury goods is not really felt by the player because their effects are so small and basically the same. What about different races having different preferences for luxuries or even generating random preferences at the galaxy gen would make it more interesting.

[AKicebear]

It's true that the amount of different luxury goods is not really felt by the player because their effects are so small and basically the same. What about different races having different preferences for luxuries or even generating random preferences at the galaxy gen would make it more interesting.

Another great suggestion.

Regarding the supply hubs - I thought this was closer to how it work with various space port sizes in DWU? But the behavior doesn't seem the same in DW2, or perhaps my memory is failing me. But it would be nice if relative space port sizing in an empire determined a cascade of distribution - i.e. Large space ports distribute to medium spaceports, medium to small, small to colonies without spaceports.

Does anyone know what are the mechanics of supply chain decisions within the private sector? Scott's tutorials on that could be very interesting...

[secondcircle]

When I try and sell people on this game, I mention how there's so many resources types and that each resource is used in different amounts for each component, and that the cost is dependent on the resource cost. So it's a possibility to wage economic warfare by targeting resources that your enemy uses in their ships.
Well, that's a straight up lie compared to the reality of the game. And I wish it was actually true.

I think this sums up my main gripe with the mechanics well. There is incredible complexity in the systems, but in the end its mostly noise. It is infinitely easier to rush invade a planet than cripple supply lines due to the number of orders involved. There is also immediate positive feedback invading a planet - whereas if I cripple their supply chains I really have no idea.

Perhaps there should be some indication of how badly I've destroy their supply chain, via a system message "XXX Empire loses 2/3 of Caslon supply, galactic market prices spike"

I hope the developers tinker with this, as well as modders - I think the latter will be more willing and able to make big experimental (and sometimes awful) changes that are too risk in the main release versions.

This was the biggest let down for me. I thought i'd be able to use guerrial hit and run tactics, destroy supply lines, and just use interest tactics to win wars, but it ended up, you just invade a colony, there's no reason to do anything else, and really, other then for RP reasons, there's no reason to invade a colony, because I've never been short resource production at any point ever playing this game, only resource delivery.

[Lunalis]

i think that if it takes "instant warp high end last tech" to completely fill every colony with everything they need, than having "issues" to get everything delivered everywhere before insant warp feels "correct". there should be struggles to deliver everything thats needed to a place, else the whole freighter logisitcs thing is irrelevant and resourced could just get mined into a global pool (stellaris).


also... maybe mining components are "too effective" ?
i barely ever see a mining station that struggles to keep 10000+ of every resource they mine, usually they all are way filled all the time even with lowest tech mining. even stations with a recource at like 4% are completely filled up with the stuff.

and if invading a planet is "easier and more fullfilling than destroying supplies/blockading/destroying mining stations"...
maybe invasions should be made "way longer" ? as in "takes months or a year" to take over a whole planet.
thinking abit like crusader kings sieges, where attackers and defenders have supplies and a planet would be able to keep their defences going a LONG time.

but if you blockade a planet and the planet doesnt get any resources anymore, than the defence armies become weaker quicker. or if you destroy mining stations tham recources dont get delivered anymore and defences crumble.

for all the "detail" with ship components needing recources we have like no detail about colonies requireing food transported.

who knows.. maybe we need new recources like "food, weapons, supplies, recruits" that would all be produced somewhere (so you can destroy the miningstations/factories) and planet defences need them to be at 100% efficiency. (like planet luxory recources for armies) so that you can stockpile these on planets, but if they get blockaded and start to run out of these the armies get weaker.
and bombardment would generally lower fortifications and bonuses (like siege and walls in crusader kings) and would have a hard time to hurt armies?

[Anthropoid]

I need to stop dorking around and PLAY this game so I can get involved in these important theoretical discussions!

With that said: having skimmed this thread it sounds like some key problems which haven't been mentioned so far are:
(a) universally not enough DEMAND for stuff, and not enough growth in demand for stuff
(b) limited ability for the auto-civ elements of an empire to respond meaningfully to (a) as time goes on
(c) minimal feedback from (a+b) to player to communicate "tension" or "crisis" or "impending disorder"