How is the purchase cost of a ship worked out

[rjord2021]

When I go into the Open Designs screen and then for example remove all components for my frigate and then add in one Energy Lab it tells me for that with that one component on my ship that the Purchase Cost of my ship is 150 with a maintenance cost of 43

The energy lab cannot be built until I have gold and silicon

in components.txt
Energy Lab = 117

resources.txt
gold base price 5
silicone base price 5


The only way I could see a ship with only having one component, an Energy Lab, = purchaase cost of 150 is





Is that how it works because it does not make sense.

And what about the price of gold and silicone changing?

At the time of looking at the cost of the Energy Lab the price of both Gold and Silicone was 0.8 not 5?

[stuart3]

When I go into the Open Designs screen and then for example remove all components for my frigate and then add in one Energy Lab it tells me for that with that one component on my ship that the Purchase Cost of my ship is 150 with a maintenance cost of 43

The purchase and maintenance costs are the total price and maintenance costs for all components comprising the ship. Each time you add another component the total will increase by the cost of that component.

The energy lab cannot be built until I have gold and silicon

You will have a stock of gold, silicon and other resources at your home planet, enough to build quite a few ships. The yellow coloured warning "We do not have a supply of required resources" is informing you that you currently have no means of replenishing that supply. Locate suitable planets or asteroids with the resources you need and build mining stations there. The desert planet in your home system will probably have only a small amount of silicon. If so, leave that one and look in other systems once you have the technology.

The only way I could see a ship with only having one component, an Energy Lab

As you removed components from your frigate, you would have seen red warning messages "Must have a ...." appearing in the box above the design. The design is not valid and cannot be saved until these messages have been removed by adding the required components, so you cannot design a ship with only one component.

Is that how it works because it does not make sense

The purchase cost is a one-off price per ship.
The maintenance cost is an ongoing annual expense.
Ignore the price of gold and silicon because you are not purchasing them, you are taking them from stock.

And what about the price of gold and silicone changing

That will affect profit and loss in trade, but not the official price of the component or ship.

[rjord2021]

Thanks Stuart

I still do not see where the purchase cost of a frigate comes in where the only component I have on the frigate is a Energy Lab which when added gives me a ship purchase cost of 150

Nothing on the line below gives me 150 when the Energy Lab is the first component added


92, Energy Lab, 92, 0, , 35, 20, 5, 30000, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,

[rjord2021]

Basically I am trying to change the price of buying a frigate in this case.

So for example when you add an Energy Lab instead of the ship price being 150 it is 200
I cannot see for Energy Labs where 150 comes from so I can change it

[Aeson]

Here is an old thread with formulas for computing the construction and maintenance costs of ships. A quick test using the Ancient Galaxy scenario suggests that the forms of the formulas are accurate, but that the construction cost multiplier should be 10 and that the multiplier on ship size should be 1 instead of 1.5, as suggested in the second reply to the thread.

Note that I only checked against one data point, so it is possible that the accuracy of the formulas was coincidental.

Specifics on the test:
I checked the Shadow II Escort design which is provided for the player at the start of the Ancient Galaxy scenario. The game reported its construction cost as 2763 credits and its maintenance cost as 598 credits per year. I then recorded the types and quantities of resources required for the vessel (29 Si @ $1.1/unit, 35 Au @ 1.3, 14 polymer @ 1.2, 24 carbon fibre @ 0.9. 25 Kr @ 1.3, 18 Cr @ 1.3, 37 Steel @ 0.8, 11 Ir @ 1.3, 4 dilithium @ 1.3, 2 Tyderios @ 1.3, 8 Pb @ 1.2, 6 Osalia @ 2.5, and 8 Ar @ 1.3), the command center's maintenance modifier (-4%), the size of the vessel (139), and the maintenance modifiers from the government (-10%), species in the empire (-1%), and empire leader (no modifier). Using the formulas from the linked thread with the modifications suggested in the second reply to that thread, I came up with a construction cost of 2793 credits and a maintenance cost of 670.7 credits/year, which becomes 597.6 credits per year after accounting for the ship maintenance modifiers from the government type and species in the empire (stacking modifiers multiplicatively).

[rjord2021]

Thanks for that Aeson...will have a look at that.