Some discussion of 1.0.5

[Astax]

Problem with economy as I see it right now is that the resources are not as much of a limiting factor as they should be. Seems that consumption of resources is small. Plus there should be other resources that are manufactured via consumption of mined resources. This would create a nice sink for resources.

[taltamir]

i don't agree with you at all...

luxury resources are the #1 source of income in the game, and are consumed very effectively.
strategic resources are consumed in a good amount, with shortages being a very real problem... to the point where you MUST colonize a bunch of volcanic and ocean and ice planets to get the resources unique to them (purple gas on ice planets, several stuff on volcanic, and dilithium crystals on ocean). that or build lots and lots and lots of mining bases (impractical).

Even with heavy colonization there are shortages on occasion, especially of fuel, such as hydrogen and calson.

And there is no need to waste our time with minig resource A and then converting it to resource B... obviously you cant mine STEEL, steel resource planets obviously have massive amounts of iron which they use to make steel... likewise, polymer planets have massive amount of resources used to produce said polymers, etc etc. What you are describing isn't a "broken" economy but a case where you feel that the flavor of the economy should be changed to suit your tastes more, not only do I disagree with those tastes, doing so WILL break the economy and require massive re-balancing of the game to fit the new model.

[jscott991]

The only truly mysterious thing about the economy is that it keeps changing from patch to patch; sometimes, it seems, without much notice beyond a curt "further rebalancing" line in the patch notes.

I've played this game a lot and I've gone from being unsuccessful to wildly successful to sort of successful as an economic "manager" during that period. Did my skill at managing the economy change? No, its all about the weird and bizarre fixes the designers keep putting in place.

With no budget sliders and no incentive to micromanage constructors (supposedly) economic management simply comes down to spamming colony ships and hoping for the best.

[taltamir]

Well... v1 had a serious bug where the AI would fail, and your freighters will not properly move goods around... this caused the initial economy to be balanced with that in place, which meant they set it to give you lots of money from those planets that actually produced money.

When it was fixed it was noticed that now everyone has oodles and oodles of cash, and they have been tinkering with it since to try to rebalance it. The lack of a self correct economy (individual profits and costs per base and ship) hurts, but it is probably necessary due to ram and CPU limitations. so they must abstract and tinker with the abstraction.

The changes the implemented were reducing the income gained, a sensible adjustment. they then changed it so that half the culture came from population and half from luxury resources (because otherwise a planet with billions and billions had a GDP of 0 credits if it didn't get luxury resources... which was likely with some play-styles) a very welcome change IMAO. Then they added corruption as a way to appease all those who demanded a continued challenge in "late game" so that 20 planet empires could compete with their 200 planet empire... At first implementation that was bugged and went up to 100%, they fixed that so caps would be honored, then reduced the cap to make it less intense... and in 1.05 will introduce a slider to control it, because the community is divided on whether or not corruption should even exist. some like me see nothing wrong with my 200 planet empire steamrolling a 20 planet empire and making 10 times more money and having 10 times more ships... others want to saddle the larger empires with abstract penalties to make it more competitive... so a 200 planet empire will have only twice the money and ships of a 20 planet empire.
Oh, there were also some other bugs I probably forgot about... like a bug that caused your mining stations to get deleted instead of being retrofitted. which harmed your economy.

[Astax]

Talimir you may disagree with me, but fact remains that I have only once been constrained by resources out of all my games. And in that case it was a rather small constraint resulting from my own bad judgment. I chose to arm my ships with a weapon that took a resource (Dilithium) I had no mines for. It's silly actually, because once I do have a resource I am no longer limited at all. Thou I feel the game should warn you if your empire has no access to a resource for a component you are putting in your design.

Maybe it could be that I don't spam enough ships to use up everything. Or maybe you build too many so you feel that pinch, where I do not.

Thou I can agree that my suggestion was just throw out there. It' was not really thought through., so I'll accept your critique of it.

[taltamir]

Good for you, fact remains that I have been constrained by resources often. And I have found very effective counters of acquiring the right alien races and colonizing all those volcanic, ice, and ocean planets/moons solves the problem. And yes, spamming lots of ships makes you feel the pressure... massive retrofitting, etc... thousands of ships suddenly all wanting dilithium or some other rare resource. (Or even a common resource, hydrogen and calson are the most common resource deficiency... followed by dilithium, aculon, and iridium)

What do you think I disagree with you on anyways? I actually suggested a solution that would work very well to do what you ask it to do. I just expressed my concern that if my solution is implemented it will have unintended consequences (and already it is the solution with the least likely chance of having unintended consequences, namely, the only one for which I can see no unintended consequences).

[jscott991]

There's definitely a new wrinkle to the economy in 1.04.9.

Colony tax revenue fluctuates quite a bit, which produces long periods in the red in the early game. I think this has to do with corruption shooting up on the homeworld as you expand, but I can't be sure.

Something changed though to make earning cash early much more difficult.

I don't have the interest in this game anymore to break it down like I did in the past, but hopefully someone else will find out what is going on. Just watch colony tax revenue. In general, if things are working as we were told they are supposed to, this should never drop as you expand (it should never cost you revenue to have a bigger empire).

It IS dropping in the latest version of the game. In my opinion, corruption is shooting up on the homeworld and during the period of the game where your HW is most of your revenue, this means that expansion is costing you money.

I wish the devs would be more open about when they are making economic/corruption tweaks. I thought the later patches were just bug fixes, but apparently not.

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

There's definitely a new wrinkle to the economy in 1.04.9.

Colony tax revenue fluctuates quite a bit, which produces long periods in the red in the early game. I think this has to do with corruption shooting up on the homeworld as you expand, but I can't be sure.

Something changed though to make earning cash early much more difficult.

I don't have the interest in this game anymore to break it down like I did in the past, but hopefully someone else will find out what is going on. Just watch colony tax revenue. In general, if things are working as we were told they are supposed to, this should never drop as you expand (it should never cost you revenue to have a bigger empire).

It IS dropping in the latest version of the game. In my opinion, corruption is shooting up on the homeworld and during the period of the game where your HW is most of your revenue, this means that expansion is costing you money.

I wish the devs would be more open about when they are making economic/corruption tweaks. I thought the later patches were just bug fixes, but apparently not.

It seems to me that early on the Private sector is less inclined to build Freighters.
With fewer Freighters less Colony revenue is generated, and therefore you get less income from taxes.

I may be off here, but that's kind of what it seemed like to me in my current game early on.

[jscott991]

What I'm observing isn't low colony tax revenue (that may be true too) so much as spikes and dips in revenue. One moment colony tax revenue might be 101, then it will drop back to 80 before slowly climbing back up, only to dip again. These dips produce periods in the red.

They are also inexplicable. Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

[Spacecadet]

Well, with fewer Freighters you may be getting fewer luxuries/resources to the planets.

When you run out of a luxury that may be a cause of the dips, and the spike back up could be when a Freighter finally delivers the luxury. 

Without enough Freighters you wouldn't be getting a steady supply to all your planets.

[Yarasala]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

I wasn't attempting to say how the game should be DESIGNED, I was attempting to comment on how it should be WORKING.

It's not working quite right now.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

some games do that to limit colony rush, I dislike that method. I think a colony shouldn't cost money... maybe not make any money, but not cost it either.
There are other ways to limit rushing, such as stricter adherence to reproduction rates.

[Yarasala]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

I wasn't attempting to say how the game should be DESIGNED, I was attempting to comment on how it should be WORKING.

It's not working quite right now.

Ok, I understand your point now.

But if they have to work on the game to fix bugs why not change the DESIGN here and there a bit? [8D]

[Simulation01]

@Matrix Games Developer

I understand that right now a lot of time is going into patches, bug fixes and balancing, however I would like some sort of ETA on making some of the changes mentioned in the Wish-list threads?

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

@Matrix Games Developer

I understand that right now a lot of time is going into patches, bug fixes and balancing, however I would like some sort of ETA on making some of the changes mentioned in the Wish-list threads?

not everything asked for in the wish list would make the cut.
As for ETA, how would they know? it really depends on the item, some of the wish list items are more severe, and border on bugs, most are asking for fundamental changes to the game that would make it more like other games but not distant worlds and those would probably never be implemented.

If you ask for an ETA on a specific change they might actually be able to say.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

@Matrix Games Developer

I understand that right now a lot of time is going into patches, bug fixes and balancing, however I would like some sort of ETA on making some of the changes mentioned in the Wish-list threads?

not everything asked for in the wish list would make the cut.
As for ETA, how would they know? it really depends on the item, some of the wish list items are more severe, and border on bugs, most are asking for fundamental changes to the game that would make it more like other games but not distant worlds and those would probably never be implemented.

If you ask for an ETA on a specific change they might actually be able to say.

Well, like some of the suggestions I made ( not to say that mine deserve more consideration because they are mine ).

-multilateral negotiations and alliances
-the ship tonnage suggestion
-modding additions(not mentioned by me but I've seen it)
-concept of territory
-artificially created worlds
-star-gates/wormholes
-some sort of multiplayer support

What I would really be interested in knowing is what suggestions Matrix Games thinks are worthy of consideration and possible implementation either in a patch or expansion.

[Dadekster]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Colony tax revenue should almost always be growing unless you are at war or some external force is driving it down.

I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

some games do that to limit colony rush, I dislike that method. I think a colony shouldn't cost money... maybe not make any money, but not cost it either.
There are other ways to limit rushing, such as stricter adherence to reproduction rates.

I don't think a colony should cost money to operate either. That's like saying they ran a power line across space and are charging the colony for running their generators since they haven't gotten around to building their own power plant.

It should be an upfront cost imo to send a colony and in effect that is what we have now. The resources your freighter truck in from distant mines are what allow you to build a colony ship (even though we start of with quite a pile of stuff at the homeworld). These ships are expensive for one reason only and that is due to the colony module. I just don't believe they are expensive enough. I mean think of the logistics involved in sending 10 million people to another planet. Compare that to our NASA program and how much it costs just to send one ship into orbit. Maybe in the future a lot of things will be solved reducing cost...but still 10 million people??! That's a lot of people to put into deep freeze or whatever they do. I think it should start off pretty slow myself and ramp up as your colonies start to get some legs under them. I dislike the fact that a colony recent colonized (as far as the game clock shows) can start sending out their own colony ships so soon. In some games I almost feel like some virus.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Yarasala


I disagree. New colonies should cost you money as long as they are not very much developed. You can model that with a simple formula (cost per tax period = 10 - deleopment level in percent while development lever lower than 10%) or by more complex means (e. g. high resource demand because a lot of infrastructure must be established so that you have to import resources if there are too many new colonies in your empire). That is another means aganist colony spamming [;)]

some games do that to limit colony rush, I dislike that method. I think a colony shouldn't cost money... maybe not make any money, but not cost it either.
There are other ways to limit rushing, such as stricter adherence to reproduction rates.

I don't think a colony should cost money to operate either. That's like saying they ran a power line across space and are charging the colony for running their generators since they haven't gotten around to building their own power plant.

It should be an upfront cost imo to send a colony and in effect that is what we have now. The resources your freighter truck in from distant mines are what allow you to build a colony ship (even though we start of with quite a pile of stuff at the homeworld). These ships are expensive for one reason only and that is due to the colony module. I just don't believe they are expensive enough. I mean think of the logistics involved in sending 10 million people to another planet. Compare that to our NASA program and how much it costs just to send one ship into orbit. Maybe in the future a lot of things will be solved reducing cost...but still 10 million people??! That's a lot of people to put into deep freeze or whatever they do. I think it should start off pretty slow myself and ramp up as your colonies start to get some legs under them. I dislike the fact that a colony recent colonized (as far as the game clock shows) can start sending out their own colony ships so soon. In some games I almost feel like some virus.

You raise some good points...
increase the costs of each colony ship by making the colony module require much more resources (which will make it take longer to build), make them send over less people (also reduce the people that fit in a passenger ship), and adhere to population (currently a colony ship creates colonists out of thin air)...
when you do that colonization is much more limited... and a starting colony would take too long to gain a sizable population without emigration (which is done via many trips of passenger ships if you cut passenger ship capacity to 1/10th what it is now).

Those are all very plausible and effective ways to limit colony rushing (btw, naturally such a rebalance is a big undertaking and can have unintended consequences... so applying it should be done with care).
This sure beats the notion of having new colonies cost money (I like the analogy of them running power cables... its hilarious but that is what is basically suggested... power cables and a whole stream of food carrying ships I guess)

[ceyan]

Why wouldn't a colony have a "maintenance" charge until they're self-sufficient? Presumably you wouldn't be able to fit an entire load of equipment and colonists into one ship, so they have to be supplied with more building material until they can gather their own from the planet, more construction equipment, potentially more food supplies until the local options can be exploited, so on and so forth. As the state owns the colony ships and colony efforts, the state is responsible for the costs associated with that. It would make perfect sense for a colony to cost money to operate initially if that is a design goal.

Colony tax revenue doesn't necessarily always have to grow, depending on the design goals of the game. You could easily justify a reduction in tax revenue as mis-management. Maybe that colony needed a "bailout". Anyways, that isn't to say I know how its supposed to work, or how it is meant to be designed to work, just saying it makes sense that it could be that way.