Beta resource bug

[frugaldude]

BETA 102 bug “Your Demands” column in the Expansion Planner is no longer working. Only a few commodities show a demand while the rest are zeroed. Discovered this in a 1.01 saved game. Verified by creating a 'expanding settlements' quick start game. Will send a saved game if you cannot verify.

[Erik Rutins]

It takes a while for the "demand" column to fill up - how long have you given it? I've run three 1.0.2 test games here and in all cases the demand column was working.

[frugaldude]

Several years game time on the saved game. Just a quick check on the beta generated game. I did try rerunning the saved game. It started out with the resource demands but after a few months of game time they zeroed out.

[KW]

I have the same problem. I'm several years into a game on the beta patch with 11 colonies in 7 systems and 164 ships and bases of various types, yet the only resource demanded by my empire is 0.7k of Rephidium Ale and 0.1k of Caslon according to the Expansion Planner screen.

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, we will re-check this, could one of you upload a save as well please?

[KW]

I just uploaded my save game as "KW March 28 No Resources Demanded Bug.dwg"

Thanks Erik.

[frugaldude]

Will send soon.  Hope KW's save game gets you started.

[frugaldude]

Can't connect to server.  Will try later.

[frugaldude]

Both the pre beta and post beta games are uploaded.

This has been at most a minor annoyance.  Everything else seems to be working better.

DW has been one great experience.

[tgb]

Same for me, and some other people I know that haven't posted here.

[Erik Rutins]

I discussed this briefly with Elliot and he confirmed that it's likely not a bug, but rather a feature of the improved economy.

"I'd be pretty certain that this is because there really is no excess demand in your empire for most items - the order fulfillment is working well now with the economy fix, so stuff is getting to its destinations smoothly - thus very little outstanding demand.

Demand here literally means unfulfilled orders, i.e. orders for resources that have not been assigned to a freighter for delivery. So the resources have either reached their destination, or they are on the way."

[Joram]

I think it's working ok too. I had an instance where I overbuilt early on and all of a sudden all my military ship and base production ground to a halt. I didn't notice this for a little while (a warning would have been nice!) but finally had the wherewithall to go to the empire planner screen and see if I was short of resources. Sure enough, I was short of one strategic resource that was needed for shields and since all my miliary ships and bases had this shield component, none could be built. I noticed a very high demand and no stockpile or source. After awhile, a couple mining ships found the source and went over this which allowed a few things to be built. This freed up a construction ship which finally was able to build a fulltime mining base. After that point, the 'demand' for that item never really left 0 as I assumed the demand was always being meant. This sounds like what you are saying Erik.

My takeaways on this: Don't blindly listen to AI advice, if I never built the fleet it suggested, I never would have had my empire seize up. It would have been nice if AI took resources into consideration when suggesting or rather make a suggestion to go after these resources. Pay more attention to the empire planner!

[tgb]

So you're saying that demand for a resource actually indicates a shortage?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: tgb So you're saying that demand for a resource actually indicates a shortage?

Not necessarily a shortage - space ports and colonies might just be preemptively ordering resources that they think they'll need soon.

Demand simply means someone has asked for something to be delivered - it probably exists somewhere in your empire, it just needs to get to its destination. Until the request is answered by a freighter starting a delivery mission, this shows as unfulfilled demand.

[frugaldude]

Not knowing the proper dynamics of this portion of the game, working around the economy bug ramifications became part of my normal game play.  I am gratified to know that the bug I reported was due to my pre-beta perceptions and not the game itself.

Also, after installing the fix I am watching the net worth of my empires improve dramatically.  Now I rarely have to manually send out my construction ships to create mines for available demanded wares.  The administrator's AI seems to be handling this well now.

Thank you for creating a new milestone to my gaming experience.

[KW]

Following up on tgb's question - prior to this patch, I had assumed the demand column in the expansion planner screen was total demand within my empire (met and unmet). I compared this with the stock column to determine if I had shortages or likely future shortages. If, for instance, I had 20k stock of Caslon and 19k demand, I figured it would probably be a good idea to find another source of Caslon soon if I planned to continue my empire's expansion.

So if the demand column only shows shortages, it seems like I can't identify future shortages as I did before. Is there another way to do this?

Not a huge deal, but I liked being able to get out in front of the problem and prevent the shortages rather than having no idea a shortage is coming until it hits me.

Thanks for all the hard work by the way - I'm having a ton of fun with this game.

[Webbco]

Hi guys, uncovered this post as I've noticed something interesting too - I have no demands on any resource whatsoever.

I'm either extremely lucky to have low maintenance citizens or there's something not quite right here...

Edit: Question answered in another thread, sorry.