Private Economy has 1.7 million stockpiled

[jaweknee530]

So in my current game [1.0.3.0] like I said in the title the PE has 1.7 million bucks stockpiled. What's frustrating about this is that not a single medium or large freighter has ever been constructed. In the attached photo you can see that I have active buildable designs for large and medium ships but not a one has been made. I have a ton of available shipyards as well so I'm just curious about what is causing the holdup here?

dw21.PNG (210.51 KiB) Viewed 1579 times

dw22.PNG (135.75 KiB) Viewed 1579 times

[Pocus]

Probably the decision-making algorithm feels there are enough load capacity with 412 small freighters. The fact there is a lot of money to buy new ones (medium, large) would only enter the equation in a later stage of the evaluation.

[WiZz]

I have the radical suggestion - scuttle a few hundreds small freighters manually. Then watch. It's known abuse from DW1 when privates have too much saved money.

[Lunalis]

what if you set small freighters to "obsolete" ?
atleast then they shouldnt build new ones right?

[MatBailie]

Can you edit the large freighter design and screen shot that?

I'm grasping at straws, but I've seen the AI design ships that can't be built.

(In my last game I had 2053 Small, 1611 Medium and 920 Large, but I designed all the ships manually.)

[WiZz]

what if you set small freighters to "obsolete" ?
atleast then they shouldnt build new ones right?

Autodesigner will just create a new one.

[Emperor0Akim]

what if you set small freighters to "obsolete" ?
atleast then they shouldnt build new ones right?

Autodesigner will just create a new one.

Not if you punch it in the OFF-Button

[zgrssd]

I also have the issue that the Private Economy sits on a lot of money for years to decades.
Then spends it all in one gametick, like a dam breaking.

I managed to get some savegames for it, maybe the devs can figure it out and fix them:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=382108

[deMangler]

I have noticed this in a lot of games. I thought it might be that I manually control mining and tend to prioritise good claims. This was precisely because I was fed up with the private economy "wasting" money on loads of mining stations on low resource planets. Maybe it is better to just let them spend their money....

[TheRooster13]

I was trying to upgrade from small freighters to medium and then large freighters too, so I tried scuttling every single small freighter. That triggered nothing. My empire ran without freighters for a long time.

Not sure the exact numbers, and it might have something to do with how many colonies you have, but the civilian economy had to save up enough to purchase 120 Large Freighters all at once. Alternately it would wait to purchase 240 Medium Freighters all at once, depending on which blueprint I had active.

I'll try again without scuttling the small freighters to see if it will wait until there is enough money to upgrade 120 small freighter into large, or if it still needs to wait to purchase 120 large freighters.

[zgrssd]

I was trying to upgrade from small freighters to medium and then large freighters. Not sure the exact numbers, and it might have something to do with how many colonies you have, but the civilian economy had to save up enough to purchase 120 Large Freighters all at once. Alternately it would wait to purchase 240 Medium Freighters all at once, depending on which blueprint I had active.

That might explain the huge savings and then spending spree.

Those are all solid theories.

I hope they are enough to actually get this stuff fixed.

[TheRooster13]

Not scuttling the Small Freighters didn't have an effect. The AI still waited until it could purchase 120 Large Freighters before it bought any.

I think I can safely say that your existing freight capacity plays no role in the decision to purchase or upgrade freighters. It also doesn't look like the AI will upgrade Small Freighters into Medium or Large Freighters.

Seems like the AI private economy regarding purchasing/upgrading Freighters is completely broken.

[AKicebear]

It seems like the private sector AI should aim to have some proportion of freighter maintenance costs as 1:1:1 (for example), satisfying some estimated total shipping volume capacity that I assume is based on total colonies and mining bases.

In the image shared in the OP this would mean roughly 2 small: 1 medium: 1 large in actual headcount. Once the AI gets access to a new type of freighter, it should gradually (e.g. once a month or year) retire a few percent of the ship in excess and order the appropriate amount in shortage. Otherwise it will just be stuck with the excess from the very early game.