OFFICIAL: Economics Discussion

[markb50k]

Ok, I am planning on enabling the economic portion of the game, and I wanted to start giving you guys info on how it all works...

 

HOW DO YOU GET RESOURCES

All resources will originate from planets.  They are the only source.  As such, by extension, other than the initial ship(s) you get when the game restarts, all things you build will use resources gotten from a planet. Each planet has an abundance rating for the three lowest-level resources in the game:  ORE, MINERALS, and OIL.  Based on that level, it will be determined how easy it is to mine those resources from the planet, how costly it will be to buy/sell those resources from/to the planet, and even whether you can even buy them at all.  It also will be taken into account when you ask a planet to build a structure or unit for you, since the resource makeup of a ship will determine its price.  Obviously, you will see that prices will be different planet to planet for the same things.

 

That said, there are realistically three ways you can get resources:

 

- BUY from a planet.  Certain units can access the planetary market and using money from your treasury you can purchase materials.  In turn, you can also SELL to a planet.  The price of a resource fluctuates based on certain attributes of a planet, which each planets differs on:  resource abundance, population level, technology level.  All of those factors are used by the engine each turn, along with how much of a certain resource the planet has in its own coffers, to determine a price.  generally, lower level resources will be far less costly than each level of resource above it.  I will explain the different resources later on down.

 

- MINE from a planet.  If you have made the necessary agreements with a planet, you can eventually build your own factories and mines on a planet (or have the planet build it for you for a price).  Each turn your mines will extract a certain amount of resource from the planet depending on its abundance rating.  To make higher level resources, which are needed to build ships and stuff, you will have to construct higher level factories.

 

- SALVAGE from wreckage.  After all the work has been put into a nice shiny ship, and it has been destroyed by nefarious forces lol, you can salvage the wreckage of the ship and take some of the resources that made up that ship (cargo in its hull and other ships onboard contribute to the amount of resources in the wreckage).

 

HOW DO YOU GET PLANETS TO DEAL WITH YOU?

To summarize, for any planet that you want to deal with, your LEADER must first pay the planet to ESTABLISH AN EMBASSY.  The cost of the embassy is a base cost that is affected by your current standing with the planet.  In fact everything you do with a planet is affected by that relationship.  I will explain the relationship part later.

 

After you establish an embassy, the embassy can then get certain agreements with the planet in place:

 

BUILDING RIGHTS allow you to build structures on the planet yourself (using construction ships) and allow you to order ships/structures directly from the planet.  If you see a planet has nice abundances you would want this right, because if the planet has high abundances, your mines will produce more resources per turn.

 

TRANSPORTATION RIGHTS allow you to not have to worry about distances between your factories and your warehouses, where the resources are kept.  You dont need this right, but if you dont have it, you will have to physically move your stuff around or make sure all your stuff is physically very close to eachother.  I believe the distance is 2000m on the planet surface or 5000m in space/orbit. 

 

TRADING RIGHTS allow you to buy/sell resources to/from planets and allow you to contract a planet to produce resources for you.  For planets with very high prices or very low prices of certain resources, obviously you would want this right so you can take advantage of the price differential and make profit.

 

WHAT AFFECTS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PLANETS?

Each planet has a certain relationship with you.  The health of the relationship is determined by the "damage" you have incurred against that planet.

 

Things that make your relationship worse with planets (add damage):

- declaring war on a person who was not at war with you will add damage with every planet.

- causing damage to other ships in the planet sector causes damage with the planet at that sector

 

Things that make your relationship better with planets (lower damage):

- you get a small sympathy bonus from all planets if you are declared war upon.

- the monetary value of anything you buy or sell from a planet or the amount you pay for services brings down your damage

- time passing will remove damage as well, although small.

 

Every time you bring your damage down to zero, then raise it again, it becomes harder and harder to repair the damage, so try not to piss off planets too many times or it becomes impossible to deal with them.  Realize however, that once you have gotten rights with a planet to build stuff, you can pretty much ignore your planet relationship as long as you use all of your stuff and never ask the planet to provide you with anything.

 

HOW DO YOU DO STUFF?

Summarized:

- establish embassy with planet

- get build rights

- get transpo rights (optional)

- get trading rights if you want to get resources from the planet (optional)

- either ask the planet to build a factory for you or you build it yourself by using construction ships.  the construction ships will need resources to build the factory/mine, so you either have to have the resources on hand or buy them from the planet

- once the mine is built, give it a BUILD GOODS order. Each structure has limited storage capacity so it may be smart to have cargo ships or warehouses close by (or anywhere in the sector if you have TRANSPO RIGHTS).

- repeat the process for any higher level factories you need that turn raw materials into the higher level resources

- once you have the highest level components, use a vehicle assembly plant or shipyard to produce the units for you

 

- NOTE you can also just pay planets to build stuff for you.  if you do this, you need to have built or purchased a special structure called a DEPOT on the planet already.  That is where your new stuff will show up.

 

 

RESOURCES

Each resource can either be produced by you or bought/contracted from a planet.

 

BOUGHT means you buy directly from a planet, its immediate but the planet may not have any on hand because of its own economy.

 

CONTRACTED is not immediate, it takes time, depending on how much labor you pay for, but it is guaranteed to be done.

 

RESOURCE TYPES

 

ORE, MINERAL, ORE

Raw materials produced by ore mines, mineral mines, or oil wells

 

Metal:  Produced by combining two ORE with a METAL FORGE unit

 

Chemicals:  Produced by combining two MINERAL with a CHEMICAL PLANT unit

 

Petroleum:  Produced by combining two OIL with a PETROLEUM REFINERY unit

 

Plastics:  Produced by combining 0.6 CHEMICAL and 0.4 PETROLEUM by a PLASTICS PLANT unit

 

Electronics:  Produced by combining 0.2 METAL with 0.8 PLASTIC by a ELECTRONICS PLANT unit

 

The last five are top level components that are the building blocks of all units in the game

 

Chassis:  Produced by combining 8 METAL, 1 PLASTIC, 1 ELECTRONICS by a Chassis Assembly Plant.  Used as a component to build ships and as a component used by ships to repair hull damage.

 

Armor:  Produced by combining 5 METAL, 4 PLASTIC, 1 ELECTRONICS by a Armor Assembly Plant.  Used as a component to build ships and as a component used by ships to repair hull damage.

 

Tech:  Produced by combining 1 METAL, 1 PLASTIC, 8 ELECTRONICS by a Tech Assembly Plant.  Used as a component to build ships and as a component used by ships to repair hull damage and to repair shield generators (and later grav wells if i make them damageable).

 

Propulsion:  Produced by combining 3 METAL, 1 PLASTIC, 6 ELECTRONICS by a Propulsion Assembly Plant.  Used as a component to build ships and as a component used by ships to produce fuel.

 

Weapons:  Produced by combining 3 METAL, 2 PLASTIC, 5 ELECTRONICS by a Weapons Assembly Plant.  Used as a component to build ships and as a component used by ships to repair damaged weapons and as a component used by ships to produce warheads.

 

Each factory type except for the mining ones (ore mine, mineral mine, and oil well) have a in-orbit counterpart so you could have hidden space facilities that are harder to detect but obviously have to be supplied to keep running.

 

OTHER SPECIAL UNITS

CONSTRUCTION SHIPS - used to build structures either on a planet surface or in space

VEHICLE ASSEMBLY PLANT - land based.  used to build land units and fighter type stuff and any capital ship that cant carry fighters and is atmosphere capable

SPACE VEHICLE ASSEMBLY PLANT - space based.  used to build fighter type stuff and any capital ship that cant carry fighters.  cannot build land units.

SHIPYARD and MOBILE SHIPYARD - space based.  used to build any unit other than land units or structures

DEPOT - land based.  when you contract the planet to build you a unit, it will either show up at the depot or in orbit directly above it (if it is a non-atmosphere capable ship)

[General_Antillies]

I like how multidimensional this looks, much better then just having a single resource. I am a little curious about a few of the planet relationship aspects.

 

-Are there any aligned planets/home planets? I really liked how EVR allowed you to carve out your own empire and expand.

 

-What if you have a base set up in a planets sector and an enemy attacks? You are forced to defend, yet defending the planet lowers your relationship with it?

 

-Are Mining Structures, Chemical Planets ect all on the planet or in space as well?

[skyblazer]

My questions are -

 

-With transport rights would that mean if you had a mine on one planet and a factory on another with a freighter in the sector of the mining planet. Would that than be all thats needed to get those mined goods over to the factory on another planet or would you have to manage this yourself?

 

-What player with player interaction can be expected in the economy system. IE could player A sell a built ship to player B or will all these sort of things only be taken place with planets.

 

-With declaring war hurting your relationship to all planets this would affect our wanting to see little wars break out since whoever declares war will always be at a huge disadvantage to whomever he is fighting.

[Idle_Scholar]

I'm not so sure about the long term planet/relationship stuff. Seeing as this will eventually be one long multi month game it seems a bit unfair to forever penalise a players relationship with a planet. Once you've returned to neutral that should be it. It is less realistic but might be better for gameplay.

 

I'm assuming that there will be a fourth resource, money, which you get as tax revenue from planets you control (in addition to any money from trade)?

 

Eventually, it would be cool to implement a macro-economy. You would start with a galactic bank and companies (say trade or construction corporations). Players can then earn profit by taxing these entities or owning them directly. If each planet has a set of wants (based on population and resources) and a budget (based on population, resources and values of companies operating there) then it can buy wanted resources from trade companies at a price decided by their abundance vs their budget. The trade companies can consist of trade routes and fleets, earning money at each sale, but paying a tax at each end of their trade route and possibly having some sort of running cost based upon the cost of ships. Construction companies can work more like planets, having a list of resource needs and a budget and owning facilities instead of ships. If planets want an amount of construction (again based upon population) each turn then this will provide for the existence of construction corporations even when a player is not buying ships.

 

You could then implement a simple stock exchange.

[markb50k]

Planets are so huge, and the sizes of your forces are so small, I could never logically come up with a real good strategy of planetary control, so I basically treat planets as an open zone for commerce and warfare if you choose.  The planet will go on whether you are there or not, but based on what you do in the game, your relationship with the planet will be easy or hard.

 

So, with that said, there is no way of actually controlling a planet.  Sure you could have military control on the sector where you destroy all enemys there, but the planet is never yours.  You could keep destroying your enemies structures on the planet that it becomes economically infeasible for them to attempt to have a presence there, but that is as far as it goes.

 

So there is really no taxation that you get from the planet.

 

Here are some other things I can explain

 

PLANETARY RELATIONS (more info)

 

ok, so you start off as NUETRAL with every planet and you have zero damage.  If you establish an embassy, the money for that embassy create positive relations, just as if you sign agreements, or buy/sell goods, or pay for the planet to build stuff for you.  That money doesnt translate into a 1 to 1 point gain with the planet.

 

Currently, the money is converted to relation pts on a ALLY=1/2, NUETRAL=1/5, ENEMY=1/10 basis, meaning that if you establish an embassy, the cost is 100K, meaning you immediately get 20K relation pts if you are currently NEUTRAL with the planet, or 10K if you are enemy.  So obviously it is important to establish as many relationships as possible with planets before you start waging war.

 

Costs of agreements (for reference)

ESTABLISH EMBASSY = 100K

BUILDING RIGHTS = 50K

TRANSPO RIGHTS = 30K

TRADE RIGHTS = 20K

 

So also realize that any money that changes hands between you and the planet, provides positive relation points in the same manner, reduced by the relation factor

 

NOTE:  I dont have any code for you to be ALLIED with planets yet, and not sure i will.

 

DAMAGE REDUCTION (towards GOOD)

Each cycle your relationship is improved with a planet by a certain amount automatically.

 

ALLY = 5 pts

NEUTRAL = 3 pts

ENEMY = 1 pt

 

As points are added and subtracted to your relationship, if they ever go to positive damage (towards BAD) a bad mark is added to your relationship.  if its the first time that bad mark is set to 1.  What does that mean?

 

First, the planet is automatically set to an ENEMY of you

Second, you are put on probation, meaning that after you have repaired your relationship with the planet to negative damage (towards GOOD) and keep it there, it will take some period of time before the planet automatically sets you back to NUETRAL.

 

The first time you go ENEMY to a planet, after you repair the relationship, it will wait 100 cycles * (# of bad marks ^ 2)  to auto NEUTRAL you.

 

so...

First time, 100 (1 * 1)

Second time, 400 (2 * 2)

Third time, 900 (3 * 3)

Fourth time, 1600 (4 * 4)

etc

 

You also get a SYMPATH bonus of 5K if you are ever declared war upon

 

So in the beginning of the game, with you signing a lot of agreements and such and as long as you dont start attacking ppl right off the bat, it would take a while to go to ENEMY with a planet especially if you establish trading with it.

 

And if you do go ENEMY with a planet, the probation period after you go back to negative damage (good) is pretty short, and you would have to go ENEMY a few times before it becomes something really silly.

 

 

DAMAGE INCREASING (towards BAD)

 

If you declare war on somebody you get 10K added to your damage, normally this wont put you immediately in ENEMY with a planet unless you have never dealt with them.

 

Also if you cause damage to other ships in a planet sector, you get damage added.  If you are currently ENEMY, each damage pt translates to a relationship damage pt.  Here are the ratios

 

ENEMY = divided by 1

NUETRAL = divided by 3

ALLY = divided by 5

 

So as long as you stay above neutral you can do alot of damage before going to ENEMY.

 

Im putting in code so you can see your current DAMAGE rating with planets and your bad marks and probation period countdown

 

INTERACTING WITH OTHER USERS

i have code that is disabled right now that would allow users to GIVE OBJECTS, GIVE GOODS, and TRANSFER FUNDS to other users, but until I can do something that would automatically prevent collusion and cheating I will keep it disabled.

[markb50k]

TRADE ROUTES

The way I see this working is like this

 

- build mines, plants, etc on the planet surface

- definitely get a transpo agreement so your goods moves immediately around from production location to storage location

- have cargo ships get goods from planet surface, and take the goods to warehouses in orbit, on repeat.

- have other cargo ships going from planet to planet, picking up goods from warehouses

 

you could also have the cargo ships do the enter atmosphere / exit atmosphere themselves but it will add time to the trip obviously

 

Comments from user comments:

 

- a macro economy is definitely something I would like to look at adding in

- only mines NEED to be on the planet surface, all other structures CAN be on the planet, but do have space counterparts.

- user to user selling.  i am really trying to figure out ideas on how to do this fairly, probably what i will end up doing is running this through the embassys.  Like, allow your embassy on planet X to purchase a ship from another users embassy on the same planet.  The seller establishes a price that the code will make sure only varies from the nominal price of a ship by some percentage (that would prevent fake accounts from selling stuff at 1 credit for their master account).  Perhaps put a wait limit before the highest bid is taken, so that you cant coordinate with another player to put something on the market and then boom they buy it.

[Idle_Scholar]

In principle, provided you can controll the orbital space of a planet you can easily conquer it. Strategic orbital strikes will wipe out any ground based forces, then once they capitulate you occupy them with a minimum force (say 1 million soldiers/droids to every billion populace) and threaten to blow the crap out of them if they revolt. For a fictional example see the fall of Narn in Babylon 5, or for a modern day version see the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both those wars the enemy was annihilated by air-power (space-power in this setting). You don't even need apocalyptic doomsday weapons; just guided, multi-kilogramm, heat shielded projectiles will hit the ground with SW-esq yields.

 

I would guess, in a SW context, once any defences and planetary shields have been taken down the attacker would then lay siege to any remaining theater shields. At the same time they use precision strikes to destroy any large scale remaining resistance outside shielded areas. Finally once any organised resistance is crushed the planetary leaders surrender rather than have their cities reduced to rubble. Finally if this outcome is inevitable, and your empire isn't particularly evil or whatever then you'd hope they'll join you without the need for occupation etc. Also until recently everyone was part of a huge empire/republic so there shouldn't be too much planetary nationalism to deal with.

 

So in short I'd like to be able to controll planets, though not govern them directly, just squeeze them for protection money like all good empires and deny them to my enemies.

[markb50k]

militarily you can gain control of the sector, but after we get everything running and i implement ground combat, we shall pick up this discussion of planetary control.

[Idle_Scholar]

Ok so I've set up a small base witha  basic economy. The only thing I'm a bit confused about is my chemical plant doesn't appear to be making chemicals. It's in a fleet and has the correct order, and is being supplied by a bunch of mineral mines but doesn't appear to be working. It is using more minerals per turn than are being produced, but it is using them up (my mineral stocks aren't increasing from zero) and should logically be producing however much chemicals can be made out of those minerals.

 

3 Mineral mines are producing 16.7 minerals per turn, so using them all up the factory should be making 7 chemical per turn and leaving 0.7 minerals left over. It did produce chemicals when I had stockpiles of minerals, and I've just added another mine which will bring the total harvested per turn to 21.6, so maybe it'll start working now.

[markb50k]

ok, im back from vacation, so please check it out and let me know if you are getting chemicals.  They should be showing up at the embassy i believe, if you have transportation rights or the plant is near the embassy.

[Idle_Scholar]

Once the fourth mineral mine came online it started working and now I've loads of chemicals. I'm about to check with my plastics factory but I suspect that if a factory doesn't have enough materials to run at full burn for a turn it just eats your resources wich is probably a bug.

[markb50k]

Once the fourth mineral mine came online it started working and now I've loads of chemicals. I'm about to check with my plastics factory but I suspect that if a factory doesn't have enough materials to run at full burn for a turn it just eats your resources wich is probably a bug.

 

you are completely right.  ill put a fix in asap

[Idle_Scholar]

Can I request an increase in the resource rate? It currently takes about 2 days for a basic mine to produce enough materials to pay for itself, and about 2 weeks for a L2 factory to pay for itself. If the turns ever progress faster then this won't be such an issue but currently the whole economy phase is taking an age to actually achieve anything.

[markb50k]

yeah I created a multiplier that I can change pretty rapidly.  I'll up it to 10 (currently set at 1)

[Idle_Scholar]

That's much better. Would it be possible to order multiples of one building in a single contract?

[markb50k]

not without a big change, since you have to pick a location, but you can stack orders and they all will be executed simultaneously

[Idle_Scholar]

What does 'contract goods' do? It seems to just be a re-hash of the 'contract units' option.

[markb50k]

allows you to have the planet produce one of the material types, like 1000 Ore, etc.  instead of a unit/structure.  It will deliver the goods to the embassy.

[Idle_Scholar]

When I click on it I just get the contract unit screen come up.

[Idle_Scholar]

I've just noticed, although everything is producing at *10 it's not using *10 resources.

[Idle_Scholar]

Also I don't think things are costing what they should when contracted. When I trade goods with the planet I gain what I expect but contracts seem to be costing me far less.

[markb50k]

CONTRACT UNIT SHOWING UP INSTEAD OF CONTRACT GOODS - Fixed

 

NOT USING 10*RESOURCES TO BUILD GOODS - Fixed

 

COSTING LESS THAN YOU THINK - Are you saying that the estimated amount in the CONTRACT WINDOW ends up being much higher than it actually costs you?  The only thing i can think of is if you put a larger number in for how much you are buying, the estimate will be on the amount you type in, but when it executes it only costs you what you can physically buy.  Same thing with selling, you may only have 10 ore but you put in sell 100 ore, just so you dont have to keep changing the amt as you start producing more.  the estimate will be for 100 ore, but you will only receiving money for the amt you have, 10 ore.  Does that make sense?  Or are you seeing something other than what I am talking about.

 

Thanks

[Idle_Scholar]

I'm away for the weekend, but I'm pretty sure the cost of contracting a unit/building is significantly lower than the estimate given.

[markb50k]

um... well I was definitely calculating it differently between GUI and engine, but honestly, the estimate should have been LOWER than what it ended up costing, not the other way around.

 

I fixed the engine.

[Idle_Scholar]

Can there be a button in the contract screen to automatically fill out a contract with as many stockpiled resources as possible, and enough work crews to complete the building in under 10 cycles?

 

Edit:

 

I've just built my first craft from a Vehicle assembly plant. When you make an order it would be usefull to display the number of resources (about to be) used and the time to completion. Also, if there are insufficient resources in your stockpile it automatically buys them in from the planetary market and gives you an estimated cost in credits.

Edited July 21, 2008 by Idle_Scholar