C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Jorgen_CAB]

Regarding shipyards... is this not only as long as you only have one slipway on that small shipyard versus a large one in VB6.

A small shipyard at 6000t with two slipways produce roughly the same as a 12000t shipyard but with even lower worker required.

So, as Steve said this is rather a correction to fit the requirement and balance and make military production over civilian or economic growth a real choice to make. Military institutions now seem to be much more expensive in general which I see as a good thing in general.

This will make extreme specialization of military ships very expensive and something only a advanced civilization with good economy can afford unless there are no external pressures.

Although I might wonder what the benefit of more slipways will be over just building lots of shipyards, many shipyards are way more flexible... there really does not seem to be that much to gain from more slipways or have I missed something?

If it is only an upfront cost of building a new shipyard versus new slipways I don't think that is much of an overall cost to the benefit of more yards. There probably should be a small reduction in workers needed for every slipway you add to a yard and/or bonus to retooling costs or something versus doing the same in multiple yards. At least something to make the economically worthwhile.

[Father Tim]

Hopefully this is a small step on the path towards bringing back Prototype Hulls and First-in-Class penalties (or to put it the other way, bonuses for later units in the same class).


. . .


"Well Sir, we could build another dozen practically obsolete four-stackers for about half price, or we could start a flight of these new, modern destroyers with the inevitable cost-overruns and increased construction time."

[Hazard]

Most of the benefit for shipyards with many slipways is ease of use; you can just stack up more ships with fewer clicks.

I would not at all be opposed to a small per slipway cost decrease as a shipyard grows more slipways relative to having to retool multiple shipyards with the same total number of slipways of that same tonnage.

[Peroox]

Hopefully this is a small step on the path towards bringing back Prototype Hulls and First-in-Class penalties (or to put it the other way, bonuses for later units in the same class).

Something like in the Swords of the Stars II ?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Most of the benefit for shipyards with many slipways is ease of use; you can just stack up more ships with fewer clicks.

I would not at all be opposed to a small per slipway cost decrease as a shipyard grows more slipways relative to having to retool multiple shipyards with the same total number of slipways of that same tonnage.

There need to be some economic benefits otherwise there is only drawbacks for using them other than mouse clicks... 

[Vivalas]

Yeah expanding a shipyard at a certain tonnage to contain more slipways should be cheaper / faster than just building a new shipyard.  This can be easily justified, because a shipyard is more than just a collection of slipways.  There is transportation to / from, management, storage and auxiliary facilities, infrastructure, auxiliary equipment, not to mention the even higher cost of a large engineering project, from contractors to training personnel to manage the new facility and more.  Extra slipways in the same shipyard an share facilities with other already existing slipways, not to mention the lack of a high start up cost to get all the basic support stuff in place.  From a gameplay perspective it would also encourage more specialization.

[MarcAFK]

Running through my old campaign with the new wealth rules one thing really sticks out at me.
Previously a major reason to colonize, was that smaller worlds have a higher population growth which is quite reasonable, but also they're more efficient with their manufacturing industry, a 100 million person coloniy has almost double the manufacturing industry as the default 500 million earth.
I would argue that this makes sense, as the colony has major investment being made to it, its industries are more focused, and theres little bureaucratic and social inertia moving for secondary industries, such as service and financial industries, as well as leasure, recreation, etc. They're just more efficient and you're not going to waste major resources moving people who aren't immediately employable into those colonies.
But with the new wealth mechanics now those smaller colonies also represent a significantly higher potential income, you could double your tax revenue, but you do still need to have the facilities available to take advantage of this.
I was a bit concerned at first, but it makes sense, if the people out there are in fact focused in manufacturing in a purely efficient manner than it stands to reason there should be economic benefits to making good use of the industry sent out.
Something else I noticed is that if I'm not mistaken construction factories produce half what they cost to run, and mines produce the same amount but cost nothing to run.
This means as long as you have enough mines your economy is pretty safe, also when earth inevitably runs out of minerals you'll still have the income from the mines even with no useful TNE production, I could assume they're still mining valuable non TNEs for the civilian economy.
Of course leaving those mines in place is just inefficient in respect of the wasted mining potential but its nice to know that just like CMC's on almost depleted worlds they're still useful for income.
The more I look at the numbers the more I like the potential these changes has.

[Iceranger]

Hi Steve, with your newly proposed shipyard worker number change, and the wealth generation change, I crunched some numbers, assuming base shipbuilding rate of 500, base wealth generation techs, and assume ship building rate in C# is not changed.


So the starting naval yards can cover 1/12 of their max wealth cost themselves, raising to a limit of 1/2 when the yards are very large.
The starting commercial yards can cover 1/15 of their max wealth cost themselves, raising to a limit of 1/5 when the yards are very large.

In some sense, this means military yards are cheaper to run than commercial yards, wealth wise. This sounds a bit strange to me.

[iceball3]

That said, commercial vessels are mildly balanced out by the fact that they incur no maintenance or wealth related costs through their lifespan.
We could also pan this out to perhaps the higher wages of naval ship manufacturers due to the more intricate fail-vulnerable systems involved than commercial vessels, that and commercial vessels tend to build much faster per ton (usually, due to engine and commercial component cost densities)

[Bremen]

In some sense, this means military yards are cheaper to run than commercial yards, wealth wise. This sounds a bit strange to me.

Well, they're still more expensive per ton. Just not ten times more expensive.

[MarcAFK]

It seems to me like military factories should only take workers and produce wealth when in operation. Industrial buildings like factories, mines, refineries etc are assumed to be running constantly at full output and even if they aren't producing something immediately required for 'the empire' they're still contributing to the economy.
But idle shipyards would be a major drain on resources, not a potential cash cow, you shouldn't be able to make huge wealth just by leaving a commercial shipyard on continual expansion and simply not make ships.
Actually using that shipyard for commercial ships would understandably have a significant effect on the economy of course.
Other factories like ordnance, GFTF, fighter factories, etc should also only take workers and produce wealth when in operation, but shipyards are an absolutely major factor.
Also I don't know what to say about the imbalance between military and commercial manning requirements, it's strange, but it should definitely balance out if idle shipyards stop producing wealth.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I don't see the reason why population itself should generate wealth at all, I would let certain production types generate a modest amount of wealth such as factories could generate some wealth as well as production. But most facilities should basically be net loss.

Wealth should then come from Financial Centers, Civilian trade and Civilian mining complexes and fuel harvesters.

This would make it more clear...

So you have to use wealth to keep most of the facilities going while Factories don't cost Wealth but give you a small amount and some production... all other facilities cost wealth to operate based on what they produce.

Workers should then cost Wealth not giving wealth, wealth is something population consume not produce, at least that is the way I see it. You can easily disreard the civilian sector and just assume that is a zero sum games, but the working portion of the economy should cost wealth whether they are employed or not. Tha would give you an incentive to make sure as many in your population work instead of being unemployed.

Just some example

Financial Center = Base wealth of 50 times tech level
Factories = 5 wealth per production point (also make conventional factories generate very little wealth)
Everything else cost wealth based on production (can vary depending on a what it is)
Each 10000 worker population (not civilian pop) cost 1 Wealth times the same tech level that Financial centers are modified with (people will tend to need more wealth as technology rises)

I would also add in a small Wealth cost for operating Commercial ships based on some formula on their production cost. Something you pay like you pay everything else. Nothing should ever be completely free. This is basically the salaries for the crew and maintenance the ships need over time.

This was just an example... I did not really look at the numbers in the current game or anything or if these are workable at all.

This would in my opinion be a more simple system that also make lots of sense.

[Bremen]

That might be a discussion best had in the wealth generation thread.

[Steve Walmsley]

Hi Steve, with your newly proposed shipyard worker number change, and the wealth generation change, I crunched some numbers, assuming base shipbuilding rate of 500, base wealth generation techs, and assume ship building rate in C# is not changed.


So the starting naval yards can cover 1/12 of their max wealth cost themselves, raising to a limit of 1/2 when the yards are very large.
The starting commercial yards can cover 1/15 of their max wealth cost themselves, raising to a limit of 1/5 when the yards are very large.

In some sense, this means military yards are cheaper to run than commercial yards, wealth wise. This sounds a bit strange to me.

Yes, that is true. It is because of the disparity between the commercial - naval split in workers (1 vs 10) and the commercial naval split in build speed (1 vs 4) . I could change this in a few ways:

1) Slowing down commercial building, which I don't really want to do because it seems about right,
2) Increasing naval building rates, which I don't want to do for the same reason.
3) Increasing the population requirement for commercial shipyards. May be too much because the changes to shipyard workers have already increased overall requirements
4) Decreasing pop requirements for naval shipbuilding (which I just increased).
5) A combination of 3+4 to keep the total requirements similar

However, having said all that, I think the current situation is probably fine. Military ships have a much higher lifetime cost due to maintenance requirements while many commercial ships are improving the overall economy.

[IanD]

In an old AAR conventional start I abandoned a couple of years ago waiting for V7.2 I started surveying Sol using a size 20 or 24 missile equipped with a geosurvey module launched from a PDC. Is there any way now to replicate Cape Canaveral? With the demise of PDC I cannot see one but I have not followed the entire C^# discussion.