Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2009, 04:32:18 PM
I originally considered a system of import points and export points but it was far too abstract and I couldn't generate any logical reason while ships wouldn't just move back and forth between the same two planets. Instead there are now seventeen different Civilian Trade Goods. Each planet of more than one million pop will both supply and demand eight basic goods. When it reaches reach ten million pop, six luxury goods will be added as well as three illegal goods.
Basic Goods
Consumer Electronics
Civilian Transport
Textiles
Chemicals
Machinery
Pharmaceuticals
Plastics
Construction Materials
Luxury Goods
Precious Metals,
Spices
Luxury Foods
Wines
Furs
Entertainment Products
Illegal Goods
Weapons
Slaves
Recreational Drugs
The basic demand for each good will be the size of the population. Some populations will produce more than they need of each good and some will produce less. Pops will tend to specialise so they will produce anything from 0-100% of about three-quarters of the goods and produce anything up to 400% of the others. This will vary from pop to pop and some will be net importers overall, as well as for individual goods, and some will be net exporters. This has nothing to do with trans-newtonian minerals, which are mainly for military applications, so some pops with little TN mineral resources could actually be major exporters of civilian goods. Given an equal spread of probability there will be about the same amount of supply and demand across the galaxy, although within a sample of a few pops there may be considerable excesses and shortages.
Civilian freighters will look for opportunities to move different types of goods from planets with a surplus of a particular trade good to those with a shortage. When the freighter arrives, it will generate wealth for the shipping line and wealth for the parent government in the form of tax on both the shipping company and on the original (invisible) company that produced the goods. With a trade treaty in place, goods can be shipped between pops of different races, which will create more opportunities for trade. A trade treaty will also allow foreign shipping lines to move goods within your own Empire or between your Empire and another. In this case the foreign government will get the tax revenue from the shipping company so I considered a tariff system. However, your Empire will be able to move foreign goods between foreign pops and you will get the tax revenue so it's probably easier to assume it will all work out in the end.
All of the above will take place automatically. You will see the shipping traffic but you won't have to get involved apart from possibly building jump gates to facilitate the trade and protecting the common trade routes from pirates and raiders. Trade routes in this context are not planned in the v4.0 sense. They will naturally be formed by civilian traffic as it identifies trading opportunities. With actual goods in transit with an associated value, some type of realistic pirate activity should be possible, although it may not be added for v4.1
The existing Trade Point Creation tech line will be replaced with some type of Increased Civilian Trade tech line. This will boost both the demand and production of trade goods. So with a twenty percent increase, pops will demand goods equal to 120% of the population and all trade good production will increase by 20%. This will increase the amount of trading opportunities and generate more revenue for the shipping companies and the government.
As Shipping Lines make money, they will keep some for their owners and shareholders and spend the rest on building new civilian ships. Therefore all new civilian shipping will be paid for by the wealth generated by the existing civilian shipping (plus one or two by the Shipping Lines' startup capital). I will add a window where you can monitor the holdings and profit of shipping lines within your Empire if you wish to. This is not something you need to monitor but I imagine some players will be interested to have that information.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on April 04, 2009, 06:56:35 PM
This would be an indirect way to simulate inefficiencies due to a lack of trade and diversity - the unrest would cut economic productivity.Referring to the other thread we had going, have you considered putting infrastructure on the list of e.g. basic goods? Demand could be controlled by how close the pop was to saturation of its infrastructure....
John
Post by: ShadoCat on April 04, 2009, 07:27:56 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
As Shipping Lines make money, they will keep some for their owners and shareholders and spend the rest on building new civilian ships. Therefore all new civilian shipping will be paid for by the wealth generated by the existing civilian shipping (plus one or two by the Shipping Lines' startup capital). I will add a window where you can monitor the holdings and profit of shipping lines within your Empire if you wish to. This is not something you need to monitor but I imagine some players will be interested to have that information.
That would be me.
What would be really nice in version 4.2 or 4.3 would be the ability for the SM to tweak things in the civilian area.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2009, 07:29:46 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Cool!!! This sounds like a nice model. And it gives a good model for the question "why settle a world without any Trans-Newtonians?". It would be nice if trade could double the productivity of a civilization, i.e. cultures with several planets do a lot better than cultures with only one. Hmmm - when I was typing that, I was thinking about wealth, but what if there's an unrest penalty for populations whose demands aren't fully met? In other words what if a 10% shortfall of Consumer Electronics meant a 1% level of unrest, due to all the bored teenagers smashing windows in the streetI intend that the wealth generated by this trade model could as much as double current wealth, creating a reserve of wealth to be spent paying civs to move things around. It will be a significant advantage to have many pops rather than a few because the more pops you have the more chance that one will be producing something that a different pop wants. Equally, this is a major incentive for inter-Empire trade because each Empire could benefit by supplying the goods needed by the other and vice versa.
Referring to the other thread we had going, have you considered putting infrastructure on the list of e.g. basic goods? Demand could be controlled by how close the pop was to saturation of its infrastructure....
I also considered that over time pops might adjust what goods they create to meet available demand but I am concerned about how that might develop and it might stifle inter-Empire trade so I probably won't bother. The way it is set up is not perfect and has some realism holes (why is this pop producing something nobody wants at the moment) but it should generate the right feel for a trade system and over time that pop will find the right markets for its goods if it is exposed to as many other pops, foreign and domestic, as possible. It will also create a situation where war will likely disrupt trade severely and reduce income accordingly. Protecting civilian traffic will become vital for the long-term health of the Empire.
Here is a screen shot showing the trade situation for Sparta. Its only a few days after I set this running so the import and export columns only have small amounts at the moment.
[attachment=0:39cyq0qq]trade.GIF[/attachment:39cyq0qq]
I haven't looked at the Trade Goods influence on pops yet or the details of how illegal goods will differ from non-illegal. Certainly a lack of basic goods might cause some minor unrest if the situation continued for some time (perhaps if the import requirement was greater than one year's worth). As far as illegal goods go, I may hide them from view so you can't automatically know what the situation is. The symptons might be that if illegal drugs were getting to the planet, productivity would drop and unrest would grow. I might actually have planets either produce a surplus or not produce drugs at all so that certain planets would become the source of drugs and others would be purely consumers, not producers. Weapons would increase the rate of unrest. In this case you would need to inspect civilian traffic to try and stop the drug trade. It would probably be easy to set up a default order for this so you could set a patrol ship loose in a system that would start checking freighters. Although if it just sat in orbit it should be able to check everything fairly easily so that may not be worth the hassle. The alternative is for drugs and weapons to be handled in much smaller quantities so they could be smuggled along with a regular cargo.
I am not sure about slaves. I might replace them with ancient artifacts, which would be produced by planets with ruins and everywhere else would have zero production. Again this could be a small quantity good smuggled along with normal cargo.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on April 04, 2009, 07:57:20 PM
For the smuggling stuff: are you planning to put a "customs inspection" order into the default list, where a warship would pick a random civie, intercept it, and "inspect" it (both ships stopped) for a few hours? Presumable this would indicate how much smuggling is going on - how often you find stuff. Are you contemplating a new shipboard system, e.g. "boarding party facilities" or "boat bay" (which seems kind of close to hangar decks) as well?
John
Post by: Erik L on April 04, 2009, 08:02:50 PM
Post by: Sotak246 on April 04, 2009, 08:43:23 PM
Mark
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 05, 2009, 07:59:49 AM
Brian
Post by: ShadoCat on April 05, 2009, 06:17:51 PM
For most goods the demands are "wants" the things they produce are things they consider "needs". If the population fees that they need Consumer Electronics (CE) then internal production will fulfill that need. Since there is such high local demand for CE, internal production will get better and better and producing CE (they will make it better and they will make it more cheaply). Eventually they will produce it of high enough quality that other populations will want the cheaper and higher quality CE that this population creates.
One important note here is that the other population will have a different need that they are fulfilling. Thus there is little incentive for them to try to play catch up by trying to produce CE at the quality and cost that the first population produces it.
Along the same lines, the first population will have wants that don't relate to CE (everyone wants it but everyone has what they need). Thus they would want to import other goods. They wouldn't want to devote a lot of energy into making those goods because they are only "wants". They will continue to produce what they "need".
However, after some thought on the illicit goods, I see a problem. In some society weapons or drugs are not illegal and decriminalizing them actually increased stability and decreased unrest. I think that it is too hard to define what an illegal good is. Heck, in some societies, an illegal good could be an internet browser that doesn't filter the search content based on government supplied criteria. Maybe, instead of giving different illegal goods, just create a single good called illicit and assume that the name covers what ever is illegal for that society. The other solution would be to determine illegal goods based on government types (like in SF).
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 06, 2009, 09:21:28 AM
Quote from: "Sotak246"
I definately like the sound of this new trade system. The only thing I would worry about is attaching an unrest factor to shortages. Since this all is automatic with no player input then you could end up with unrest across your empire if your random distribution shorts several planets of goods. While realistic, it would greatly lower my enjoyment factor if I can't have a say in fixing the problem causing the unrest. Sure I could add more troops, etc. but depending on the campaign I am running that could be contrary to the way I am running the empire, I mean would a 'borg race care they don't get all of their luxury goods. One empire I have is loosely based on the Fremen from Dune, can't see them having unrest if they were shorted some of their basic goods, they are used to deprivation. Don't know how easy it would be, but perhaps have a check button on the begining options or perhaps even on the race info screen that allows/disallows unrest due to trading shortages.I do share your concerns. One of my design goals is to avoid too much micromanagement. Having the civilian trade system causing unrest could mean players would have to monitor colonies more closely, which isn't ideal. I would give this a lot of thought before introducing anything along these lines and even then it would have to be limited to perhaps certain illicit or illegal goods and there would be associated events to warn the player.
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 06, 2009, 10:22:59 AM
The infrastructure produced by civilians is now a trade good, like Machinery or Spices. Every colony produces infrastructure equal to double the population in millions every year. So a 500 million pop will produce 1000 infrastructure per year. Note that until deployed on a planet, when it becomes normal infrastructure as if produced by construction factories, this is tracked as a trade good. The demand for infrastructure is based on the infrastructure required for the existing population multiplied by 1.25, with a minimum of 100. This should give sufficient room for growth and, as the population grows, the demand figure will increase. A new demand figure is calculated after pop growth during the 5-day increment and also after colonists arrive on the planet. Colonies with zero colony cost, or which are unsuitable, have no demand for infrastructure.
A colony will update its stock of the infrastructure trade good during the 5-day increment based on its production rate. If that colony has a demand for infrastructure then the newly produced trade good will be immediately converted into regular infrastructure without any need for transport. This means that new populations will have a limited ability to expand their living space, although bear in a mind a pop of ten million will only produce 20 infrastructure per year. If no infrastructure is needed on the planet, or there is already a sufficient amount, the new infrastructure trade good will be available to be exported for planets with a demand for infrastructure. This will work just as any other trade good, except that on arrival it will be added to the infrastructure for that population, which will in turn reduce the demand for the infrastructure trade good.
This should better simulate the 'free' infrastructure as it is being produced by companies that sell it to new colonies and shipping lines are paid to move it.
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on April 08, 2009, 08:27:37 AM
As I mentioned earlier, the existing convoy system and the concept of Trade Routes have been removed. The spaceports that were used to generate the trade points for the convoys have been replaced with a Commercial Spaceport, which is 1200 BP instead of 4800. The only function of this facility is to speed up loading and unloading. Additional levels speed it up further. The actual modifier is the normal loading time divided by (spaceport level +1). So a planet with a level 2 Commercial Spaceport will be able to load cargo three times as fast as a colony with no spaceport.
The cargo sizes and the actual income rates for the trades have been setup. Each Trade Good requires 2500 cargo points, or half a cargo hold. Thus a regular freighter with five cargo holds can carry ten trade goods. This matches the size of infrastructure, which makes things easier. Every time a freighter picks up trade goods, the parent government receives 0.5 wealth per Trade Good in tax from the planet-based manufacturer, or 5 wealth for an average consignment. When the freighter arrives, the parent government receives 0.5 wealth per Trade Good in tax on the profit of the Shipping Line. The reason this is split is because while a trade conducted entirely within an Empire will yield 1 wealth per trade good, the goods might be carried by a foreign-flagged vessel, in which case you only get the export taxes, or it might be a consignment carried by one of your shipping lines from one foreign pop to another, in which case you only get the shipping taxes. Shipping from your Empire to another will provide export taxes but imports from a foreign power will yield nothing, unless they are carried in a freighter owned by a Shipping Line of your race, in which case you get the shipping taxes. This is worked out automatically and you see the different tax types in the Empire income breakdown. This is all up and working already.
The Shipping Line itself receives 2 wealth for each successfully delivered trade good (20 for a normal run), regardless of the nationality of the start and destination pops. The shipping line will use this income to eventually buy additional ships. A new shipping Line window has been added that allows you to see the Shipping Lines, along with the number of ships they own, their total tonnage, their income over the last twelve months, their current wealth and their total assets. A list of their ships is provided, along with tonnage, current location, destination and cargo. Also, a list of recent deliveries is shown to demonstrate where they are operating.
Quote
The existing Trade Point Creation tech line will be replaced with some type of Increased Civilian Trade tech line. This will boost both the demand and production of trade goods. So with a twenty percent increase, pops will demand goods equal to 120% of the population and all trade good production will increase by 20%. This will increase the amount of trading opportunities and generate more revenue for the shipping companies and the government.The above has been implemented in a fairly similar way to that described in my original mail but I have also integrated it with wealth production to create a more realistic whole.
The Wealth Rate and Trading Rate tech lines have both been replaced with a tech named "Expand Civilian Economy by 20%". Researching this tech will increase the income of all populations by twenty percent and will increase the production and demand of all trade goods within your Empire by twenty percent. This is also the first example of what I am calling Replicating Techs. When you research this for the first time (at a cost of 2500 RP), the program creates a race-specific version of the tech. Every time you research it, the tech remains the same but the research cost doubles. This means only one line per race on the tech system tables for this tech and it also means that a situation can be created where different races pay different amounts for the same level of per capita income, which should finally solve what I have come to think of as the "China Problem"
The "China Problem" is that China has a population five times greater than the United States but a much lower per-capita income. This is hard to simulate in Aurora because income is based directly on population so, all things being equal, two equal size pops will generate the same income. I have tried to fudge this by adding lower and expensive tech levels for wealth to give a China-type power some hurdles to overcome before catching up. However, once it gets on the bottom rung of the 'normal' wealth tech line, it can catch up fairly quickly. Besides, this is obviously a fudge and the realism aspect is hard to accept, especially when it suddenly becomes cheaper to increase wealth at 20 per million pop.
The new Replicating Tech allows a much neater approach. When a race is manually generated you are informed that a regular TN race will receive 100% of normal income and you are asked if you want to modify this percentage. Lets assume you do and you decided to give China 15% of normal income. Normal Income is 20 wealth per million pop so China will start with 3 wealth per million pop. However, as the tech system is now entirely percentage based and specific to each race, it doesn't matter what the starting point is. It will cost the US 2500 RP to move from 20 wealth to 24 wealth and 5000 RP to move to 28.8 wealth. It will cost China 2500 RP to move from 3 wealth to 3.6 wealth and 5000 RP to move to 4.32 wealth, etc. Now it could be argued that China will improve its economy to be more efficient and this low start will penalise them. However, the US could also improve its economy and stay ahead. All this is doing is reflecting the start point for both nations. When I finally get around to sorting out real government modifiers, this will also be very useful in simulating the econmic starting point for different government types.
The per capita income figure shown on the Trade tab of the Pop window will now have real relevance and will be the wealth per million figure
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on April 08, 2009, 10:59:54 AM
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on April 08, 2009, 03:32:14 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
As I mentioned earlier, the existing convoy system and the concept of Trade Routes have been removed. The spaceports that were used to generate the trade points for the convoys have been replaced with a Commercial Spaceport, which is 1200 BP instead of 4800. The only function of this facility is to speed up loading and unloading. Additional levels speed it up further. The actual modifier is the normal loading time divided by (spaceport level +1). So a planet with a level 2 Commercial Spaceport will be able to load cargo three times as fast as a colony with no spaceport.
Will the shipboard Cargo Handling System go away or become bigger/more expensive? I would vote "yes" - this would give a big incentive to build civilian cargo facilities, and simulate the difficulty of unloading at undeveloped worlds.
John
Post by: SteveAlt on April 10, 2009, 10:29:07 AM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
I haven't made it bigger or more expensive yet but with the increases in the size of all other major commercial systems I probably should. The other alternative is to make unloading times longer so that spaceports and additional cargo handling systems bring them back to what is currently normal.Quote from: "SteveAlt"As I mentioned earlier, the existing convoy system and the concept of Trade Routes have been removed. The spaceports that were used to generate the trade points for the convoys have been replaced with a Commercial Spaceport, which is 1200 BP instead of 4800. The only function of this facility is to speed up loading and unloading. Additional levels speed it up further. The actual modifier is the normal loading time divided by (spaceport level +1). So a planet with a level 2 Commercial Spaceport will be able to load cargo three times as fast as a colony with no spaceport.Will the shipboard Cargo Handling System go away or become bigger/more expensive? I would vote "yes" - this would give a big incentive to build civilian cargo facilities, and simulate the difficulty of unloading at undeveloped worlds.
Steve
Post by: SteveAlt on April 13, 2009, 02:09:16 PM
Steve
Post by: waresky on April 13, 2009, 04:41:12 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I have added Ancient Artifacts to the list of Trade Goods. The demand for these is handled like any normal trade good but they are only produced by colonies with ancient ruins. The amount produced is equal to the level of the ruins (1-10) multiplied by the pop in millions.More deep and deep in "real-life" Aurora r gonna to..
Steve
When we walk through an planetary map with our Divisions?:))
(as to "Falkenberg Legion" novel,CoDominium and later, Moties situations..)i love it.
Post by: ShadoCat on April 13, 2009, 07:44:23 PM
The economics will make the game even more enjoyable for me.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 21, 2009, 03:20:25 PM
[attachment=0:3ar5wn5s]shipping.GIF[/attachment:3ar5wn5s]
In this test campaign, the three Shipping Lines have built up Mars (cost 2.0) to 50m+ along with the necessary infrastructure without any player involvement. The other change to the new trade system is that I have restricted maximum supply and maximum demand to one year's production. This is to prevent a planet building up vast quantities of a particular good when no one else needs it.
Steve
Post by: Erik L on July 21, 2009, 03:58:42 PM
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 21, 2009, 04:03:13 PM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Do they design their own ships? Or are they using player designs?At the moment they use player designs from their parent race. In the future I may add individual designs for the Shipping Lines or allow them to buy ships from allied races.
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on July 22, 2009, 05:05:35 AM
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 31, 2009, 11:00:45 AM
A quick aside. Under the new political rules, if the military co-operation level between two races is less than friendly and an NPR actively detects alien ships in systems with its own population it will cause negative political points. If the relationship falls to the hostile level, the NPR will open fire. However, if the military co-operation level is neutral but a trade treaty is in place, freighters entering populated systems of the other race will not cause any decrease in political standing. This includes colony ships and cargo ships but could also include other 'freighters' such as fuel harvesters or construction ships so you will be able to build jump gate networks within an alien Empire to facilitate trade. Or you could send in a player-controlled freighter on a covert spying mission, although you will only have minimal sensors due to the restrictions on freighters. NPR ships entering player systems never cause negative political points as it will be up to you how to deal with them.
The colony ships of shipping lines will continue to carry colonists in the same way as in v4.0. However, the source/destination flag on the pop window will also affect trade. The infrastructure demand for a pop set as a destination will be equal to the infrastructure required for the current population plus 25%. The infrastructure demand for a pop set as a source will simply be equal to the infrastructure required for the current population. This means that the cargo ships of shipping lines will expand capacity on destination worlds but not on source worlds unless the source world is overcrowded.
Steve
Post by: waresky on July 31, 2009, 11:05:51 AM
a BIG welcome to "NEUTRAL" NPR's relations ..
And a awesome "trading" goal.
Am caught on multiple space battles towards 5 Ancients guardians task forces..who annhilihated me some task group..
..Ah Steve,TY for answer.
see ya!
Post by: welchbloke on July 31, 2009, 02:40:17 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Or you could send in a player-controlled freighter on a covert spying mission, although you will only have minimal sensors due to the restrictions on freighters. NPR ships entering player systems never cause negative political points as it will be up to you how to deal with them.So cold war soviet style 'Fishing Vessels' are now a possibility, cool
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on July 31, 2009, 08:10:16 PM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Or you could send in a player-controlled freighter on a covert spying mission, although you will only have minimal sensors due to the restrictions on freighters. NPR ships entering player systems never cause negative political points as it will be up to you how to deal with them.So cold war soviet style 'Fishing Vessels' are now a possibility, cool
Steve
LOL!!
One thing I just remembered - did you (Steve) put in a way to declare small colonies on high colonization-cost worlds as "not destination"? At present, if one wants to put automated mines on e.g. Venus there's no good way to keep the civies from adding population and infrastructure.
John
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 01, 2009, 03:26:32 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
One thing I just remembered - did you (Steve) put in a way to declare small colonies on high colonization-cost worlds as "not destination"? At present, if one wants to put automated mines on e.g. Venus there's no good way to keep the civies from adding population and infrastructure.In v4.1, the demand for infrastructure is based on population size so if there is no population there will be no infrastructure demand and the civilian freighters won't deliver any. Civilian colony ships will only deliver colonists to 0.0 worlds or worlds with sufficient infrastructre. What this means is that if the player wants civilian shipping to colonise a non-ideal world, the player will have to drop off either some colonists or some infrastructure to start the process.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on August 01, 2009, 09:21:31 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "sloanjh"One thing I just remembered - did you (Steve) put in a way to declare small colonies on high colonization-cost worlds as "not destination"? At present, if one wants to put automated mines on e.g. Venus there's no good way to keep the civies from adding population and infrastructure.In v4.1, the demand for infrastructure is based on population size so if there is no population there will be no infrastructure demand and the civilian freighters won't deliver any. Civilian colony ships will only deliver colonists to 0.0 worlds or worlds with sufficient infrastructre. What this means is that if the player wants civilian shipping to colonise a non-ideal world, the player will have to drop off either some colonists or some infrastructure to start the process.
Steve
Cool - thanks!
John
PS - Nice Chicken/Egg thing there
Post by: Paul M on August 03, 2009, 03:24:32 AM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Or you could send in a player-controlled freighter on a covert spying mission, although you will only have minimal sensors due to the restrictions on freighters. NPR ships entering player systems never cause negative political points as it will be up to you how to deal with them.So cold war soviet style 'Fishing Vessels' are now a possibility, cool
Steve
I was playing Harpoon's scenario where I have to get a CVBG to Iceland and one of the assets deployed against me was a "fishing boat" so not thinking about it too much I looked around for an asset to take care of this problem and spotted two Phantoms prepped with rockets and said ok, hit that boat...holy cowzollas...the return fire was with every form of SA missile in the Ruskie armory from shoulder launched up mid range silo launched ones. I think I may have either lost a phantom or broke off the attack and returned to base to re-arm with stand off weapons. I've seen warships throw less missiles than that trawler did.
Post by: IanD on September 09, 2009, 06:06:13 AM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
In v4.1, the demand for infrastructure is based on population size so if there is no population there will be no infrastructure demand and the civilian freighters won't deliver any. Civilian colony ships will only deliver colonists to 0.0 worlds or worlds with sufficient infrastructure. What this means is that if the player wants civilian shipping to colonise a non-ideal world, the player will have to drop off either some colonists or some infrastructure to start the process.
But if you have a ruins site and infrastructure is recovered by your xeno team, then the civs go and dump colonists on it whether you want them too or not, at least they do in 4.1, not yet started 4.26. Is this still the same for 4.26 or have you deleted the chance to recover infrastructure?
Regards
Post by: Beersatron on September 11, 2009, 03:23:11 PM
I had to do a bail-out for all my shipping lines and went into the database, upping their wallets. Some of them finally built a freighter and one of them has history of doing a run to Mars and back. 3 other companies have a ship too, and I can see them moving to Mars and back, but their history is blank.
I also have a new colony about 3 jumps away that they don't seem interested in. It has JG's the whole way there and back again, but it may be that the demand for infrastructure isn't there? Population is 0.36 and capacity is 0.65 I think.
Just recently it looks like a colony company just started up - which should be good! The other 5 companies are all freight.
I am nearly at 200 points with an NPR, hopefully I will get trade going with them - although they are in a Nebula
Post by: Paul M on September 14, 2009, 03:26:33 AM
At the moment I have 3 shipping firms and 1 colony firm. I just noticed that Val Thuhhl's trade window is showing a demand for things that my home world produces so hopefully they get moved over.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 14, 2009, 06:04:39 PM
Quote from: "IanD"
No, you can still recover infrastructure in v4.26 so if a world can be colonised the civs will go ahead and do it. I think what may have changed since v4.1 though is that civs no longer try to colonise unsuitable worlds that have infrastructure.Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"In v4.1, the demand for infrastructure is based on population size so if there is no population there will be no infrastructure demand and the civilian freighters won't deliver any. Civilian colony ships will only deliver colonists to 0.0 worlds or worlds with sufficient infrastructure. What this means is that if the player wants civilian shipping to colonise a non-ideal world, the player will have to drop off either some colonists or some infrastructure to start the process.
But if you have a ruins site and infrastructure is recovered by your xeno team, then the civs go and dump colonists on it whether you want them too or not, at least they do in 4.1, not yet started 4.26. Is this still the same for 4.26 or have you deleted the chance to recover infrastructure?
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 14, 2009, 06:09:05 PM
Quote from: "Beersatron"
Is there a way to tell how much it costs a company to build a ship, if they ordered one and how long it will be before it is ready?Civilian ships are insta-build. They don't have a lead time after they order, although in terms of game mechanics it doesn't really affect anything as a lead time can be assumed. They will build freighters about 2/3rd of the time and colony ships about 1/3rd of the time, although there is a random element to the decision. The cost for the ships is the same wealth cost as you would pay for the same design. The names of the shipping lines don't have any bearing on what they build. The infrastructure demand for a colony can be found on the Wealth/Trade tab. For a colonist destination the infrastructure demand is equal to the amount required for the current population plus 25%.
I had to do a bail-out for all my shipping lines and went into the database, upping their wallets. Some of them finally built a freighter and one of them has history of doing a run to Mars and back. 3 other companies have a ship too, and I can see them moving to Mars and back, but their history is blank.
I also have a new colony about 3 jumps away that they don't seem interested in. It has JG's the whole way there and back again, but it may be that the demand for infrastructure isn't there? Population is 0.36 and capacity is 0.65 I think.
Just recently it looks like a colony company just started up - which should be good! The other 5 companies are all freight.
I am nearly at 200 points with an NPR, hopefully I will get trade going with them - although they are in a Nebula
Steve
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 14, 2009, 06:10:33 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
How do the companies decide which ship to build? I have single commercial yard set to build frieghters and have noticed the last set of companies have built freighters (2 each and I have 2 slips on that yard). I have also 3 companies in a death spiral as they are basically without capital to buy ships and and their share prices are down to 0.09 or so. Should not they fold or something? I would think that bankruptcy would make sense, no?See my previous post for details on build choices. I agree I do need to create some type of bankruptcy or insolvency situation.
At the moment I have 3 shipping firms and 1 colony firm. I just noticed that Val Thuhhl's trade window is showing a demand for things that my home world produces so hopefully they get moved over.
Steve
Post by: Beersatron on September 14, 2009, 10:57:13 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "Paul M"How do the companies decide which ship to build? I have single commercial yard set to build frieghters and have noticed the last set of companies have built freighters (2 each and I have 2 slips on that yard). I have also 3 companies in a death spiral as they are basically without capital to buy ships and and their share prices are down to 0.09 or so. Should not they fold or something? I would think that bankruptcy would make sense, no?See my previous post for details on build choices. I agree I do need to create some type of bankruptcy or insolvency situation.
At the moment I have 3 shipping firms and 1 colony firm. I just noticed that Val Thuhhl's trade window is showing a demand for things that my home world produces so hopefully they get moved over.
Steve
Might I suggest that they offer the ships up for sale to the player? I haven't seen this option since the new shipping lines were put in. Also, maybe some random factor that offers one or more ships to another shipping line for a reduced price, if that other shipping line has the capital and income?
Post by: schroeam on September 15, 2009, 08:21:38 PM
Quote from: "Beersatron"
Or better yet, the ability to lease the ships for transporting facilities?Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Quote from: "Paul M"How do the companies decide which ship to build? I have single commercial yard set to build frieghters and have noticed the last set of companies have built freighters (2 each and I have 2 slips on that yard). I have also 3 companies in a death spiral as they are basically without capital to buy ships and and their share prices are down to 0.09 or so. Should not they fold or something? I would think that bankruptcy would make sense, no?See my previous post for details on build choices. I agree I do need to create some type of bankruptcy or insolvency situation.
At the moment I have 3 shipping firms and 1 colony firm. I just noticed that Val Thuhhl's trade window is showing a demand for things that my home world produces so hopefully they get moved over.
Steve
Might I suggest that they offer the ships up for sale to the player? I haven't seen this option since the new shipping lines were put in. Also, maybe some random factor that offers one or more ships to another shipping line for a reduced price, if that other shipping line has the capital and income?
Adam.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 16, 2009, 12:22:22 PM
Quote from: "adradjool"
Or better yet, the ability to lease the ships for transporting facilities?Yes, that is a good idea and would reflect what happens in the real world. You would pay the lease fees and also lose out on tax revenue so it would be a real choice rather than an automatic decision.
Steve
Post by: Paul M on September 17, 2009, 05:57:49 AM
I would suggest that the initial three firms don't need to pay dividends until they purchace ships (since presumably they will then be able to earn income). Otherwise, in a conventional start they are pretty much doomed as it took some 8-9 years to get to this point.
The trouble is that I can't ship anything to the other planet except minearals, infrastructure and colonists. Seems you need at least 5 cargo holds in the ship to pick up anything else.
((and yes I now have "backup_1 and backup_2" in my "backups" folder))
Post by: backstab on September 17, 2009, 03:54:21 PM
Post by: Beersatron on September 17, 2009, 08:07:04 PM
Quote from: "backstab"
Does anyone know how to call up the Shipping Lines window ?????
ctrl+l
or, on the system map - click on the 5th icon along the top, from the right (looks liked a graph behind static)
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 18, 2009, 03:14:01 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
The trouble is that I can't ship anything to the other planet except minearals, infrastructure and colonists. Seems you need at least 5 cargo holds in the ship to pick up anything else.Yes, multiples of 5 cargo holds are necessary for a lot of the larger items. I did a post that listed all of the various requirements for transport but I can't find it now. Anyone know its location?
Steve
Post by: welchbloke on September 18, 2009, 04:41:42 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
There are some hold requirements listed in this thread - http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1617&start=0&hilit=cargo+holdQuote from: "Paul M"The trouble is that I can't ship anything to the other planet except minearals, infrastructure and colonists. Seems you need at least 5 cargo holds in the ship to pick up anything else.Yes, multiples of 5 cargo holds are necessary for a lot of the larger items. I did a post that listed all of the various requirements for transport but I can't find it now. Anyone know its location?
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on September 18, 2009, 07:47:56 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "Paul M"The trouble is that I can't ship anything to the other planet except minearals, infrastructure and colonists. Seems you need at least 5 cargo holds in the ship to pick up anything else.Yes, multiples of 5 cargo holds are necessary for a lot of the larger items. I did a post that listed all of the various requirements for transport but I can't find it now. Anyone know its location?
Steve
I'd like to take this opportunity to renew my request for being able to break down such installations into 1 hold's-worth. Most important would be mines, auto-mines, and factories, of course. At present, it's essentially impossible to colonize beyond the jump gate network (without building large numbers of engineers) - this breakdown would allow such colonization to take place while still maintaining the concept of "civilized core".
John
Post by: waresky on September 19, 2009, 11:50:58 AM
Troops management,some strange bug into "npr check for missiles etc.etc..
my 2 cents
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 21, 2009, 12:56:09 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
This would be quite a lot of work as I would have to change the load/unload code for a lot of cargo types. As an alternative though I am considering the idea of a commercial jump drive. These would be much larger and cheaper-per-HS than military jump drives and have several downsides. A larger minimum size, a lower efficiency and a much longer sensor/fire control blackout - perhaps 30 mins or so. Also perhaps some type of 'drive flare' that would highlight a transit.Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Yes, multiples of 5 cargo holds are necessary for a lot of the larger items. I did a post that listed all of the various requirements for transport but I can't find it now. Anyone know its location?I'd like to take this opportunity to renew my request for being able to break down such installations into 1 hold's-worth. Most important would be mines, auto-mines, and factories, of course. At present, it's essentially impossible to colonize beyond the jump gate network (without building large numbers of engineers) - this breakdown would allow such colonization to take place while still maintaining the concept of "civilized core".
These restrictions would make them far less useful for militray applications. They could still be used in some type of tender vessel though that could allow very large military units to transit so instead of the drive flare, maybe a different weakness would be that only commercial-engined ships could travel through a jump point opened by a commercial jump drive. The more powerful military drives would create too much instability.
EDIT: I went ahead and added the Commercial Jump Drives - see the post in Mechanics
Steve
Post by: ShadoCat on September 21, 2009, 04:53:58 PM
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
This would be quite a lot of work as I would have to change the load/unload code for a lot of cargo types. As an alternative though I am considering the idea of a commercial jump drive. These would be much larger and cheaper-per-HS than military jump drives and have several downsides. A larger minimum size, a lower efficiency and a much longer sensor/fire control blackout - perhaps 30 mins or so. Also perhaps some type of 'drive flare' that would highlight a transit.
These restrictions would make them far less useful for militray applications. They could still be used in some type of tender vessel though that could allow very large military units to transit so instead of the drive flare, maybe a different weakness would be that only commercial-engined ships could travel through a jump point opened by a commercial jump drive. The more powerful military drives would create too much instability.
EDIT: I went ahead and added the Commercial Jump Drives - see the post in Mechanics
Steve
Maybe only civvie ships can go through without blowing electronics (requiring repair). Commercial systems can use bulkier, less delicate electronics. It's like using vacuum tubes instead of microchips.
An alternative is to consider the military ships to take up more transit space (3-5x ship size) for transit purposes when using commercial jump engines.
Post by: tanq_tonic on October 12, 2009, 02:19:28 PM
Every freighter that the lines have built makes their way to a smaller colony, and float there.
For example:
Mars has a export demand of 1151 Precious Metals.
Earth has a demand for 900 of the same.
Right now there are 10 freighters floating above Mars w/ Precious Metals, and the info screen says that the destination is Mars.
So they apparently drift there waiting for a demand (as opposed to surplus) to open up.
I also have a freighter drifting above mercury waiting to deliver spices, but interestingly, spices are neither produced or demanded there. Again, its "stuck".
The last freigher is drifting above Titan, again waiting to deliver metals to a colony that produces them.
What gives?
Post by: Beersatron on October 12, 2009, 07:26:34 PM
Quote from: "tanq_tonic"
I seem to have developed a trading "black hole".
Every freighter that the lines have built makes their way to a smaller colony, and float there.
For example:
Mars has a export demand of 1151 Precious Metals.
Earth has a demand for 900 of the same.
Right now there are 10 freighters floating above Mars w/ Precious Metals, and the info screen says that the destination is Mars.
So they apparently drift there waiting for a demand (as opposed to surplus) to open up.
I also have a freighter drifting above mercury waiting to deliver spices, but interestingly, spices are neither produced or demanded there. Again, its "stuck".
The last freigher is drifting above Titan, again waiting to deliver metals to a colony that produces them.
What gives?
You could try the 'Clear Orders' button on the shipping lines window and see if that helps, although I am not sure if it empties the cargo holds or just forces the freighters to recalc their orders based on what they currently have in the hold.
Post by: tanq_tonic on October 13, 2009, 10:14:12 AM
Quote from: "Beersatron"
Quote from: "tanq_tonic"I seem to have developed a trading "black hole".
Every freighter that the lines have built makes their way to a smaller colony, and float there.
For example:
Mars has a export demand of 1151 Precious Metals.
Earth has a demand for 900 of the same.
Right now there are 10 freighters floating above Mars w/ Precious Metals, and the info screen says that the destination is Mars.
So they apparently drift there waiting for a demand (as opposed to surplus) to open up.
I also have a freighter drifting above mercury waiting to deliver spices, but interestingly, spices are neither produced or demanded there. Again, its "stuck".
The last freigher is drifting above Titan, again waiting to deliver metals to a colony that produces them.
What gives?
You could try the 'Clear Orders' button on the shipping lines window and see if that helps, although I am not sure if it empties the cargo holds or just forces the freighters to recalc their orders based on what they currently have in the hold.
Was confused as I had no "clear orders" button on the Shippin Line menu. Checked and I am using v. 4.2. I will repost to the appropriate thread. Thanks for the guidance.
edited to add: using a little hunch, I found I could download v 4.2x ( 4.25 by the help info or 4.26 if you believe the title of the zip file) and...... voila !!!! saw the clear orders button. btw, clear orders clears orders and cargos.
It was a little confusing, as I had seen nowhere in here on how to get a v 4.26, and the only download info mentions 4.2.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 13, 2009, 10:22:46 AM
Quote from: "tanq_tonic"
It was a little confusing, as I had seen nowhere in here on how to get a v 4.26, and the only download info mentions 4.2.v4.26 (which still has the v4.25 number) and the data patch are both topics in the installation forum. I have added a note to the full download directing new players to the patches.
Steve