Aurora 4x

New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Xithias47 on April 10, 2010, 01:01:31 PM

Title: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Xithias47 on April 10, 2010, 01:01:31 PM: My game has been going on for about a decade now, but there is only one commercial ship (a luxury liner). I've colonized Mars up to 10m population with my own ships (though it doesn't have any minerals), and I have 3 other mining colonies. There is one civilian mining complex, but that's it. What am I supposed to do to encourage commercial ships to appear?
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: sloanjh on April 10, 2010, 01:34:04 PM: Quote from: "Xithias47"
My game has been going on for about a decade now, but there is only one commercial ship (a luxury liner). I've colonized Mars up to 10m population with my own ships (though it doesn't have any minerals), and I have 3 other mining colonies. There is one civilian mining complex, but that's it. What am I supposed to do to encourage commercial ships to appear?

Is the shipping line making money? Does it have enough cash on hand to buy a new ship? The cost of the new ship is the number of build points, IIRC, so if you've got super-mongo-huge (that's a technical term ) civie designs then it might not be able to buy any. The typical freighter has 5 cargo holds (so it can hold a single factory/mine/automine/...). The typical colony ship has 4-6 cryo-bays. Also, you should check the F5 screen to make sure that your freighter and colony designs really are classified as commercial - you can mess this up by putting sensors of size>1 or military engines on the class.

Note that there's a "subsidize" button on the civie shipping line screen that allows you to transfer some cash from your empire to the civie line. I wouldn't use this, however, unless the line doesn't have enough money to buy new ships.

John
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Xithias47 on April 10, 2010, 01:54:08 PM: Here are the designs for my commercial ships
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Alpha class Colony Ship 17150 tons 168 Crew 729.4 BP TCS 343 TH 300 EM 0 874 km/s Armour 1-59 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0 Maint Capacity 27 MSP Max Repair 25 MSP Colonists 50000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 20 Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.7 (3) Power 100 Fuel Use 7% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1% Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 74.9 billion km (992 days at full power) This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
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Echo class Freighter 34950 tons 243 Crew 415.4 BP TCS 699 TH 700 EM 0 1001 km/s Armour 1-95 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0 Maint Capacity 7 MSP Max Repair 25 MSP Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 20 Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.7 (7) Power 100 Fuel Use 7% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1% Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 36.8 billion km (425 days at full power) This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
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Hotel class Luxury Liner 15900 tons 593 Crew 706.4 BP TCS 318 TH 200 EM 0 628 km/s Armour 1-56 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0 Maint Capacity 28 MSP Max Repair 25 MSP Passengers 1250 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10 Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.7 (2) Power 100 Fuel Use 7% Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 1% Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 80.7 billion km (1488 days at full power) This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
All their build points are at around 700. What should the build points be at?
The shipping line has 1308 wealth, and their income is 60. Should I subsidize it? It has had this single ship for quite a few years now.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 10, 2010, 02:17:37 PM: If you want colony ships you may want to subsidize a line when it does not have enough for a colony ship, but does have enough for a freighter. Otherwise there is a distinct tendency for the computer to keep buying freighters over colony ships.

Brian
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Xithias47 on April 10, 2010, 02:36:14 PM: My problem is that the shipping line isn't buying any ships even though it has enough money.

How long does it usually take for a shipping line to buy ships?

Does population have anything to do with this? My population on Earth is 600 million right now.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: AtomikKrab on April 10, 2010, 03:34:00 PM: when did it buy the liner? shipping lines don't buy ships that often, that could be it.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 10, 2010, 04:41:01 PM: It seems to be a little random at times, I had two shipping lines with a freighter each, granted each of them another 1000 wealth, I'm not really lacking, and nothing happened.
After several years with no bought ships, both suddenly expanded, bringing the amount of civilian ships to a whooping 6 within less than a year.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: The Shadow on April 10, 2010, 11:59:25 PM: Huh. My shipping line buys ships right and left. I was a bit generous with the cash in the early years, but not recently.

Of course, they *need* to keep buying ships, because they keep stupidly sending them to a hostile alien system to be shot down! I may have to go conquer those guys just to let my civilian shipping line build up.

EDIT: Do you have colonies for them to take people to? If they can't make money doing it, they won't do it.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Xithias47 on April 11, 2010, 03:50:45 PM: Yeah, I have a Mars colony that's pretty large now from my own colony ships.

How exactly is a shipping line's income calculated? Is each delivery just worth $x?
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Elvin on April 11, 2010, 04:41:25 PM: In my own experience, the more colonies you have the more the civilian lines will build ships. More new shipping lines tend to appear as well. I think there's some kind of maximum profit possible calculated by the system, and then if this number is x greater than current profits from all liners, it makes a new ship/shipping line. So try expanding out to some more colonies, and try to minimise your own ships' involvement in it, just plant the foundations for a new colony.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Xithias47 on April 11, 2010, 06:21:39 PM: Alright, I'll try making more colonies and involving my ships less. Thanks for the help everyone.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: Father Tim on April 11, 2010, 07:02:51 PM: Quote from: "Xithias47"
My problem is that the shipping line isn't buying any ships even though it has enough money.

How long does it usually take for a shipping line to buy ships?

Does population have anything to do with this? My population on Earth is 600 million right now.

Shipping lines do not buy ships, they build them (though Aurora doesn't bother showing you their shipyards) and thus they have a build limit - if the (abstracted away for performance reasons) civilian shipyard doesn't have enough capacity available it won't build anything, regardless of wealth.
Title: Re: Where are all the commercial ships?
Post by: jocan2003 on May 22, 2010, 01:33:05 PM: Subsidising them should make them improve their shiyard add more slipway etc.... because in the game im playing right now if i dont get my freighter involved well i dont get much stuff moved around and i love civilian to haul my mines etc for me, less micro management.