Quick Questions Thread

[Kamilo]

Is it normal that aliens shoot size 1 missiles at my ships? They are making 71400km/s. Are those not AM-Ms?

I was expecting slower, larger missiles and currently it looks like I will never close enough to use my shiny lasers My ships are dying slowly.... Fun. Definitely fun 

That happened in my last game too. I didnt have a real chance because PD against them is kinda pointless -unless you are done with the tech tree-. Using missles wasnt an option as well because they could use these missles as amm. So energy was the only way to handle them but that didn’t succeed, sadly.

[Eretzu]

This is from version 1.7 or 1.8 i think, have definitely not tested in 1.9


I can repair my military ships (geosurvey) in commercial shipyards, is this WAI?

[Father Tim]

This is from version 1.7 or 1.8 i think, have definitely not tested in 1.9


I can repair my military ships (geosurvey) in commercial shipyards, is this WAI?

I think so, but why not go to the C# Mechanics forum, to the pinned Table of Contents thread, and search for the posts detailing the changes to shipyards and repairs?

[firsal]

Has air-to-air combat between ground support fighters been coded in yet? Just wondering since I haven't seen it in the changelog yet.

[Tyrannus Rex]

I have to be dumb, but how is everyone ensuring their empires continue to make money to further their expansion into space and the subjugation of alien species?

Researched up to 400 wealth per colonist, and I'm seeing a negative return even with a hundred finance buildings on the homeworld.  It used to be you could make a good twenty years doing the basics, building a stockpile and just exploring your home system before you would have a drop in income before the civilians started mining.  Though now, can't even seem to go three years before the crash hits.  Both in TN and conventional starts.  What gives?

Suggestions and ideas greatly appreciated. 

[smoelf]

I'd be curious to see what your 'Wealth/Trade' overview would look like for the past year. It might give an indication of where to improve. It sounds like you are doing the right thing, though if I am reading you correctly, 100 financial centers sounds really low given that you have researched as far as 400 wealth per colonist. I am 15 years into my game, currently researching 140 wealth pr million worker, and I have 300 financial centers providing for 13,5% of my total budget with taxes from colonies being about 50%.

Do you have sufficient colonies providing for taxes and income from civilian shipping? Are you purchasing minerals from too many CMC's? Are you boosting research too much for your empire size?

[DFNewb (OP)]

I never seem to have to make more centers to make money, I always seem to be fine on wealth. I am curious to what differences we are doing in gameplay to cause this.

[Tyrannus Rex]

I'd be curious to see what your 'Wealth/Trade' overview would look like for the past year.  It might give an indication of where to improve.  It sounds like you are doing the right thing, though if I am reading you correctly, 100 financial centers sounds really low given that you have researched as far as 400 wealth per colonist.  I am 15 years into my game, currently researching 140 wealth pr million worker, and I have 300 financial centers providing for 13,5% of my total budget with taxes from colonies being about 50%.

Do you have sufficient colonies providing for taxes and income from civilian shipping? Are you purchasing minerals from too many CMC's? Are you boosting research too much for your empire size?

I never seem to have to make more centers to make money, I always seem to be fine on wealth.  I am curious to what differences we are doing in gameplay to cause this.

I currently have just the homeworld as my main world.  No other colonies are setup in the system as I still haven't moved people to the other bodies yet.  The reason I go up so high the wealth research is to prevent the crash, but that still occurs.  Research rate is at 280, with 12 research labs, 685 million pop.  Construction is idle as that was a major drain on spending up to over double of what was coming in. 

So I'll wait a few weeks to build a surplus and build another few dozen infrastructure to eventually ship to luna or mars.  Then repeat.  I want to go into the DB and tear apart the economics of the game and see where everything is accounted for, as I feel that I should be making a positive cash flow but it goes negative. 

Have any of you watched the econ tab and seen the money go from 20 to 15 to 0 back up to like 36, or even negative? And that's even with a minimal on spending, when building and doing other things it goes ping ponging up and down worse than the futures market in Beijing. 

Thoughts?

[smoelf]

That sounds really odd. My other suggestion would have been that your research was too high for your population, but with only 12 research facilities, that's probably not the case. My main suggestion would be to get going and start colonizing. Multiple colonies are really necessary for a healthy economy in my experience. The reason for the ping-ponging might be due to different sub-pulses (same as with mineral stockpiles and mass drivers).

Again, it might be helpful to see your wealth/trade overview for the past year. If useful, I have attached my own for comparison. 18 years into the game, starting population of 750m, current total population of 1211m with three populated colonies.

[Tyrannus Rex]

That sounds really odd.  My other suggestion would have been that your research was too high for your population, but with only 12 research facilities, that's probably not the case.  My main suggestion would be to get going and start colonizing.  Multiple colonies are really necessary for a healthy economy in my experience.  The reason for the ping-ponging might be due to different sub-pulses (same as with mineral stockpiles and mass drivers).

Again, it might be helpful to see your wealth/trade overview for the past year.  If useful, I have attached my own for comparison.  18 years into the game, starting population of 750m, current total population of 1211m with three populated colonies.

So I started a new game to test out some things about the economy.  Conventional start; Sol; baseline human. 
- First game I placed 1500 CI and 350 pop; about 12 mil worker shortage +23 to budget first two years whilst researching TN 6 labs
        1a.  TN complete and population has grown to 400 or so; worker shortage is 3. 5 mil; 15 finance centers +6 to budget 8 labs
        1b.  Start conversion of CI to TN; 200 wealth research complete; 2 labs in que; 65 finance centers +0 to budget; 3 mil worker surplus

Photos of year 3, 4, and 5 yearly budgets.  No exploration and colonization done so far.  I am going to run till year 10 and first colony on luna to see if there is an increase, but I'm feeling that you have to start with 500 mil+ pop to see a positive in finance and also build the finance centers to make them a sizable amount of your total worker population to run positive. 

That will be my next run through to see how normal population goes.  But at this current stage in playing it seems that unless you don't expand within the first 5 years, you get a bust and boom cycle that has to be balanced getting those essential techs and building more finance centers.  Thoughts?

[Father Tim]

So I started a new game to test out some things about the economy.  Conventional start; Sol; baseline human. 
- First game I placed 1500 CI and 350 pop; about 12 mil worker shortage +23 to budget first two years whilst researching TN 6 labs
        1a.  TN complete and population has grown to 400 or so; worker shortage is 3. 5 mil; 15 finance centers +6 to budget 8 labs
        1b.  Start conversion of CI to TN; 200 wealth research complete; 2 labs in que; 65 finance centers +0 to budget; 3 mil worker surplus

Photos of year 3, 4, and 5 yearly budgets.  No exploration and colonization done so far.  I am going to run till year 10 and first colony on luna to see if there is an increase, but I'm feeling that you have to start with 500 mil+ pop to see a positive in finance and also build the finance centers to make them a sizable amount of your total worker population to run positive. 

That will be my next run through to see how normal population goes.  But at this current stage in playing it seems that unless you don't expand within the first 5 years, you get a bust and boom cycle that has to be balanced getting those essential techs and building more finance centers.  Thoughts?

You've hit the excess wealth cap.  Steve added it (check the C# Mechanics forum, Table of Contents thread) to prevent stockpiling.  Personally I hate it, but currently we're in a "let's see how this works" evaluation period so let Steve know if it improves (or not) your game.

[Father Tim]

Has air-to-air combat between ground support fighters been coded in yet? Just wondering since I haven't seen it in the changelog yet.

If it's not in the changes list, the answer is almost certainly no.

[Tyrannus Rex]

So I started a new game to test out some things about the economy.  Conventional start; Sol; baseline human. 
- First game I placed 1500 CI and 350 pop; about 12 mil worker shortage +23 to budget first two years whilst researching TN 6 labs
        1a.  TN complete and population has grown to 400 or so; worker shortage is 3. 5 mil; 15 finance centers +6 to budget 8 labs
        1b.  Start conversion of CI to TN; 200 wealth research complete; 2 labs in que; 65 finance centers +0 to budget; 3 mil worker surplus

Photos of year 3, 4, and 5 yearly budgets.  No exploration and colonization done so far.  I am going to run till year 10 and first colony on luna to see if there is an increase, but I'm feeling that you have to start with 500 mil+ pop to see a positive in finance and also build the finance centers to make them a sizable amount of your total worker population to run positive. 

That will be my next run through to see how normal population goes.  But at this current stage in playing it seems that unless you don't expand within the first 5 years, you get a bust and boom cycle that has to be balanced getting those essential techs and building more finance centers.  Thoughts?

You've hit the excess wealth cap.  Steve added it (check the C# Mechanics forum, Table of Contents thread) to prevent stockpiling.  Personally I hate it, but currently we're in a "let's see how this works" evaluation period so let Steve know if it improves (or not) your game.

Well crap... I went looking through the mechanics forums and didn't see the topic per say. I'll dig through it again after work and see what I can figure out. In the meantime I will continue to run tests to better understand the mechanics. Thanks Father Tim.

[Father Tim]

I have to be dumb, but how is everyone ensuring their empires continue to make money to further their expansion into space and the subjugation of alien species?

Researched up to 400 wealth per colonist, and I'm seeing a negative return even with a hundred finance buildings on the homeworld.  It used to be you could make a good twenty years doing the basics, building a stockpile and just exploring your home system before you would have a drop in income before the civilians started mining.  Though now, can't even seem to go three years before the crash hits.  Both in TN and conventional starts.  What gives?

Suggestions and ideas greatly appreciated.

Increased Wealth governors can make a HUGE difference in C# Aurora.

The way in which empires generate wealth has changed significantly in C# Aurora.  If you're doing the same thing you've always done, it will give wildly different results.

The boom-and-bust cycle you describe in another post sounds a lot like Unrest (overcrowding, unemployment, or both) and/or worker shortages.  Are you exceeding your Infrastructure and/or pop cap limit?

[Father Tim]

Well crap... I went looking through the mechanics forums and didn't see the topic per say. I'll dig through it again after work and see what I can figure out. In the meantime I will continue to run tests to better understand the mechanics. Thanks Father Tim.

Huh.  Re-reading 'Wealth Generation' it says that "the planned wealth reserve cap can be removed" so you shouldn't be hitting that.  Maybe it's a bug.