[REQUEST] XL sized station building modules to aid performance

[Raptor34]

I'm aware of the intent (its in the title ), but the gameplay consequences are just as real and need considering no?

ok lets say we have 1 habbitation module L size .. atm it can fit 1000 ppl ...

This is a good point, maybe we should have a rethink on the balance of this.

MFG

Ketraar

You could always just make it equally if not more costly. The example of FL's upgrade kits is a good one, maybe progress can come later, but I wouldn't mind paying 1.5x the cost in both time and resource to make one module work as 2, so on and so forth.
We're talking about the technical performance costs right?

[Halpog]

what also could need a rethink is the fact that some station modules, are realy not necessary
for example take the argon food produktion chain.
weed, spice,water,food 4 stations for 1 habbitat ...

that food needs water, ok , but spice and weed is not needed.thats 2 station modules we could spare already,

we also could lets say mix stations into 1 station with more products than just 1 by ofc keeping the ressources, this would also help
for example :
advanced electronic, mikro chips,drone parts,as a produkt of 1 produktion module. ( if this is technicaly possible )

[Halpog]

I'm aware of the intent (its in the title ), but the gameplay consequences are just as real and need considering no?

ok lets say we have 1 habbitation module L size .. atm it can fit 1000 ppl ...

This is a good point, maybe we should have a rethink on the balance of this.

MFG

Ketraar

You could always just make it equally if not more costly. The example of FL's upgrade kits is a good one, maybe progress can come later, but I wouldn't mind paying 1.5x the cost in both time and resource to make one module work as 2, so on and so forth.
We're talking about the technical performance costs right?

yes and no ...
it will help the performance of the game ofc.
and it also can affekt the whole economy

[EGO_Aut]

I do not want to offend anyone, but do you REALLY need this?

In my first game i was building huge amounts of fleets and stations, megastructures with the productivity of the whole factions but i did grow up, nobody needs that, realy, not even for Terraforming. Doublethink it, if more storage would not be enough or if you do something wrong.

The universe would look empty if the factions would build XL style, and for player only it would not look ok.

My opinion is that its ok like it is, if your pc is to weak, then you exaggerate. If you need more and more, then try some mods

[Ketraar]

I do not want to offend anyone, but do you REALLY need this?

Need is a strong word, its a thought experiment and a discussion about gameplay. Not sure what you want to achieve with your reply, if you don't think this is a valid discussion, its not required to participate (see used your own style of reply )

We're talking about the technical performance costs right?

The aim of the topic was that, but some gameplay considerations came up. Speaking for me, I am more interested in the gameplay aspect then performance.

weed, spice,water,food 4 stations for 1 habbitat ...

Freudian slip there on the Wheet!?

that food needs water, ok , but spice and weed is not needed.thats 2 station modules we could spare already,

I may misunderstanding your point here but "its not needed" could be applied to any production chain. The need exists because it was designed that way (possibly to make game interesting, shocking I know!). In fact for the Boron Economy it was made so that their Workforce requires water (causing a "bug" along the way ), but it was made for flair not because it was "needed".

MFG

Ketraar

[EGO_Aut]

I do not want to offend anyone, but do you REALLY need this?

Need is a strong word, its a thought experiment and a discussion about gameplay. Not sure what you want to achieve with your reply, if you don't think this is a valid discussion, its not required to participate (see used your own style of reply )
.........

So the thought experiment would increase performance, great, EVERYONE would want that!
Sure it will work for a really long time?..

[Halpog]

I do not want to offend anyone, but do you REALLY need this?

weed, spice,water,food 4 stations for 1 habbitat ...

Freudian slip there on the Wheet!?

omg i hoped so much u would not see this .....lmao i got it myself later too and was like ups shit

what i meant with not needed was...explicit this 2 stations for the food production chanin
food module , wheat, spice
wheat and spice is already a part of food.so the food module should be "enough " alredy..compared to terrans, who are the same species, they dont need wheat for there food prod chain.
food itself, as a product could be the trade ware between all factions. so far we have a food module for each faction, why not just 1 with different ingredients ?
example :
product food ( for all factions just 1 and the same module )
for argon u need as ressource spice, for teladi sunflowers, for paranides nostrop oil,
and to avoid having 5 different food modules ( 1 for each race ) there can be a habbitat ( argon habbitat in this example ) that needs spice and food , the teladi doom could need sunflowers and food...and so on
so food becomes a universal ware for each faction
on this way it allows the dropping of wheat module totaly
meaning less modules to build, and it would not have an impact on the economy since 1 ware is gone but 1 ware becomes universal ware ( like energy cells )
and there is one more point, it would not break the imersion or the feeling since the ressources are still the same after all

[Mightysword]

I get that there is not much incentive to spread production, my point was that adding XL production reduces that incentive evem more (if that is even possible).

On this topic, how about approaching this like a ship design? Instead of shield/engine/weapon/turret/thruster slots, we have the choice of putting various production argumentation on it?

For example, an XL Hullpart will still have the same base production of a normal hullpart, but will come with several addition slots (like 10?) that can be used to configure the module differently. Like adding productivity, or reducing material cost, or builtin habita module, or supplementary production (like E-cell or Graphene) .etc.

This way instead of just straight up make it "bigger", XL module can be just a customizable module istad.

[Raptor34]

I get that there is not much incentive to spread production, my point was that adding XL production reduces that incentive evem more (if that is even possible).

On this topic, how about approaching this like a ship design? Instead of shield/engine/weapon/turret/thruster slots, we have the choice of putting various production argumentation on it?

For example, an XL Hullpart will still have the same base production of a normal hullpart, but will come with several addition slots (like 10?) that can be used to configure the module differently. Like adding productivity, or reducing material cost, or builtin habita module, or supplementary production (like E-cell or Graphene) .etc.

This way instead of just straight up make it "bigger", XL module can be just a customizable module istad.

Interesting concept. Regardless of XL modules, having more customizability would be interesting.

[Nanook]

what also could need a rethink is the fact that some station modules, are realy not necessary
for example take the argon food produktion chain.
weed, spice,water,food 4 stations for 1 habbitat ...

that food needs water, ok , but spice and weed is not needed.thats 2 station modules we could spare already,...

First off, habitats, i.e. workforces, only require food rations and medical supplies. Food rations require wheat, meat, spices and energy cells, not water. Medical supplies require wheat, meat, spices and water. So I would suggest the only thing not needed in these two recipes may be spices, although your meatsteak cahoona burger would be a bit bland without them.

In retrospect, the only change I would make is to rename 'food rations' to 'meatsteak cahoonas' as they were called in all the previous games. Why they went with the boring name 'food rations' I'll never understand. All the other races seem to have retained their colorful food names.

[jlehtone]

Lets assume "constant efficiency" (which current modules do not have). That is, that the space required by one XL storage would be same as space taken by N L storage modules, that building the one XL would take the same time and resources and building those N L's, and that the XL would have same capacity, N million cubic metres. The only practical difference between XL and L would be the the effect on rendering, on performance.

Would there be a difference even in that?

[Mightysword]

In retrospect, the only change I would make is to rename 'food rations' to 'meatsteak cahoonas' as they were called in all the previous games. Why they went with the boring name 'food rations' I'll never understand. All the other races seem to have retained their colorful food names.

You think Terrain MRE colorful?

Bigger modules aside, I wouldn't mind seeing some new module that lean a bit more to the civilian side. Right now the economy heavily skewl toward serving military purpose with how bare QoL stuffs, sometime X's space economy some kind of futuristic dystopia.

IMO the welfare module is bit of a missed oportunity. The way it is now it's not getting a lot of used, and eventually would stop being useful while not really add anything into the economy cycle. Right now the only way to add more productivity is to add more habitat. IMO the restaurant could have been used as a way to dynamically increase productivity without stacking infrastructure, instead doing by adding goods instead. So for example, a restaurant can accept 10 different food&drink ranging from simple to luxury. Like a burger supply will increase station productivity by 10%, but lobster thermidor would give a 30% boost. It can work in tandem with the habitat by make the consumption rate scale with population #. Same idea can be expand to entertainment center that consume products like VR or Holo and stuffs .etc.


IMO it will add a whole new level of depth to the economy. Player will have the option either to build small, compact but highly efficiency complex loaded luxury for highly motivated workers or a the current model of behemoth but with a simpler supply chain. I would definitely be interested in a DLC that instead of adding new guns and destroyer, it would add new civilian factories and product instead, and maybe a couple new "luxury transport" with new container type to specifically transport perishable stuffs.

Maybe a DLC tittle "Life is good", make it happens Egosoft.

[Raevyan]

The problem is, that trade ai scripts are so bad that spreading out production to individual products. I‘ve done this multiple times by now and almost all ships fly around transporting 100 energy cells instead of selling full load.

This is a myth though. Trade AI is not perfect but its pretty good and works if you work with it instead of against it. I just made a video showing one way to do wares distribution across the map with just subordinates -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ3YWJJI5kU

This was just a fun thing to do based on a "gimmick" approach from X3 (which was much more complicated to achieve without scripts such as CLS from Lucike).

I get that there is not much incentive to spread production, my point was that adding XL production reduces that incentive evem more (if that is even possible).

MFG

Ketraar

Your example is basically useless. Only thing you do is shift a single product from a to b... I've got a full economy with well over 50 stations and traders assigned to each of them. I constantly loose workforce on stations because they ran out of BoFu... i look at the traders and see them buying 10 energy cells instead. Also there is BoFu in almost all sectors my stations are located in to buy from... well over 200k per BoFo production to be sold. I didnt fight anything, i just did the most natural thing, assign subordinates to a station and let it do its thing. Its a design decision that you made and therefor took away control from the player by letting the manager handle coordination of subordinates. Sure it kinda works, my stations are producing but they also loose a couple thousand workforce from time to time due to the inefficiency. One solution would be to just add more ships but then whats the point when they only ever go fetch couple hundred of units at a time? Thats just putting more drain on performance.

I also observed station traders completely ignoring pricing over distance. I saw traders selling 200 units of a ware to station close by (for 43cr) while another station in the neighboring sector would have bought 10x the amount for double the price.

[GCU Grey Area]

I also observed station traders completely ignoring pricing over distance. I saw traders selling 200 units of a ware to station close by (for 43cr) while another station in the neighboring sector would have bought 10x the amount for double the price.

Are your stations using automatic settings for prices?

This can cause problems if the storage for a ware fills up completely. If that happens automatic price drops to minimum & the station starts to prioritise selling to the nearest station that uses the stuff, regardless of how much demand it has. Most low quantity trades can be avoided by manually setting prices such that trades will mostly occur when the buying station has a reasonable level of demand.

As a rule of thumb I generally set my selling prices at around 2/3 of the price range (e.g. in my current game I'm selling hull parts for 230cr each). Similarly I tend to set my buying prices at around 1/3 of the range. Sometimes the prices need a bit more tweaking to better fit the economy of a particular game, however I find those are good places to start at.

[Halpog]

Lets assume "constant efficiency" (which current modules do not have). That is, that the space required by one XL storage would be same as space taken by N L storage modules, that building the one XL would take the same time and resources and building those N L's, and that the XL would have same capacity, N million cubic metres. The only practical difference between XL and L would be the the effect on rendering, on performance.

Would there be a difference even in that?

i guess u did not fully understand the basic here
the basic thought is, or was :
when a station has 10 modules of the same kind ( 10x hull parts or energy cells or like u say storage ) the game has to render 10 modules. all the time. and a lot of other things...
1 storage module with lets say x5 ammount of storrage can replace 5 normal modules, that is a reducing of work the hardware on anyones Pc has to do ...
while 10 modules of a kind is just an example now
many ppl dont just have 10 or 20 modules...they havbe far more modules in 1 station...
i postet 1 side back an examplle station for 3x hull parts 5x weapon components 5 turret and 2x claytronic something like that .... over all more than 70 modules where needed to support 15 modules.. or lets say 55 additional modules where needed to support the 15.
thats a massive impact on the performance....and here the "experiemntal thinking " starts:
how to reduce the ammount of modules withpout to feel like " cheating ,modding,overpowering, and having an impact on the economy....

as example : habbitats...so far 1 L habbitat has space for 1k people.mostly for a bigger station u need at least 13 to 15 if not even more habbitats, to get the normal needed workforce for such a station-
for habbitats u need food and medical supplys.
so lets take a look at the argon food and medical supplys production chain.
u need definatly 1 of each.. wheat,spice, food medical, water.
so 1 habbitat needs 5 modules.
with the numbers u produce u end up like :
13 habbitats need 24 modules so ... 13+24 =37 modules over all ....
so the thought here is :
A: food itself becomes a universal ware like energy cells ( in this way 1 module for "food" will replace the food module for each faction , so far we have 5 different ones )
removing wheat or spice, and integrating "food" and 1 race ware like sunflovers, nostropoil, wheat( or spice ) as racial ware along with medical supplys into habbitats.
on this way each race has its owen habbitats, like now, has food, like now, medical supplys like now.
BUT it will save the building of wheat/spice ( depends what can be left out ) including a raise of the ammount of ppl a habbitat can have ( to have again less modules to build, )

b: XL modules like whenu have 5 or more modules of 1 kind.. that u can put them together into 1 module. while keeping the needed ressources for 5 modules, but having the 5x ammount of products with the same production cyccle of a single module.OR a normal module could also have a slider for workforce, according to the ammount of modules u put together. lets say u have 5 modules u put together so your 1 module can have the 5x ammount of workforce and is producing up to 70% more wares ( something like that ) according to this was a thought about upgrade modules for produktion modules, that affect a bit more and seems to be more viable.

c:having modules that can build more wares than just 1. so we can customies for example wich wares they should produce. while still needing the normal ressources.
for example : haveing 1 module that produes silicon waves and mettal and teladanium and still need ore and silicon and energy cells as ressource.but has only 1 module instead of 3 different.
this also could be a way to have less modules. it would also make sense when there would be a limit of wares a modules can produce , so that its being avoided that ppl just place 1 module while having all wares and ressources in 1 module only.

the point is, its not easy to avoid imersion breaking , or breaking a builders heart or the construction itself, since the construction is a hugh part of the game.
further its needed to realy watch out for traps all this thoughts have, since everything u change has an impact at the games economy.
its realy tricky to find an idea that can realy work and have an impact on the performance for everyone

we definatly can agree so far that hugh stations have an impact on the performance in a negative way

[jlehtone]

i guess u did not fully understand the basic here
the basic thought is, or was :
when a station has 10 modules of the same kind ( 10x hull parts or energy cells or like u say storage ) the game has to render 10 modules. all the time. and a lot of other things...
1 storage module with lets say x5 ammount of storrage can replace 5 normal modules, that is a reducing of work the hardware on anyones Pc has to do ...

The game draws triangles, doesn't it? An L module has some amount of triangles. An XL module 5 times the size of L has triangles too. The amount of work is less, if the XL has less than 5 times the triangles of L. However, the GPU is not the limiting factor. Would the amount of triangles in the GPU actually "show"?

More likely performance impact is in the fact that CPU has to feed the data to GPU. Does it really send same L data five times to GPU, or is it clever about it? The surface elements can be different in each L, but my "constant" assumption was that the XL has 5 times turrets as well.

[Halpog]

An XL module 5 times the size of L

again:
NOT SIZE .. CAPACITY ....
L = 1million storage ..... 5x= 5 million storage ....= less modules to build= less modules to render= better performance

[jlehtone]

An XL module with 5 mil capacity could have less, same, or more size than 5 L modules.

If the size is less, then you can fit more capacity into the 8000 km³ of plot than with L modules.
If the size is same, then XL is equivalent to 5 L and you get all the benefits of "less modules".
If the size is more, then you most likely still get the benefit of "less modules".


You could also multiply the (storage, habitat) capacities of existing modules by ten and thus reduce the need to build as much as you have built so far.

[Scoob]

First off, habitats, i.e. workforces, only require food rations and medical supplies. Food rations require wheat, meat, spices and energy cells, not water. Medical supplies require wheat, meat, spices and water. So I would suggest the only thing not needed in these two recipes may be spices, although your meatsteak cahoona burger would be a bit bland without them.

In retrospect, the only change I would make is to rename 'food rations' to 'meatsteak cahoonas' as they were called in all the previous games. Why they went with the boring name 'food rations' I'll never understand. All the other races seem to have retained their colorful food names.

Wheat needs water, both Medical Supplies and Food Rations need Wheat = Food Rations need water.

I do generally build a Food and Meds station to (ultimately) keep the workforces of my stations fed. In some economies, you can make decent profits selling to other Factions (that consume the same foodstuff), often the local economies produce ample Food and Meds. I manufacture my own, just to ensure I get a consistent supply. When relying on local supplies, a late delivery can lead to a mass evacuation of Workforce. With large number leaving multiple times during one shift, not just when the "next shift" counter hits zero. With my own supply, this is far less likely to happen.

I do wonder if advanced "combi-modules" could be a thing. More advanced (expensive, rep requirement) but produce several related items - Food and Meds being a good combo, as they're always consumed together. How about things like a combi Ore and Silicon processor. Could have two, alternating production lines (like the scrap stuff) but works much faster. Personally speaking, even pretty darn huge stations (think providing the UNIVERSE'S Hull Parts lol) have performed pretty well for me, and that was on my prior rig. Not noticed any performance impact from such stations unless I'm looking at them / actually on them.

Here's the thing though, with any sort of better module, that doesn't really help with early builds that use the basic modules, unless there's a direct "upgrade" option. We already have "upgrades" to production via workforce, what other ways might a station's output be increased, without additional modules? Perhaps some new research that can increase the output of certain modules by a set percent or something like that? Basically, so an early-game build doesn't have to have modules replaced to be better, but rather just upgraded. However, having my stations be significantly more productive than any other Factions sorta upsets the balance for me.

[Nanook]

First off, habitats, i.e. workforces, only require food rations and medical supplies. Food rations require wheat, meat, spices and energy cells, not water. Medical supplies require wheat, meat, spices and water. So I would suggest the only thing not needed in these two recipes may be spices, although your meatsteak cahoona burger would be a bit bland without them.

In retrospect, the only change I would make is to rename 'food rations' to 'meatsteak cahoonas' as they were called in all the previous games. Why they went with the boring name 'food rations' I'll never understand. All the other races seem to have retained their colorful food names.

Wheat needs water, both Medical Supplies and Food Rations need Wheat = Food Rations need water....

Yes, but the statement was made that Habitats needed water, and that is incorrect. Food rations can be produced elsewhere and then imported to the station needing them. Or you can simply buy them from the NPC's, negating the need to produce water at all. Same for medical supplies.