X Rebirth Economy/Station Building/Missions/Sinks (possible mods)

[Nikola515]

Unfortunately my topic was closed in beta (do to going off topic) but there was some great ideas about improving stations building missions and other things from community. Anyway I would like to continue where we left off http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=377578&start=0


Economy:

We have only two working economies at this point and we are pretty much limited what we can do. There are other 3 solar systems that don't have any economy at all. Also we are limited there even if we want to build empire with sinks. So what is even point of adding those sectors on first place if there is nothing we can do with them????? Is this flaw design by Ego or they are still unfinished in this department ??? With them not telling us anything we will never know....

Anyway personally I would add or increase sink and populate sectors with NPC station building missions. This would make economy work and player actions in this game would actually matter


Station Building:

Ok we officially can build unlimited number of stations but what is the point??? If we build to many of them they will just get full after some time do to lack of material consumption. I have single Construction Shop in DV and it is always full. So we really don't need all that extra room when there is more than enough room for our stations. I think something is missing here and this whole thing seems unfinished and not well thought out.

New Station Building Missions:

I like this one It is one of best and most useful missions. But it's usefulness is limited to Albion and OL. Pretty much they will pay you to build your own station. They will not pay for whole thing but pretty much for first stage when mission is finished. But in DV is completely useless. They only have 3 stations and they already have too many of those things there anyway. So building those stations there wont make you any profit.

I would want to see some new NPC station building missions where we can build stations for NPC from other races (just like in X3). DV and other sectors almost don't have any of stations them self so they should build them from other races. This way we could populate other sectors and start rebuilding their economies. This would actually give players new goal. Personally after I play game for 200h I hit dead end because there is nothing to do. In X3 we could always populate sectors with NPC stations and than build complex to feed them what they need.

Missions:

Missions what we have are ok but not really that fun. What I want to see more random events. Sun flare destroyed NPC station and needs parts to get fixed. Or sun flare destroyed all food production in one zone and there is shortage. Also Xenon random fleet attacks Albion sector and you need to help Albion to survive. If not some of stations might get destroyed or damaged. Also it will be dangerous for our trade ships to travel trough that area. But dont make those random event's every 5 min so they become annoying like that infinite pirate spawning.

Sinks:

This is one of my largest problems in the game. Sinks are limited and with this we are limited with number of stations we can build. Shipyards are only sink in this game at this point and this needs to change. We need more sinks and there needs to be other things than just Shipyards. I have self sufficient empire in DV and it is practically useless because I cant sell anything. Shipyard is way too slow to produce anything. Single Construction Shop is overkill for whole solar system. We are given all that room but there is not point even build anything there because there is almost no sink to sell anything.... Even in Albion in OL we are limited what we can do with limited sink. In my opinion Ego is just being lazy in this area. I personally think they should give player to build shipyard and sell ships to NPC just like regular shipyard do. Also some of ships should land on planets and sell staff to planet. Or to some stations that delver staff to planet.

Mods:

Ok my problem is sink but I don't want to use some big mod yet. Is there something that can increase speed of shipyards in DV ? Any recommendations ?


Anyway what everyone thinks and what should Ego do in future ??? I want to see what everyone thinks about this ?

[Simoom]

I was actually going to make a post about the economy myself, but stopped since I figured similar topics may have already been posted.

Anyway, I feel very much the same way since v1.xx of XR. While the game has been much improved since then, the basic issue of the in-game economy hasn't been addressed at all.

The game's economy needs a lot more sinks. The shipyards alone are insufficient - the rate at which they consume wares is limited by how quickly they build ships, and even then they aren't always building ships.

Trader AI is also an issue; shipyards often are starving of wares even though there are stations sitting around full of wares. The simple fact is the game needs to implement galaxy-wide free traders (similar to the kind created by mods such as AutoTrader or Yet Another Trader), because it is impossible for players to fix the economy by manually assigning trade runs to move goods around (also, I for one always felt the vanilla trade function is really stupid... I mean, really? You hire a captain for a trade ship and he's not smart enough to look up trade opportunities by himself and plan his own trade runs?).

If Egosoft's intent is for the economy to be broken in the beginning and have the player fix the economy, that's well and fine - but at least give us the proper tools to do so. Right now, we can't do so without mods (i.e. using an Auto Trader extension).

Player stations should also have the ability to send out trade ships to sell goods it produces, rather than just sit around hoping NPC ships will come and buy the goods (because right now NPC traders are simply not efficient enough).

[Raevyan]

Well i also would like to see more sinks for end products. Like i said in another thread in Spoiler forum the current game is lacking Consumers for products like turrets, missiles and Force Field projectors. NPCs are producing them, i am producing them but no One is buying them. Only the shipyards will buy One or two every two hours. I dont like to exploit the game by buying a CV, loading up those goods and selling it back to the shipyard. When i expand my stations with more modules, the game adds them for free.

I would also like some bigger improvements in asset management. Right now i have a good amount of stations and a Whole lot of freighters assigned to them. The Manager AI was improved by some degree in the current Beta but its still far from good in my opinion. Example: i am Building a Self sustaining Economy in Devries. I'm done with the low Tier wares and starting to Build intermediate wares. In my Case i want to assign a Container freighter to my Food supply Station in Order to distributes Food Rations to all my consuming stations. This doesn't work very well. It works well, when i assign a Container freighter to the consumer stations. Thats bad because i need like 10 Times more freighters.

And this bring's me to another Problem that bothers me for quite a while. Why do we have all those Big Capital ships able to Carry 10-40k Units of wares when they are barely using the Cargo bay? Large scale trading it was called if i remember correctly. I still see some of my Energy freighters buying only 500 Energy cells. My Energy freighters in devries only loading like 10k Energy cells to sell them to One of my consumer stations despite the consumer Station having a Trade offer for 70k (station Manager got enough money). There is literally no Point in using cap ships because they dont use their cargo. You probably still use them because M sized ships are way too slow.
As a side Note station Managers still have problems with selling wares. My Energy freighters assigned to my Energy Array in OL still refuses to pick up ecells and sell them to NPCs. I have some Consumers buying them for +60%. Some Consumes are listed with a buy offer of 150k but at -60%. Thats a station with basically high demand but buying low.

Another Thing i would like to have is an Option to tell a station Manager to use my bank Account. At the beginning of rebirth i didnt want that because i Wanted to see how much profit i gain with my stations. Now that i have a Whole lot of stations and also Building a Self sustaining Economy in devries its way to tedious to give a Manager a low budget and wait for him to call me when his budget gets low just to tell him that he should use my bank Account.

Also the Logs could be improved a Little bit. Right now i get the Message that Manager x has made some Profits. Great i get the Info i gained some credits on my own bank Account. But i dont know which station made the Profit. Would like to see at least the stations Name added in Log (i always Rename my property so that i know where the Station is located). Maybe we can get a station transaction log accessed via station Details menu? Something like station bought x amount of ware x or sold x amount of ware y to npc. Probably wont happen but i'm fine with just lagging money Transfer to player account.

And this bring's me to another quality of life improvement. When i open property menu i see all my stations listed. Thats fine but i feel the Ordering is somewhat random...(well i think i read somewhere its ordered by zone Name?). A simple ordering dependant on station Name would be nice.
Another quality of live improvement would most likely be able to Type in a number when for example you want to buy a certain amount of ware x or want to Transfer a specific amount of credits to a station Manager. Because if you have a bank Account of like 2.000.000.000 its quite hard to just give the Manager 4.000.000 credits.

We may also need some more NPC trading improvements too which may help the Economy a bit. I noticed in my game that there is a very high demand for Energy cells (like ~2m) and a relativly good supply (~800k). Sometimes i feel like NPCs are still not trading some Type of wares. I noticed that for Water and Plankton too.

I didnt Test the Station Building missions in current Beta yet. But a 6m reward for a station which needs an Investments of at least 10m and quite a good amount of time to Build doesn't Sound that good. Of course you can keep the station but Hey don't need them really for myself. If i want to Build a certai. Station i would simply Build it without searching for a mission. Searching for missions is still a bit tedious since the infopoints are still not visible sometimes. Maybe let us access all missions of a zone via the side menu? I mean everything else is already there. Doesn't make much difference if we can access mission offers too.

Well thats a wall of Text with a good amount of typos (Sorry for that) but its already late
I also Hope that i'm not too far off topic

[Snafu_X3]

Another Thing i would like to have is an Option to tell a station Manager to use my bank Account.

Already available. Click on the Manager's portrait or tap 'F' & the option will show up to 1) transfer credits manually or 2) automatically transfer credits. Unfortunately option 2 doesnt seem to be completely reliable (maybe it changes when another station section is built? - haven't checked) but it works for 90% of the time at least..

Another quality of live improvement would most likely be able to Type in a number when for example you want to buy a certain amount of ware x or want to Transfer a specific amount of credits to a station

Use the arrow keys on the keyboard. It's not an ideal soluion but it does give you better precision..

Maybe let us access all missions of a zone via the side menu? I mean everything else is already there.

We want our X2 mission bulletin board back! It makes so much (more) sense!

Most of the rest of your points I agree with FWIW..

[Simoom]

On a somewhat related tangent (concerning shipyards and its consumption of goods), I have always wondered what happens to the ships the NPC factions build. To my understanding, most NPC ships in the game that have assigned jobs are spawned automatically (and often immediately, with no cooldown period) upon losses. I can't keep track of traders of course, but I keep a very tight eye on NPC patrols in my save game (I don't mean observing them in the game itself; I mean I keep tabs on them in the save game file's code itself since I edit my save frequently).

For example, any Marauder Phoenix in FO that is destroyed will be respawned within minutes. Same with Plutarch patrol ships in Albion, or all the Marauder Titurels for that matter.

And IMO this is a big problem for several reasons:

• Realism. I have trouble suspending disbelief that the pirate factions can conjure up an endless fleet of capital ships to throw at populated sectors, for example.
• Lack of consequence. Loss of a capital ship to any faction should be a big deal - if a NPC faction loses a patrol ship, the sectors patrolled by that ship should remain vulnerable for a few hours. If a pirate faction loses a marauder capital ship, it should be unable to launch another attack on populated sectors for several hours (meanwhile giving any damaged stations or lost trade ships/patrol ships a chance to recover). Right now capital ships are simply thrown away constantly - I pretty much tune them out as I play (I don't even bother boarding them now because they are so freaking common)
• Economy. Capital ships being conjured out of thin air (...or the vacuum of space for that matter) does not cause the shipyards to consume any wares. In a game economy that already lacks end product sinks, this is a big issue.

I propose the following changes to the game in the future, that IMO will fix all the issues mentioned above:

• Do away with the capital ship spawning entirely. Instead, REQUIRE all factions (including pirates and Xenon) to BUILD their capital ships. This means adding shipyards for pirate and Xenon factions, and I am sure there are sectors suitable for this. Once successfully built, the ships will be given an assigned duty (be it patrolling sectors controlled by the given faction, or raiding enemy sectors).
• All shipyards require production chains to feed them required wares. Albion and OL obviously shouldn't have issues being self-sustaining. DeVries and FO will require players to set up the required infrastructure.
  
  And here's the cool part about this - the player can decide whether or not they want to help feed pirate shipyards. If they decide to stay friendly with pirate factions, they stand to make a lot more profit (and may be gain access to purchasing ships exclusive to pirate factions from their shipyards - such as the Titurel and the Marauder version of the Phoenix). On the other hand, they could choose to be enemy with the pirate factions and starve their shipyard of supplies (which will help keep frequency of pirate raids low). Of course, pirates should still have limited production ability even if the player chooses not to help them - so may be add some NPC factions that are neutral to both lawful factions and pirates alike that will help move some produced wares to pirate shipyards.
  
  As for Xenons, may be they could have some sort of super-shipyard that has integrated production modules that produce all the wares it needs. Alternatively, there could be Xenon production stations (which players can choose to attack or sabotage and cripple Xenon ship production for a few hours)
• Capital ships should be allowed to resupply themselves at shipyards without having to dock (an act that prevents new ships from being built). They should be able to move close to a shipyard and just transfer consumables (missiles, drones) using cargo drones. Additionally, NPC Defense Officers should be set to replenish ammo and combat drones BY DEFAULT - this will help consume a lot of end products (right now if a capital ships runs out of combat drones or missiles, it just stays dry of them until it is eventually destroyed by something. Then a new one just spawns in its place with full ammo and drones - so how would these wares be consumed??)
• NPC station Defense Officers, likewise, should be set to replace ammo and drones automatically by default.

Maybe let us access all missions of a zone via the side menu? I mean everything else is already there.

We want our X2 mission bulletin board back! It makes so much (more) sense!

Most of the rest of your points I agree with FWIW..

There's a mod called Mission Computer which does exactly that - I've been using it and it works great. But yeah, I agree that it's kind of dumb in the vanilla that you have to fly around to scan mission locations before you can take up that mission offer. I mean... what century are we in? Is telecommunication an issue?

[Snafu_X3]

To my understanding, most NPC ships in the game that have assigned jobs are spawned automatically (and often immediately, with no cooldown period) upon losses. I can't keep track of traders of course, but I keep a very tight eye on NPC patrols in my save game (I don't mean observing them in the game itself; I mean I keep tabs on them in the save game file's code itself since I edit my save frequently).

You can observe this in-game quite easily: go cap the Light & Heavy Suls attacking the Reiver station in DV|BP|Persistent Darkening (1 of each). After a few seconds another pair will respawn

There's a mod called Mission Computer which does exactly that

I'm aware of the mod, but since I'm beta testing I can't install it.. & I've no wish to go through the rigmarole of duplicate installation. However I appreciate the headsup tks

[Simoom]

To my understanding, most NPC ships in the game that have assigned jobs are spawned automatically (and often immediately, with no cooldown period) upon losses. I can't keep track of traders of course, but I keep a very tight eye on NPC patrols in my save game (I don't mean observing them in the game itself; I mean I keep tabs on them in the save game file's code itself since I edit my save frequently).

You can observe this in-game quite easily: go cap the Light & Heavy Suls attacking the Reiver station in DV|BP|Persistent Darkening (1 of each). After a few seconds another pair will respawn

Yeah I know. And my question is that: We know NPC factions build ships at their shipyards... but since capital ships with assigned jobs (sector patrol, and I am assuming free traders as well) are simply spawned automatically, where do the NPC ships that are built by the shipyards go? Are they just for show? May be they despawn automatically a few minutes after being built? I am guessing they are only built as a way to consume wares at the shipyard, then the game gets rid of them since it doesn't actually assign a job for them.

[Daske]

I agree with all of the points raised in this thread, the lack of sinks being a big one. But also that cap ships just spawn out of thin air is pretty bad.

Being unable to use the keyboard to enter values whenever you are buying / selling / transferring something is bad design imo. Should not be that hard to implement, although I know nothing about coding and freely admit I might be oversimplifying things.

You can have ships trade for production, or trade for building stations. So you have 2 kinds of jobs that supply your station with goods. Why is there no way to get your ships to take the goods your station produces and sell them? Why have jobs on only one end of the spectrum?

[Lander1979]

Have you tried the Galaxy Station Range mod? This would allow your economy to supply both AL and OL systems as well as DV where your empire is stationed.http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=369302

[Simoom]

Giving my previous proposal some further thoughts:

• Add a pirate shipyard in Fell Affliction (since players can't build there due to the mine field anyway). Add a neutral trader faction that will buy wares from player stations and sell them to this shipyard. This shipyard will construct Titurels for the Reiver faction as well as Heretic Vanguard/Sovereign Syndicate factions (so Titurels constructed here may potentially go toward OL or Albion to raid those sectors. The players can choose to intercept them while they are en route, if they so choose.)
• Add a Split shipyard in Sixth Scripture. This shipyard will construct Gangrene Chasers which will patrol Maelstrom, and occasionally launch offensives against Xenons in Stable Vortex. This creates a sink that gives players a reason to build up in Maelstrom.
• Add a large Xenon shipyard in Cryptic Heart. This shipyard is capable of constructing Xenon K's as well as Xenon I's. Currently the Xenon I's spawned in game only stay in Stable Vortex, I would like to see that changed. The Xenon I's built here should have the chance of being assigned to raid OL sectors, and as they head toward the OL gate they will attack everything in their paths - likely incurring Split and Argon casualties (so players should build up Maelstrom to keep the Split shipyard supplied so more Split patrols can be built).
• Add a small Xenon shipyard in FO (Biting Steel?). This shipyard can construct Xenon K's, which will be assigned to raid Albion or OL sectors. They will attack everything in their paths as they head toward the gates (likely causing Teladi casualties, so players need to help keep the Teladi shipyard in Verdant Profit supplied so more Teladi patrols can be built).
• Add a pirate shipyard in FO that builds Marauder Phoenixes for UA and CAR. Currently the Marauder Phoenixes only raid trade ships in FO - I would like to see this changed as well. The Marauder Phoenixes, like the Marauder Titurels built in DV, should go on raiding missions in Albion and OL. IMO this will make all the faction dynamics more fun and unpredicatble. Like in DeVries, players have the choice of whether or not to help supply this shipyard; but regardless, there will be a neutral trader faction that moves some player-produced wares to the pirate shipyard.
• Capital ships built in OL have the chance of being assigned on offensive duty against the Xenon in Maelstrom. This will create attrition to the Argon and require more capitals to be built, thus keeping the economy going (not to mention occasionally a Xenon I may just find its way through the gate and rampage its way through OL!)
• Capital ships built in Albion will be constantly lost due to the civil war between HOA and Plutarch, so the economy here should keep going. Additionally, Plutarch may occasionally decide to launch an offensive into DeVries against the Canterans, thus causing some Canteran casualties and help keep the DV economy going.

[Simoom]

Have you tried the Galaxy Station Range mod? This would allow your economy to supply both AL and OL systems as well as DV where your empire is stationed.http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=369302

I have it. But I believe currently this only allows your stations to buy wares galaxy-wide, as station managers currently do not assign trade ships to actually sell the stations' end products. So this mod doesn't solve the issue of player stations sitting around with full wares and NPC's not coming to buy them (especially if you choose to build in a system like DeVries, since the in-game economy at the moment is still very localized and most NPC traders are set to operate in their assigned system only)

[Lander1979]

Giving my previous proposal some further thoughts:

• Add a Reivers shipyard in Fell Affliction (since players can't build there due to the mine field anyway). Add a neutral trader faction that will buy wares from player stations and sell them to the Reiver shipyard. This shipyard will construct Titurels for the Reiver faction as well as Heretic Vanguard/Sovereign Syndicate factions (so Titurels constructed here may potentially go toward OL or Albion to raid those sectors. The players can choose to intercept them while they are en route, if they so choose.)
• Add a Split shipyard in Sixth Scripture. This shipyard will construct Gangrene Chasers which will patrol Maelstrom, and occasionally launch offensives against Xenons in Stable Vortex. This creates a sink that gives players a reason to build up in Maelstrom.
• Add a large Xenon shipyard in Cryptic Heart. This shipyard is capable of constructing Xenon K's as well as Xenon I's. Currently the Xenon I's spawned in game only stay in Stable Vortex, I would like to see that changed. The Xenon I's built here should have the chance of being assigned the task raid OL sectors, and as they head toward the OL gate they will attack everything in their paths - likely incurring Split and Argon casualties (so players should build up Maelstrom to keep the Split shipyard supplied so more Split patrols can be built).
• Add a small Xenon shipyard in FO (Biting Steel?). This shipyard can construct Xenon K's, which will be assigned to raid Albion or OL sectors. They will attack everything in their paths as they head toward the gates (likely causing Teladi casualties, so players need to help keep the Teladi shipyard in Verdant Profit supplied so more Teladi patrols can be built).
• Add a pirate shipyard in FO that builds Marauder Phoenixes for UA and CAR. Like in DeVries, players have the choice of whether or not to help supply this shipyard; but regardless, there will be a neutral trader faction that moves some player-produced wares to the pirate shipyard.

I like these Ideas allot, I think this would even make a good proposal for a Mod. For the supply of the Reiver SY I'd suggest maybe a gate to the Teladi Union who don't have any qualms about who they trade with.

[Nikola515]

I been looking at mods but what I need is something to speed up production of shipyard in DV or a way to build shipyard that would build ships for NPC or something like that. There is BlackRain player shipyard mod but I don't think it can sell ships to NPC. We can just build ships for our self (but still it is pretty nice mod I might start using it ). Pretty much I have been creating my artificial sink by building my stations. I use my stations to build more of my stations Im giving up on beta testing because this was one of bugs from day one and still no fix. Just like I said Ego is lazy in this area I don't want to wait for another year and hope they will fix this problem....

Anyway I agree with you all. Economy is mess at this point and most of it is fake. I noticed ships coming out of thin air too (specially miners). But game is still beta so it is understandable I think what they should do is add new sector to Albion( after plot or free play). Xenon infected sector that was secret PMC sector where they wore testing and building Xenon tech. And all produced sips that shipyards build should crate fleet and attack that Xenon infected sector. It would make sense and be connected with plot. They could create event and have you join that fleet in epic fight against Xenon Also all OL ships should go trough other gate and attack Xenon on other side. So better economy we have less chances are that Xenon will come out and attack our assets. That fleet will keep Xenon suppressed. Just like Mass Effect 3 and war effort... Also I would agree that all ships should come out of shipyards as intended (or we wore told that they would) but I don't think it is possible at this point. Also im not sure why galaxy trader is not in game yet ? This should be basic feature in game.

@Simoom

I like that idea too And more ships they can build more damage they can do.... Not sure how that would work with pirates though ????

[Simoom]

@Simoom

I like that idea too And more ships they can build more damage they can do.... Not sure how that would work with pirates though ????

The thing about the pirate factions is that I don't think they should be a major force at all. They are, after all, criminals - they shouldn't have the kind of military might to be constantly attacking Albion and OL with Titurels. I just don't find that to be plausible.

Now, DeVries already has one economy sink, which is the Canteran shipyard. Adding a pirate shipyard in Fell Affliction will help the economy move along faster. But overall, we require a lot of attrition in the game to keep the economy moving and to prevent any faction from accumulating too many capital ships, right?

I think the answer lies in the Xenon. Since they exist independently of the game's economy, they could be the super faction that, for example, produces capital ships at a relatively high rate (may be Xenon K's have a short production time). There should be frequent Xenon raids going from Maelstrom into OL, and from FO into both Albion and OL. The Split and Teladi will be able to kill some of the Xenon ships, but not all of them. Xenon I's are extremely powerful and should one find its way into OL (I doubt the Split will be able to stop them, Gangrene Chasers are very gimp), I imagine the Argons will suffer heavy casualties.

As for Albion, the civil war between HOA and Plutarch should create enough attrition to keep the economy going and prevent capitals from piling up. Additionally, may be Plutarch can launch occasional invasions into DeVries (to cause casualties for the Canterans, thus help the DV economy move along)

[Nikola515]

I think pirates should actually start acting like pirates. Stealing,boarding,hacking stations.....etc. And they should use Titurels to take cargo back to shipyard. Also if they know that they cant win they shouldn't attack. I don't see reason why pirates ships go and attack my capital ship without chance to win (not even Split is that stupid). I like that idea with invasions from xenon but I think it should be balanced. There should be way to suppress them somehow. We don't want to have hostile universe all the time. Look how bad was that infinite pirate spawning. Personally I would add where if shipyards are full their production speeds up and if they are low it slows down. So more of ships race produce more it can defend it's self against invasions. Also I think DV should stay out of harms way (beside Rivers) and build extra ships to help Albion or OL . DV should be players safe haven Not sure if you played Sins of Solar Empire... Something like that. Race send fleet to invade sector get's destroyed builds new one to attack or defend its self against attack. It would make nice sink. Anyway about Xenon I it is not that powerful ship. Problem is AI pilot that sucks. 2X Balor and Arawn can get job done. I actually did experiment with that. It took me 5 attempts to do that (for some reason Balors kept shooting at my Arawin with torpedoes ) but I finally managed to do it without them killing my Arawin first...

[pref]

Isn't the sink problem related to limited number of stations the game can handle atm?
I remember discussions with mods saying that increasing the station count has a strong effect on performance. I'd assume this is the reason why ES did not add more stations themselves - it's probably not becuase it takes so much dev/qa resources.

Imo we would need much more stations in a way where max consumption is much higher then production of any ware (but still there should be enough to keep most of the stations producing at a lower pace).
Not just more shipyards are needed, but most of the stations need a higher count for this to be balanced.
Saturation should only occur if player heavily increases production of any ware.

[Simoom]

Isn't the sink problem related to limited number of stations the game can handle atm?
I remember discussions with mods saying that increasing the station count has a strong effect on performance. I'd assume this is the reason why ES did not add more stations themselves - it's probably not becuase it takes so much dev/qa resources.

Unless shipyards cause more performance hit than most stations for some reason... I don't see how, though? I have 50 stations in DeVries, and the game handles all those extra stations fine. I have trouble believeing the game engine can handle 50+ player-built stations but can't handle a few more extra shipyards?

That said, there are probably a lot of optimization that remains to be done on XR's game engine. More approximations may have to take place in terms of station production/ware consumption (I am almost tempted to suggest X3-styled model, but not sure if people would consider that too simplistic)

Imo we would need much more stations in a way where max consumption is much higher then production of any ware (but still there should be enough to keep most of the stations producing at a lower pace).
Not just more shipyards are needed, but most of the stations need a higher count for this to be balanced.
Saturation should only occur if player heavily increases production of any ware.

I think a huge part of the issue is the fact that wares aren't being moved efficiently. It's not just the issue of whether or not wares are being consumed (I am sure everyone's heard of stories about how shipyard constructions are stuck because of lack of wares). I think if the "conveyer belt" of wares are actually working as intended, there probably is an acceptable level of sink right now (at least in Albion and OL).

Somewhere along the consumption loop, something is getting stuck.

[pref]

Anything can (should be possible to) happen to any station. Regardless of bugs, if that single SY is destroyed then the whole system looses 'the' sink - there should be enough of them so that few random events cant halt the economy. It would leave more freedom to npc and player actions, and higher tolerance to AI mistakes.

I'd prefer a more direct control over production and trades regarding stations. Not sure wht you mean by X3 style, but i miss the config options we had with X3 plexes - even if the AI would be very carefully written i'd stil have issues with it most likely because i can't control what it does and when.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I'd suggest:

1. Change all DV Food Ration production to required wares instead of it insta-spawning. I don't think DV shipyards can make meat-producing stations but I am not positive off the top of my head. If that is the case, I would give them that as a new station.

2. Adding Architects to shipyards and new missions that ask the player to supply wares to them that expand their production rate. Comparable to adding additional shipyards as sinks but with the advantage of keeping wares pooled in less places (reducing the chance of a station getting stuck when resources are low). Sort of self-balancing too: If resources are scarce, no point taking the mission (or perhaps could be triggered by a period of sustained production).

Sorry if they have been mentioned - didn't get a chance to read all the thread yet.

[Raevyan]

Well technically we have two ressource sinks in Devries, at least in plot game. There is a shipyard under Construction in Molten Archon.