Player build stations "they worthless" personal eperience

[abisha1980]

i have enough time on 4.0 to say loudly that personal build stations are kind of worthless
i don't know what the problem is but they simple not generate credits and the credits to create is so low it's easy compensated with a medium miner

i don't know what the problem is but they simple not worth having
a simple fix might be that the player get a modification build bonus modification of 4x or something that they can generate more goods for the amount of resources

or give this option in the research that players get more modifications on goods production

[The Q]

If you don't know what the problem is, then how do you know what a simple fix would be?

[WiiWiesel]

[...]
i don't know what the problem is but they simple not generate credits and the credits to create is so low it's easy compensated with a medium miner

i don't know what the problem is but they simple not worth having
[...]

It is true, that M-miners are incredible, when it comes to return of investment and it may be true, that the stations are worthless for the way you want to play the game (it is a sandbox after all).

However, if you consider other variables, stations give you some advantages as well:
- With miners you are somewhat limited, since there is only a limited amount of AI-stations, which will be full at one point -> stations will generate profits beyond that point
- depending on how big you want to get, credits might not be the limiting factor - it may be the availability of resources. Stations are a way to increase the amount of ressources available to you and for your projects (e.g. for terraforming).

But yeah, it comes all down to what you want to do: If you don't want to build an huge empire (which is understandable, since it requires a lot of waiting), then stations might be completly useless for you.

[abisha1980]

If you don't know what the problem is, then how do you know what a simple fix would be?

that's simple (problem)
1. you know you not generate enough profitss (risk, returns) see it like PE *earnings are way to low* for investment

fix
2.because you not generate enough profits the amount of goods producing should be higher or more efficient (i prefer efficiency above production)

[Alan Phipps]

Well if the fix applied to the NPC stations as well, then the markets would just be saturated and stagnate.

If the fix only applied to player stations then that would upset those who claim that the game is already far too unbalanced in the player faction's favour.

What about stations that the player builds for other factions? Would they be 'different' too?

I suspect that the devs have an idea how they wish the game economy and growth to be balanced for gameplay purposes and the trick is in finding subtle methods to achieve that fine balance rather than use overt player-over-other-faction differences/advantages. (Just my personal opinion.)

[WiiWiesel]

Well if the fix applied to the NPC stations as well, then the markets would just be saturated and stagnate.

If the fix only applied to player stations then that would upset those who claim that the game is already far too unbalanced in the player faction's favour.

What about stations that the player builds for other factions? Would they be 'different' too?

I suspect that the devs have an idea how they wish the game economy and growth to be balanced for gameplay purposes and the trick is in finding subtle methods to achieve that fine balance rather than use overt player-over-other-faction differences/advantages. (Just my personal opinion.)

I would rather like to see, that the auto-miners get nerfed (maybe through taxes to the sector owner), so that the most profitable way to get money at the gamestart is through player actions (missions & boardings) instead of mass auto-miners & waiting.

[G315t]

I acutaly see no problem here. My Stations make good Money.

[jlehtone]

House of cards, Domino; you move one and things escalate.

A factory adds value to ware. 5760 units of Ore (á 50cr) converts to 2112 units of Refined Metal (á 148cr). That is 8.5% increase in value.
Lets say that value increases by 50%. (á 204cr). Metal is used to make Hull Parts. Let that increase value by 50% too, to HP price 291cr.
We just made Stations and Ships 39% more expensive to build ... but who cares? Only the player values credits (particularly at start of game).

Lets scale up instead. Let 100 units of Ore be enough to build as many Stations and Ships as we now build with 5760 Ore now.
Everyone will be flooded, or there will be much more stations. Buy offers will be at lowest possible price due to low demand, or overpopulation hits the FPS that some worship.

The only winners might be Xenon for boost in their production efficiency. Not a bad outcome?


I confess: I've got shameless amount of credits by building stations. I just don't own any.


@WiiWiesel: I don't want mining or waiting nerfed. I don't do either, so that would not hurt me.

[WiiWiesel]

@WiiWiesel: I don't want mining or waiting nerfed. I don't do either, so that would not hurt me.

My thought process is basically:
If you imagine miners to be mobile stations, which produce stuff out of nothing and compare their "costs vs money generation/h", they are just so much better than stations. So the OP is right in the regard, that miners are incredibly good (even though he is wrong about the notion, that stations are worthless).

But why are they so good?
Because they produce stuff "out of nothing" -> no wages, no payment for collecting the ore from asteroids, etc. -> Thus, they would be more in line with other stuff, if they came with a cost -> I thought it would be at least an interesting idea if we would need to pay a share of value of the resources mined to the sector owner -> this would open up new strategic possibilities, like: The player could earn money by just owning a sector, too; or the player could decide, whether they mine in a protected sector and pay the share; or they mine in an unprotected sector with the risk of getting attacked

[oddible]

"Worthless"...

Tell me that when you're trying to build your next ship and there are no Hull Parts anywhere in the known universe.

[GCU Grey Area]

Agree with oddible - nothing quite like the convenience of having a universe full of well stocked shipyards that can make whatever I want without delay. The fact that I make millions supplying those shipyards with parts is just icing on the cake. Also makes the factions a lot stronger - they can build some fairly large fleets if their shipyards are well supplied.

[abisha1980]

"Worthless"...

Tell me that when you're trying to build your next ship and there are no Hull Parts anywhere in the known universe.

in my 3 universe i play none have hull part issues
that's something from 1.5 or below

but if you have troubles, you can supply hull factory's with resources and getting payed good for supply and deliver.
and you get payed more then simple owning a station.....

[Lord Dakier]

Problem is that only certain stations are really 'always' profitable. Hull parts and claytronics because their used to build stations/ships. In reality every station that supplies a shipyard/wharf is profitable so long as they need that resource. I'd be okay with hull parts and claytronics becoming more available, this in theory should allow more stations to be built easier and for shipyards to be less stuck on one random ware. At the same time, I know the devs purposely make holes in the market for the player to exploit ala hull parts and claytronics.

A non-hull part or claytronic focussed builder game doesn't sound very entertaining to me, because in reality you'll never have enough of those resources.

[adeine]

Stations are an absolute necessity if you want to maintain any sort of infrastructure or fleet. Defence stations are one of the best ways to consolidate territory.

General production stations do take a lot of initial capital to get rolling, but if you plan them out properly they do bring in a lot of credits as well. Wharves and shipyards especially are basically credit printing facilities if you can supply them yourself. It's true that in low numbers miners are quite efficient in a cost/revenue sense, but they don't scale very well - you'll saturate the market of base resources long before you get anywhere close to what making more advanced wares and eventually ships can do for you.

If your stations aren't profitable, it may be a problem with how you built them. A few things to keep in mind:

- Try and maintain a supply chain starting from basic wares. If your station runs out of materials or is forced to buy at a premium, your profit margin will radically decrease. If you supply these wares yourself, expenditure trends towards zero.
- Balance out production modules so production of intermediary == consumption of intermediary materials. For instance, build just enough medical supply modules to sustain your station. If you build too many, efficiency will go down; if you build too few you will run into shortages. Planning an efficient station is a bit like balancing an equation in chemistry, where you want to have equal input/output of all wares leading up to your final product. Since the game doesn't have a convenient interface to do this right now, you might find third party tools helpful in arriving at the right numbers.
- Monitor the stock of basic resources and assign enough miners to keep the station producing at all times. You will want to place the station such that miners can reach all required basic resources with the current rating of the station manager (number of stars determines maximum range for mining ships).
- Make sure you have just the right amount of workforce available. For larger stations this means a pretty ridiculous amount of habitats. While initially expensive and taking forever to build, this can easily make the difference between a station that barely breaks even and one that is exceptionally profitable.

eta:

- You can extend the maximum range your station can sell to by building trade stations or (if you have access to skilled pilots) setting up universal traders with an anchor point some sectors away, set to trade your end product.

[Zloth2]

a simple fix might be that the player get a modification build bonus modification of 4x or something that they can generate more goods for the amount of resources

A simpler fix would be to give Kha'ak a weapon that has some portion of the damage leaking through shields. The more damaged ships there are, the more need for stations to fix them up!

[Clownmug]

This seems like a problem for those people that build huge mega-complexes that do everything rather than building smaller specialized stations that have faster ROI.

[flywlyx]

I would say the major issue here is because mining is free, So you are generating resource from void. Comparing to stations where you pay for resources to build and manufacture.

So the solution is easy, mining license/tax will easily crash mining profit and balance economic activities benifit.

[RLSa]

Well... If you Don't like stations, just don't own them.

I have built all of them, single stations buying raw material, miniplexes for construction, all the illegal spacegoods, megaplexes to throw ore and get Destroyers and even mining stations. All of them are high profitable. If want a multiplier, put the right amount of habitats. This simple thing can more then double your profits and be steady.

Always put traders to supply the Warfs and Shipyards. They are the end for the chain. Ships needs to be constructed to flow the faction production.

[grapedog]

I'm not sure what you're doing, or how you're doing it.... but even my least profitable factory makes a LOT more than my most profitable medium miner.

I'd say you're either setting up factories in a poor location, not building them very well, or don't have good trade options available through either lack of scouting or exploration, or lack of trade partners who want what you're building.

Like building a refined metals complex in Hewa's Twin is going to go very poorly for you.

[furirkeeper]

I would rather like to see, that the auto-miners get nerfed (maybe through taxes to the sector owner), so that the most profitable way to get money at the gamestart is through player actions (missions & boardings) instead of mass auto-miners & waiting.

I think taxes to sector owner is a good idea, it would not have to be much, just enough to make mining not being free money compared to other things. It would also make owning sectors much more interesting than it is today.