Economics of X4 transposed into today's life

[Cha0s_lord]

I wanted to try overthinking numbers in X4 and see where that goes. For pure entertainment purposes and not meant to be taken seriously... Although do point out math mistakes if any.
Note that I am using numbers from the VRO mod especially for ship costs, so, yes, they'll sound high.

A conversion between Cr and USD

First, we need to establish a rough conversion between Cr and today's USD to get an idea of value for things.
Thankfully a few wares from X4 exist today... so let's use that

Meat: 6 m3 has an average price of 48 Cr = 8.0 Cr/m3
Water: 6 m3 has an average price of 53 Cr = 8.8 Cr/m3
Wheat: 4 m3 has an average price of 31 Cr = 7.8 Cr/m3
Silicon: 10 m3 has an average price of 130 Cr = 13 Cr/m3
Ore: 10 m3 has an average price of 50 Cr = 5 Cr/m3

Approximate market prices in real life:

Meat: 2.7 $ for 1 kg (roughly 0.001 m3) = 2,700 $/m3
Water 5000$ for one megalitre (1000 m3) = 5 $/m3
Wheat: 7.5$ for 35 L (0.035 m3) = 214 $/m3
Silicon: 1$ per pound (0.021 L)= 47,600 $/m3
Iron ore: 181$ per ton (0.125 m3) = 1448 $/m3

So, already getting a simple conversion isn't easy, which we'll attribute to economic shifts due to accessibility of space resources vs land resources, especially for mined resources. Meat and ore seem to yield roughly the same conversion and are pretty much a middle ground, so let's use that...

We get that the conversion is 1 Cr = 300 USD.

Workers are paid fairly

So... hiring unskilled personnel costs about 7500 Cr per person. They don't get wages after that, which makes a lot of people cry foul that the workers should get paid...but do they really need to?
That converts to more than 2 million USD. For comparison, a worker earning 20,000 USD per year for all their career would earn 800 k USD. So, with that sort of upfront sign-on bonus? Working in space is worth it, even without any wage after. There might be high risk of death... but the pay compensates for it.

Let's not mention skilled workers that cost 1 million Cr to be hired (300 million USD)...

Space stations got far, far cheaper

The ISS costed $ 100 billion for what's essentially one solar panel unit and a tiny (10 people) habitat.

That converts to Cr 300 million
What do you get with that sort of money in X4?
A massive, self-sufficient superfactory with space for tens of thousands of people, probably capable of manufacturing its own ships as well

So, clearly advances in technology have made station building far cheaper, and far easier

Military budgets: nothing has changed

Global military spending those days is $1.2 trilion annually.

Now, let's compare that to a moderate-sized battle. You can expect 1 carrier (60 million Cr), two destroyers (30 million Cr), say ten corvettes (3 million Cr) and thirty fighters (1 million Cr) on each side, and let's say one side gets totally destroyed.
That's 150 million credits gone. ($45 billion). 27 battles make up the military budget of one planet. Which sounds pretty much right considering most factions have 2-3 inhabited planets, their military spending is pretty much in line with what exists currently.

More?

That's pretty much all I could think of. But I'm pretty sure in some obscure part of the game there is something that's outrageously overpriced or dirt cheap that could be a fun comparison... so, have fun.

[mr.WHO]

You should also make calculation for Argon Food Rations and Terran MRE to see if they are fancy or trash.

Medical supplies and drugs (for Terran and Argon) would be interesting too.

[mr.WHO]

The ISS costed $ 100 billion for what's essentially one solar panel unit and a tiny (10 people) habitat.

That converts to Cr 300 million
What do you get with that sort of money in X4?
A massive, self-sufficient superfactory with space for tens of thousands of people, probably capable of manufacturing its own ships as well

So, clearly advances in technology have made station building far cheaper, and far easier

IMO, present day ISS could be only comparable to X3 Terran Torus station - the biggest and most advanced known station (Ancients excluded).

[Panos]

I wanted to try overthinking numbers in X4 and see where that goes. For pure entertainment purposes and not meant to be taken seriously... Although do point out math mistakes if any.
Note that I am using numbers from the VRO mod especially for ship costs, so, yes, they'll sound high.

A conversion between Cr and USD

First, we need to establish a rough conversion between Cr and today's USD to get an idea of value for things.
Thankfully a few wares from X4 exist today... so let's use that

Meat: 6 m3 has an average price of 48 Cr = 8.0 Cr/m3
Water: 6 m3 has an average price of 53 Cr = 8.8 Cr/m3
Wheat: 4 m3 has an average price of 31 Cr = 7.8 Cr/m3
Silicon: 10 m3 has an average price of 130 Cr = 13 Cr/m3
Ore: 10 m3 has an average price of 50 Cr = 5 Cr/m3

Approximate market prices in real life:

Meat: 2.7 $ for 1 kg (roughly 0.001 m3) = 2,700 $/m3
Water 5000$ for one megalitre (1000 m3) = 5 $/m3
Wheat: 7.5$ for 35 L (0.035 m3) = 214 $/m3
Silicon: 1$ per pound (0.021 L)= 47,600 $/m3
Iron ore: 181$ per ton (0.125 m3) = 1448 $/m3

So, already getting a simple conversion isn't easy, which we'll attribute to economic shifts due to accessibility of space resources vs land resources, especially for mined resources. Meat and ore seem to yield roughly the same conversion and are pretty much a middle ground, so let's use that...

We get that the conversion is 1 Cr = 300 USD.

Workers are paid fairly

So... hiring unskilled personnel costs about 7500 Cr per person. They don't get wages after that, which makes a lot of people cry foul that the workers should get paid...but do they really need to?
That converts to more than 2 million USD. For comparison, a worker earning 20,000 USD per year for all their career would earn 800 k USD. So, with that sort of upfront sign-on bonus? Working in space is worth it, even without any wage after. There might be high risk of death... but the pay compensates for it.

Let's not mention skilled workers that cost 1 million Cr to be hired (300 million USD)...

Space stations got far, far cheaper

The ISS costed $ 100 billion for what's essentially one solar panel unit and a tiny (10 people) habitat.

That converts to Cr 300 million
What do you get with that sort of money in X4?
A massive, self-sufficient superfactory with space for tens of thousands of people, probably capable of manufacturing its own ships as well

So, clearly advances in technology have made station building far cheaper, and far easier

Military budgets: nothing has changed

Global military spending those days is $1.2 trilion annually.

Now, let's compare that to a moderate-sized battle. You can expect 1 carrier (60 million Cr), two destroyers (30 million Cr), say ten corvettes (3 million Cr) and thirty fighters (1 million Cr) on each side, and let's say one side gets totally destroyed.
That's 150 million credits gone. ($45 billion). 27 battles make up the military budget of one planet. Which sounds pretty much right considering most factions have 2-3 inhabited planets, their military spending is pretty much in line with what exists currently.

More?

That's pretty much all I could think of. But I'm pretty sure in some obscure part of the game there is something that's outrageously overpriced or dirt cheap that could be a fun comparison... so, have fun.

Great post however ISS comparison doesn't represent several factors

The highest expenditure to built the ISS was spend on sending the Shuttles and rockets into space and these are included.
Also used steel, so weight-cost to launch-manufacture.

To give you an indication, just to send a normal 16-ounce/500ml water bottle into space costs $43000 and ofc not on it's own but packaged and sent with other things into space. A good indicator to see where the cost is
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex- ... 000-each-7

Now in a future like the X series, manufacturing a station it would be cheap. Automated AI drones, standardized modules (not custom made one off) no need to lift materials from a planet, reduce the cost significantly.

That is why the plan is to start mining asteroids and using the extracted materials to build bases, parts and rockets automatically in AI factories, without sending the items to earth make them and then lift them off into space.
It will reduce the cost to peanuts.

[SamuraiProgrammer]

Workers are paid fairly

So... hiring unskilled personnel costs about 7500 Cr per person. They don't get wages after that, which makes a lot of people cry foul that the workers should get paid...but do they really need to?
That converts to more than 2 million USD. For comparison, a worker earning 20,000 USD per year for all their career would earn 800 k USD. So, with that sort of upfront sign-on bonus? Working in space is worth it, even without any wage after. There might be high risk of death... but the pay compensates for it.

Let's not mention skilled workers that cost 1 million Cr to be hired (300 million USD)...

Great job on the logic and calculations. This is the best argument I have seen for personnel not needing to be paid as time goes on.

Think of it as an 'escrow' account the employee can 'draw' from as his career progresses. Residuals are paid to the estate upon death or transferred to the new owner if the ship is sold.

[flywlyx]

Workers are paid fairly

So... hiring unskilled personnel costs about 7500 Cr per person. They don't get wages after that, which makes a lot of people cry foul that the workers should get paid...but do they really need to?
That converts to more than 2 million USD. For comparison, a worker earning 20,000 USD per year for all their career would earn 800 k USD. So, with that sort of upfront sign-on bonus? Working in space is worth it, even without any wage after. There might be high risk of death... but the pay compensates for it.

Let's not mention skilled workers that cost 1 million Cr to be hired (300 million USD)...

They work 7/24 for you, 168h per week, and US standard working hour is 40h. That is a crazy amount of overtime pay you need to consider. Even we assume they have clones to take turns and avoided overtime pay for you, you still need to pay $8400 per month based on Newyork min wage.
And we have a time scale comparison to ford class carrier which takes 4 years to launch, while Raptor class takes 22 mins. The 7500 Cr could barely cover 240 months of service which is barely 110 mins.

[oddible]

Workers are paid fairly

So... hiring unskilled personnel costs about 7500 Cr per person. They don't get wages after that, which makes a lot of people cry foul that the workers should get paid...but do they really need to?
That converts to more than 2 million USD. For comparison, a worker earning 20,000 USD per year for all their career would earn 800 k USD. So, with that sort of upfront sign-on bonus? Working in space is worth it, even without any wage after. There might be high risk of death... but the pay compensates for it.

Let's not mention skilled workers that cost 1 million Cr to be hired (300 million USD)...

Great job on the logic and calculations. This is the best argument I have seen for personnel not needing to be paid as time goes on.

Think of it as an 'escrow' account the employee can 'draw' from as his career progresses. Residuals are paid to the estate upon death or transferred to the new owner if the ship is sold.

How do I get one of these jobs?

[Cha0s_lord]

They work 7/24 for you, 168h per week, and US standard working hour is 40h. That is a crazy amount of overtime pay you need to consider. Even we assume they have clones to take turns and avoided overtime pay for you, you still need to pay $8400 per month based on Newyork min wage.
And we have a time scale comparison to ford class carrier which takes 4 years to launch, while Raptor class takes 22 mins. The 7500 Cr could barely cover 240 months of service which is barely 110 mins.

Considering advances in manufacturing (and those claytronics that essentially do all the hard work for you, building ships is like tossing putty that then takes the shape of a ship on its own), I wouldn't use ship construction time to get a time equivalence. A better solution would be to calculate from the volume of food needed per argon/terran worker per unit of game hour (because humans are likely to need to same amount of food even in a distant future), and compare that to food needed per human per day IRL. I don't have the numbers here so can't do the maths right now.

Also, I don't think workers work 24/7. The game clearly mentions shifts.

[Cha0s_lord]

Okay, I did the maths now.

Game time and real time

2250 food rations per game hour feeds 1000 workers
Food rations take 1 m3, so that means that a worker needs 2.25 m3 food per game hour (and remember that argon food rations are meat, wheat and spice, so I essentially need to count only "solid" food, not liquids)

In real life, a typical adult eats 2 kg of food per day (0.002 m3).

From there we can calculate a conversion between game time and real time (2.25 x 24 / 0.002). Game time is 27,000X accelerated compared to real rime.

So... that raptor that is built in the game in 22 minutes? In real time, it would actually be taking 400 days. So claytronics are a nice improvement, but not quite so revolutionary actually in terms of speed.

Another interesting comparison is the life expectancy of workers. Assuming medicine progresses allow an average argon to live productively for 100 years, that's only 32h of game time...

[flywlyx]

Considering advances in manufacturing (and those claytronics that essentially do all the hard work for you, building ships is like tossing putty that then takes the shape of a ship on its own), I wouldn't use ship construction time to get a time equivalence. A better solution would be to calculate from the volume of food needed per argon/terran worker per unit of game hour (because humans are likely to need to same amount of food even in a distant future), and compare that to food needed per human per day IRL. I don't have the numbers here so can't do the maths right now.

Also, I don't think workers work 24/7. The game clearly mentions shifts.

I think they remove all those fancy AI tech because of Xenon, so yeah, there should be some improvement but not much, food is a good comparison.

You don't even "buy" workers, they work free for food and med, like apprentices in middle age. But your ship crews are working 24/7.

So... that raptor that is built in the game in 22 minutes? In real time, it would actually be taking 400 days. So claytronics are a nice improvement, but not quite so revolutionary actually in terms of speed.

Another interesting comparison is the life expectancy of workers. Assuming medicine progresses allow an average argon to live productively for 100 years, that's only 32h of game time...

Actually, I check the weight of Raptor, 863t, it is extremely light considering its size. And it consumes 30k hull parts coming from 30k refined metals which are from 90k unit ore which weighs 27k tons. That is some really bad ore, I would say.
But still, 400 days to build a 2 km ship without super AI is a huge improvement, probably the crews you hired are only for their dreams, income is no longer a thing at that age. All your money is for registration or some other management cost for the government activities, considering the fact that they have unlimited money and human resources, this probably is the explanation.

[Cha0s_lord]

Actually, one ore unit ingame has a volume of 10 m3. So the 90k units of ore translate to 900,000 m3. Using crude iron ore as a reference which has a density of about 3, you get 2,700,000 t of ore to produce a 863 t ship (an abysmal 0.03% yield...)