How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Please post any spoilers for X4: Foundations here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Tue, 14. Dec 21, 20:09

I would like to challenge Egosoft decision related to ships and equipments pricing in player owned ship construction / maintenance stations.

Couple examples where I see current model is not fair for player:

- Equipment dock income is not competitive and enough high to be profitable

If player gets normally from 100 to 2000 credits from AI players whom visit in equipment dock to refill / fix their ships.
If compare prices you won't get anything from AI's EDock with 200cr e.g. for mineral miner (drones, probes...).

I had equipment dock located in Second Contact II and during the period it was there (many months in real time) it never was profitable even there was lots of traffic and ships visiting (plenty of transactions) so at the end I modified the station and made it shipyard. Changes were barely started (2 L maintenance bays from 4 replaced with 2 fabrication bays and 1 XL maint was still waiting to be replaced with XL fab bay) done station had made over 50M credits.


- Ship prices when built new for AI in wharf and shipyard are too low

I've been looking already awhile the prices what my wharfs and shipyards get from ships they produce to AI and even with 150% pricing income is far from fair pricing level.

RHA bought recently Elephant from my shipyard and I got 6,4M credits from that (quite well equiped ship).
I made comparison if I would have bought similar ship from RHA or CUB shipyard. Result was I couldn't even get the ship frame at that price (CUB 8,4M and RHA 9M credits). For CUB I would have needed pay almost 9,7M credits to get ship out and that would be bare minimum and cheapest stuff (all around engine, thrusters mk1, required software and pilot).
Similar ship in CUB would have cost way over 13M cr.

Similar story with RHA Monitor - I got 13,4M when bare minimum would cost me 13,8M from RHA and 13,2M from CUB. Similar ship (same config excluding crew) would cost 30,8M cr.


Keep in mind that I've set pricing in my wharf and shipyard be 150% and still these are the numbers.
So thinking about the investment what player does for all licenses + bought wares to manufacture ships versus price you get back I see this is far from fair trade.

Beforce devs changed the pricing calculation style you got fair compensation for investment you made by buying the licenses by using 100-110% setting. If percentage was too high then sale stopped.

So should also AI manufactured ships prices be lower for player?
Personally I would say no but player should be able to set higher price for ships and equipment sold from own equipment dock / wharf / shipyard.
We either need higher pricing (higher margin which would also count license price + workforce cost incl food & medic + other costs) to cover whole investment or higher base price what player can set.

1 question of course is how devs calculate prices for wares player provides by themselves from own stations (e.g. you order own capital freighter bring full load of advanced electronics) and this is used to build ship for AI?
Is it more worth to buy elsewhere with high price than bring from own station to get higher price from built AI ship?

Here's opening for conversation and hopefully for good ideas how to develop things forward.

LameFox
Posts: 2250
Joined: Tue, 22. Oct 13, 15:26
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by LameFox » Tue, 14. Dec 21, 20:24

I think it's just a case of not being able to rebalance it without reworking the entire economy, so they artificially lowered prices instead. Apparently we are not really meant to profit from production of ships.
***modified***

User avatar
Axeface
Posts: 2939
Joined: Fri, 18. Nov 05, 00:41
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Axeface » Tue, 14. Dec 21, 21:25

Wharfs still make huge amounts of money, more than any other activity in the game. I really dont think there is a problem here other than giving us a tangible reason for the lower income (which should be, imo, licence fees).
One of my wharfs that purchases ships and buys all its resources makes millions every few minutes.

Manawydn
Posts: 262
Joined: Sun, 26. Jan 20, 06:54
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Manawydn » Tue, 14. Dec 21, 23:20

I'm more interested in the gameplay potential around player-owned workshops, allowing us to mess with encyclopedia, mods, and tinkering of any sorts like better integration of existing crafting mechanics in to another gameplay loop. Plenty of potential around having a workshop that can fix up and fine tune some ships.

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Thu, 16. Dec 21, 21:42

Axeface wrote:
Tue, 14. Dec 21, 21:25
Wharfs still make huge amounts of money, more than any other activity in the game. I really dont think there is a problem here other than giving us a tangible reason for the lower income (which should be, imo, licence fees).
One of my wharfs that purchases ships and buys all its resources makes millions every few minutes.
True that wharfs and shipyards make money but compared to investment price (especially XL ships & equipment + L&XL fab bays license costs) it's still small.
If concider you get less than 14M from Monitor or 6,5M from construction ship. XL-icenses are expensive.

And money spent to quipment dock licenses (maintenance bays) you won't never get back so the fact is them are worthless for player. Only way to get them make some money is put them as part of shipyard and that way you get warm feeling they would make money (when reality is opposite).

Fortunately I started my game in the times when fab bays made money so I got my investment back but if thinking those who start now it's long and more rough way to go.

User avatar
grapedog
Posts: 2398
Joined: Sat, 21. Feb 04, 20:17
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by grapedog » Sat, 18. Dec 21, 04:18

EQ dock pricing needs to be looked at it. I don't even care about profit, i just want it to break even.

Perhaps even something basic like a 500cr or 1000cr servicing fee would do the trick. Any ship that comes to refit/repair gets charged that basic service charge, on top of normal repair fees.

Wharfs/shipyards are fine, and still make boatloads of cash.

Imperial Good
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 4750
Joined: Fri, 21. Dec 18, 18:23
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Imperial Good » Sat, 18. Dec 21, 15:16

Player ship building has a massive 80% sale price reduction over the player buying from NPCs. This penalty was added to prevent ship building being effectively a money print. Now trading ship building wares will make most of the money and building the ships themselves only a little on top of that.

This logically applies to equipment docks as well. So what would be a 100k repair is only 20k or so.

Raevyan
Posts: 1463
Joined: Sat, 4. Oct 08, 17:35
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Raevyan » Sun, 19. Dec 21, 21:25

Imperial Good wrote:
Sat, 18. Dec 21, 15:16
Player ship building has a massive 80% sale price reduction over the player buying from NPCs. This penalty was added to prevent ship building being effectively a money print. Now trading ship building wares will make most of the money and building the ships themselves only a little on top of that.

This logically applies to equipment docks as well. So what would be a 100k repair is only 20k or so.
Shipyards and wharfs still print money, it just takes a bit longer. By the time most people build shipyards/wharfs they already have some infrastructure to support it. Money really becomes useless as soon as you produce your own station building materials. So most people build ships for free anyways making all profit. The few ones, like me, who start with shipyard/wharf a few hours into a new game print some money and then Setup building material production. Despite buying all Ressources for ship building it still prints money faster than you can spend it.

Imperial Good
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 4750
Joined: Fri, 21. Dec 18, 18:23
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 20. Dec 21, 01:04

rene6740 wrote:
Sun, 19. Dec 21, 21:25
Shipyards and wharfs still print money, it just takes a bit longer. By the time most people build shipyards/wharfs they already have some infrastructure to support it. Money really becomes useless as soon as you produce your own station building materials. So most people build ships for free anyways making all profit. The few ones, like me, who start with shipyard/wharf a few hours into a new game print some money and then Setup building material production. Despite buying all Ressources for ship building it still prints money faster than you can spend it.
Yes but it prints money a lot slower than before. You get a small fraction of the money you used to. It also is completely possible to make comparable money without building the ships directly now, and instead selling the wares.

There is an exploit where you can force sell ships for more money than NPCs buy them for from you directly. I hope this is fixed one day.

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Mon, 20. Dec 21, 01:28

Imperial Good wrote:
Sat, 18. Dec 21, 15:16
Player ship building has a massive 80% sale price reduction over the player buying from NPCs. This penalty was added to prevent ship building being effectively a money print. Now trading ship building wares will make most of the money and building the ships themselves only a little on top of that.

This logically applies to equipment docks as well. So what would be a 100k repair is only 20k or so.
This decision changes things a lot because now it won't be worth to sell ships directly from shipyard/wharf to buyer.
Why? Because you get better price when sell them by yourself to their shipsyears / wharfs.

Let's use my previous examples (Monitor & Elephant) and give them another perspective:
If I sell Monitor to to RHA, CUB or FRF shipyard I would get 20,9M-21,3M cr. So this means minimum 7,5M cr more.
Elephan's case numbers would be 18,3-18,5M cr. Here additional income would be 12M cr more.
Then 2 new ships to be examples from wharf side.
Vulture Sentinel (bought by TEL) where I got 135k-310k. If I sell ship to wharf I get 888k-1,01M cr.
Nova Vanguard bought by ARG and they paid 60k cr. If sell ship to wharf price would vary between 946k-1,17M cr.

So this is very clear case then - do not build ships ordered by customer but build and sell them for resources to others.
Much more profitable business that way (yes requires manual work but still).

I assume this is the "exploit" you mean with force selling.

dmk
Posts: 682
Joined: Fri, 25. Nov 05, 00:59
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by dmk » Wed, 29. Dec 21, 07:47

Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 20. Dec 21, 01:04
There is an exploit where you can force sell ships for more money than NPCs buy them for from you directly. I hope this is fixed one day.
don't understand what are you talking about?
if just selling ships, then it gives less money compared to disarming them first in their shipyards(i.e. there is already penalty for selling to shipyard, compared to buy prices of same shipyard).

most of money gives mission for fleet delivery, then you actually getting 50% more than buying that ship on highest prices in npc shipyard,
i.e. you could easily get 200mln for 1 destroyer 2 frigate 8 fighters delivery (probably 300 mln is possible, not including additionally sequence reward(usually 5-10mln)).
that just making mechanics opening your shipyard for other races useless, i.e. player would disable it(allow shipyard usage only for himself),
and either sell resources directly, either doing such delivery missions, thus getting 300% of avg resource cost.
and take into account that any battle mission would give you few mln at best, while xenon station destruction would require ~10 destroyers,
or several Asgards(or would take forever with 1 manually controlled Asgard), in any case not worth the money.

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 29. Dec 21, 09:17

Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 20. Dec 21, 01:04
Yes but it prints money a lot slower than before. You get a small fraction of the money you used to. It also is completely possible to make comparable money without building the ships directly now, and instead selling the wares.

There is an exploit where you can force sell ships for more money than NPCs buy them for from you directly. I hope this is fixed one day.
I never had a yard "back then". Hence, I "used to get" big fat zero. Anything in the black is more and faster than that. If one starts playthrough with 4.20, then all the "mining, crystals, cushing cash" talk is just tall tales of old men in the pub; fiction.

Essentially, player has credits. Player spends those credits to get resources (buy or build production). Then, there are options:
* Sell resources to get credits
* Let NPC buy ships to get credits
* Sell ships to NPC to get credits. (That is, sell overpriced scrap metal.)
* Complete missions to get credits & stuff
With every option we get back to credits. If profit margin is the only thing that rocks your boat, then choose accordingly. :teladi:

Alas, the options do not differ only on their profit margin. There are different side-effects. They can be more interesting than credits. :boron:
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

dmk
Posts: 682
Joined: Fri, 25. Nov 05, 00:59
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by dmk » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 07:48

i think this behavior is a bug, because they give player control over price (construction price for other factions)
i.e. if player set this to max, then he expects at least 150% of avg prices in other shipyards,
obviously npc could just ignore such offer, but if they do use player's shipyard they should pay the price player set to them,
otherwise this behavior is a bug.
p.s. for comparison if player doing delivery mission which do say the same (ship value +50%), i.e. 150% price,
he does get 150% of MAX price of npc shipyard.

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 20:17

Like Imperial Good said it's made by purpose player won't get more than 20%.

So X4 can stated to have exploration, war and (unfair) trade elements containing game.
Money is problem in many games (not only in X4) - you don't have it when need the most (by meaning at the begining of the game) and when you have it you don't need it (or it doesn't have anymore meaning so much).

dmk
Posts: 682
Joined: Fri, 25. Nov 05, 00:59
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by dmk » Thu, 6. Jan 22, 14:04

BitByte wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 20:17
Like Imperial Good said it's made by purpose player won't get more than 20%.

So X4 can stated to have exploration, war and (unfair) trade elements containing game.
Money is problem in many games (not only in X4) - you don't have it when need the most (by meaning at the begining of the game) and when you have it you don't need it (or it doesn't have anymore meaning so much).
actually it's incorrect i do forced to repeat assemble fleet missions with building base all over again,
and actually i don't want to do it, i would probably agree to be payed slightly less but automatic,
but i should decide for how much i agree to sell ships from my shipyards, if AI does not want them for that price - they just should not buy,
that's why this behavior now is a bug.

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Fri, 7. Jan 22, 02:45

dmk wrote:
Thu, 6. Jan 22, 14:04
BitByte wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 20:17
Like Imperial Good said it's made by purpose player won't get more than 20%.

So X4 can stated to have exploration, war and (unfair) trade elements containing game.
Money is problem in many games (not only in X4) - you don't have it when need the most (by meaning at the begining of the game) and when you have it you don't need it (or it doesn't have anymore meaning so much).
actually it's incorrect i do forced to repeat assemble fleet missions with building base all over again,
and actually i don't want to do it, i would probably agree to be payed slightly less but automatic,
but i should decide for how much i agree to sell ships from my shipyards, if AI does not want them for that price - they just should not buy,
that's why this behavior now is a bug.
I agree that we should be allowed to set price and if it's too high then AI wouldn't buy (this was the case before 4.00). As I remember I kept price in 103-105% and that was price range AI bought ships. If raised price to 110% or more then buys become less frequent or ended.
Currently only option is limit buys (at the moment only SCA can buy new ships from me) and sell them as scrap metal to get reasonable price for investment (of module, ship and equipment blueprints + resources consumed to build ships). Most probably this will change in future too and devs reduce the price what we get from ships going to recycle.
Also this new reward style (from deliver station / fleet) I stopped do those missions totally. Not worth of time.

Future will show what devs decide and how X4 evolves. And what ideas they take with to X5 when it's that time.

teknosvk
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue, 27. Dec 11, 13:00
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by teknosvk » Mon, 9. May 22, 16:57

any update on this? i hate that my new shipyard is selling heavy fighter equipped for like 500k

BitByte
Posts: 269
Joined: Tue, 14. Sep 21, 15:57
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by BitByte » Mon, 16. May 22, 12:54

Deny buy of ships from others, build bunch of self designed ships (fully or well equiped) and sell those ships directly to wharfs (S/M ships like heavy fighters...) or shipyards (like destroyers, freighters, construction ships...).
You get much better income and then can transfer credits (or part of sell profit) to your stations so they can keep up building new ships for you.
This isn't ideal and requires manual work but atleast I've seen this better option until you get invested credits back and some buffer to your account.

E.g. from fully equiped rattlesnake you get approx 7m credits compared to sell it by yourself 22-26m credits.

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by jlehtone » Mon, 16. May 22, 21:02

There is at least a kind of tradeoff: option A (full automatic) gives you 7m and a fully equipped ship to NPC, while option B (manual work) gives 26m to you but only some materials for the NPC.
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Rei Ayanami
Posts: 3333
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
x4

Re: How devs justify current prices in equipment dock / wharf / shipyard?

Post by Rei Ayanami » Tue, 17. May 22, 00:42

Personally I don't see an issue with player shipyard/wharf prices being lower than that of the factions. The end-game credit gain is ridiculous via normal gains and there is not much to spend it on, so having additional income via Wharfs/Shipyard don't matter a lot. I see Wharfs and Shipyards more of an opportunity to support factions instead of making profit, so as long as Wharfs and Shipyards break at least even with their income I'm fine.

Post Reply

Return to “X4: Foundations - Spoilers”