On and off switch for individual production modules

[Falcrack]

Sometimes you build a big factory complex, only to realize that you have saturated the market for a particular ware. In my zeal to solve a global engine parts shortage, I may have built like 20 engine part modules on a station for example, when I might only really need 5. But I don't want to necessarily deconstruct the 15 extra engine part modules in case I want to ramp up production later.

It would be super nice if the devs added a little button in the station logical overview where we could turn some of them off, so they are not using resources unnecessarily, and so that the limited workforce can be shifted around to those modules which I do want to be active. Maybe also color code the module box red or something in the logical overview so we could see at a glance which modules are active or inactive.

If this could end up on a to do list for a dev, that would truly be peachy keen.

[Imperial Good]

There is no need to turn production modules off. One can raise the sell price and they will naturally turn off when output storage is full. One also makes more profit by doing this. This might even have the added advantage of confusing the AI into not building any more Engine Parts factories meaning that you get to keep a larger share of the market.

[Falcrack]

There is no need to turn production modules off. One can raise the sell price and they will naturally turn off when output storage is full. One also makes more profit by doing this. This might even have the added advantage of confusing the AI into not building any more Engine Parts factories meaning that you get to keep a larger share of the market.

Except that it uses up costly resources to make all those unecessary products, which I don't want to sell for cheap, which resources I might want to redirect to other use to make other products. For example, to shift some refined metals away from engine parts towards hull parts.

As another point, I can always count on you to provide a contrarian point of view. Your default position towards any suggestion seems to be "disagree", no matter how reasonable the suggestion!

[Ezarkal]

I agree with the idea.

I remember there was a mod in XR that allowed you to reduce the output of a module, so you could more easily tune your stations. It was pretty nice to have, especially since the preset complexes did not always make the most sense in regards to the commercial needs of the game. Something similar in X4 would be nice.


Alternatively, a way to manage storage space allocation would also solve the issue, and also let you create some buffers if needed.

[photomankc]

I 'third' this idea!

[Imperial Good]

Except that it uses up costly resources to make all those unecessary products, which I don't want to sell for cheap, which resources I might want to redirect to other use to make other products. For example, to shift some refined metals away from engine parts towards hull parts.

It does not use any resources as production modules which cannot produce due to insufficient output storage use no input materials as they are producing no batches. Also you can choose not to sell them for cheap by raising the sell price by turning it off automatic to manual and setting a reasonably high price. Sure, until output storage is full you will be burning excess resources but once it is full resource consumption will fall to match demand and demand is determined by the output price you set.

If you have an unreasonable output storage volume that takes days to fill you must have built too many container storage modules for the station. Most non-build (warf/shipyard) station need a single large container storage or less for efficient operation. A food factory might need just 3 or 4 medium container modules and that is to supply all foods and energy. Since build stations are end consumers, there is no limit to how much storage they can have and remain efficient.

In short, there is no need for an explicit option to turn production off because production turns itself off due to limits. One can control the limits (storage volume, sell price) and hence one can control which modules are producing. If one sets sell price to maximum then one will either get a very good deal for product sold (one always wants to produce in this case) or no one will buy the product and hence all production of that product will stop.

One cannot even argue that turning modules off to save workers is a good idea. Since workers are the hardest part of a factory to develop due to being limited to a growth of 1 per available faction per minute per station at best (can drop as low as 0.1).

[Nanook]

...

In short, there is no need for an explicit option to turn production off because production turns itself off due to limits. One can control the limits (storage volume, sell price) and hence one can control which modules are producing. If one sets sell price to maximum then one will either get a very good deal for product sold (one always wants to produce in this case) or no one will buy the product and hence all production of that product will stop....

This is kinda like saying you don't need regular brakes on your auto because you have an emergency/parking brake that will eventually stop you if you plan far enough ahead.

We had a production toggle in TC and AP and I think it would be a good idea to have one in X4 if only for the convenience. Not sure why you're arguing against it.

[GCU Grey Area]

Not something I'd ever use. Seems like it would be very wasteful to leave resources tied up in inactive production facilities. Surely it would be much more profitable to use those resources to build production for something else? Frequently do exactly that, particularly in the early phases of the game - will often deliberately flood the market with an excessive amount of ship-building components (to get shipyards with shortages working ASAP). Then, when they've stabilised, cut back on the number of production modules to something a bit more reasonable & recycle the resources used to build them.

[Falcrack]

Not something I'd ever use. Seems like it would be very wasteful to leave resources tied up in inactive production facilities. Surely it would be much more profitable to use those resources to build production for something else? Frequently do exactly that, particularly in the early phases of the game - will often deliberately flood the market with an excessive amount of ship-building components (to get shipyards with shortages working ASAP). Then, when they've stabilised, cut back on the number of production modules to something a bit more reasonable & recycle the resources used to build them.

It is not something I would always use, but it would be a nice option. I've played a bunch of the Anno (A+B+C+D=9) games. I've always appreciated the ability to pause production from some of my buildings. There are times in X4 where I have thought "gee I wish I could just pause production a bit", for one reason or another. As I said before, maybe I have only so much refined metal production, and I want to switch to making more hull parts instead of engine parts, so I want to make sure my refined metal is all going towards hull parts. Or, I have a shortage of labor, and I want certain modules to get 100% workforce while shifting workforce away from the modules I do not want to be on. If there are such times when I would want a pause module button, then undoubtedly it would be a useful option to have, for at least some people.

[Imperial Good]

This is kinda like saying you don't need regular brakes on your auto because you have an emergency/parking brake that will eventually stop you if you plan far enough ahead.

A closer example would be that one does not need to turn off the mains water when one closes a tap to stop the water pressure from building up. Sure the water pressure behind will build up when a tap is closed, but the piping and fittings can take it perfectly fine as the pressure will eventually stop building up as it reaches a limit. Yes there are situations where one might want to close the mains water valve, like to fix a burst pipe or alter the fittings, but in the case of X4 factory production modules there are no such cases. Output storage does not break down and require a time of no input to be fixed, and one can modify what is connected to output storages safely without the need to stop product from flowing.

We had a production toggle in TC and AP and I think it would be a good idea to have one in X4 if only for the convenience.

Resources in X3 were a lot more limiting than they are in X4. Nothing produced was free and everything ultimately depended on how many and what scale of asteroids you mined. Worse still was that stations themselves were time consuming to build, requiring a lot of money, save scumming and manual placement for each piece. Some products from the station were also extremely expensive to produce, for example capital ship weapons were measured in hour production time per unit.

This results in cases where one might have a broad variety of production modules to supply the equipment needed but an underlying logistics infrastructure incapable of sustaining all of them operating at the same time. If left in this state the equipment production efficiency could easily fall to taking many hours per unit. Filling output storage could easily take days. It could even take days to get enough money to expand the station to deal with such bottlenecks, assuming the player did not exploit game mechanics (stock market) and even has the free asteroids to do so. As such one requires the ability to reallocate where resources are going, which means the ability to shutdown individual modules. The production modules one need product from can be left on and use all the available resources.

However, this is not a problem for X4. In X4 raw materials are bountiful, with Energy Cells being produced for free and solid/liquid fields being able to sustain as good as unlimited miners. Station modules themselves are also dirt cheap, with many common production modules per million credits. Stations can also be built in parallel, at the rate of many production modules per hour. Mining and transport ships can be built in a couple of minutes. There is also less product diversity assuring continuous use of all products. Even high tech production modules produce wares quickly at the rate of hundreds per hour.

As such in X4 if there is a supply bottleneck the solution is to always build more supply. New modules can be up and running and producing in under an hour. New ships can be assigned and mining or trading within 15 minutes. If the product is not one you desire producing at such scale anymore then one can leave the output storage to fill, a process which should take only a few hours if a reasonable storage capacity is used. At this point the input ware flow will be reallocated automatically to where it is needed. Such large output storages do not even cost you anything in the long run as the storage modules themselves have no maintenance cost and the wares can eventually be sold. As such unlike X3 where there are times one would want or need to shutdown production modules, in X4 there is not really such cases.

Not something I'd ever use. Seems like it would be very wasteful to leave resources tied up in inactive production facilities. Surely it would be much more profitable to use those resources to build production for something else? Frequently do exactly that, particularly in the early phases of the game - will often deliberately flood the market with an excessive amount of ship-building components (to get shipyards with shortages working ASAP). Then, when they've stabilised, cut back on the number of production modules to something a bit more reasonable & recycle the resources used to build them.

That is the best business approach in theory. A factory that is not producing is money (wares) tied up that could be put to better use such as turned into another factory or ship. However the issue is that it costs you time as chances are you will eventually need those modules producing again sometime in the future and each module is 15 minutes or so to build, not counting habitation, connection pieces and surface elements. As such it can also pay to leave a module idle for a while just to save having to build it again later.

I've played a bunch of the Anno (A+B+C+D=9) games. I've always appreciated the ability to pause production from some of my buildings.

Economy of Anno is very different. Production modules have fixed running costs that are the same if they are producing or unable to produce due to lack of resources. As such one needs to explicitly shut the factory down to reduce its fixed costs to some fraction. Like X3, raw materials in Anno are also very limited either by number of available material sites or space to produce such material. Additionally in Anno at higher difficulties one does not get refunded, or gets refunded very little, by destroying a factory so there is a cost associated with destroying factories which may be required again later.

This is completely the opposite of the X4 economy. Stations are as good as free to run, with no fixed costs at all (unless you count workforce which is dirt cheap). There is no penalty, other than time, for demolishing inactive modules and rebuilding them again later. Raw materials are also as good as infinite. Even space is as good as infinite in space. There is as good as no economic gain from shutting a module down, if one were allowed to.

As I said before, maybe I have only so much refined metal production, and I want to switch to making more hull parts instead of engine parts, so I want to make sure my refined metal is all going towards hull parts.

So one orders 4 more refined metal productions and some miners for a few million. That way both Engine Parts and Hull Parts can produce fully. Until then they can either share (same factory) or one can divert resources (different factories). If the shortage will be long term one can raise the sale price of Engine Parts to fill up output storage and in a few hours many of the modules will stop producing anyway.

Or, I have a shortage of labor, and I want certain modules to get 100% workforce while shifting workforce away from the modules I do not want to be on.

I am pretty sure workforce does not function like that. As far as I can tell it is the fraction of workers supplied, the desired workforce count divided by the current workforce count. Since modules that are not producing still require workforce there is no benefit to be gained here as well.

Maybe a feature to disable staffing for specific modules? This would set their worker bonus to 0 but also remove their required worker count from the station optimal worker count and hence raise the bonus of all other modules. Useful on complexes which need 10,000s of workers to fully staff which are normally applying low bonuses to all productions rather than where high bonuses would be the most useful.

[Falcrack]

Economy of Anno is very different. Production modules have fixed running costs that are the same if they are producing or unable to produce due to lack of resources. As such one needs to explicitly shut the factory down to reduce its fixed costs to some fraction. Like X3, raw materials in Anno are also very limited either by number of available material sites or space to produce such material. Additionally in Anno at higher difficulties one does not get refunded, or gets refunded very little, by destroying a factory so there is a cost associated with destroying factories which may be required again later.

This is completely the opposite of the X4 economy. Stations are as good as free to run, with no fixed costs at all (unless you count workforce which is dirt cheap). There is no penalty, other than time, for demolishing inactive modules and rebuilding them again later. Raw materials are also as good as infinite. Even space is as good as infinite in space. There is as good as no economic gain from shutting a module down, if one were allowed to.

This is one things I would really love to have changed for X4, higher fixed running costs for factories. I do not like that workforce is so cheap, nor do I like that it is so optional to running the factory. I would want regular workforce wages to be part of the game, and for the bonus to production for having workforce to be much higher (or rather, production penalties for having no workforce to be much higher). I would want to have to pay regular property taxes. I want my factories to have a chance to lose money for me if they are poorly thought out, and are producing items that are not needed. As it is, with no fixed costs, no taxes, no workforce wages, the challenge is gone, they are just money printing machines.