Burianek's Econ Mod v0.1 *UPDATED w/impressions*

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Sat, 28. Feb 04, 10:04

*Edit* I've added some of my observations and impressions from a new game I've started using this mod. (I'm 1.5 game days into the game):
(original post with description of mod follows these comments)

For the most part, everything is behaving as I wanted it to. I'm actually enjoying the game quite a bit more now. Here are some of the key differences that I count as positives:

1. Game startup time: One of the things that's often lamented is the amount of time it takes trading energy and basic foodstuffs until the player has enough capital to afford even the most basic of factories. In my new game I was up and running with my standard two wheat farms in the wall in only 4-5 game time hours. (Did not sell shields on Express, too close to cheating for my tastes) The most profitable items to manually trade are now weapons. If you find a weapon factory that's maxed out storage, you can buy them up and dump them at any local equipment dock. It's nice in that there's a feature/bug that lets you sell weapons even if the dock doesn't usually buy them, they're bought for avg price and just *disappear*. You can make a nice spread with most weapons this way, and I had actually traded myself quite a small fortune (close to 1 milllion) pretty quickly before I decided to start plopping down factories, and all in my original disco. It just seems 'right' to me that a large trading profit can be made with small, expensive items like weapons. I don't think this is unbalanced, because if you think about it, basic items like energy and food should be traded in bulk and should be the domain of automated large freighters. The player character shouldn't have to manually haul wheat to make a profit, that should be the realm of factories (IMHO). So now with my first million . . .
Here's where the second point comes in. Basic factories are now much more affordable. I was able to place the two aforementioned wheat farms for 200k a piece. Add two loaded mantas for roughly 200k a piece as well, and the total bill comes to 800k. These now generate me the standard 18k profit an hour each, or 36k total. That means they'll pay themselves off in just about 10 hrs game time, and the freighters 10 hrs after. That's a dramatic improvement over the original game's 50+ hrs just to pay off the factory.
So it's much easier to get up and running (but I found it just as satisfying being a 'gun runner' as the endless hours of tedium trading energy / silicon in my old game)
Here's one negative (yes I'll try to list these as well): The most satisfying moment I had in my old game was my first bayamon capture using my original disco. I remember thinking 'Yes! Now this is a ship I can work with!' I kept that bayamon throughout my original game just for sentimental value. That was when I truly felt I had 'broken in' and could now play the game in earnest. I did not have a satisfying moment of that magnitude in the new game. In the new game, by the time I was ready to capture pirates, I had plenty of money to afford to do it right. I'll take that moment in trade off against the countless hours of tedium it took me in my original game to become established however...

2. Mid game: Once I had a few factories up and running and had enough to purchase my first 'capturing ship', mako with one ion-d/one g-pac, I noticed something else. It used to be that if you wanted to save up some credits to put down a few new factories and expand your empire, you really only had one choice: go out and capture some orinocos. That's still a viable option, but for those who are more peaceful in nature, 'gun running' is still a profitable way to pass one's time, even in the mid game. The nice thing is that it would be difficult to exploit with scripting, since the *feature* of being able to sell weapons at any equipment dock, regardless of if they usually buy them is only available to the player character (or a manually controlled ship). If you try to automate weapon trading (and I did) the limiting factor is that the equipment docks fill up pretty quickly. There's a limit to how quickly an automated trader can make money with weapons due to the equipment docks filling up, and it's much slower than the rate available to player character exploiting the equipment dock purchase *bug*. I've found that manually running guns in the mid game with my mako made me money just a bit more slowly than capturing orinocos usually does. So I don't consider it a 'cheat' or an 'exploit' that makes it too easy to earn money, so much as another well developed option that a player character can choose as a balanced career. After all, to really be profitable you have to buy from a fully stocked factory, and it takes a while for these to refill . . . .

3. Lastly, and most importantly, factories are truly 'nicely balanced' up to that critical 1300k point: Aligning factory cost with potential profit to be made improves my enjoyment of the game more than any other factor. I really have to think about which factory to lay down now. Basic foodstuff factories are now really honestly viable options to place due to their low setup cost. Yeah, they won't mint you money, but they're soooo easy to get up and running. After a day and a half of game time, my factory list consists of: 2 wheat farms in the wall, dream farm / bliss place combo and wheat farm / s.fuel dist combo in argon prime, and snail ranch / space jewellery combo in herron's nebula. I'm having a blast setting up these basic factories now that they're 'reasonably' priced. My factories have been able to get all of their energy from the wall to date, and I haven't felt the desire to build a single SPP as of yet! Although I'm starting to stretch the production capacity of even the wall, maybe it's time to think about that SPP, although I'm wincing at the purchase price. Now that the prices have been realigned, even this modest setup of factories earns money quickly enough that by the time I'm interested in setting up a new factory, I usually have enough money to afford it. It used to be, in my original game, if I wanted to expand my empire, there was no other choice than to go out pirate hunting. I've only captured 4 pirates in this game so far, and I don't really feel pressured into it, as if that's the only way to be able to afford anything.

In summary, I'd still never buy any of the weapon factories, they just don't make sense under the 'enforced equality' of the universe, but I've been able to have a blast so far, and to date I haven't even built a single three input factory. Later on, I may add a satellite factory to my combo in herron's nebula, we'll see how demand for raw majaglit holds up. I guess that's the beauty of the factory price rebalance though. It used to be, I'd never consider putting the basic factories down unless I needed them to support a higher end factory for convenience. Now, it's not only possible, but profitable to place the basic ones first, run them for a little while, and if you want to add to the chain later on, make that decision later. Adds a whole new dimension to the 'think' aspect when you can lay basic factories easily at first, keeping in mind that you may or may not want to chain them to something more complex later. I really consider this mod to be a good first step in the right direction. The list of changes is pretty small, it shouldn't harm anyone's game, and the change in gameplay is dramatic, and on the whole, quite welcome.

Somebody that has used/uses it please flame me and give some criticism so I can improve it. I didn't intend this post to come off as just patting myself on the back, but the fact is, I'm having A LOT more fun with the game now. I would urge anyone that's interested to post impressions on this thread so I can continually rebalance it. Feel free to bash me, I don't take anything personally.

All of this just makes me itch more for more modding flexibilty so that more expensive factories can be addressed.

*Original post*
Download from the site in my sig.
This mod is entitled X2EconFixBurv01.zip

Excerpts from readme:

I finally decided that even though it's currently (version 1.2) impossible to mod most of the fixes I intended to make, I might as well make the changes that the code will currently support.
This is, admittedly, a small list of changes, and comes nowhere close to completely fixing the economy, but at least it's a start until we have something better to play with. All changes with reasoning are listed below.
They fall into two main categories, factory price rebalancing, and widening variation of high end goods.

CONFLICT NOTICE!
Changes are made to TFactories, TLaser, TRockets, TShields, and TWareT.txt. If you currently have mods to these files,
installing my version will overwrite your previous mods. You must manually merge them. If you don't know how to
do this, you're gonna have to read the forums and learn. There's no way I could do it for you. It's really
pretty simple, you just have to change a few numbers yourself in the txt files. The columns you'll need to change
to activate my mod are listed further in the readme.

Specific changes:
-----Factory price rebalancing----- (all changes made in TFactories.txt - if you don't like these, don't install)
(Price column changed is 5th from the right)
(These follow the methodology laid out in the unimplementable version 2.0 spreadsheet, specifically: more expensive
factories should take longer to pay for themselves than cheap factories, but should make a higher rate of return
to compensate. Said another way: a factory that makes profits twice as fast as another should cost more than twice
as much. A higher investment yields better long term profits. Cheap stuff is easy and quick to set up, but long
term profits are limited. This methodology makes sense to me.)* (see note at end)

Mines have been adjusted to roughly 250k. This is to reflect the fact that although an average mine makes money
about as fast as a basic food factory, a high yield mine can make money as fast as (or slightly faster than) an
advanced food factory.

Basic food factories (require energy only) - have been reduced to the 140 to 180k range. This should make them
more accessible in the early part of the game to beginner players, and more accurately represents their profit
potential. I traded for a long time in the game before I could afford to set up a few factories, I haven't heard
anyone say they think it should take longer. This should help.

Advanced food factories (require energy and basic food) - have been reduced to the 350 to 450k range. On average,
these factories are roughly twice as profitable to operate as basic food factories. The price is therefore slightly
more than double. These are also a reasonable alternative choice for a beginning player due to the reduced cost.
Space Fuel Refineries and Bliss Places fall in this category.

1300K is the starting price point for any factory that takes three inputs (energy, food, and silicon or ore).
Since all three input factories in the game make the exact same amount of profits, I was faced with the decision
to make them all cost 1300k, or just leave them alone. Here's what I did:

Any three input factory which originally cost less than 1300k, I raised to fit the curve.
Example:
Warheads, Crystals, Q.Tubes, M.Chips, C.Comp - all factories that used to cost 650k have been raised to roughly
1300k. These factories, on average, make over twice as much as the adv food factories and are every bit as profitable
as any other factory out there (not including SPP). There's no reason, IMHO, why a crystal fab that earns around
two and a half times as much as a cahoona bakery should cost less in the original game layout. Minor race
differences have been added.

Just so that every factory in the game doesn't cost exactly 1300k, I made minor adjustments to the factories that
originally cost 1300k.

Any three input factory which originally cost more than 1300k I chose to leave alone for varieties sake more
than anything else. I suppose there's a convenience factor to supplying your own ships, but I don't think it's
worth paying 8400k for the gamma ppc fact for the convenience. I did however, make a change to variation which
helps somewhat, (described later) but not nearly enough for my satisfaction. I did the best I could do guys
(and gals).

That nasty SPP - Since it's the most profitable factory in the game, I raised the price to 1750k credits. This
keeps it in reach of players that still want/need to build them, but sets it more in line with the others.
An interesting note is that under my pricing structure, a self supporting energy chain doesn't cost too much more
to set up than before, I've tried to maintain the game balance as much as possible. I've just adjusted the relative
costs of the factories involved, and priced the food factories commensurate with their contribution and so on.
I tried not to disadvantage the player who wants to chain factories, just make it more costly to set up only SPP's
all over the universe.

Example costs for factory chains under old and new pricing structure:
SPP-Cattle Ranch-Bakery-S. Mine-Crystal Fab chain: old prices total - about 2700k, new prices total - about 3700k
(sorry I couldn't get it closer)
However most players will use this to power a second chain with the leftover energy: (example w/chip plant)
Cattle Ranch-Bakery-S. Mine-Chip Plant: old prices total - 2450k, new prices total - 1980
so a comparison of set-up costs for full double chains: old prices - about 5200k, new prices - about 5700k
(much closer, and if your End Factory is one of the ones whose price didn't change, the total price under the new
structure will actually be cheaper)
Cattle Ranch-Bakery-O. Mine-Alpha IRE Forge: old prices - 3050k, new prices - 1950k
double chain(add single chain cost): old prices - 5750k, new prices - 5650k
(these numbers are rough, but you get the picture)

As mentioned above, all other factories I left alone.

-----Widened variations----- (changes made in TLaser, TRockets, TShields, TWareT files - if you don't like these
don't install)
(Conflict Notice!!! if you have mods to these files already, you'll have to manually merge the mods or my files will
overwrite mods with original game data)
(Variation column is 4th from right in all files)
I've widened the price variation for all high tech goods (anything over food)
This accomplishes a few things:
Opens up new trading possibilities for late game manual trading. Trading manually dies out after the player
owns a few factories. Who wants to make 10k per trip hauling energy anymore? By widening out price variation,
later on in the game with the player's increased capital it's possible to make gamma ppc runs from the few
factories that exist in the universe to trading docks willing to buy them. (and all products in between)
There's a great deal of potential profit here.
It's also possible to shop around when outfitting your M2. If you look for a good deal (buy direct from a fully
stocked factory) you could save yourself a bundle.
I think these changes should be good. I don't think they will hurt in any way. Let me know about any concerns.

Also, by widening the price variation of these goods, it potentially increases the maximum possible profit/min of
the high tech factories. If you sell your weapons for max price, you can stand to make more from these factories
than previously possible. It's not a perfect situation, but again, it's a step closer.

I Used the same variation values as I intended to use in my version 2 fix. If you want to know the exact values,
take a look at that spreadsheet.

*If you're curious, this represents a rule of diminishing returns between increased factory price and increased
profit per minute. This can be described by an exponential function with exponent set less than 1. (1 would yield
a straight line) The equation I like to set factory price is: (profit/min) = 1.3643 * (fact price) ^ (0.8035)
fact price expressed in thousands
That gives a rough value, and then I just vary prices a little at whim around the general result to mix it up a bit.
If you really want to see more, download the version 2 spreadsheet and take a look at the curve fit stuff.

giskard · Post by **giskard** » Sat, 28. Feb 04, 11:57

Burianek: Sounds like some solid changes there mate, good work. Shame the SPPs cannot be fixed properly, I dont think a price hike is a good perminant solution but until a propare fix can be made I think its a good start.

Did you actually change any goods prices or are these only factory price changes ?

Just need to clarify that point.

I take it your script is up on the scripting site Burianek?

Giskard

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Sat, 28. Feb 04, 12:24

As of v 1.2 you can't change a good's avg price to make a factory more or less profitable. The game just automatically adjusts cycle time and inputs required to offset your change and keep everything exactly equal, just like before.
You can change price variation, so I have.

I also uploaded it to xscripting.com, I'm sure it will be up soon.

Edit: 3/1 - It's up.

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Mon, 1. Mar 04, 05:45

Anybody take a look at this?
Any likes/dislikes/feedback? Things you'd like to see? discuss?
(Both on content and presentation/installation)
I realize that some of the files I've changed are heavily modded files and it might be a pain to install / merge with your existing mods. Anything I could do to make installation easier? Maybe include a spreadsheet file that lists exactly which values and columns to change when manually inputing values so as not to overwrite your existing txt files? Let me know, a little work on my part could make things a bunch easier for the rest of you... Anyone care to share installation experiences?
I want to get this stuff hammered out now so that if (fingers crossed) we have the ability to make meaningful econ mods with version 1.3 the process is smooth.

giskard · Post by **giskard** » Mon, 1. Mar 04, 14:30

Burianek: Have you see the latest Egosoft News letter mate ?

Theres some interesting new features on the way for mod makers.
Checkout this site for the news letter if you have not see it yet.

Giskard

Slocket · Post by **Slocket** » Tue, 2. Mar 04, 06:24

I have changed the average price of a good to make SPP not so profitable. I did not notice the cycle time change at all.

AVR Price can be change easily, and the variation. If the cycle time changes; I did not notice, I will look again to make sure if that is true....

I would like to change ratio fo products IE 276 E-cells from 2 crystals. Where is that data at?

I have bewen waiting for the patch 1.3 to get serious about playing and Econ Balancing.

I do agree that the lower profit basic factories should be cheaper to start out with. Thye are all about the same price!

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Tue, 2. Mar 04, 16:31

I have changed the average price of a good to make SPP not so profitable. I did not notice the cycle time change at all.

Try building a new spp after you change the avg price.
I think all of your old factories will behave correctly, it's the new ones that you place that will be 'readjusted' by the game.

AVR Price can be change easily, and the variation. If the cycle time changes; I did not notice, I will look again to make sure if that is true....

Let me know what you find, I'm basing most of my opinions off of Mad Hatter's testing. I've been waiting for 1.3 to get serious about this as well.
This is what I believe to be true:
As of right now, there's no way to adjust number of inputs, i.e. changing ratio of ecells from crystals. Well that's not entirely true. What appears to be fixed is the values of goods consumed/produced.
ex. if you lower ecell price from 16 to 12, this is what happens:
value of ecells produced in spp remains constant, so instead of 276 produced from 2 crystals, you now get 276*(4/3)=368. the total value of ecells remains constant, old = 276*16=4416, new=368*12=4416.
also, anything that consumes ecells will consume 4/3 more.
ex. wheat farm usually takes 15 energy to make 10 wheat in one min. now takes 40 energy to make 20 wheat in 2 min. keeps ratio of ecell value of 15*16=240 per 10 wheat, or 24 ecell value per unit wheat. check: now 40*12=480 per 20 wheat, constant 24 ecell value per unit wheat. Notice how the code adjusts to find the least common multiple for the new values and then adjusts the cycle time to keep production rates constant.
If you try to change the price of a good that isn't used as an input somewhere else (weapons) the code scales inputs required and cycle time to keep value produced per unit time constant. i.e. if you double the price of gamma ppcs, thinking to make the factory more profitable, the code will just double the cycle time and inputs required for each gamma ppc. make sense?
It's hard coded to balance this stuff out so that changing avg prices does not in fact change anything meaningful. We could always use more testing though. My own personal testing has been very limited. I'm only inferring based on others observations. Please prove me wrong!
I sincerely hope 1.3 changes this. I'm hopeful, but without new parameters to change, we won't be able to fix it.

Edit: Disclaimer: this post has some incorrect results in it, but the spirit and conclusions are correct. Specifically, the new wheat factory mentined above would not consume 40 energy to make 20 wheat in 2 min, it would more likely be 20 energy to make 10 wheat in 1 min, but you get the point.

Mad Hatter · Post by **Mad Hatter** » Tue, 2. Mar 04, 17:37

When you change the avg price of non comsumable goods, and build a new factory - it adjusts stock limit, cycle time and yield - but not consumption. The big(ger) problem is that it multiplies yield until cycle/unit lands on a whole number. So, for example, for the price I set space weed - it multiplies yield to find a whole number - 60. It adjusts stock limits of resources (but not consumption rate) so that it can hold enough to make a 'batch'. But at that price - the factory will only hold 42 space weed. Since the yield is greater than capacity - the factory never produces.

You can tweak the price until it lands on a usable yield - but you're still just chasing your tail in terms of profitability - because the game will even that out (by making it take longer per unit).

The only setting you can change to affect profit is margin. And you really need access to 2 or more variables to make a solid fix.

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Tue, 2. Mar 04, 18:47

Ok, so just to make sure I have this right. Let me do a very specific example:

Old space weed factory:

In a cycle time of 4 minutes:
consumes 60 ecells @ 16 apiece = 960 value consumed / 4 min, or 240/min
consumes 8 swamp plants @ 156 apiece = 1248 value consumed / 4 min, or 312 / min
produces 1 spaceweed @ 2912 apiece = 2912 value / 4 min, or 728 / min.
Profit margin = 728 / (240 + 312) = 1.319
Profit / min = 728 - (240 + 312) = 176 / min

I was under the impression if you doubled the price of spaceweed this happens:

In a cycle time of 8 min (doubles with price):
consumes 120 ecells @ 16 apiece (doubles with price) = 1920 value consumed / 8 min, or 240/min
consumes 16 swamp plants @ 156 apiece (doubles with price) = 2496 value consumed / 8 min, or 312/min
produces 1 spaceweed @ 5824 (price changed) = 5824 value / 8 min, or 728 / min.
Profit margin and profit / min unchanged since every line has been effectively equalized on a per minute basis.
Stock limits for spaceweed are halved as you mention due to the higher price. (a station can hold x number of minutes worth of value of any good)

Is this incorrect? You mention that consumption is unchanged. I'm assuming you mean value of consumption / min is unchanged as in the above example.

You aren't suggesting that the new scenario looks like this are you?:

In a cycle time of 8 min (doubles with price):
consumes 60 ecells @ 16 apiece (quantity unchanged) = 960 value consumed / 8 min, or 120/min
consumes 8 swamp plants @ 156 apiece (quantity unchanged) = 1248 value consumed / 8 min, or 156/min
produces 1 spaceweed @ 5824 (price changed) = 5824 value / 8 min, or 728 / min.
In this case, profit margin and profit / min will be drastically different.

The only setting you can change to affect profit is margin.

How are you affecting margin? Is the last scenario correct, or the one before it? I didn't think it was possible to affect margin. Or are we defining margin differently?

I should probably do my own testing so I'm clear. I tend to get confused easily, but I've been too lazy to date.

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Wed, 3. Mar 04, 15:14

Just an fyi:
I finally did some testing myself last night, and I can confirm that as I thought in my above post, whether you change the avg price of an input good or a non input good the result is the same.
If you double the price of any good, here's what happens:
cycle time is doubled, number of inputs required is doubled, number of goods produced stays the same.
So in effect, although the number of goods produced / min is halved, the value of those goods produced / min remains constant (since the price was doubled)
Similarly, if the good is used as an input somewhere else, the number of goods consumed per minute will be halved to keep the value of those goods consumed / min constant. Note that this does not mean that you can trick the computer into consuming less or making one supply factory supply two higher end factories, because remember the number of goods produced per minute was halved as well.
Here's the issue with strange cycle times and such that Mad Hatter was talking about. Let's say that you mutliply the price of meatsteak cahoonas by 1.5 (from 72 to 108)
# Inputs and cycle time have this same factor applied to them:
Cycle time increases from 1 min, to 1.5 min (1 min 30 sec)
Energy required increases from 15 to 22.5
Argnu Beef required increases from 3 to 4.5
But you can't display these non integer numbers for inputs required, right?
So the code finds the least common multiple of all of the input and output units to keep integer values:
(in this case doubling them):
Cycle time now 3 min
Cahoonas produced now 20
Energy required now 45
Argnu Beef required now 9

You can imagine that if you pick a new avg price that is a strange multiple of the original, when the code scales up the inputs required, it will yield a pretty tough number to make an integer out of. In this case, you can run into situations where the code has to multiply through by extremely large factors to get integers for inputs/outputs. In some circumstances, this can make the units produced larger than the stock limit for the factory. In this case the factory will never start production.

ex: Let's make cahoonas cost 109 instead of 108.
New price factor: 109/72 = 1.51389
energy required: 15 * 1.51389 = 22.7083
argnu beef req'd: 3 * 1.51389 = 4.5417
good luck finding the least common multiple . . . .
the code will do it for you, and I haven't tested this situation, but more than likely you're going to end up with a cycle time in hours and cahoonas produced in the thousands.

Burianek · Post by **Burianek** » Tue, 9. Mar 04, 19:38

Bump. Updated original post with impressions / observations regarding game balance after starting a new game using this mod.

Slocket · Post by **Slocket** » Tue, 9. Mar 04, 22:07

I am still waiting for patch 1.3. I see you are doing good work. More feedback will be coming once patch 1.3 is released and to view additional mod tools.

I never noticed the self correcting economy program -who would have thought?

The economy is so lock stepped as you say, making it very difficult to really tweak it in the most desirable 'elegant' correct way.

I am starting to think the real ratios are hard-coded in the EXE and any messing with that will make COP go nuts.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Burianek's Econ Mod v0.1 UPDATED w/impressions

Burianek's Econ Mod v0.1 UPDATED w/impressions