[Discussion] Regulating the Economy: G.O.D. and Alternatives

[euclid]

As many of you are aware the G.O.D. (aka Global Decision Engine) ruled over previous X Game (X3+) taking care of a balance between economical sources and sinks. I hope we all agree that X Rebirth certainly requires a similar 'God' but there are several options on how it could work:

• 1# NPC Stations
  Let NPCs Build stations; the typ of it is selected by the wares required for the building process, for the station's resources and products. 'Remove' NPC stations which products are low in demand for some time.
  
  2# NPC Traders
  Spawn NPC trader ships which buy excessive wares low in demand and then just 'remove' those wares from the freighter's cargo hold. Add wares to the freighter's cargo hold and send them to sell those wares high in demand.
  
  3# Destructive Events
  Create events that destroy NPC trader ships carrying wares low in demand and NPC station storage modules holding such wares. Create a limited war scenario with objects (stations, ships) that, on destruction, drop wares high in demand.

The disadvantage of 1# is the rather long time of the station building process and the risk that the NPC CV is destroyed during the process (an issue that has been reported and might be fixed soon™). In addition the number of NPC build anchors are rather limted and 'freeing' one by 'destroying' an NPC station might violate the purpose. In any case 1# is a long-term source-sink control.

Clearly 2# is a fast and 'dirty' (almost a cheat ) method and can be coded rather quick. It's a short-term method to control the sources and sinks.

Destroying certain objects as suggested in 3# is quite similar to 1#. However, it is not that 'devastating' because only submodules of stations are destroyed rather than the entire station. Also it requires player actions because NPC ship will not use dropped wares to re-insert them into the eco process. This maybe overcome by an additional script. Thus 3# can be considered as an mid-term control method.

I would appreciate your opinion. What do you think about the suggested methods? Can you think about any other method?

Cheers Euclid

[Phipsz]

I'd say #1. #2 is kind of already happening in my current game with the titurels spawning all over the place in my game there is an incredibly high demand for buildwares like RMP, FusReac etc.. the only solution in that case would be #1, while also being extremly slow with ressources missing.

Destruction of the CV could be handled by cues that initiate a new CV if the previous has been destroyed. or they could be protected by multiple taranis/arawn/*kron in the first place, depending on the new stations priority.

as for #2, I don't quite like the idea of cheating wares into the universe. as stations cannot be destroyed, there is no need for that, especially as this takes away the players opportunity to run lucrative trades

and #3... well, I guess it's not quite rare anymore to have crippled stations, especially in Albion with the civil war and the drostans spawning, only DeVries is staying quite calm there, although the reivers are supposed to be all over the place ^^

[UniTrader]

i always like Discoussions on how to approach something best and have also some thoughts on this:

first i think it is absolutely necesary to make Stations destroyable/removeable at all, although the usage of this possibility should be VERY limited.
for that afaik 2 changes are necesary:
A) bind Stations to a build Anchor in the Zone instead of having them as direct child (which would re-add them on loading when removed)
B) make the main Station Macro destroyable

for the build Anchors i suggest to have 1 to 3 exclusively for NPCs per Zone, 2 or 3 exclusively for the Player and 1 to 3 shared ones (if thats possible) for a total maximum amount of about 7 Stations (which is already over the reasonable performance limit for stations per zone i think)
(the NPC build Anchors currently available are afaik all for Plot usage, so that has to be changed anyway if you want to use them)

and regarding Solution #1: destroying a Station in XR equals destroying a whole Industry in a Sector in X3 - GoD was never so drastic. i think its more reasonable to down-size Factories instead (meaning reducing the Build Stage of a certain Sequence) and, if that happens, add some Ressources to be Sold (or used) to the Station (from the scrapped parts) to make building other Stations/parts easier from a economical PoV.
Also some Stations/Sequences need special Protection, and since i prefer a general approach over a special one i would suggest to check for other Suppliers before downsizing a Station - or you may end up with a collapsed Economy (for example no more suppliers of RMP to complete a Workshop)

Solution number 2 may be an Option to keep the Economy alive, but it definietly is a cheat. imo that should only be used to get Wares into the Economy to build Station(parts) to avoid a devious circle (eg a Station to be build already waits several hours for Materials and no Traders are incoming -> spawn* some Random Freighters containing the missing Materials at random points in the Universe to deliver them), not to keep the Economy going if its not stable

Solution number 3 is imo a bit like your suggested 2 - it sounds like you want to spawn needed wares at destroyed Objects instead of the Wares which would be logical to drop


* regarding spawning ships for missions i think a leasing System for the Jobs Engine would be better: get a Ship meeting your Criteria from the Universe, let it do you your short term stuff and when you are done give it back to the Jobs Engine to continue its usual work (would of course require to request Ships in advance so they can fulfill their current Order before given to somebody) - and if no Ship can be found it is spawned & after use destroyed instead
but thats a diffrent matter..

EDIT: corrected a typo

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

2# NPC Traders
Spawn NPC trader ships which buy excessive wares low in demand and then just 'remove' those wares from the freighter's cargo hold. Add wares to the freighter's cargo hold and send them to sell those wares high in demand.

This should definitely be done...
I mean, when player takes several hours to build a station, then several hours to watch and maintain it, just to find out that the demand for product is too low to achieve profit.... That can be frustrating as hell.
And you can't even call it cheating - just imagine that those goods are carried to planet surface and are used there.

Overall, I think that the X series will never have (and never need) a fully realistic economy - unless, if they add planets. Planets should be large resource sink.

[UniTrader]

This should definitely be done...
I mean, when player takes several hours to build a station, then several hours to watch and maintain it, just to find out that the demand for product is too low to achieve profit.... That can be frustrating as hell.
And you can't even call it cheating - just imagine that those goods are carried to planet surface and are used there.

except in Omicron there are afaik no habitable Planets currently in XR..
(although it looks like a nice place the Atmosphere of the Planet in Albion is Toxic according to the Sector or Cluster Description)

[vadiolive]

1 - First option prety cool

1 - Need find location to build
1.a - this location can be occupy by player
1.b - by other CV AI
Solution: build in empty zones?
Problem : make AI find this emptyzones
Solution: Create new Sector / using any avaible(alot mods atm have plenty empty sectors to build)
problem : Long term many sectors and xml patch to it create slowdown (make savegame large 70mb cause slowdown here)

PRO
Dynamic Economy , Dynamic Universe
CONS
Complex script

2-Dont like much i feel cheat

PRO
you universe never end without supply(happens few times in mine)
CON
its like cheat and no-organic universe

3- my favorite

Real War did 1yr ago , HOA and PMC builds ships and move to warzone
But i believe concept can be expand to create new pirates/xenon economy and make not only HOA and PMC going war but pirates and Xenon to (i know very weird xenon use same station as you , but with modders can create somes uniques Ships to put in Xenon shipyard using same resource)

Since you cant destroy station i think somekind ownership be cool
Dont sure if possible station have marines to , Create new boarding ship and and well you know or if can destroy using concept 1 in this topic (but double work)


PRO
Universe going war in organic ways

CON
Depend number ships can be heavy load

[w.evans]

Thanks for starting this thread, euclid.

I like #1 and #3 together best. Or just #1. Trying to balance things that way will tend towards trying to get the economy to actually work, I think; and will be more likely to allow some changing and shifting, rather than just keeping the economy going.

And #3 with UniTrader's idea of making stations destroyable sounds like a good idea. Would make the economy much more fluid. Dangerous, though. PMC and Ledda will make a killing!

I think trying to boost the economy via #2 will tend towards setting economic parameters, and trying to keep things that way, which will tend to make the economy more static. (Unless this is consciously avoided, in which case, #2 might work.)

If the CVs were spawned with all of the materials it will need and lots of construction URVs, building shouldn't take very long. That is, unless we want the building process itself to serve as a resource sink. Having said that, I think that it would be better if the CVs are NOT spawned with all materials, but then it will take a long time.

[Exavier724]

#1 - I agree stations should have been more dynamic. As UniTrader noted though currently the stations are spawned by the map files which unfortunately respawns them if its not there.

The stations constructed in DeVries during the campaign however are anchored to the build locations. Don't know what would happen if someone tried to destroy one as I don't have a save where construction was completed on any of them. But I don't see any global code to handle station destruction/removal so it would probably just hit 0% hull and sit there till repaired.

#2 - Technically this already occurs just not in a noticeable fashion. The trade ships only have a limited duration on their Jobs and will eventually be despawned and replaced. Any unsold wares in their cargo hold will then get removed and the newly spawned ships with empty holds starts looking for things to buy. Its just not a very fast process which is why Shipyards are the primary ware removal system the game uses.

#3 - Also already happens. Sure there isn't really anything in Albion or Omicron thats a big enough threat to take out L or XL sized trade ships but the game is constantly cycling in new M sized traders due to pirates blowing them up. Consider how long a player owned M sized trader lasts and apply it to the the 12 M sized specialty trader jobs (1-10 ships each) in each region.

For stations there is a monitor code for Damaging a Station with appears to specifically target storage modules for destruction. When you see a station with a crippled burnt module, I am pretty sure the station just lost everything stored in it if i am reading this correctly
---------

I think the problem with the previous games GOD was that it wasn't Dynamic & didn't try to be. It was an arbitrary ruler of the economy regardless of what the player tried to do.

What they should have done in X Rebirth was make all the stations dynamic and then restrict the GOD system to just monitoring/building/rebuilding the clusters stations based on a local stock market (monitoring of Buy/Sell orders). But restrict it from actually tampering with the wares directly. Would leave the player the option to move in and kick the competition out if we chose to

[birdtable]

The creation of super sized shipyards that construct deep space/galaxy habitable research ships.
This would create large scale sinks plus possible future pathways with new discoveries/races.

[Exavier724]

Lmao now theres an idea.
Titan Class Colony Ship. Have it build then park somewhere and put up buy orders for anything you want to clear out of the local economy. Then you have the excuse of jumping it off to the unknown to "delete" the wares

[Marvin Martian]

Maybe in every sector should be an logistic center which is connected by dedicated XXL-ships, or special (sub space) masstraffic
So you have trading points between the sectors and some G.O.D. can add ware what is highly required, or simply balance the available over all quantity better then NPC trader can do that

[UniTrader]

since this maybe crosses a part of my own Project a bit:
what are the current Problems with the Economy in your Game?

because for Ressource Sinks i have already something planned anyway, maybe i push it a bit ahead of Schedule for Economy Feedback (Research Stations to be precise - these will demand various local Ressources constantly, and all they Produce is Research Points, which will never fill up the Storage and block Production - although there wont be any actual Research in this Version)

[nemesis1982]

I think instead of acting when things go awry. Which they eventually will.

GOD should be more of a director. I the mistake made in previous games and many other games is that GOD interferes directly and on current data not on historical, current and extrapolated data.

GOD should have knowledge of:
- What a basic stable economy is
- Priorities of wares (wares for station building are most important, then ship building, then raw resources, etc)
- The Bill of Materials and take them in acount
- All resource totals in the universe
- All stations and ships in the universe

GOD should be able to:
- GOD should think ahead (It shouldn't be to difficult to write a prediction engine)
- Direct a faction to build a station at a certain location
- A faction should ask GOD if building something in a certain location is a good idea
- GOD should be able to direct factions and freighters to prioritize the transport of certain wares
- GOD should only act if needed
- GOD should not concern itself with a single object but only with the economy on a whole (or per galaxy/zone/sector multiple levels might be required)
- GOD should be able to create stuff. But only in a worst case scenario (0 RMP factories and 0 RMP in universe)

Although I think a GOD engine like that will not be possible just by modding.

This would also fit with UniTraders idea a mission would just ask GOD for a ship and when the mission is done with it return it to GOD who in turn returns to its rightfull owner.

[Baconnaise]

since this maybe crosses a part of my own Project a bit:
what are the current Problems with the Economy in your Game?

because for Ressource Sinks i have already something planned anyway, maybe i push it a bit ahead of Schedule for Economy Feedback (Research Stations to be precise - these will demand various local Ressources constantly, and all they Produce is Research Points, which will never fill up the Storage and block Production - although there wont be any actual Research in this Version)

I like this idea. Why have research points mean nothing though and stop there? It would be a nice way to grind extras like player bonuses or say boost a faction so that it builds more stations or the like.

The first post I think would be a great idea. I'd like to see shared build anchors for any zone. We can build in empty or just anywhere anyways so why set arbitrary requirements. Allow NPC's to share the same anchors and expand based on resource needs (war/player actions).

I'd also like to see players get their own construction ship or trade vessel. Allow us to act as a CV in the right ship. Euclid's tempzone makes perfect sense and something that was discussed since release. Plenty of folks were shaking their head at why the CV's were required after completion before and after lockdown change.

[Chayde]

ok i understand stations not being destroyed so you don't run out of a product, but i'm already running out of product , also i cant 'kill' reaver waystations so i keep haveing to invest in defenses this reduces my available cash to fix whatever problems i have in station building. If i'm in or near the sector it's not such a problem as i can go and kill the ships but it's really frustrateing to get a call " Help , we're being attacked" from a different sector and knowing you can't reach the ship in time to help/save it. If you were going to build a station you would clear out any threats and destroy the bases , yes i know they would rebuild but that should take resources . i can't just spawn sattions and ships so i don't think an aggressor should either. Admitedly one way to do this would be a MOD for a pirate sector. the sector would act like the ... uh .. yaki sector in x3 . high defenses , sustainable economy , and production etc - which would send it's own ships to clear zones and set up the pirate bases. making the pirates a "true" faction would give players someone they could, ahem, aquire goods from without ruining their main faction reputations. There could be missions to clear a zone , destroy pirate convoy , destroy pirate station ... etc . It doesn't need to be pirates either , it could be xenon.

More on topic if something like this is done you could have an escalateing affect. scouts showing up in a system , if they manage to scout and leave an attack fleet arrives . this could be your way to destroy ships that contain the wares you wish to reduce. or even have the pirates steal the ships and/or goods.

um ... bit of a long response , hope there's something in my rambleing that proves useful.

*quick edit*
Just had a thought .. if a reasearch station is made , the research points could be a ware item that could be used to unlock other ships and stations e.g. the Split ship or the Teladi Ships . It could even be used to add upgraded versions or variants to shipyards. Or a different shipyard - the 'Experimental shipyard' which could be the on'y one to make these items. even wares like the "xenon componants" could be needed to make ships like the " Golem" or the "Mobius" .

Thanks for listening

Will.