Improving and Diversifying the Economy

[cool_lad]

Since X4 is a bottom up sandbox simulation; one of the best ways to make it better IMO is by making the economy more varied and interesting.

1. In order to do this; we first need to see what some of the broad issues with the X4 economy are:-
2. Demand is a pyramid that culminates at shipbuilding; which means that the only thins that matter are the stations and sectors related to shipbuilding, while the rest may as well be fried chicken
3. Supply is broadly distributed and has no appreciable variance across sectors; everything is available everywhere, and there's little reason to move away from the shipyard sectors to get better materials
   [*}Civilian economy and demands are nonexistent; everyone eats universal rations, seems to need little water and generally works like they live in an idealized version of the Soviet Union
   [*}Complete absence of taxes and tolls

Demand
Demand needs to be diversified and increased at all levels. From intermediate demand for food and water to demands for various goods from different sources, such as demands for Hull Parts and Rations from ships, or demands for non ration based foodstuffs from populations.

This would allow for a greater overall demand and greater opportunity for the player to find markets, especially for goods that don't get used as much in the present shipbuilding based demand economy. This would in turn also help with the demand for stuff like gases and Ice, which otherwise don't have much of a market.

Supply
Supply is too generalized; there is little appreciable differences that can push you towards one sector or the other in order to secure resources.

Perhaps the most promising resource here is Energy Cells, whose supply can be heavily localized by linking production to the star strength (and by varying star strength) within the (sub)sector. Combining that with more demand could easily turn them into an Oil analogue, giving intrinsic value to sectors with high star strength.

Supply can also extend to expensive civilian wares which may be sold in limited quantities by trading stations and be unique to each sector depending on the planet.

Civilian Economy
This can be a massive part of the economy; from shuttles transporting passengers to demand for more and varied goods to satisfy the needs to civilian populations.

One simple thing that can be added with relative ease is varied food demand; making food demand greater, adding and increasing demand for water and switching rations from the primary food source to one that's used as a backup for emergencies.

This can also be used to generate missions such as transporting civilian populations out of stations under attack and supplying food to famine hit stations.

Taxes
These could serve as an additional incentive to make stations in distant sectors and taking control of sectors.

[Zaxker41]

This has nothing to do with the beta!! Same with your other post!! Both should be in the X4 Foundations general discussion page!!

[nickolaiproblem]

Since X4 is a bottom up sandbox simulation; one of the best ways to make it better IMO is by making the economy more varied and interesting.

1. In order to do this; we first need to see what some of the broad issues with the X4 economy are:-
2. Demand is a pyramid that culminates at shipbuilding; which means that the only thins that matter are the stations and sectors related to shipbuilding, while the rest may as well be fried chicken
3. Supply is broadly distributed and has no appreciable variance across sectors; everything is available everywhere, and there's little reason to move away from the shipyard sectors to get better materials
   [*}Civilian economy and demands are nonexistent; everyone eats universal rations, seems to need little water and generally works like they live in an idealized version of the Soviet Union
   [*}Complete absence of taxes and tolls

Demand
Demand needs to be diversified and increased at all levels. From intermediate demand for food and water to demands for various goods from different sources, such as demands for Hull Parts and Rations from ships, or demands for non ration based foodstuffs from populations.

This would allow for a greater overall demand and greater opportunity for the player to find markets, especially for goods that don't get used as much in the present shipbuilding based demand economy. This would in turn also help with the demand for stuff like gases and Ice, which otherwise don't have much of a market.

Supply
Supply is too generalized; there is little appreciable differences that can push you towards one sector or the other in order to secure resources.

Perhaps the most promising resource here is Energy Cells, whose supply can be heavily localized by linking production to the star strength (and by varying star strength) within the (sub)sector. Combining that with more demand could easily turn them into an Oil analogue, giving intrinsic value to sectors with high star strength.

Supply can also extend to expensive civilian wares which may be sold in limited quantities by trading stations and be unique to each sector depending on the planet.

Civilian Economy
This can be a massive part of the economy; from shuttles transporting passengers to demand for more and varied goods to satisfy the needs to civilian populations.

One simple thing that can be added with relative ease is varied food demand; making food demand greater, adding and increasing demand for water and switching rations from the primary food source to one that's used as a backup for emergencies.

This can also be used to generate missions such as transporting civilian populations out of stations under attack and supplying food to famine hit stations.

Taxes
These could serve as an additional incentive to make stations in distant sectors and taking control of sectors.

I'd be all for this you can also try putting this in scripts and mods section

[nickolaiproblem]

Since X4 is a bottom up sandbox simulation; one of the best ways to make it better IMO is by making the economy more varied and interesting.

1. In order to do this; we first need to see what some of the broad issues with the X4 economy are:-
2. Demand is a pyramid that culminates at shipbuilding; which means that the only thins that matter are the stations and sectors related to shipbuilding, while the rest may as well be fried chicken
3. Supply is broadly distributed and has no appreciable variance across sectors; everything is available everywhere, and there's little reason to move away from the shipyard sectors to get better materials
   [*}Civilian economy and demands are nonexistent; everyone eats universal rations, seems to need little water and generally works like they live in an idealized version of the Soviet Union
   [*}Complete absence of taxes and tolls

Demand
Demand needs to be diversified and increased at all levels. From intermediate demand for food and water to demands for various goods from different sources, such as demands for Hull Parts and Rations from ships, or demands for non ration based foodstuffs from populations.

This would allow for a greater overall demand and greater opportunity for the player to find markets, especially for goods that don't get used as much in the present shipbuilding based demand economy. This would in turn also help with the demand for stuff like gases and Ice, which otherwise don't have much of a market.

Supply
Supply is too generalized; there is little appreciable differences that can push you towards one sector or the other in order to secure resources.

Perhaps the most promising resource here is Energy Cells, whose supply can be heavily localized by linking production to the star strength (and by varying star strength) within the (sub)sector. Combining that with more demand could easily turn them into an Oil analogue, giving intrinsic value to sectors with high star strength.

Supply can also extend to expensive civilian wares which may be sold in limited quantities by trading stations and be unique to each sector depending on the planet.

Civilian Economy
This can be a massive part of the economy; from shuttles transporting passengers to demand for more and varied goods to satisfy the needs to civilian populations.

One simple thing that can be added with relative ease is varied food demand; making food demand greater, adding and increasing demand for water and switching rations from the primary food source to one that's used as a backup for emergencies.

This can also be used to generate missions such as transporting civilian populations out of stations under attack and supplying food to famine hit stations.

Taxes
These could serve as an additional incentive to make stations in distant sectors and taking control of sectors.

I'd be all for this you can also try putting this in scripts and mods section also there is this https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... generator/

[LennStar]

When the game came out I made a suggestion about a civilian branch of industries. Resource sinks would be habitat stations which would need electronic goods and luxury food... something like this. Can't find it atm.

The good point of it woudl be that you would not need any new game mechanics and you could even use existing models and graphs.

[Scarletian]

I like the idea of tolls. The higher your rep with a race would probably mean the lower your toll to travel into their system (through their gates).
Would it be possible to charge a nominal monthly amount per employee you have? Like a salary? The higher their skill level the higher their pay.
Then, Luxury goods. Selling these at factions improve our rep quicker. Each faction could have something special. Would be cool if you needed a lot of that specific item to build an administrative centre.

[Sandalpocalypse]

The problem is that the lack of supply differentiation means that there's essentially no naturally arising reason for trade. Mega complexes work and are more efficient than any sort of trading, which is really weird in a game with trade as a pillar. The mining ships, while cool and good, serve to further accentuate this by further removing any sort of geographical requirements for stations. (This is also why asteroid towing was a mistake in x3, but i digress.)

I've been throwing ideas at the ol brain wall for a while, considering how one might fix this.

Supply differentiation with high-energy sectors is a start, but in practice it means those sectors are good and other sectors are bad.

One idea I liked was increasing the depth of populace needs, particularly escalating them as the size of a station grows and the populace expects a more sophisticated lifestyle. These Service needs, separate from the Goods needs, would be meta-fulfilled by passenger flights to stations serving those needs. These stations might/would be very expensive and hard to acquire. For example, Teladi might require Stock Trading as a need, which is fulfilled by passenger flights to a Teladi Trading Station. Or, Paranid would have Temple as a need, fulfilled by visits to an appropriate sanctified Paranid station. The desired effect is that it would be less efficient establishing racial stations far from their home territories - at least without an enormous, end-game only investment in a highly expensive Service Station. This would ideally be coupled with a revival of the Secondary Goods mechanic, making trans-racial trade desirable and profitable.

As an offshoot of that idea, there could be a generic Service Need called Entertainment, which is more easily fulfilled by much more easily acquired stations, or possibly even by NPC Cruise Ship L-transports that move from station to station, supplying this need. Cruise Ships would also offer a framework for new sets of missions revolving around them, such as ware deliveries, escorting celebrities to and from them, and hostage situations.



Another way to improve the diversity of the economy is to make ship production more multi layered based on the available goods. A basically functioning economy could produce basic fighters, destroyers, and civilian ships. However, more sophisticated and harder to produce components would be required to build heavy fighters and carriers. You can extend this idea even further using the Variants system. For example, a basic model Behemoth is one thing, but the more advanced Vanguard variant might require supplies of much harder to acquire materials, possibly even materials manufactured by other races. This would also allow for a greater balance diversity between ships without creating new art assets, as more powerful vessel variants could be justified on the basis of being significantly harder to manufacture.

Making *only* high end vessels require high end components also makes the economy significantly more stable. Production of high end ship components might fall apart when the Xenon devastate a sector, but a faction military could continue functioning even with more basic vessels. It also, depending on how things are handled, improves gameplay for Empire-Building players as it allows a clear progression from basic ship-manufacturing capability to advanced.

A second extension of this idea is that you could have rare variants that are impossible to build at the game start. Extremely high end resources, perhaps using very rare raw materials newly added to the game that must be discovered, could get you variants that come with mods built in and other advantages.




Seperately, I do agree the game could use a slight complication in raw materials. Right now minerals are just Ore and Silicon (and I guess Nividium) . Ore could be broken up into a few more categories to make sourcing resources somewhat more complicated. Like Ferrous, Carbonate, Fissionable. (Random thought; Radioactive asteroid belts would give you some space terrain ala XR, maybe just screwing with your instruments and such.)