[Request] Reduce lower limit on ship prices at player-owned shipyards

[GCU Grey Area]

Have had a lot of fun with my shipyard in my current game.

Was very enjoyable supplying ships to NPC factions (Antigone & Argon) which were initially losing a war with HOP & seeing the difference those ships made. Unfortunately in the process, even with prices set to the current minimum (50%), I because ludicrously wealthy, to the point where money has ceased to have any relevance to the game. Those NPC factions needed a LOT of ships to replace their losses (literally 100s), since at times they had no shipyards of their own, or the infrastructure to support them.

Would therefore request that the lower limit of 'construction prices for other factions' on the shipyard logical overview be changed from 50% to 1%. That way, if I choose to, I can give away ships for practically nothing, rather than shameless war profiteering (although of course the 150% option should still be there for greedy Teladis).

[EGO_Aut]

Factions have unlimited money.

[GCU Grey Area]

Factions have unlimited money.

I know - rather more concerned that I ended up with too much of it far too quickly.
Would have preferred it to have taken longer (much longer) before I also had effectively unlimited funds.

[EGO_Aut]

That makes no sense
If you own a shipyard you had to invest a lot of money. At this stage of game it should not matter if you make 20 mio/h or 20 bil. Bit there are missions where you can build whole shipyard complexes for the factions....stil.

[GCU Grey Area]

That makes no sense

Well, put it this way - I also enjoy the Trade aspect of the game. Rather spoils my fun if, in the time it takes me to find a good trade run & assign a ship to the task, my shipyard has already made me 100x as much money before that ship has even got to the first gate.

Love having the shipyard mechanics in the game for the strategic/logistical element of assisting favoured NPC factions in their wars. However owning that shipyard is also a big problem when it spoils my enjoyment of other parts of the game. If I could make the shipyard less profitable (I'd aim to sell at cost & break even on ship sales) I'd be able to enjoy both.

[Raevyan]

That makes no sense
If you own a shipyard you had to invest a lot of money. At this stage of game it should not matter if you make 20 mio/h or 20 bil. Bit there are missions where you can build whole shipyard complexes for the factions....stil.

The bare minimum amount of credits to get a S/M wharf with L container Storage, a Pier, a dock, 1-2 S ship blueprints + s equipment and enough funds to buy all needed resources from NPCs is about ~250M credits. 250M is not that Hard to get and from there on your money is only limited by how much resources NPCs can provide to your wharf. There are some shortages which you need to fill to keep production up and running but even without you will earn more money than you could spent (not counting buying all blueprints at the beginning because that will cost you some billions in total).

[Mahi Ma]

That makes no sense

Well, put it this way - I also enjoy the Trade aspect of the game. Rather spoils my fun if, in the time it takes me to find a good trade run & assign a ship to the task, my shipyard has already made me 100x as much money before that ship has even got to the first gate.

Love having the shipyard mechanics in the game for the strategic/logistical element of assisting favoured NPC factions in their wars. However owning that shipyard is also a big problem when it spoils my enjoyment of other parts of the game. If I could make the shipyard less profitable (I'd aim to sell at cost & break even on ship sales) I'd be able to enjoy both.

I agree. A shipyard or even a well supplied wharf totally kills the trading aspect of the game and you start wondering what to do with all that money. I suggest that all hired ship or station crew demand a salary

[taztaz502]

Yeah just built my s/m wharf now i'm just printing money, i wish they would add some form of upkeep so you would have to get rid of non-profit factories or use whatever they produce to make high-tier products like ships etc in order to make a profit.

At the minute they're just build and forget about cash printing machines like SHCs from litcubes universe, maybe also add ship upkeep so if you have a huge fleet you need a huge income in order to support it. i'm also wondering why factions are even ordering ships at my wharf considering their own wharfs are full of wares

[Derp]

Isn't the underlying problem that ship prices are much higher than the wares that went into them? With the rest of the economy, profits drop as tech rises - ore processing is more profitable on a unit basis than hull parts are, etc - but then ships spike in overhead, such that any and every ship is just ridiculously profitable.

How would it affect the economy if that were fixed, and ships didn't cost much more than the price of wares that went into building them? I imagine it wouldn't affect NPC factions much since their money is infinite, but it'd make buying ships from NPCs as cheap as building them yourself.

[Mahi Ma]

Isn't the underlying problem that ship prices are much higher than the wares that went into them? With the rest of the economy, profits drop as tech rises - ore processing is more profitable on a unit basis than hull parts are, etc - but then ships spike in overhead, such that any and every ship is just ridiculously profitable.

How would it affect the economy if that were fixed, and ships didn't cost much more than the price of wares that went into building them? I imagine it wouldn't affect NPC factions much since their money is infinite, but it'd make buying ships from NPCs as cheap as building them yourself.

That might be it. But just adapting the ship prices will probably make ships too cheap for the player and increasing the amount of wares needes will only worsen the issue that NPC factions for the most part are inapt to supply/distribute wares...

[GCU Grey Area]

I suggest that all hired ship or station crew demand a salary

Certainly agree with that. Perhaps salary could be adjustable (high pay = faster recruitment of station workforce). Wouldn't mind property taxes too, based on value of stations. Maybe even a routine maintenance slider - the more you spend on that the less chance of random ships or station modules suddenly exploding in freak accidents.

Must be all sorts of ways of soaking up spare cash to keep money meaningful. However all of them are probably a bit complicated, which was why I suggested the (hopefully simple) approach of reducing the lower limit on how much we charge NPC factions to build them ships. However I'm all in favour of adding overheads to the game.

[Matthew94]

I suggest that all hired ship or station crew demand a salary

Certainly agree with that. Perhaps salary could be adjustable (high pay = faster recruitment of station workforce).

Was tempted to make a thread on that very topic. It makes sense that workers would want pay and it solves the issue of the painfully slow recruitment.

I guess the only "challenge" would be determining what the workers of the universe would consider to be a normal salary.

I wonder if it would differ by station too? A worker melting ice would earn less than someone manufacturing smart chips.

Let's go even further, if you owned a sector you could pay them very little and restrict emigration to exploit your workers like a true teladi. That then leads to immigration policies for the player!