How to 'fix' or otherwise help faction economies

[macroman247]

I have about 50 hours experience (another new player from Steam sale) and things are falling into place well. I noticed that hull parts seemed to be in short supply everywhere so I did some digging into the faction sectors. Refined metals were in high demand so I checked the Ore Refineries and they just aren't requesting a lot of ore and the price being offered is low. Why is this? If they need Hull Parts and Hull Parts require Refined Metals...they have correctly put a premium on them and will buy them up. Shouldn't this logic extend to the Ore Refineries? Why would they then decide to put such low demand for Ore and a reduced price? Is it because they just don't have enough processing capability to process the ore into Refined Metals? Shouldn't they then build more Ore Refineries? The Xenon have been quiet (currently trying to correct that with mods) so it isn't like their stations are being destroyed. How can I push the factions into having better economies where goods are actively moving all the time?

[jlehtone]

Storage full => price is low. Storage low => price is high.

Ore is solid, metal is in containers. Refinery has two types of storage. If they are full of Ore, they don't offer much for it. They stay full, if Miners bring in more than the Refinery consumes.

If Refinery has Ore, but no metal, then someone buys any that they make -- at high price. If there is (plenty) of (cheap) metal, then nobody has popped in to buy.

(Most) NPC traders do not serve any specific station. They roam around to buy and sell when they see an opportunity. "Auto-traders".
Only some NPC traders do trade metal. They might have wandered elsewhere or got killed. If there is cheap metal, then you can do profitable trade runs.

The NPC do have some logic on when to build more and when to quit some business. But building more requires ... Hull Parts, so even if there were will, there might not be means. Besides, Shipyards have competing offers for HP.

[Zaihbot]

Is it because they just don't have enough processing capability to process the ore into Refined Metals?

Most likely. You can scan a station by flying close to the station modules. The window in the bottom right will show you the current scan level. At 30 % or so you can see the storage and details about the production in the logistics overview.

I assume their solid storage is full of ore but there is only one production module for hull parts, so it will take a while to process the ore.

[Nanook]

Also check the energy cell amounts. Low/no energy cells = low/no production.

[macroman247]

Is it because they just don't have enough processing capability to process the ore into Refined Metals?

Most likely. You can scan a station by flying close to the station modules. The window in the bottom right will show you the current scan level. At 30 % or so you can see the storage and details about the production in the logistics overview.

I assume their solid storage is full of ore but there is only one production module for hull parts, so it will take a while to process the ore.

Thanks, I'll try this and get a better feel for what is lacking or in abundance. I honestly have kind of forgot about Shift-2 on their modules so don't really have any sense of what data that imparts.

[macroman247]

Ore Refineries are full of ore. They're just not processing it all quickly enough to keep up with Refined Metal demand. So the solution would be to either supply them with the Refined Metals or hope they build more Refineries.

Is there a way to know if Hull Part scarcity is because they are losing too many ships to Xenon or because they just can't produce enough? On the surface it seems like they just aren't producing enough...but maybe they are producing an acceptable amount but just losing too many ships, causing there to be more demand than what is typical.

[Zaihbot]

There is no way to see how many ships or stations from AI factiony were destroyed.

Also, you say hull parts are produced in an acceptable amount. But are you sure it is enough? In the end lots of ear is ongoing. And ships will get destroyed sooner or later. And ships (especially bigger ones needs a lot of hull parts)
Because for S and M ships around 250 hull parts are enough to build one ship. But a L trader costs around 1700 hull parts. And a destroyer around 5200 hull parts, except the Split rattlesnake which needs almost 12k for the hull alone.
XL ships (builders, auxiliary ships) needs around 10k up to 15k hull parts.

And a single hull production module produces 1,176 hull parts.
Also most factions trade with each other (and with the player!) so it can happen that faction A needs hull parts for themselves to build ships but faction B or the player just bought all the hull parts available from faction A ... whoops!

Oh and stations need hull parts, too, of course.

So this is why it can be quite profitable for the player to build their own stations with hull parts production. Not only to sell the hull parts but also to avoid buying the hull parts from faction A which needs them for themselves.

[PersonyPerson]

Ore Refineries are full of ore. They're just not processing it all quickly enough to keep up with Refined Metal demand. So the solution would be to either supply them with the Refined Metals or hope they build more Refineries.

Is there a way to know if Hull Part scarcity is because they are losing too many ships to Xenon or because they just can't produce enough? On the surface it seems like they just aren't producing enough...but maybe they are producing an acceptable amount but just losing too many ships, causing there to be more demand than what is typical.

The rate of death to the Xenon is going to be more or less constant unless there's big changes to the map. So it's likely that they're simply not producing enough. You can find out why they're not producing enough by looking at where the bottlenecks of the supply chain are, which you've already identified to be Refined Metals.

While you could wait (a significant period of time) for a faction to build some new refineries or go several sectors away for further distance trading, It's a good opportunity to build your own refineries and reduce the bottleneck yourself, whilst making a lot of money out of it.

[macroman247]

I'm definitely going to plop my own Ore Refineries all around the galaxy to both help their economy and line my own pockets. I guess the underlying issue is how 'energetic' this seed will be. I hear about players getting 100 hours in and realizing the game is just dead. No wars, no real territory changing hands etc. I don't want that to happen and want to help mitigate that possibility the best I can. I figure helping all the factions with their economy could help with that.

[PersonyPerson]

I'm definitely going to plop my own Ore Refineries all around the galaxy to both help their economy and line my own pockets. I guess the underlying issue is how 'energetic' this seed will be. I hear about players getting 100 hours in and realizing the game is just dead. No wars, no real territory changing hands etc. I don't want that to happen and want to help mitigate that possibility the best I can. I figure helping all the factions with their economy could help with that.

There's always going to be conflict as long as the player chooses for there to be some. Even if the map doesn't change between 2 factions for a long time, it doesn't mean that fighting doesn't exist. It just means that neither side is able to successfully push the other.

So I'm fairly sure those players who complain about the "universe being dead within 100 hours" are exaggerating their experience. Some are probably referring to the Xenon's performance. In most cases, the Xenon may retract somewhere, but in other areas of the map, they end up doing well.

All the seed mainly does (AFAIK) is determine the starting conditions of the factions. It doesn't determine "how active" a faction is.