Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Megas on August 01, 2019, 05:47:41 AM
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It gives +25% more income (+50% with alpha core) at the cost of -3 stability.
Honestly, with -3 stability, unless there are more ways to boost stability, I do not see using this unless the colony is size 10 and all of core worlds are dead (no income from exports).
Currently, with Free Port, the most stability the player can stockpile (if he has maximum colonies), without using cores and with makeshift comm relay, is 13, and that is with maximum colony skill investment (since admins cannot have all three skills like player and faction leaders). Without Planetary Operations, 11. If player uses alpha core as admin, then that colony gains permanent Pather cells for -1 stability, which probably maxes out the total at 12.
Free Port is a must by late-game if I want to grow the colony faster (and I do if it takes five in-game years to grow from 7 to 8 ). Yes, the -3 stability (plus more expedition spam) hurts, but the benefits from higher growth, and higher profit from boosted accessibility and illegal commodities is worth it.
However, there is no way I can take -6 stability unless I max out colony skills and barely eek out 10 stability. (Alpha cores will probably max at 9 thanks to Pather cells.) Of course, this assumes getting max colony skills (if they stay the same) are worthwhile next release. If they are tier 5 skills, I may not want to get those if it means killing off the fun combat stuff. (I wish colony skills were tier 1 like Navigation/Sensors, colony skills are up there in importance.)
Stability is a top-tier stat. I know Alex mentioned that he may reduce impact on income, but it if still reduces some income (along with other debuffs) from less-than 10 stability, then Commerce will still be a trap.
Free Port will give more income, more population, and does not cost an industry slot.
New Commerce as an industry will be a worse trap than current one. At least current one did not cost anything beyond industry slot (and more clicks to access ship storage). This one will be worse than useless if the colony needs Free Port to grow and player cannot maintain 10 stability after taking another -3 penalty from new Commerce.
P.S. For smaller colonies with two industries, I see building only Military Base (for defense) and either Tech Mining or some Industry to meet demand for something. Later when colony has three industries, it is big enough to need Free Port (until size 10, but that takes too long), and cannot take anymore stability penalties unless my character was built for colonies.
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I have to agree that the -3 stability penalty is too harsh, especially for adding a market to a colony. Hell, I would expect it to raise stability due to bringing in more trade and goods for the people of te colony
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I did not mention the -1 or worse penalties from occasional pirate activity, trade disruptions, or enemies stealing your comm relay. I like to maintain stability higher than 10 to absorb those events. Stability penalties from Commerce will make that impossible. Without max colony skills, it is not easy to maintain 10 stability once Free Port is active. In one game, I wanted to take Planetary Operations 3 to stop my Free Ports from dropping to 8 or 9 stability whenever stability lowering events occurred.
If Commerce needs to have a penalty, then lower fleet size, ship quality, and/or ground defenses directly for that colony alone, instead of attacking stability. Stability affects too much, and is probably more important than income alone.
P.S. Come to think of it, why would Commerce be more punishing (-3 stability and -1 industry slot) than Free Port for less benefit?
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Yeah, the revised commerce is an interesting idea... but it just feels like "free port 2.0", sacrificing an industry slot instead of causing hegemony / luddic church expeditions.
Personally, I'd much rather see commerce balanced around not being an industry; industry slots are limited enough as-is that, even if commerce were +50% income with no penalty, I generally wouldn't be building it until the fourth slot opens up - and in some cases not even then. (Well, okay, I guess I might build it for the second slot on a 200%+ hazard mining world that shares a star system with a larger colony and thus doesn't need its own military base. But, well, those sorts of planets don't generate a ton of direct profit anyway - they're there to support industries on the rest of your colonies.)
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Yeah, the revised commerce is an interesting idea... but it just feels like "free port 2.0", sacrificing an industry slot instead of causing hegemony / luddic church expeditions.
I wish new Commerce was as powerful as Free Port if we will eat -3 stability. We get no boosted accessibility or population growth. As it is, we only get a minor income boost. Free Port can increase income by up to double (if we have people to trade with), and maybe meet demand for illegals elsewhere (though player needs IP2 and alpha core running Light Industry to do it). But even if I do not care about income, I will certainly care about growth (while size is less than 10), and with Growth Incentives massively nerfed, Free Port provides almost half of all possible population bonus amount (and Growth Incentives providing the other half). I do not want to wait ten in-game years for colony to grow from 7 to 8. Five is already long enough, and I am aiming for size 10.
New Commerce would be useful only when we do not need Free Port. That means colony must be size 10 and no income from exports, meaning everyone in core worlds is dead, which could happen if player gets tired of expeditions and inspections and wants to make them stop.
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a clear-best choice income-wise
Except if you don't have an AI core and are below 11 stability, where it is a net minus (25%-30%=-5% income), or you have it and are below 6 stability (50%-60%=-10% income). Could it be possible for this industry to work only when it is profitable to do so?
Yeah, the revised commerce is an interesting idea... but it just feels like "free port 2.0", sacrificing an industry slot instead of causing hegemony / luddic church expeditions.
I think it is an alternative to it.
As it is, we only get a minor income boost. Free Port can increase income by up to double (if we have people to trade with), and maybe meet demand for illegals elsewhere (though player needs IP2 and alpha core running Light Industry to do it).
It might be possible for Commerce to be intended to be paired with certain industries to make more money by boosting those industries, instead of having other industries make more money on their own. And there's also the dynamic with Free Port... Maybe Commerce could just be a buildable flat income building, as opposed to free Population & Infrastructure.
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The info in the OP is a bit off. Here's the tweet:
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1156697679042437121
To sum it up, it increases income by 50% at a base level, and 100% if it's both "improved" (via story points) and has an Alpha Core.
Also, i've changed the impact of stability on income, which the tweet refers to. Below 5, it still works the same, but above 5, it's 100% income regardless, i.e. there's no more income bonus for having high stability. That's been a bit of a design annoyance in the past for various reasons, and makes high stability too much of a must-have. With this change, high stability is a benefit militarily, but not financially; it's nice to untangle the two and have a wider range of "acceptable" stability values.
So, basically, Commerce gives you way more income, at the expense of defenses (and, later, presumably offense as well). +100% income means that it'll be the best financial choice, likely even at 2 industries total, as long as you're able to maintain stability of 5 or more.
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Honestly there's already enough money, more income isn't worth an industry slot.
This will end up being used to keep hellworld colonies in the black.
The market itself will be largely ignored because the only place worth having that is on your 'main' colony, which won't be able to spare the slot unless it's not the only source for some resources. (Which is a huge ask from the RNG, even with the upcoming changes.)
Which is a shame, because as player convenience features go having your own market is p. great.
Tbh, this might be the point where the commerce building and the player market get separated. The building gets the income modifiers etc. for those who want it, and colonies get markets by default.
We'll have to see how it works out.
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Honestly there's already enough money, more income isn't worth an industry slot.
This will end up being used to keep hellworld colonies in the black.
The market itself will be largely ignored because the only place worth having that is on your 'main' colony, which won't be able to spare the slot unless it's not the only source for some resources. (Which is a huge ask from the RNG, even with the upcoming changes.)
Which is a shame, because as player convenience features go having your own market is p. great.
Tbh, this might be the point where the commerce building and the player market get separated. The building gets the income modifiers etc. for those who want it, and colonies get markets by default.
We'll have to see how it works out.
No such thing as too much money. Too much money means player can ignore other income sources if they become inconvenient, like not chasing named bounties instead of story events like Red Planet or the seven other things that are on fire (like pirates raiding several core worlds) that need to be dealt with and only the babysitter (i.e., you) can put out.
Player-owned market is a huge inconvenience, at least at my primary home base where my ships are. I need to click more times to access ships in storage. (Ships default at Open Market, not at Storage - really aggravating.) For selling things, big tariff means I rather go to a nearby enemy pirate base that harasses my colony every few months to sell stuff (before I raid and kill it). (Aside: Pirates selling personnel at 60-70% cost means I rather buy personnel from pirate bases than from my colony resources.) The biggest convenience of Open Market is buying reserve commodities in an emergency, which does not outweigh the inconvenience of more clicks to access ships in storage.
If new Commerce works as well as Alex advertises, I may use it.
P.S. With how expensive ships and colony upgrades are, being able to make millions per month to undo a fleet wipe is nice. Especially since with story points required to boost ships, more money will be nice for Restoration. I see Restore being used more to save ships boosted by Story Points than building new ships, and Restore is much more expensive than building a new ship.
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Player-owned market is a huge inconvenience
Yeah, I don't think we'll ever agree on that.
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Player-owned market is a huge inconvenience
Yeah, I don't think we'll ever agree on that.
How is it inconvenient? I love not having to fly systems away to sell stuff.
Also I’m pretty sure I have multiple colonies that are over 10 (possible points) stability and they are only size 6-7 and no comma relay.
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How is it inconvenient? I love not having to fly systems away to sell stuff.
1) Without Commerce, ship select default to Storage. With Commerce, it defaults to Open Market, meaning I need to click more times to access storage. I do not want to play with mouse more than necessary at my main storage base where I have several dozen ships (and other items).
2) You pay tariffs for anything you buy or sell at Open Markets at your colonies. Forget that! My fleet is always running around killing pirate bases to save either my colonies or core worlds. Black Markets at pirate bases have no tariffs! Even better, personnel are cheaper to buy there than from my colonies' resources. I already have decent cargo capacity in my fleet, so I can haul whatever needs to be sold, then steal some of it back after the pre-kill raid.
I am always flying several systems to put out fires all of the time, and pirate bases are rarely too far away from who they prey.
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How is it inconvenient? I love not having to fly systems away to sell stuff.
1) Without Commerce, ship select default to Storage. With Commerce, it defaults to Open Market, meaning I need to click more times to access storage. I do not want to play with mouse more than necessary at my main storage base where I have several dozen ships (and other items).
2) You pay tariffs for anything you buy or sell at Open Markets at your colonies. Forget that! My fleet is always running around killing pirate bases to save either my colonies or core worlds. Black Markets at pirate bases have no tariffs! Even better, personnel are cheaper to buy there than from my colonies' resources. I already have decent cargo capacity in my fleet, so I can haul whatever needs to be sold, then steal some of it back after the pre-kill raid.
I am always flying several systems to put out fires all of the time, and pirate bases are rarely too far away from who they prey.
Ohhh I see. Ya my open market is on a different planet but still in system. I got lucky and have all 6 of my planets in one system. I currently make enough money to laugh at tattoos so these things just don’t bother me haha. I see your point though.
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I think its more a problem with black markets being a bit too good right now. Hopefully that gets resolved, but I do like having a market at my colonies just to dump stuff I don't want when I'm restocking for exploration. With bounties I tend to just sell at stations before I kill them.
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I think its more a problem with black markets being a bit too good right now. Hopefully that gets resolved, but I do like having a market at my colonies just to dump stuff I don't want when I'm restocking for exploration. With bounties I tend to just sell at stations before I kill them.
Heh, I also do this. Sell to the black market, then blow it up.
When is this proposed change happening?
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Honestly there's already enough money
This. Military defense against pirates and expeditions is way more valuable, so you don't get your s*** stolen.
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With this change, high stability is a benefit militarily, but not financially; it's nice to untangle the two and have a wider range of "acceptable" stability values.
Nice I like this! I think it makes sense to untangle them.
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Personally, I think there need to be market limits.
You can sell anything to any market on any planet, no matter how big or small it is, which is bad design in of itself. It leads to players doing as many have said already in this thread; selling to pirate markets then blowing them up. Realistically, such markets would only have X amount of cash they can use, and then they are tapped out and you have to come back again later.
Imma make a more detailed post actually since this needs a lot more addressing.
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To sum it up, it increases income by 50% at a base level, and 100% if it's both "improved" (via story points) and has an Alpha Core.
Also, i've changed the impact of stability on income, which the tweet refers to. Below 5, it still works the same, but above 5, it's 100% income regardless, i.e. there's no more income bonus for having high stability. That's been a bit of a design annoyance in the past for various reasons, and makes high stability too much of a must-have. With this change, high stability is a benefit militarily, but not financially; it's nice to untangle the two and have a wider range of "acceptable" stability values.
So, basically, Commerce gives you way more income, at the expense of defenses (and, later, presumably offense as well). +100% income means that it'll be the best financial choice, likely even at 2 industries total, as long as you're able to maintain stability of 5 or more.
I forgot who pointed this out, but it sounds like player needs this new Commerce to have the same income as today. Without it, player makes less money than he can make today without it. In other words, no-Commerce income will be nerfed, and player needs this industry - that has a massive penalty - to maintain current income... at best. Having Commerce means one less industry for exports.
Unless the babysitting problems get fixed, I think bigger defenses will be more important. The babysitting the player needs to do is insane, and gigantic fleets that can reliably automate some of it is great at removing a little of the load (player still needs to save core from pirates that refuse to stay down for more than a day, and grind rep for core worlds that keep sending expeditions).
However, it seems like Commerce will be useful after a total core kill, when there are no more babysitting problems. Got to squeeze more income from Population and Infrastructure when there is no more income from exports.
It would be nice if the new Commerce boosted more beyond income, either accessibility and/or population growth. Right now, I use Free Port primarily for population growth bonus (and maybe meeting demand once my colonies grow bigger than core worlds). More money is nice, but I gladly throw it away for total core kill to stop the babysitting insanity.
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@ Megas
I think that's a good design decision: you either have income or offense/defense (but not both). As it is, it's not unheard of for some of AAA colonies to be raking in 3-400k/month and my overall empire in my current run is right at 1M/month. That kind of income trivializes the game. If the new income/Commerce mechanics halve colony income, I think we'll still be rolling in un-spendable credits by endgame.
Or, to put it another way, put Commerce on a planet that already has another colony in-system with Military Bases/High Command or just get more colonies to bolster your income. :D
That said, I agree that Commerce should boost population and/or accessibility. Though, I'd add, not directly as a multiplier of existing Waystations, Space/Megaports, Skills, etc. so that adding all of those on top of Commerce is the best route (though the most resource intensive).
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@ Megas
I think that's a good design decision: you either have income or offense/defense (but not both). As it is, it's not unheard of for some of AAA colonies to be raking in 3-400k/month and my overall empire in my current run is right at 1M/month. That kind of income trivializes the game. If the new income/Commerce mechanics halve colony income, I think we'll still be rolling in un-spendable credits by endgame.
Or, to put it another way, put Commerce on a planet that already has another colony in-system with Military Bases/High Command or just get more colonies to bolster your income. :D
That said, I agree that Commerce should boost population and/or accessibility. Though, I'd add, not directly as a multiplier of existing Waystations, Space/Megaports, Skills, etc. so that adding all of those on top of Commerce is the best route (though the most resource intensive).
Given the expedition insanity (or perma -3/50 activity after a total core kill), offense/defense takes priority. Sounds like a no-brainer, if babysitting stays as it is.
I think income should be high, like 1M a month so player can afford to build new ships to replace losses... or rather restore ships (that is far more expensive than building new ones) now that permamod ships will be a thing.
Player should have money to do space lord things like buy fleets, run an empire, or otherwise do things that require more than a single fleet to solve problems, not live like a pauper just because player is expected to pinch pennies to maintain his fleet.
P.S. One million a month sounds like a lot, but it really is not. That is worth two new capital ships from Orbital Works, or one battleship clunker restored; and that does not include the supplies or fuel needed to maintain ships on their grand sector tour. If player is expected to go through meatgrinder fights like chain-battling Ordos with Radiants or even the very best human fleets on a regular basis late in the game, player will need a lot of money to replace the fallen (or reload the game frequently until he gets flawless victories.) If I will lose money replacing ships, and story points are slow to come by (because newly built ships do not come with permamods), I know I will reload games a lot more like in pre-0.8a releases when stockpiling rare and good stuff was hard or tedious.
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I think instead of limiting income (which just adds an artificial hurdle that no one likes) it would make sense to have more things you can spend on?
Some ideas:
-be able to bribe fast pickets to let you go
-be able to pay off pirate fleets to not attack you (cost should increase based on reputation - low reputation => higher cost, as well as strength difference, e.g. a stronger fleet than you should want to extort more from you)
-be able to even perhaps buy ships from pirate/independent fleets if your standing with them is not already super ruined
-be able to bribe for temporary access to military markets
-be able to pay a pirate colony to hide on their planet for some time when you are being bounty hunted
etc. others can probably even come up with much better ideas :-)
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One more thing that came to mind. Stability under 10 hurts population growth (and fleets). If my primary focus is maximum population growth (so I can have a size 8+ colony in my lifetime), then Commerce is no good if it hurts population growth. Since bigger colonies can be more profitable, Commerce could be a choice between short-term gain (more money now) vs. long term gain (bigger colony faster, another non-Commerce industry making exports), if -3 stability means less than 10 stability, especially if player eats other penalties like from pirate activity.
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I think there will just be a lot more incentive to have multiple colonies in one system.2-3 high commands is enough to stop anything so then if you have 4-5 colonies in a system, you can start to add multiple commerce worlds to get your income up. I think it will make for interesting new priorities in colony choice.