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[Goumindong]

I understand that its against the grain of whats there already, but i would be shocked if it took more calculations than what you're doing already. Because the number of calculations that this should take is going to be pretty close to the minimum calculations in order to supply markets with half of the information you're suggesting they need to be supplied with.

There is only a "dynamic" price matching equilibrium when quantity is determinate*. If quantity is indeterminate then there is a corner solution price matching equilibrium.

That is, each market is only making a check against what the smaller of its own production price(which is a fixed value per unit) and the import price of other planets are (which is the sum of their production price plus the travel cost multiplied by the tariff, all of which are fixed values per unit) and then using that as its buying and selling price. This is consistent with a full economic model only if in that model supply and demand are both horizontal lines and never the two shall meet. I.E. quantity is indeterminate and price is equal to the supply price per unit. You're looking at the calculation under the assumption that a full model provides determinate price and quantity. But we don't need determinate quantity because we don't care.

Ahhh, gotcha, thank you for elaborating. Yes, I was indeed thinking of quantity being determinate (and that making it unfeasible). There's an added factor where the supply of one commodity feeds into the supply of another - i.e. need Ore to make Metals, need Metals to make Heavy Machinery, and... also need Heavy Machinery to mine Ore, which makes a quantity-based model pretty much not reach an equilibrium.

So! The new economy system (that is, the one in the dev build) is ... basically what you describe. Quantity is indeterminate, but there are tiers, i.e. a supply of 4 Ore can't satisfy a demand for 5 Ore, and this just acts as an extra filter when finding the best supplier. "Accessibility" maps pretty directly to "travel cost" in what you describe.

But for player-facing stuff, not dealing with quantity I think goes against the player being able to, say, have some sort of impact by bringing in a commodity if there's a shortage, that sort of thing. They could still make money by bringing it in, right, but not actually end the shortage - quantities have to be involved there - and then it gets weird since they could, say, just buy the theoretically in-shortage good from that very same colony. Or from a tiny market nearby that couldn't reasonably provide enough, in theory.

It's also nice to be able to say that, for example, "bringing X units of Y to your colony will keep it supplied for Z months". If everywhere has unlimited everything and it's just a matter of price... well, I could definitely see it working, it sounds like a reasonable system. I'm just not sure I like the feel of that for Starsector specifically.

(Also, say you need supplies: create a colony, instantly buy what you need. Then abandon it. Could be worked around, of course - but the point is, there are complications to this system as well, much like the stuff I'm working through now, just of a different flavor.)

But, yeah - thank you for the idea and elaborating on it, I'll keep it in mind as I'm thinking these things through.

**I am actually not that proficient in understanding big O notation structure I know that some calculations are easier/harder so its not quite right for me to call this O(n^2). A minimum check should be faster than a multiplication but slower than a sum (each one essentially has its own big O value which is on a different scale than the final algorithm. As an example solving a simultaneous linear equation is O(n^3) for small matrices. There are n^2 multiplications and sums to solve which makes n^3. But if those values are large each multiplication itself is technically in n^2 you're just on different n scale and here is where the technicalities of the definition get beyond the point where I care because i don't expect the individual values of any matrix i want to calculate to be large enough where the difficulty of doing the multiplication matters compared to the number of them i have to do given the size of my matrix n). My assumption is that min(1,2...n) is O(n) and so doing that n times is O(n^2). Min(1,2....n) could for all i know be O(n^0) and so the whole thing would be O(n)

(Yeah, I think you've got a good handle on it. One would just use a different letter than "n" for a different parameter. For example, the price calculation as you outline it could be called O(m * n^2), where m is the number of commodities, and n is the number of markets. But if the number of commodities is considered a constant, then as far as big O notation is concerned, it's the same as O(n^2). But of course for practical applications, the constant factor *does* matter.)

Practicalities are easy to work around. Fixed colony creation costs, delayed market supply, colony growth requirements, Probabilistic supply structuring. Like, if it costs 1000 troopers to settle a colony and it starts at size 1 no one will haul around multiple starliners so they can drop new colonies down.

With regards to “ending a shortage” you could always tie a shortage into a supply run by a player. If the planet gets supplied by the regular fleet NBD you don’t calculate the amount of quantity. But if the player wants to end a shortage they need x units of materials at once depending on planet size. If quantity is indeterminate then quantity can be fixed just as well as it can be variable. But instead of calculating “this planet needs x more amount of goods” you just state “this planet needs x amount of goods”

That would be slightly gameable(you could end a shortage then buy the materials back... but this won’t generate a profit compared to simply selling them, so is only applicable if you’re going to hit multiple shortages planets in a row).. But no-moreso than simply buying all the commodities in a station and putting them into storage until their is a shortage is gaming the system

Wrt: input based production this also abstracts easily since you’re not just adding prices instead of adding quantities.

[gforce360]

Keep up the blog posts! Every time I see a new one it makes me pick up the game again. Can't wait for the next update. Forgive me if I missed something, didn't read through all 10 pages.

One thing occurred to me when reading about occurrences of ships and numbers of d-mods-

If we don't get any "positive mods," it really seems like d-mod free ships should be awfully few and far-between. Right now, a beginning player starts out with an immaculate ship. While there should be some impetus to try to prevent your ship from exploding around you, having an immaculate ship really makes salvaging less appealing (after all, those are d-mod ships).

[restore]

Sorry for this classic spam, but could you just briefly name what core parts of the game are yet to be done/redone before next patch? No dates or promises, just a simple roadmap to know what to be exited about

[Zhentar]

A suggestion on the 'quick' custom armaments orders: you could keep a military market stocked with an assortment of the same armaments & hulls being used for the faction fleets, representing surplus/spare parts that could easily be diverted without meaningfully impacting fleet operations. If they player has set up their faction fleets along the lines of their personal fleet, then the occasional incidental replacements will be readily available without having to order them.

[Alex]

Practicalities are easy to work around.

(In my experience, that's about 80% of the work I'd probably even define the most elegant solution to a problem as one with the smallest number of things to work around.)

Wrt: input based production this also abstracts easily since you’re not just adding prices instead of adding quantities.

Yep, gotcha, I just meant that was an extra issue with a quantity-based system.

If we don't get any "positive mods," it really seems like d-mod free ships should be awfully few and far-between. Right now, a beginning player starts out with an immaculate ship. While there should be some impetus to try to prevent your ship from exploding around you, having an immaculate ship really makes salvaging less appealing (after all, those are d-mod ships).

I sort of see what you're saying, but since you're not limited to one ship and aren't just looking for straight upgrades of it... Also, a larger ship with a d-mod or three can be appealing as a flagship (see: salvaged Hammerhead around Tetra for a good first example of that, depending on the d-mods it gets.) That said, I'd probably expect the majority of the ships you run into to have at least some d-mods. The player's starting ship not having any, though, is part of the "edge" that a new player needs to be successful.

Sorry for this classic spam, but could you just briefly name what core parts of the game are yet to be done/redone before next patch? No dates or promises, just a simple roadmap to know what to be exited about

Ah, but if I did that, that'd take away half the fun of writing new blog posts to reveal them (There *is* an internal roadmap, of course. But I still haven't decided on exactly what set of things will make it into the next release; that depends on how well/quickly some of the other items come together.)

A suggestion on the 'quick' custom armaments orders: you could keep a military market stocked with an assortment of the same armaments & hulls being used for the faction fleets, representing surplus/spare parts that could easily be diverted without meaningfully impacting fleet operations. If they player has set up their faction fleets along the lines of their personal fleet, then the occasional incidental replacements will be readily available without having to order them.

Hmm - yeah, I'll keep that in mind, it's not a bad idea. Where it gets potentially awkward is, if this stuff is free, then you kind of want to always grab it and sell. And if it's not free, it's a place where you can sell off your loot - which I guess isn't necessarily bad? But then it raises questions re: tariffs and so on. Not unworkable, right, just could get messy working out the details.

[Goumindong]

I don’t think he was suggesting “free”. But the problem with say fielding 10 lashers is that you expect a few to die in a large engagement. The cost, lateish game, is NBD. If you lose 4 lashers in a high value bounty to expedition you’re still ahead. But then you have to replace them... the problem isn’t buying 4 lashers for 25k ish each it’s finding 4 lashers to buy.

[Techhead]

If we don't get any "positive mods," it really seems like d-mod free ships should be awfully few and far-between. Right now, a beginning player starts out with an immaculate ship. While there should be some impetus to try to prevent your ship from exploding around you, having an immaculate ship really makes salvaging less appealing (after all, those are d-mod ships).

I sort of see what you're saying, but since you're not limited to one ship and aren't just looking for straight upgrades of it... Also, a larger ship with a d-mod or three can be appealing as a flagship (see: salvaged Hammerhead around Tetra for a good first example of that, depending on the d-mods it gets.) That said, I'd probably expect the majority of the ships you run into to have at least some d-mods. The player's starting ship not having any, though, is part of the "edge" that a new player needs to be successful.

That said, I'd probably expect the majority of the ships you run into to have at least some d-mods.

I feel like D-ships in more NPC fleets (and I suspect, likely also in markets) is actually kinda a big deal for campaign, both for theme and gameplay. Thematically, it reinforces the whole "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Imperium of Man Domain" thing. In gameplay, it means that players can be much more comfortable picking up a few D-ships to round out their fleet.

Or at least I myself will be more comfortable settling for less than peak performance.

Should we expect to see a spattering of D-mods among [REDACTED] fleets, possibly having gone decades to centuries without maintenance? Or is this answer spoilers?

[Blothorn]

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

[Megas]

Degraded Engines is a killer on capitals and/or whatever is the slowest ship in your fleet.  Atlas and Prometheus with Degraded Engines do not get recovered and are scuttled for supplies.  On the other hand, Degraded Engines is only a minor nuisance if it is on a faster AI ship armed with Open Market junk (i.e., if it dies, who cares - more where they came from).

Augmented Engines seems like a Persean League commission exclusive hullmod.  (Maybe Tri-Tachyon has it too).  I want it badly for my civilian capitals, but I never got it in non-cheat games.

Hopefully, D-mods will not be common everywhere (to the point of choking out good ships in markets).  Pirates, sure.  Major factions not named Ludd-whatever, probably annoying.  I see clunkers and Open Market as an early game thing before player graduates to Neon Knights with new or restored ships and fights endgame enemies at their best.  With that said, I tend to use mostly clunkers at endgame because restoring them costs too much, and I do not want to reload the game every time I lose a rare ship (or any ship with rare weapons).

If shops end up selling too many clunkers, might as well just stick with recovery... or make the ships ourselves since we can have colonies.

[Alex]

I don’t think he was suggesting “free”. But the problem with say fielding 10 lashers is that you expect a few to die in a large engagement. The cost, lateish game, is NBD. If you lose 4 lashers in a high value bounty to expedition you’re still ahead. But then you have to replace them... the problem isn’t buying 4 lashers for 25k ish each it’s finding 4 lashers to buy.

Yep, makes sense. This should be pretty much covered by stocking a few replacements for what you're using ahead of time, though; I wouldn't imagine a "rush order" would be able to crank out a bunch of ships instantly in any case.

I feel like D-ships in more NPC fleets (and I suspect, likely also in markets) is actually kinda a big deal for campaign, both for theme and gameplay. Thematically, it reinforces the whole "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Imperium of Man Domain" thing. In gameplay, it means that players can be much more comfortable picking up a few D-ships to round out their fleet.

Or at least I myself will be more comfortable settling for less than peak performance.

Yeah! Both things that would be nice to achieve.

Should we expect to see a spattering of D-mods among [REDACTED] fleets, possibly having gone decades to centuries without maintenance? Or is this answer spoilers?

I'm not sure - maybe? Will have to see how the balancing pass on that goes; it's pretty trivial to go either way in terms of the implementation.

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

Is it actually that big a deal? I keep feeling like an extra level of burn here and there doesn't matter quite as much as I see players expressing they feel it does.

I mean, Sustained Burn and E-Burn almost qualitatively override it, and especially if AI fleets are also dealing with degraded engines in many of their fleets...

If shops end up selling too many clunkers, might as well just stick with recovery... or make the ships ourselves since we can have colonies.

Honestly, that doesn't seem like a bad outcome! Being able to reliably get the ships you want, plus (likely) lower costs already incentivize ship production; purchasing would be for while you're getting up and running, and for things you don't have blueprints for. Or, I suppose, for things you need *right now*, never mind the cost.

[Goumindong]

Yep, makes sense. This should be pretty much covered by stocking a few replacements for what you're using ahead of time, though; I wouldn't imagine a "rush order" would be able to crank out a bunch of ships instantly in any case.

From a realism standpoint no. But from a gameplay standpoint having minor things be easily replaceable makes a lot of sense. There is a level of micromanagement that people will be comfortable dealing with (what is equipped to my ships, what are the main ships of my fleet, i have to go replace ships) and a level of micromanagement that people won't want to deal with (what materials do i need to build this ship, how do i set up a supply line to keep my fleet ready to go). These secondary considerations are things that people are unlikely to want to deal with and its not realistic to force people to do so. Middle management exists for a reason.

Such the "immediate purchase" just simulates having a ship in stock without the need to go and buy it ahead of time. If i am a space admiral in charge of a colony that has 100,000 people on it surely one of them could have figured out that i will need some replacements and would have some ready. The price is the price and all charging me at the end point is doing and then immediately "making" the ship is doing is transferring the point at which the payment happens from when the ship was built the simulated months ago to when it was delivered.

A decent middle ground might allow you to set a "ship stock" where the auto-forges will produce ships at the standard price until they meet the minimum stock as set by the player. This way you would not have to re-order every ship and every time you took a ship another one would automatically be produced (unless you had redefined the minimum stock down)

[Blothorn]

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

Is it actually that big a deal? I keep feeling like an extra level of burn here and there doesn't matter quite as much as I see players expressing they feel it does.

I mean, Sustained Burn and E-Burn almost qualitatively override it, and especially if AI fleets are also dealing with degraded engines in many of their fleets...

Granted, I have not been playing very long, but in my limited experience: emergency burn frequently cancels out--it can help catch or avoid a faster fleet if you catch them with it on cooldown, but in general I cannot reliably catch a fleet without a speed advantage or escape at a speed disadvantage. If you are hunting Luddic mining fleets, dropping a burn level is not a big deal; with a newish career trying to avoid fast destroyer fleets, dropping to 8 from picking up a destroyer with degraded engines definitely makes a difference.

Sustained burn (especially with the skill boost) does negate the travel-speed disadvantage, so if you never want to initiate combat and are strong enough to fight whomever catches you (plausible for mid/late game exploring) I agree it is not much of an issue.

[Techhead]

I'm not especially worried about the production time. On cheap things (relative to your production capacity), it'll probably be relatively low and I suspect that if you order it while not-at-home it'll probably be done by the time you get home or shortly after. On expensive things... well, they're expensive and I wouldn't expect them to fall into the "we made sure you had one lying around in case you wanted it" category.

On Doctrine: Will NPC factions have officer/ship/fleet-size doctrines that add up to numbers besides seven? Numbers below seven might make sense for scrub factions... but that opens the box for "why don't elite factions have more?" which in turns asks "why can't the player unlock more?"

On Restoration vs Production: One thing that just occurred to me... is that if restoring D-hulls remain expensive there no longer exists much point to restoring any ship you can replace. Scuttle it, pocket the resources, and bang out a new one. Obviously... this doesn't apply to ships you lack blueprints for, but for anything else it just feels wasteful. Plus a bit of busy-work for the player as you recreate the old loadout on the new ship. My thought on this: Noticeable discount on restoring hulls you have the blueprints for. Makes a certain amount of sense with "let's see if we can figure out how to put this back together" versus "I know exactly how this goes together, I just need the parts".

[TaLaR]

My biggest reason for not playing D-mod heavy is that Degraded Engines seems very common (almost every black-market D ship I have seen, and the majority of recovered ships), and it is a killer--the burn level reduction means that it is very awkward on ships not already above your target fleet burn level (requiring Augmented Drive Field), and the combat speed reduction is a big issue on many ships.

Is it actually that big a deal? I keep feeling like an extra level of burn here and there doesn't matter quite as much as I see players expressing they feel it does.

I mean, Sustained Burn and E-Burn almost qualitatively override it, and especially if AI fleets are also dealing with degraded engines in many of their fleets...

Granted, I have not been playing very long, but in my limited experience: emergency burn frequently cancels out--it can help catch or avoid a faster fleet if you catch them with it on cooldown, but in general I cannot reliably catch a fleet without a speed advantage or escape at a speed disadvantage. If you are hunting Luddic mining fleets, dropping a burn level is not a big deal; with a newish career trying to avoid fast destroyer fleets, dropping to 8 from picking up a destroyer with degraded engines definitely makes a difference.

Sustained burn (especially with the skill boost) does negate the travel-speed disadvantage, so if you never want to initiate combat and are strong enough to fight whomever catches you (plausible for mid/late game exploring) I agree it is not much of an issue.

E-Burn cancelling out each other is important point, yes.

It's not too important to have the strongest fleet overall - but being strongest at certain Burn level is quite nice. Having just 1 higher than enemy means that as long as you don't run into disruption they can almost never catch you. Though AI can use a smaller tackler fleet, so going below 10 (full frigate fleet without degraded engines) is an especially important breakpoint.

I very much do not like compositions like 1 cruiser and few frigates for example - that's not good enough to fight a fleet of cruisers, yet makes me exposed to such risk. Same for having a Capital - if I have one, it's gotta be capable of beating multiple enemy ones - so Onslaught/Paragon or similar from mods.
I do grudgingly make exception for a single DE + frigates composition though. Medusa is just good enough to be worth it, in vanilla. Plus there are no really efficient cargo frigates.

Though I guess a lot of that is more relevant for Nexelerin. In vanilla you start hostile only to Luddites (very small fleets) and Pirates (weakest faction and any large fleet will be slow due to d-mods). Bounties are not going to run anywhere either.

[Alex]

From a realism standpoint no. But from a gameplay standpoint having minor things be easily replaceable makes a lot of sense. There is a level of micromanagement that people will be comfortable dealing with (what is equipped to my ships, what are the main ships of my fleet, i have to go replace ships) and a level of micromanagement that people won't want to deal with (what materials do i need to build this ship, how do i set up a supply line to keep my fleet ready to go). These secondary considerations are things that people are unlikely to want to deal with and its not realistic to force people to do so. Middle management exists for a reason.

Such the "immediate purchase" just simulates having a ship in stock without the need to go and buy it ahead of time. If i am a space admiral in charge of a colony that has 100,000 people on it surely one of them could have figured out that i will need some replacements and would have some ready.

Yeah, that makes sense. The same logic as for "Supplies" covering every conceivable set of requirements, through the magic of delegating it to a logistics officer. But here it might feel a bit weird, especially if the "gathering point" is far away from your production centers. Still, some suitably small fraction of production being allowed to be "rushed" would probably feel ok. Not sure it'll be necessary, though - only going to "fix" this once it becomes a problem in playtesting, if that makes sense

On Doctrine: Will NPC factions have officer/ship/fleet-size doctrines that add up to numbers besides seven? Numbers below seven might make sense for scrub factions... but that opens the box for "why don't elite factions have more?" which in turns asks "why can't the player unlock more?"

Pirates will probably have less, yeah. And a few one-offs like the Lion's Guard may have more. (Why doesn't the player unlock more? The player's fleet is the Lion's Guard equivalent for their faction, I say.)

On Restoration vs Production: One thing that just occurred to me... is that if restoring D-hulls remain expensive there no longer exists much point to restoring any ship you can replace. Scuttle it, pocket the resources, and bang out a new one. Obviously... this doesn't apply to ships you lack blueprints for, but for anything else it just feels wasteful. Plus a bit of busy-work for the player as you recreate the old loadout on the new ship. My thought on this: Noticeable discount on restoring hulls you have the blueprints for. Makes a certain amount of sense with "let's see if we can figure out how to put this back together" versus "I know exactly how this goes together, I just need the parts".

Well, since restoration is explicitly there for ships you *can't* get in pristine condition otherwise, and is meant to be entirely uneconomic, this state of affairs sounds perfectly fine

(That said, producing pristine ships will take some doing. Producing them reliably will take some more doing.)

Granted, I have not been playing very long, but in my limited experience: emergency burn frequently cancels out--it can help catch or avoid a faster fleet if you catch them with it on cooldown, but in general I cannot reliably catch a fleet without a speed advantage or escape at a speed disadvantage. If you are hunting Luddic mining fleets, dropping a burn level is not a big deal; with a newish career trying to avoid fast destroyer fleets, dropping to 8 from picking up a destroyer with degraded engines definitely makes a difference.

Sustained burn (especially with the skill boost) does negate the travel-speed disadvantage, so if you never want to initiate combat and are strong enough to fight whomever catches you (plausible for mid/late game exploring) I agree it is not much of an issue.

Hmm, I do see what you mean. Another way of looking at it - which doesn't go against what you're saying, really, just another perspective - is that if you're relying on a +1 burn difference to run away or chase something down, that's often indicative of something else having gone wrong in the first place. I.E. if you're cruising on Sustained Burn at a near-tangent to likely hostiles, you're not dependent on +1 burn. Likewise if you're going dark and moving carefully. And for chasing enemies down, sneaking up, using an Interdiction Pulse, and then E-burning is a hard-to-avoid combo. Finally, enemies tend to come to you unless you're chasing small fry for some reason.

Of course, there's still a lot of utility in not having to rely on ability use like that and to be able to brute-force the chases and escapes. I guess I just don't personally see it as such a deal-breaker, possibly because I tend to rely more on abilities regardless of my fleet's burn level, since that's a playstyle that I enjoy.

It's not too important to have the strongest fleet overall - but being strongest at certain Burn level is quite nice. Having just 1 higher than enemy means that as long as you don't run into disruption they can almost never catch you. Though AI can use a smaller tackler fleet, so going below 10 (full frigate fleet without degraded engines) is an especially important breakpoint.

I very much do not like compositions like 1 cruiser and few frigates for example - that's not good enough to fight a fleet of cruisers, yet makes me exposed to such risk. Same for having a Capital - if I have one, it's gotta be capable of beating multiple enemy ones - so Onslaught/Paragon or similar from mods.
I do grudgingly make exception for a single DE + frigates composition though. Medusa is just good enough to be worth it, in vanilla. Plus there are no really efficient cargo frigates.

Though I guess a lot of that is more relevant for Nexelerin. In vanilla you start hostile only to Luddites (very small fleets) and Pirates (weakest faction and any large fleet will be slow due to d-mods). Bounties are not going to run anywhere either.

Yep, all of this makes sense. I think it's also a very good point that this may be more important in a modded game, with more fleets flying around, and more of them being hostile as well. It's harder to use abilities effectively if the density of enemy fleets is high, and it's a lot easier to mess up.