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Author Topic: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?  (Read 7823 times)

2-Zons

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Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« on: January 16, 2020, 08:57:47 AM »

Just starting to learn about colony management.  I'm trying to figure out the nuances of how paying for goods stored in your colonies works.  I was surprised to learn that you had to pay for the items that are stored there.  I would think that the colony has paid for them to be there and that it comes off the profit / cost of running the colony.  If somehow the goods stored in the colony are not owned by the colony (say by the goods exporter) then I guess that would make sense that I need to pay for them.  What about goods that I produce at the colony.  I have a mine on my colony and it's producing organics and ore.  I tried to pick up the ore and it shows a charge at month end.  This doesn't make sense to me.  Can someone explain?

If indeed imported goods are owned by the exporter, shouldn't I be getting the 5K fee for each exporter to open a warehouse in my colony?
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Cyber Von Cyberus

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2020, 09:23:05 AM »

Well you're taking those items directly from your own production/stockpiles so their costs damages your monthly paycheck
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2-Zons

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2020, 09:39:23 AM »

That doesn't make sense.  These items are building up in the warehouse.  My profits are made by those that leave the warehouse (sold).  By taking some of them I could hinder potential profits, but that's not what happens.  I have to pay a price for each one that is charged at the end of the month, just like taking anything from public storage. 

One of the reasons I thought you would make colonies is to provide your own resources (supplies and fuel) and save a lot of money.  But if you have to pay for your own resources then I don't understand.  Do you have to pay for the ships you build too?  I would have hoped you only pay for the cost of any imported goods required to build the ships.   If I have to pay market price for those ships then again, what's the point?  I'm hoping there is something I'm missing,  I'm sure there is a lot I am missing.
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Megas

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2020, 09:45:30 AM »

You effectively pay below market price for ships you produce because the ships get weapons mounted at no additional cost.  In addition, building ships also produces a modest amount supplies, fuel, and crew free of charge.

As for commodities, you pay no tariff from colony resources, so they serve as the baseline.  Often a good enough deal.  However, there are exceptions.  For example, crew and marines can often be bought from black markets of randomly spawned pirate bases for less, such as about 133 cr for marines, instead of 200 cr for marines from your colony resources.
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SCC

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2020, 09:50:02 AM »

You could say it's the opportunity cost. Your end-of-the-month balance is predicted on assumption that trade is not disrupted, goods are sold on schedule. When you come and grab some of it, your colony has to cancel contracts or buy more commodities to have enough resources to do its job. Or maybe it just wasn't sold. In any case, it was assumed that all of these resources will be used or sold for money. If you take them, instead of earning less money, you earn the same amount, but are charged for those resources. It makes it clearer something happened at all.

2-Zons

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2020, 10:01:52 AM »

If you have to pay for ships, who are you paying?  If you pay for all colony imports and profit from all exports that means you are paying for all the goods to build the ship.  Who gets the money for it when you pay for it?  It can't be the colony itself, you have to pay for all the buildings that build the ships.  If it's the employees (owners) of the factories, that doesn't make sense if you are paying for the factories and they make all the profit.  If that is the case then they should be paying you back for the costs of the factories.

I'm sure the designers have reasoning behind how it actually works.  I would just like to understand the mechanics. 

P.S. I love this game.
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SCC

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2020, 10:06:56 AM »

If you have to pay for ships, who are you paying?
Materials and the actual job. It's one thing to manufacture ships for a profit, but even if you employ someone, you can't force them do to charity. You can say you are already paying them and this is correct, just now you are paying them for work that won't have any return, but is done for your own benefit. Altruism can't feed children.

I'm sure the designers have reasoning behind how it actually works.  I would just like to understand the mechanics. 
Oh, it's very simple: having free and infinite supply of ships would be broken as all hell. Losses would mean nothing, if you could just grab the next ship from the assembly line.

2-Zons

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2020, 10:14:34 AM »

I understand that people need to be paid.  I guess I thought that was built into the profit/loss of the colony.  Kind of abstract to pay for the workers to build the ship, only if you take one.  I understand that there needs to be abstraction for gameplay reasons.  I am just trying to understand how the game works so I can play it better.  This game is incredible, and the mechanics seem to be structured after real life concepts, so that is why I am trying to relate it to real life.  This game gives you a tremendous amount of information, but the more you get the more you want. 
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Cyber Von Cyberus

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2020, 10:50:51 AM »

Well when you make your colony build a ship for you, you're disrupting their production line to produce one specific battleship for you, all of the expenses made by taking resources from storage or custom builds are deducted from your income, not the credits you currently have on yourself. In other words you're not paying but rather disrupting the colony's trade, as a result your income also suffers.
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Goumindong

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2020, 05:13:10 PM »

That doesn't make sense.  These items are building up in the warehouse.  My profits are made by those that leave the warehouse (sold).  By taking some of them I could hinder potential profits, but that's not what happens.  I have to pay a price for each one that is charged at the end of the month, just like taking anything from public storage. 

They're building up in a warehouse to a certain amount, after which they stop building up, such that in the even of a disruption the planet does not have a shortage. If you deplete the stores in the warehouse they need to be replaced at the end of the month and you must pay for this, but not selling that many resources
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Megas

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2020, 06:18:08 PM »

They're building up in a warehouse to a certain amount, after which they stop building up, such that in the even of a disruption the planet does not have a shortage. If you deplete the stores in the warehouse they need to be replaced at the end of the month and you must pay for this, but not selling that many resources
They do not use resources during a shortage unless you enable that setting (disabled by default), and if they do consume resources, (I think, not sure about this) it costs the player money, but only a fraction (10% I think) instead of 100% of the cost, unless the resources consumed were deposited by player in the first place.
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Goumindong

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2020, 08:07:30 PM »

Either way the resources must be replaced and that costs money
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empirecitizen

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2020, 08:10:38 AM »

I'm rusty on the game mechanics about colony. Is it basically u paid a fixed cost on the colony then it gives u a passive income based on how the colony was doing? It doesn't constantly drain an upkeep from you right?

In that case, paying for good is actually a completely realistic like a real corporate that is a seperate legal entity to u as an owner.


Imagine running a stall that sells apple. You paid 50 dollar to set up a stall. Then you put 10 dollar cash into the stall. Each day a farmer come to deliver 1 box of apples for 10 dollar. The all of that is sold for 15. The full 5 dollar is paid out to you as profit every daym

One day, you want a box of apple for your own, you took the apple. Then there is no apple sold that day, so your stall cannot pay you the 5 dollar and also doesn't have any cash. The next day the farmer comes but the stall has no money to pay the farmer. The farmer cannot take money from you because you have  o obligation to pay into the stall. So no apple and the business will basically cease to exist.

The game is not going to simulate the entire balance sheet with dividend payout rate(the 5 dollar profit of the stall) and working capital management (the 10 dollar cash used to buy apple) of the colony. So the most simple way to make sense how you cannot get infinite money from a colony by taking all the commodities at no cost is that you basically pay the full cost of it to the colony (ie. The 10 dollar that the apples were bought for) . If the game somehow also reduce your profit of the.month because taking goods away reduce the prosperity and what not then it is also assuming you lost sales. If it doesn't really affect it then it just assume it produced more to cover the goods you took and the demand from customers.
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Kali666

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2020, 12:40:44 PM »

The biggest issue with this is that taking supplies from your own colony is usually more expensive than just buying stuff from other factions, armaments are a great example of that in my current game
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2020, 12:54:59 AM »

What I'm hearing is we need a slavery industry to force colonists to work for free rather than for credits.
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