Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 [2] 3

Author Topic: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?  (Read 7828 times)

geminitiger

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 119
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2020, 02:53:16 AM »

In defense of OP, I think it's ridiculous that you need to pay tariffs on your own colony products, it's literally direct from your own factory. While paying something to keep the workers feed, paying full price for goods just requires a huge suspension of disbelief, like many things in SS tbh. All of those products produced at your own colony should be available at something like 2/3rds cost.



Logged

Piemanlives

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 176
  • I've Got This, I think...
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #16 on: January 18, 2020, 12:43:29 PM »

Honestly by the time you have a decent enough colony the cost of pulling from the stockpile is negligible. It's just a matter of convenience, sure you could go to another planet in the hope that you could find something cheaper, but so long as your colony imports, produces and requires specific goods you will find them in your stockpile without having to go searching for them.

The costs aren't that bad either.
Logged
This is called me throwing my missile swarm at you, and by swarm I mean massacre, and by missiles... I actually just mean missiles, there's actually not much to it really.

2-Zons

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 22
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #17 on: January 18, 2020, 12:52:24 PM »

A lot of good points brought up here.  As I said I love this game.  I do think that the colony economy system could be a little more refined.  When you purchase an industry building that produces goods there is a maintenance cost.  That should represent paying of employees.   There could also be a maintenance cost in supplies which represents the material used in maintaining all the machinery.  On top of maintenance any material used by the factory will have to be purchased, this would be a separate cost.  The resulting product would be owned by you.  It could be automatically exported which if fully exported should generate enough income to produce an overall profit.  If you chose (a check box) to not export the products, they would be stockpiled at your warehouse.  This could be used if you wanted to keep the products for vertical integration, so your factory that uses those products in it's production doesn't have to buy them on the open market.   This would make the factory run at a loss but the up line factory should generate enough profit to make up for it, if it's products are sold.  If you choose to stockpile them for your own use, it should be a way of getting cheaper products, the costs being the source material, plus maintenance.  This is a realistic design, and wouldn't be that hard to implement, and a lot less abstract than the current system.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #18 on: January 18, 2020, 12:57:34 PM »

It is also effectively a loan with no interest, as you do not pay until the end of the month. For example, if you have heavy industry you can take your own stockpiles of heavy weapons even if you don't have enough cash, smuggle them somewhere, and sell them before the end of the month.

So your own colony stockpile gives goods at their default price, with no tariff, and you don't need to pay for them until the month ends. Thats a decent set of benefits, though for some goods you can find them for cheaper at an overproduction world's black market.

[Edit]
Just fyi, there is already vertical integration built into the colony design, though in an abstract manner: if you can supply the pre-requisite goods for your industries from your own colonies, all of the maintenance costs are reduced in proportion. This goes from a 0% reduction (no in faction foods) to 50% (you can supply everything yourself). I believe if you mouse over your upkeep and hit F1 you can get a breakdown that includes this factor.
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #19 on: January 18, 2020, 06:42:10 PM »

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?

It has a constant upkeep and income that depends on market conditions/how much it produces
Logged

Daynen

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 413
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #20 on: January 19, 2020, 12:38:44 PM »

Taking from your own colony will never cost more than the regular market value (this also lets you know what the baseline market value IS if you were ever uncertain,) never cost tariffs AND you get until the end of the month to pay for it; time your withdrawal at the very beginning of the month for maximum repayment time.  That's an advantage in itself.  Building ships will ALWAYS be cheaper than buying them AND you'll probably get less D-mods.  Compare any ship you can build with your blueprints to the same hull at literally any market and you'll always be building for less, PLUS you get a few resources to boot.  Ever wanted a fleet of just your favorite ship?  Heavy industry is there for you!  That's hard to argue with.

The only disadvantage is that you're not earning any reputation or trade XP from using your own colony but that seems like a completely fair trade for how much more cost-efficient a colony can be, especially since (once it's setup well) it's just sitting around earning you cash.  Once you're friends with your chosen factions and sitting pretty at 50 this part is a moot point anyway.

It might not fully explain the entire Persean sector's economic picture from a real-world standpoint but utilizing your colony's resources is always to your advantage unless you stumble onto a major market surplus somewhere instead.
Logged

Droopy The Dog

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #21 on: January 19, 2020, 07:12:13 PM »

I get the need to not have cheap masses of colony produced goods essentially make using other markets obselete/inferior for balance reasons. But I do admit that having always having the full base per-unit market value deducted from your income is a bit of a head-scratcher conceptually.

The production costs are presumably already covered by the colony's monthly upkeep costs, so the end of month deduction is purely loss of potential profits you would have gained from exporting them instead. So it's a little mad to me that no matter how much the sector is flooded with more supply than demand I'll still get told my traders are selling them for no less than a 50% per-unit profit margin when I try to skim off some excess.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2020, 07:19:20 PM by Droopy The Dog »
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #22 on: January 19, 2020, 07:39:21 PM »

Hmm - I don't see why production costs would be covered by monthly upkeep. Monthly upkeep to me is, well, the cost per month to maintain the industry. Replace broken machinery, pay base wages, do market research and advertising etc etc. After all, no industry is going to operate at constant production volume - thats a simplification that so many games use that people consider it 'realistic', when its anything but. There might be some stockpile built up, but if the buy orders stop, then so will production.

It would produce whatever it could sell as determined by accessibility, market share and market volume, with the profit you get from the industry equaling (quantity sold) * (sell price - production cost) - shipping costs (accessibility).

I agree with you that, from a "realism" perspective, the player should get some discount - as the owner, they should be able to get things at production cost rather than sell cost (those two could be quite close in a competitive market) . But that violates a fundamental tenant of Starsector game design by encouraging boring, safe trade, and gameplay must trump "realism"
Logged

Droopy The Dog

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #23 on: January 19, 2020, 08:43:05 PM »

Monthly upkeep accounting for the materials as well as maintenance to me essentially follows on from the way meeting supply needs in-faction provides a discount on monthly upkeep.

Like I say, I understand the need from a balance perspective, but I can also understand the current implementation leaving players feel a little cheated by their own colonies if they personally take supplies from them.
Logged

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #24 on: January 19, 2020, 09:07:51 PM »

Player colony economy doesn't make sense - you can satisfy every resource need within faction yet somehow this doesn't generate any surplus money, you can only profit from exports to other factions.

Would be better if you we couldn't spam infinite AI admin worlds (make them count as admin or half-admin, harvesting them is too tedious anyway), but player colonies demand was properly calculated.
Logged

Lucky33

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 894
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #25 on: January 19, 2020, 10:07:13 PM »

Who said that player owns a colony, industry and its products as a whole? You did invest some spacemoneys in this and you have your share in profits and administrative decisions but thats all. Remember that standart crew salary is 10 spacetokens. After that crew colonizes the planet, you are no longer paying them. But it doesnt mean that they dont make a living. And popular planet attracts more people who even willing to make a trip on their own. And with 100M population it means that there is a 1B/month economy running on the planet. Or so. Mind that.
Logged

Plantissue

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1231
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #26 on: January 20, 2020, 06:04:30 AM »

The economy is a simulated economy. For instance one time I decided to resolve a Volatiles shortage to a Fuel production Industry by transfering Volatiles from another colony to the stockpile and from what I worked out, this lost me more money than if I had left it with the shortage.
Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #27 on: January 20, 2020, 06:14:20 AM »

Player colony economy doesn't make sense - you can satisfy every resource need within faction yet somehow this doesn't generate any surplus money, you can only profit from exports to other factions.

Would be better if you we couldn't spam infinite AI admin worlds (make them count as admin or half-admin, harvesting them is too tedious anyway), but player colonies demand was properly calculated.

I mean it does make you money by decreasing your upkeep costs down to 50% by supplying the needed resources, making you net money by reducing your expenses. Which in the end make it easier to live off of basic population and infrastructure taxes, which make up half the profits from my own colonies.

I've always seen the stockpiles as the stockpiles of resources that are going to be exported by the end of the month, the cost is covering the loss in profit by the player taking them for their own personal use. It may or may not be the cheapest but it is far more convenient to have around for those time you really do need 10,000 supplies. Products made in surplus for the player to have for free just goes to your storage site, right?
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #28 on: January 20, 2020, 08:31:54 AM »

But why can't player economy run itself? There is no logical reason.
You can colonize more worlds than there are in core by default, yet you will never get anywhere above most basic sustenance. Replace half that with independent worlds, and you can suddenly afford to spam doom fleets.
Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Why do I have to pay for goods mined at my own colony?
« Reply #29 on: January 20, 2020, 08:38:13 AM »

But why can't player economy run itself? There is no logical reason.
You can colonize more worlds than there are in core by default, yet you will never get anywhere above most basic sustenance. Replace half that with independent worlds, and you can suddenly afford to spam doom fleets.

It can from what I can see. You won't make very much more until your colonies grow large enough, and if they are hazardous worlds it can be very difficult to justify building them up with expensive stuff. But it can work, from what I can see.

You just make hilarious amounts of money from exports and frankly, this isn't stellaris. Starsector isn't a place for building an empire. This is the collapse of civilisation unfolding and everything we do either delays the inevitable or speeds its arrival.

Which I am fine with, but I can see a lot of people having issue with. "Why even have colonies if I can't build a viable colonial empire?" and so on.
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.
Pages: 1 [2] 3