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Author Topic: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic  (Read 4516 times)

Grievous69

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(not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« on: April 01, 2020, 03:38:02 AM »

So I thought I knew how all of that worked, but now I'm more confused then ever. It says clearly in the game, if an item needs more credits than the monthly production can give, it'll require more months, makes sense. And as long as you have money coming in (meaning you don't go in the negatives since each month it deducts the production cost of your current capacity) you get your shiny new ship. Correct me if I said anything wrong.

Now for an example with actual numbers. I tried building a Niagara in my playthrough (it costs 325 000 credits) and my monthly production capacity is 150 000 credits. Everyone with a pair of eyes and a functional brain can see that this would take 3 months. NOPE. I've now spent 10 bloody months waiting for this cursed piece of metal. Only one single month I dropped to 1 credit, any other month is was deducting 150k credits as it should. And when I get that intel report saying what the production cost was, I click on it to see the details and it says something like ''a total of x credits has been invested into the current production order''. I saw that number jump up and down like crazy, it went to 279k credits, meaning it should be almost complete, but next month it said 42k credits, and then a completely different number somewhere in between, it's crazy. I've been losing out on my colony income for a whole year while the ship is still in this production queue.

Either:
A) I'm an idiot and missed something crucial
B) There a possible bug causing this loop
C) The information the game gives me is just weird and doesn't make sense (on that note why don't we see the progress on the custom production tab? it seems to me like a logical place to show it instead of digging through intel)
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2020, 03:48:59 AM »

... And what is your average passive monthly colony income?
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Grievous69

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2020, 03:51:20 AM »

It was around 130k, so I'd lose a bit of money at the end of the month but as I said, I still had plenty left. Even if it did use up ''only'' 130k it shouldn't take this long.

EDIT: Here's the latest month I caught, wasn't exactly 130k but still more than enough to finish under 4-5 months tops
Spoiler
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« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 03:54:57 AM by Grievous69 »
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2020, 04:08:50 AM »

so I'd lose a bit of money at the end of the month but as I said, I still had plenty left.

Eh... not. You can not use production potential if it is above colony income, that is the limit. You loose money for crew payment, not production. Still in your case 325/130 = 3 month.

The only thing may happen - you can take commodities from stockpiles and decrease your monthly colony income, leaving less to production. Still not fit, as it means you should do this month over month in a large volumes for all your year.

So it probably a bug.
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SCC

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2020, 04:17:00 AM »

Was there anything else in the queue, or was it just a Niagara?

Grievous69

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2020, 04:28:28 AM »

Was there anything else in the queue, or was it just a Niagara?
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Just a Niagara 100%, even the quantity is 1.

@Mondaymonkey
Now that you mention it, I did take some supplies from the stockpiles, but that was only 2 months out of 10 and it was barely even 30k worth of it.

In the end, none of that matters, just seeing ''Production cost this month: -150 000 credits'' 3 times should be a sign that something's not telling the truth. This is why I said it should be easier to track your orders.
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Histidine

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2020, 04:44:31 AM »

A ship jammed in production queue sounds like the bug where a ship with no variants in default_ship_roles.json can't be built and just consumes money forever. But this shouldn't be happening with a Niagara, unless your copy of the mod is broken somehow.
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Grievous69

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2020, 04:54:02 AM »

When I started this playthrough I checked if every mod was up to date and wasn't messing with the files of anything so it's not on my part. Only thing I know is that Niagara used to be in Seeker mod, but then Tart made another ship pack and put it there alongside some other ships. It's called TADA I think, so it could possibly be related to that.

EDIT: I checked the mod files and the variant seems to be there, although I can't know for sure if there is some naming error or something.
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Grievous69

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Re: (not) Understanding the custom production mechanic
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2020, 07:45:06 AM »

Tried building some other ships and everything seems to be alright. Man my luck, first ship I try to build in a whole playthrough with 30 mods is exactly the one that's bugged... The fact still stands that it's kinda hard to track your bigger orders. Intel notifications disappear and aren't too useful anyway, having multiple orders that'll take many months just make everything a mess. Perhaps put a small bar beside the next order showing what percentage of it is currently ''done''.
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