Topic: How does the economic system work in SFC:OP?

[kv1at3485]

I must admit I'm curious! (And confused by it.)

[Bonk]

Log on to Empires and watch it in action! (easiest way...)  

[kv1at3485]

Well, I'm not familiar with the Empires online campaign.  I guess you could say that I'm interested in the theory behind the game.  (Specifically in single player.)

For example, a thought that crossed my mind was something of the following.  In the game, hexes with planets and bases allow you to 'purchase' and 'trade in' ships.  Now, I suppose that planets and bases house shipbuilding facilities.  So each planet and starbase must draw on those economy points somehow and convert them into ships.

I guess my curiousity stems from this: how do planets and bases draw economy points?  Do they only draw points from surrounding hexes, or is the empire economy point reserve instantaneously spread to where they are needed?  If the latter is the case, then:
a) Where are economic points spread from?  Is there some sort of 'lines of supply'?  For example, if a base is completely surrounded by enemy or neutral hexes, does the number of ships available for purchasing at that base slowly dwindle as its shipyards no longer have the resources necessary to build ships?
b) If there is a line of supply, is there a way to disrupt the flow of supply, aside from just cutting off a receiving centre completely?  For example, in SFC there are convoy-interception missions.  Depending on your success at destroying the freighters, does this translate into diminished production somewhere else in the enemy's empire?  So if you wipe out a convoy, some base or planet all of a sudden doesn't produce ships the next turn, or produces fewer ships, or smaller ships?

Then, is there some corrolation between economic points available and the number and type of ships produced?  Is there some 'secret' statistics in the game stating that it takes x number of points to produce a certain type of ship?  And another thing, how does the game determine what ships are available for purchasing (aside from the 'first-' and 'last-available' dates) ?  I have no experience with SFB, but from what I can gather, battleships take some time to build.  But in the game, you can purchase a battleship one turn, and another battleship becomes available for purchase at the same base the following turn, and the next turn, etc..

I'm probably thinking a bit too deeply into the subject, and I have that unfortunate suspicion that the model in SFC is much more simplistic than my questions would hope for.  If it is simplistic, than I hope for a great and complex system in the next SFC!

State that SFC: OP puts me in ->  
State that I put myself in ->  

[NuclearWessels]

All the empire's economic points are indeed instantly available everywhere, and the ships that are produced can be purchases anywhere (there are no ties to specific regions or planets).

Most of the economic controls are in  a text file called Economy.gf, located in MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

In this file, one setting determines how many turns elapse between each "run" of the economy.

Each time the economy runs, all the econ points the empire has on the map are tallied up and put towards ship production.

The actual formula for ship production is hidden somewhat within the game engine, but the cost of a ship and which ships are produced can be influenced as follows:

 -  the cost is the bpv of the ship multiplied by a difficulty setting (so you can make ships more expensive at higher difficulty levels) and multiplied by a hull modifier (so you can make battleships more expensive per bpv point than frigates for instance)

 - the likelihood of a ship being produced is also divied up by hull class, so you can make larger ships rarer than small ones, or vice versa

I *think* the way it works from that point is the game engine goes through the ships for a given race,  not sure if it's in shiplist order or  smallest-to-largest by bpv,  checks to see if the empire has enough points left to build that ship, and "rolls the dice" to check against the probability of building that ship.

When an empire runs out of points, that's the end of ship production for that turn.

All of the likelihoods and cost modifiers are located in that Economy.gf file, which can be modified with any text editor (Notepad or Wordpad work fine).

hope that helps!
dave
 

[Pestalence]

I would also like to add that the ships are also limited to year available as well in Multiplayer.. in Single player I can't remember if Year available is factored in or not, but I think it is since the ships are devided by eras... there is a year first available and a year last available for each ship which will limit the ship's production to certain time periods...

 

[kv1at3485]

Ah, I see!  Thank you both for your responses.

[kv1at3485]

I must admit I'm curious! (And confused by it.)

[Bonk]

Log on to Empires and watch it in action! (easiest way...)  

[kv1at3485]

Well, I'm not familiar with the Empires online campaign.  I guess you could say that I'm interested in the theory behind the game.  (Specifically in single player.)

For example, a thought that crossed my mind was something of the following.  In the game, hexes with planets and bases allow you to 'purchase' and 'trade in' ships.  Now, I suppose that planets and bases house shipbuilding facilities.  So each planet and starbase must draw on those economy points somehow and convert them into ships.

I guess my curiousity stems from this: how do planets and bases draw economy points?  Do they only draw points from surrounding hexes, or is the empire economy point reserve instantaneously spread to where they are needed?  If the latter is the case, then:
a) Where are economic points spread from?  Is there some sort of 'lines of supply'?  For example, if a base is completely surrounded by enemy or neutral hexes, does the number of ships available for purchasing at that base slowly dwindle as its shipyards no longer have the resources necessary to build ships?
b) If there is a line of supply, is there a way to disrupt the flow of supply, aside from just cutting off a receiving centre completely?  For example, in SFC there are convoy-interception missions.  Depending on your success at destroying the freighters, does this translate into diminished production somewhere else in the enemy's empire?  So if you wipe out a convoy, some base or planet all of a sudden doesn't produce ships the next turn, or produces fewer ships, or smaller ships?

Then, is there some corrolation between economic points available and the number and type of ships produced?  Is there some 'secret' statistics in the game stating that it takes x number of points to produce a certain type of ship?  And another thing, how does the game determine what ships are available for purchasing (aside from the 'first-' and 'last-available' dates) ?  I have no experience with SFB, but from what I can gather, battleships take some time to build.  But in the game, you can purchase a battleship one turn, and another battleship becomes available for purchase at the same base the following turn, and the next turn, etc..

I'm probably thinking a bit too deeply into the subject, and I have that unfortunate suspicion that the model in SFC is much more simplistic than my questions would hope for.  If it is simplistic, than I hope for a great and complex system in the next SFC!

State that SFC: OP puts me in ->  
State that I put myself in ->  

[NuclearWessels]

All the empire's economic points are indeed instantly available everywhere, and the ships that are produced can be purchases anywhere (there are no ties to specific regions or planets).

Most of the economic controls are in  a text file called Economy.gf, located in MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer

In this file, one setting determines how many turns elapse between each "run" of the economy.

Each time the economy runs, all the econ points the empire has on the map are tallied up and put towards ship production.

The actual formula for ship production is hidden somewhat within the game engine, but the cost of a ship and which ships are produced can be influenced as follows:

 -  the cost is the bpv of the ship multiplied by a difficulty setting (so you can make ships more expensive at higher difficulty levels) and multiplied by a hull modifier (so you can make battleships more expensive per bpv point than frigates for instance)

 - the likelihood of a ship being produced is also divied up by hull class, so you can make larger ships rarer than small ones, or vice versa

I *think* the way it works from that point is the game engine goes through the ships for a given race,  not sure if it's in shiplist order or  smallest-to-largest by bpv,  checks to see if the empire has enough points left to build that ship, and "rolls the dice" to check against the probability of building that ship.

When an empire runs out of points, that's the end of ship production for that turn.

All of the likelihoods and cost modifiers are located in that Economy.gf file, which can be modified with any text editor (Notepad or Wordpad work fine).

hope that helps!
dave
 

[Pestalence]

I would also like to add that the ships are also limited to year available as well in Multiplayer.. in Single player I can't remember if Year available is factored in or not, but I think it is since the ships are devided by eras... there is a year first available and a year last available for each ship which will limit the ship's production to certain time periods...

 

[kv1at3485]

Ah, I see!  Thank you both for your responses.