Barons of the Galaxy Forum - Feature Requests - Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters - Messages http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Barons of the Galaxy Forum - Feature Requests - Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters - Messages en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jitbit AspNetForum Fri, 25 Aug 2017 10:11:45 GMT Fri, 25 Aug 2017 10:11:45 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder Fri, 25 Aug 2017 10:11:45 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Vulpex Aywanez wrote:
Vulpex wrote:
base cost for me right now making basic metals is 39/unit.

Woah. Let's drill down on this bit of info. How are you calculating this? Or, if this isn't a tricky statistical lie, how did you swing it?


There are a few things at work here.

First off - you need to understand that the cost of running a facility is based strictly on the level of the facility. Thus a lvl 5 metal mine will always cost the same to run at full capacity regardless of its location. So the first (and biggest) reduction in cost for exploitation is by setting up your facilities on a resources which has a high value. Add to that bonuses from HQ (say 50%) and from research (in this case 30%) and the numbers go down very fast.

I will give you an example - my own stuff is a bit complicated because of all the stacks of modifiers but it looks like this:

A lvl 4 metal mine costs 12,000 to run. (I am actually not 100% sure of this number but is should be close, too many modifiers) Located on a site with 20 basic metals produces 220 units of metal per turn.

To that we add the following modifiers - HQ 50%, Research 30%.

Final cost to run the facility - 7,200

7,200 / 220 : 32.7 is the cost to produce a single unit of material.

If you look for efficiency it is simple to keep production of raw materials below 50 per unit - overcrowding and logistics blows this up much much higher. As you can see even with lower modifiers there is still plenty of space for the cost to stay reasonable. In fact assuming there is no modifier the cost of producing the metal would still be only 54.5 per unit.
edited by Vulpex on 8/25/2017]]> Fri, 25 Aug 2017 08:14:25 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder Thu, 24 Aug 2017 15:58:53 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder
Components also need to be supplied at or below 200%. Exact numbers on ideal demand depend on the players benefitting from the system. It is ok to stay at 200%.

Next you want suppliers for 10% of the end product demand to keep them stable, and since we are greedy bastards, above 200%. 24 raw mats at 10%, 21 components at 200%, 100 end products so that average demand is below 200%. The tricky part is that you need 100 end products supplied. Average demand on end products can not go above 246% (24*10% + 21*200% + 100*246%)/145 = 200.2%.

So people will be making good profits if they organise, but super-high demands are a thing of the past, too.

I called the system unstable. You need the suppliers of end products to activly maintain their prices. Anybody not doing their job hurts the profits of everybody else, and benefits later because average demand on their products is higher when 200% avg. is reached. This could be counter-acted by having demand volume drop at higher demand%, and figure demand volume into average demand (do not know if that happens, much of it is a black box).]]> Thu, 24 Aug 2017 15:06:22 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread
If you have zero bonus at a 10 resource with 100% demand, yo make no profit. But just putting your HQ IN THE SYSTEM gives you a bonus and that is now profitable. Tier 2-3 is profitable by buying and selling alone but just barely, assuming everything at 100 demand

When everything is at 600 demand everything scales up and the cost of the structure itself is marginalized. If everything is at 80 demand, the cost of the structure is the biggest factor again

The mechanic is designed to insure a sustained high demand is impossible because the more you sell it the more it drops and if it does not get sold it counters population. TO have a sustained product at 500 while everything else is 100 to keep population growing or normal means 90% of the people are selling slim and one guy is selling at 500]]> Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:47:04 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Aywanez Vulpex wrote:
base cost for me right now making basic metals is 39/unit.

Woah. Let's drill down on this bit of info. How are you calculating this? Or, if this isn't a tricky statistical lie, how did you swing it?
Vulpex wrote:
I end up paying north of 150 per unit

This I believe. But it is after penalties, so the previous question is still interesting to me.
Vulpex wrote:
Take any synthetics - they require 20 raw materials to make 10 end products. End product is valued at 750 (100%).
Cost breakdown: 3000 in raw materials give you 10 synthetics - so 300 credits invested per unit produced.

You seem to have missed a step or two there.
Vulpex, edited by Aywanez for brevity wrote:
tier 3 products make you tons of cash

Yes, but you aren't going to be making any, because if you feed your city raws, you will have no money. And if you don't feed it, the city will die, and you will have no markets.]]> Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:29:06 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:28:57 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Vulpex Thu, 24 Aug 2017 11:23:13 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder Thu, 24 Aug 2017 05:43:49 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Vulpex
It does not cost 100 to produce 1 piece of raw materials. So long as you avoid massive penalties to production it is very easy to produce materials for 40-70 credits per unit. I give you an example - base cost for me right now making basic metals is 39/unit. Now I end up paying north of 150 per unit but that is because I have a total 280% penalty in that production.

Components, end products and services are way more valuable than their production cost. Even when producing raw materials at 150 each you will make a profit on end products. Let me give you an example.

Take any synthetics - they require 20 raw materials to make 10 end products. End product is valued at 750 (100%).

Cost breakdown: 3000 in raw materials give you 10 synthetics - so 300 credits invested per unit produced.

To that you add 83 credits which is the cost of producing the synthetics themselves gives you a total cost of 383 credits for a product which you are going to sell for 750 credits. That is a huge profit by any scale. The problem is actually that right now it is ludicrously easy to make huge stacks of cash which in practice greatly devalues cash.


But what does happen if you have 100 demand is that massive overcrowding and logistics penalties become unsustainable which is as should be, and the economic aspect of the game becomes challenging again as opposed to being little more than a grind right now since no strategy or planning is needed to make tens of billions.]]> Thu, 24 Aug 2017 05:03:06 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Aywanez Wed, 23 Aug 2017 15:45:45 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread nynobernie wrote:
Another idea... Could you just scale down the bonus of the geobooster depending on the population? For example if population the city is 0 (hypothetical) the booster gives 10% (or 5% whatever) bonus. At 50 Mio the bonus ist halved to 5 %. At 100 Mio population the bonus is 0%. So no matter how many boosters are active in parallel, population could never grow above 100 Mio. And in larger cities, the demand effects would start to outweigh the boosters benefit.



Scaling down the bonus just scales down the "max demand" you can achieve for a planet while still keeping its population breaking even. Currently You might be able to pull off say 600 demand and steady population while boosting it continually, cutting it to 5% might allow you to keep it at 3-400. We don't wnat any planet increasing in population if the average is past 200. Most of the game balance revolves around the demand staying around 100 for "normal" profits]]> Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:25:53 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from TimurThunder
(And again. Demand dependant on price, Set sales price option. Wrong location for fix.)]]> Wed, 23 Aug 2017 00:45:03 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from nynobernie hypothetical) the booster gives 10% (or 5% whatever) bonus. At 50 Mio the bonus ist halved to 5 %. At 100 Mio population the bonus is 0%. So no matter how many boosters are active in parallel, population could never grow above 100 Mio. And in larger cities, the demand effects would start to outweigh the boosters benefit.]]> Tue, 22 Aug 2017 01:30:10 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread Tunguska wrote:
I'm not sure how you expect this game to play out. When I sell products, I go for the best price, I'm not sure where the incentive is to sell at below 200%?



There wont be much over 200 if it negatively affect the planets population. That was the original mechanic. The Geo boosters as is are breaking they simply multiply existing population which counteracts any negative from the demand.]]> Sun, 20 Aug 2017 14:30:53 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Tunguska Sun, 20 Aug 2017 13:17:01 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread Aywanez wrote:
Doctor Dread wrote:
they are just mean to accelerate the existing growth. Its something you can put on top of an already thriving city , not bring it back from the toilet.

See, that right there is what makes them volatile. Purchasing and using a geo-booster on your city makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. It doesn't matter what the boost is, that just determines at what size one becomes the other. If geo-boosters made small cities bigger, but was relatively little help to megapolia, it would have a stabilizing influence instead. Just something to think about. wink

Doctor Dread wrote:
I can't allow geo boosters, or any population boosting structure to make a city prosperous past the average 200 demand threshold or it will break the game. If you can make a city have all 500 demand and still be going UP in population its going to ruin the game.

Well, let's see. a 500 demand city loses 3‱ of its population every turn, so if you want 500 to be the break even point for a triple-boosted city (you said in some places that you did, and in others you didn't, but for the moment we will assume you do) a boost should give 1‱ per boost. Roughly 1/10th of what it gives now. That is a massive nerf, and people will be upset. Rightly upset.

I do like the idea you had about geoboosts increasing growth and decreasing decline, depending on which is happening. Well, at any rate, I like it a lot more than the pop-multiplier we have now.
One problem I have with it, is that while the alt-boost is useful for a demand 10% city and really useful for an 999% demand one, has no effect at all on demand 200% city, theoretically the most common city there would be if the system stopped being such a crazy oscillator. But it is a matter of opinion.
edited by Aywanez on 8/18/2017



You are correct that it wouldn't have an effect on a demand 200% city if we do it like this. I don't see any other way of doing it if I need to prevent a over 200% average demand city from increasing in population.

Im ok with "Its useless to boost that city, its not even growing" . Its the same thing as "Its not worth putting a warp gate on this dead moon". Allowing the booster to scale down the decline is more of a bonus use for it. This also works with the persistent bonuses I'm already trying to incorporate through ringworld and Dysonsphere or whatever else we come up with. If its positive its more positive, if its negative its less negative. Thats the bonus of having this boosters in place. But if you put them on a dead potential city its going to fail
edited by DrDread on 8/18/2017]]> Fri, 18 Aug 2017 18:04:02 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Aywanez Doctor Dread wrote:
they are just mean to accelerate the existing growth. Its something you can put on top of an already thriving city , not bring it back from the toilet.

See, that right there is what makes them volatile. Purchasing and using a geo-booster on your city makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. It doesn't matter what the boost is, that just determines at what size one becomes the other. If geo-boosters made small cities bigger, but was relatively little help to megapolia, it would have a stabilizing influence instead. Just something to think about. wink

Doctor Dread wrote:
I can't allow geo boosters, or any population boosting structure to make a city prosperous past the average 200 demand threshold or it will break the game. If you can make a city have all 500 demand and still be going UP in population its going to ruin the game.

Well, let's see. a 500 demand city loses 3‱ of its population every turn, so if you want 500 to be the break even point for a triple-boosted city (you said in some places that you did, and in others you didn't, but for the moment we will assume you do) a boost should give 1‱ per boost. Roughly 1/10th of what it gives now. That is a massive nerf, and people will be upset. Rightly upset.

I do like the idea you had about geoboosts increasing growth and decreasing decline, depending on which is happening. Well, at any rate, I like it a lot more than the pop-multiplier we have now.
One problem I have with it, is that while the alt-boost is useful for a demand 10% city and really useful for an 999% demand one, has no effect at all on demand 200% city, theoretically the most common city there would be if the system stopped being such a crazy oscillator. But it is a matter of opinion.
edited by Aywanez on 8/18/2017]]> Fri, 18 Aug 2017 15:24:43 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread
Just like Orbital Megastructures are useless around small planet (no ones warping or trading much) , you don't place booster on small cities either.]]> Fri, 18 Aug 2017 10:28:05 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Aywanez Fri, 18 Aug 2017 04:07:19 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Ranged Fri, 18 Aug 2017 03:51:29 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread
it might be a lot easier to use the mechanic of geo boosting moves the Demand break even point for poulation growth up from 200 to 300. That would make a lot more sense and be a lot easier to see and understand by looking at the demand of the city. Then boosting the planet and system would raise it to 500. But you can never get population growth is the demand average is past 500

Since there are probably going tobe other things that "boot Population growth" like ring worlds and such, I might just have to go with a straight "bonus" that acts as a percentage boost that is easy to understand]]> Thu, 17 Aug 2017 09:18:21 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Vulpex Thu, 17 Aug 2017 03:44:51 GMT http://forum.baronsofthegalaxy.com/topic2748-perhaps-its-time-to-tweak-geo-boosters.aspx Message from Doctor Dread
Boosting the population with that kind of math mechanic breaks the game. Its very "cheap" to make a few artifacts to boost an entire 25 city planet into the stratosphere while everyone is selling at 1k demand. It should REALLY be it ONLY works on existing Positive growth, which means you would have to get the demand under 200 for anything to work
edited by DrDread on 8/16/2017]]> Wed, 16 Aug 2017 18:46:15 GMT