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Post by xdesperado on Feb 21, 2017 23:11:21 GMT -5
5 Orbital zones 2 High Tech Industry zones 1 Population zone 1 Farming zone 4 Wilderness zones How can this quadrant, or the many like it in my galaxy, be economically feasible? It does not have a good, local trade route. This has been the case for nearly every quadrant I've visited. Several key zones are missing. It seems that there has to be some consideration for this when distributing planets. Trying to establish trade routes between quadrants is usually not feasible. I am trying to go back to the start of this thread and make sense of it. What is wrong with this quadrant? This one fits precisely one of the desired rule sets. This one, I'm afraid, was designed to be exactly like this  I asked the route analyzer to suggest some trade goods for this distribution: Synthetic Food Edible Plants Frozen Food Grain Vudka Electronic Components Basic Medicines Clothing Advanced Medicines Power Generators Gas Processors Problem may be unintended and not readily apparent at first look. Can't say about that particular map but I know on my current one things that look like decent trade routes are deceiving. I'm Zenrin, all but 2 worlds and 3 zones in starting quadrant are Zenrin. Have a farm, an Industrial Zone, Population Zone and some orbitals. Starting out I have to be very careful because all the Zenrin zones have law 8+ with the farm zone being 10. Means a lot of things even after I can get trade permits simply can't be traded at this point in Alpha. Once we get the smuggler stuff into game it may be a bit easier but the bottom line is there is such a complex mix of not only zone types but the permit system and law levels added into mix that it can make you wonder how the quadrant survived and grew at all. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 21, 2017 23:12:50 GMT -5
Sorry xdesperado. We'll keep trying our best to improve! |
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Post by grävling on Feb 21, 2017 23:35:09 GMT -5
You could just go ahead and make a Pirate captain with skills #1 allocated to sword and evade, and attributes #2, with strength and quickness 26, while fortitude and (forgot the other one) at 20ish. At least that's what I did, but with a bounty hunter. All my officers where non combat, and picking up office jobs that the captain was too busy hunting to do. I'd say this pretty much puts paid to the notion that women are inevitably more protective, caring and risk-adverse than men. @earthsuit and bookworm21 are worried about exposing their poor captains to the hazard of crew combat. ChocoCrowbar and I immediately start calculating how to make the meanest S.O.B. and D.O.B. in all the quadrants.  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2017 3:43:16 GMT -5
I am trying to go back to the start of this thread and make sense of it. What is wrong with this quadrant? This one fits precisely one of the desired rule sets. This one, I'm afraid, was designed to be exactly like this I asked the route analyzer to suggest some trade goods for this distribution: Synthetic Food Edible Plants Frozen Food Grain Vudka Electronic Components Basic Medicines Clothing Advanced Medicines Power Generators Gas Processors Problem may be unintended and not readily apparent at first look. Can't say about that particular map but I know on my current one things that look like decent trade routes are deceiving. I'm Zenrin, all but 2 worlds and 3 zones in starting quadrant are Zenrin. Have a farm, an Industrial Zone, Population Zone and some orbitals. Starting out I have to be very careful because all the Zenrin zones have law 8+ with the farm zone being 10. Means a lot of things even after I can get trade permits simply can't be traded at this point in Alpha. Once we get the smuggler stuff into game it may be a bit easier but the bottom line is there is such a complex mix of not only zone types but the permit system and law levels added into mix that it can make you wonder how the quadrant survived and grew at all. 's comments here include some of the details I had left out and merely alluded too. I won't rehash his coverage of factions and legal/law restrictions since his statements are true. But I do need to mention them except to say that law and legal ratings could render the use of a quadrant moot. These two factors alone can kill a quadrant and are very integral to how useful a quadrant will be. I hope that is not part of the design. Meanwhile, please notice from the OP that the real production oriented zones, the base of any truly functioning economy, are not there: Mining, Refining, Industrial, Luxury Population, or Tradeway. The route analyzer gives a very low income route suggestion except as far as the electronic components, advanced medicines, power generators, and gas processors go. Of the 13 zones present, only 3 are pseudo-producers. The rest are consumers. I know consumers produce some resources, but they can not provide, as I mentioned, a very profitable route, nor could they really feed the resource requirements of those base zones. So, this is not a particularly viable economy. And if a quadrant's economy doesn't work, then what is the point of going there? It will be just another dead quadrant in the galaxy. How many dead quadrants can a captain use? So, we have to generate a map and hope that it is usable. So anyway, it seems to me from the answers we've gotten that the map generation process is not going to change much since it's been in the works for over a year and the internals are now sophisticated. I'm just not looking forward to having to re-roll captains and maps because the economies are not worth attempting to use in any way other than fulfilling mission requirements. I know, I can move on to another game, but I don't want to do that. I've invested, and continue to invest, in this game which means I believe in it. And if the final reality is that I just need to shun certain quadrants, I will do that. C'est la vie. |
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Post by grävling on Feb 22, 2017 4:03:07 GMT -5
But with House Resources behind you, does it _matter_ if a quadrant is locally viable or not? The wormhole itself is an incredibly valuable resource.
Look, House Leader! I found a wormhole, to someplace nobody has ever seen before!
Quick, quick! Colonise any viable planets you find! Consolidate military control of the quadrant before stinking House Thulun or De Valtos shows up and owns everything! Grow! Grow! Grow!
500 years pass.
House Leader, nobody's found any new wormholes for 250 years. If there are any more to find, they must be pretty well-hidden.
Crap, we've built ourselves an empire that is 80% farm-economy! Of all the stinking luck! Hire Star Traders like CRAZY! Train all those farmboys and farmgirls into SOLDIERS! We can't aim for self-sufficiency. We've got to be a trading and military powerhouse!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2017 4:55:07 GMT -5
But with House Resources behind you, does it _matter_ if a quadrant is locally viable or not? The wormhole itself is an incredibly valuable resource. Look, House Leader! I found a wormhole, to someplace nobody has ever seen before! Quick, quick! Colonise any viable planets you find. Consolidate military control of the quadrant before stinking House Thulun or De Valtos shows up and owns everything! Grow! Grow! Grow! 500 years pass. House Leader, nobody's found any new wormholes for 250 years. If there are any more to find, they must be pretty well-hidden. Crap, we've built ourselves an empire that is 80% farm-economy! Of all the stinking luck! Hire Star Traders like CRAZY! Train all those farmboys and farmgirls into SOLDIERS! We can't aim for self-sufficiency. We've got to be a trading and military powerhouse! True. And I know with any game, one needs to suspend belief. But, only to the point that the game is not trying to be realistic in some sense. The economy system here is meant to recreate RL economic systems. If the empire you example above were real, don't you think that it would work on modifying it's economy even as we do in RL? |
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Post by grävling on Feb 22, 2017 5:08:56 GMT -5
The experience of many African nations, some of which still have 'soliders' as a principle export, indicates that work on modifying one's own economy is not as straight-forward as it is written down in neo-liberal economic textbooks. Especially when there always is somebody willing to sell you whatever you want, better and cheaper than you are currently able to produce at your present level of technical and logistical expertise. One fix for that is a stiff import tax, forcing the locals to be the market for your fledgling industries whether they like it or not until you improve enough that you can compete on the world markets. But the World Bank won't lend you development funds unless you pledge to keep your markets open, so ...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2017 9:36:58 GMT -5
grävling, please excuse the disorganization of this reply as I'm using my phone. Im not going to get pulled into a conversation about European and US politics right now. It can be argued that it is not really appropriate to this particular thread. Even so, the plight of African countries cannot be assumed to be so simplistic as to think that import taxes and world bank loans would create more stable economies. They are also plagued with despotic rulers, oppressive military forces, greedy leaders, international corporations being invited in so they can rape the country's natural resources, the proliferation of drugs, famine, drought, civil war, proxie wars, and etc. Improving an economy can only be done by interacting with your neighbors. It is a matter of self-preservation. If you look at a quadrant as a microcosm, you'll see that each zone needs to do what is necessary for the survival of all those involved in the economy. One zone, one country, cannot be an island unto itself. A little thought exercise: what would it take to make a sandwich from scatch where you have to provide yourself with everything that is necessary from flour and yeast to mayo to meat to making the brick for your oven and collecting the ore you'll need to smelt so you can make a knife to slaughter a cow? Then consider, where do you get the seeds for wheat or a calf to raise for milk and meat? Not to mention you better hope the ore you'll need is on your property. Not even those who came to my country as it was colonized were able to do this. They depended on one another and foreign imports just to survive. One person, one static economic state, cannot provide everything for itself. How long will it take and how much will it cost to make a simple sandwich?
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Post by grävling on Feb 22, 2017 9:49:56 GMT -5
Even so, the plight of African countries cannot be assumed to be so simplistic as to think that import taxes and world bank loans would create more stable economies. They are also plagued with despotic rulers, oppressive military forces, greedy leaders, international corporations being invited in so they can rape the country's natural resources, the proliferation of drugs, famine, drought, civil war, proxie wars, and etc. Sounds like the ST2 universe to me, which is why I used them as an example. That it is difficult to develop local expertise and have completely free markets at the same time in no way exhausts the list of challenges facing African countries trying to develop. |
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athios
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Post by athios on Feb 22, 2017 10:01:40 GMT -5
Plus, the type of economy heavily depends on planetary conditions and local resources. You can't simply change the economy type because it works out better for the quadrant. Not without very significant capital investment anyway.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 22, 2017 11:18:52 GMT -5
So anyway, it seems to me from the answers we've gotten that the map generation process is not going to change much since it's been in the works for over a year and the internals are now sophisticated. I'm just not looking forward to having to re-roll captains and maps because the economies are not worth attempting to use in any way other than fulfilling mission requirements. I know, I can move on to another game, but I don't want to do that. I've invested, and continue to invest, in this game which means I believe in it. And if the final reality is that I just need to shun certain quadrants, I will do that. C'est la vie. I'm sad that is the impression we've given. The procedural generation system continues to receive updates and improvements with every release. However, not every player likes procedurally generated content. Some people don't find joy in exploring these constructs, and it sounds like that is the case here. We really want players to be able to find the experience they are looking for in ST2. Our plan is that procedural generated maps will be one way to play the game, but not the only way. fallen and I are hard at work on some canned maps that are created by the proc-gen and then heavily hand modified. I don't know yet if we'd be using the @earthsuit "it must have a mining and refinery!" rule set for every quadrant in that map, however, at least you'll know as the player that everything you encounter was personally approved and tested by a designer. In closing, does a good proc gen system only generate "good" quadrants? No. For it to work, it must, strictly and by design, be capable of building sub-standard and even bad quadrants. It must be able to recognize those decisions, spread them around the map and balance them. Sorry |
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Post by fallen on Feb 22, 2017 12:35:56 GMT -5
But I do need to mention them except to say that law and legal ratings could render the use of a quadrant moot. These two factors alone can kill a quadrant and are very integral to how useful a quadrant will be. I hope that is not part of the design. Except for Smugglers? Then they'd be hotbeds of activity. I understand you're taking a legal merchants view to this, but the game is creating a rich galactic map that can be played and enjoyed by all types of Captains. Yes, it might create places where Merchants can't profit. In that case, start dealing under the table (black market feature pending), or travel elsewhere. if we made every Quadrant a great place for a merchant to be, I think we'd really ruin the game. You will also find Quadrants that are nearly or completely dead -- all wild zones, crap populations and econs, or nothing but abandoned orbitals. Ohhhh, a wonderful place for Explorers but a Merchant really can't do his job here. Thanks! |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 22, 2017 12:55:14 GMT -5
The rest are consumers. I know consumers produce some resources, but they can not provide, as I mentioned, a very profitable route, nor could they really feed the resource requirements of those base zones. So, this is not a particularly viable economy. And if a quadrant's economy doesn't work, then what is the point of going there? It will be just another dead quadrant in the galaxy. I think we're just coming at this from very different directions. Those Quadrants certainly have trade routes within them, with or without permits. Are they maximum profitability, within that Quadrant? Perhaps not to your standards, but a player could have profitable trades in the resources I listed. If the Quadrant's economy is heavily bound by Law level, then this may be a bad Quadrant for Merchants, but it is an excellent Quadrant for Smugglers. These Quadrants with heavy consumer worlds are VERY valuable if you are willing to look beyond local quadrant trade routes. I think part of the challenge we'll have in this discussion is that I think we may have different ideas of what the goals for the procedural generation of maps are. Hopefully we can get there sometime soon. |
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athios
Templar
[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 1,611
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Post by athios on Feb 22, 2017 12:57:36 GMT -5
But I do need to mention them except to say that law and legal ratings could render the use of a quadrant moot. These two factors alone can kill a quadrant and are very integral to how useful a quadrant will be. I hope that is not part of the design. Except for Smugglers? Then they'd be hotbeds of activity. I understand you're taking a legal merchants view to this, but the game is creating a rich galactic map that can be played and enjoyed by all types of Captains. Yes, it might create places where Merchants can't profit. In that case, start dealing under the table (black market feature pending), or travel elsewhere. if we made every Quadrant a great place for a merchant to be, I think we'd really ruin the game. You will also find Quadrants that are nearly or completely dead -- all wild zones, crap populations and econs, or nothing but abandoned orbitals. Ohhhh, a wonderful place for Explorers but a Merchant really can't do his job here. Thanks! I agree that this adds way more depth and richness to the game. I would just pray that a captain won't spawn in a Quadrant that isn't suitable for him/her.  |
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Post by fallen on Feb 22, 2017 12:59:11 GMT -5
The game is about exploration and traveling.
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