Effects of an e-cell free economy

[Dank7430]

Just as title says can anyone even begin to guess at how the game ecoonomy will run when npc and player stations dont require e-cells. (apart from the obvious advantage to the player building plexes)

[corhen]

seeing as how, in my current game, E-cells dont seem to be a limiting factor, probobly not much.

All stations have atleast a decent supply, and its the other resources, Crystals, weapon parts, ect, that slow down production


I bet that this was a problem prior to TC, but i know in TC non of the NPC stations require Crystals to create e-cells, meaning they are almoast always full!

[jlehtone]

I bet that this was a problem prior to TC, ...

It has never been a problem. In every game so far the NPC SPP do create Ecells no matter what.

Lets simplify and remove Ecells entirely. Now Mines and Farms produce Minerals/Bio continuously. Nothing has really changed, but there are just less "variety" on wares.

Why stop there? Leave only the Forges and the Docks. The only trade that remains is buying from full Forge and selling to empty Dock. No resources whatsoever, just ship upgrades to haul.

Ahh, scrap that. Have only Docks that stock the ship upgrades. No Factories. Stock levels can be random, just like small ships with M or L equipment in the Shipyards. Woudn't that be a happy game?

[Gazz]

I'm not sure such a complicated system is feasible.
Forget buying wares. Ships should just spawn with default weapons and slowly respawn their default missiles at regular intervals.

[TTD]

No need for stations at all. Just have factory ships that produce more ships,shield weapons etc.

[heratik]

Lets just have a sideways scrolling 2-D environment where you upgrade your ship by picking up floating symbols that are left when you destroy a set wave of enemies, now that's progress!

[ancienthighway]

I already played that game. In several different variations.

[devilsad]

No no no, just have a spaceship icon on the screen with a number below it, and when you click on the spaceship your number goes up.

[Gazz]

You mean X, the Tower Defense game? =P


But seriously, it may not be such a terrible idea to reduce the micromanagement of 19487 different required wares for fighting ships.

A ship would need one resouce. SUPPLY.
It is used up for the afterburner, for special scan operations, ammo lasers, rebuilding destroyed drones... and building missiles.
A ship might have 3 to 10 missile slots. You fire one and it takes x time and y supply to reproduce the preselected type.
You change the preselected type - this missile is scrapped and the new type enters production.

If you could not spam a whole cargo hold full of missiles, it would go a long, long way towards being able to balance missile defense on a ship.
In TC you're dealing with a situation where a missile defense script, that is designed to deal with 300-400 missiles, appears somewhat overqualified when faced with a single missile.
The reverse case is equally unsatisfying.
That problem is the direct result of the way missile supply works, or rather that you can have ungodly amounts of missiles in the cargo hold.

Add to that a way to research / steal blueprints for more equipment types and you can have a plenty interesting game without all the annoying micromanagement of an X3.

Once you have the blueprint for PAC, you can build PAC on all your ships, using supply. One size fits all.

The entire supply rigamarole would be cut down to M1 (slowly) generating supply and the rest of the fleet being supplied by tankers. Well, oilers if you prefer navyspeak.
The "combat" game wouldn't have been dumbed down, rather the opposite. You'd have to make actual choices about which equipment to install on a ship instead of just filling the cargo hold with the best missile type and tactics be damned.

And the best part of it? Such an abstract supply system is easy enough for the AI to handle, so no more M7M without missiles or M2 without ammo...


Trading can still exist as fully optional content. You'd be trading EC, crystals, Alloys... the usual trade goods.
The "fighting" players wouldn't need nor want to deal with the fiddly bits.

[jlehtone]

If you do not use ammo-type weaponry, then all you need for a fight is an equipped ship (although technically one can enter a fight with a pea a tissue paper as entire armament equipment). It should be trivial to offer a start that sets you into the bridge of (escorted) flagship.

No no no, just have a spaceship icon on the screen with a number below it, and when you click on the spaceship your number goes up.

Too high graphical requirements.

Here is a whole game:

game.bat:

Code: Select all

echo "The End"

Or its multi-player *nix version:

game.sh:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
wall "The End"

Note. The derail of the thread may have obfuscated the answer to the OP. In reality there is no "economy", just flow of wares from producers to consumers. SPP->Bio->Food->Tech->Dock. If you do remove the SPP from the chain, then the chain is just a bit shorter. ECells would become like Spacefuel: nobody needs, but player finds it "profitable".

[Lord Dakier]

Guys let's look at this in a different light. You go to a garage and rather than do stuff one buy one you buy packages instead... An exampme, combat package one gives you several guns, a few shields and minor software. Next combat package gives you that bit extra and so on. It would reduce micro management a lot. If you want to specify each ware then fair enough.

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

Guys let's look at this in a different light. You go to a garage and rather than do stuff one buy one you buy packages instead... An exampme, combat package one gives you several guns, a few shields and minor software. Next combat package gives you that bit extra and so on. It would reduce micro management a lot. If you want to specify each ware then fair enough.

But those packages still have to be supplied with resources and then sent to the garages so to speak. So you are still going to need the 'trade' part of the game. If you start taking out parts of the trade you are left with less in the long run, so taking out the ecells where does it end....

[RicoOcho]

is in it odd you can make a Firestorm Torpedo out of Batteries, Steaks and some rocks???
Kind of wish this game was a tab bit more in depth...IE...using microchips/computer components, warheads n such along with everything else to make one torpedo...same goes for weapons...but eh...just my thought...

[Infekted]

I've always felt that tech should be two tiers just like food.
So like you say use energy, food and minerals to make 1st tier tech, then use 1+ 1st tier techs plus energy to make end stage tech like weapons etc.
I don't really want "packages", would be perfectly happy fitting my own ships, provided they made the process of fitting multiple ships a lot easier.

[Automatic Jack]

is in it odd you can make a Firestorm Torpedo out of Batteries, Steaks and some rocks???
Kind of wish this game was a tab bit more in depth...IE...using microchips/computer components, warheads n such along with everything else to make one torpedo...same goes for weapons...but eh...just my thought...

Hell, I'd RTS it even further and add a civilian economy chain by requiring social services and living space for the factory workers.

[gbjbaanb]

I guess that is catered for by the inclusion of cahoonas in argon fabs (and similar foodstuffs for other fabs).

you could mandate an upkeep cost to all factories, in credits, like a tax that is spent on keeping the factory itself running, new paint on the outside, repairing it, paying someone to sweep up the littler etc. That would make the huge complexes more difficult to run but I think would make the game a little more interesting.

I would like to see a little more to the resource chains, eg. ore -> refined metal ingots -> goods, instead of just ore -> goods, and i'd like some high-tech items require more resources, eg firestorm torps require chips and warheads in addition to the current 3 resources.

But I think things are reasonably fine as they are.

[GCU Grey Area]

is in it odd you can make a Firestorm Torpedo out of Batteries, Steaks and some rocks???
Kind of wish this game was a tab bit more in depth...IE...using microchips/computer components, warheads n such along with everything else to make one torpedo...same goes for weapons...but eh...just my thought...

Hell, I'd RTS it even further and add a civilian economy chain by requiring social services and living space for the factory workers.

Same here - would prefer a much more detailed economic model, e.g. lots of different ores which can be smelted to produce different metals, numerous extra technological components required for all high tech goods, along with significant overheads for factories (wages, taxes, life support expenses, etc). Would however jettison the whole concept of energy cells - personally find the idea that the entire galactic economy runs on solar powered batteries absolutely ludicrous.

[RicoOcho]

is in it odd you can make a Firestorm Torpedo out of Batteries, Steaks and some rocks???
Kind of wish this game was a tab bit more in depth...IE...using microchips/computer components, warheads n such along with everything else to make one torpedo...same goes for weapons...but eh...just my thought...

Hell, I'd RTS it even further and add a civilian economy chain by requiring social services and living space for the factory workers.

Same here - would prefer a much more detailed economic model, e.g. lots of different ores which can be smelted to produce different metals, numerous extra technological components required for all high tech goods, along with significant overheads for factories (wages, taxes, life support expenses, etc). Would however jettison the whole concept of energy cells - personally find the idea that the entire galactic economy runs on solar powered batteries absolutely ludicrous.

CAGS/CLS's kind of do the whole wages thing....
I do think that one can do with out the energy cells..personally they dont bother(Terran SPP look awesome BTW)..
I do think one can still use them ie Jump Drives, Turbo Etc

[Nanook]

Just as title says can anyone even begin to guess at how the game ecoonomy will run when npc and player stations dont require e-cells. (apart from the obvious advantage to the player building plexes)

Now aren't you glad you asked that question?

[Bobucles]

I find it absolutely silly that one would think E-cells were ever the problem with the X economy. The problem is much more fundamental than that. It can't provide enough goods! Forget about the absolutely MONOLITHIC demands of the different empires.
- All the factories in the universe can't possibly supply one ship yard.
- All the factories in the universe can't keep one missile ship filled.
- All the factories in the universe can't arm more than one capital ship per game day (especially when 50+ blow up each day!).
- All the factories in the universe can't keep a fleet of fighters going.
- All the factories in the universe can't even supply the player.

I understand that Egosoft wanted to have a factory system with realistic representations of production time and factory cycles. But when you look at what an empire consumes vs. what the game can supply, it's not even close. There's no way the factory system in X can keep up.

There are only 3 goods that the X economy can realistically supply to the game world:
- Energy cells
- PACs
- IREs
Everything else is in such short supply, that it has to be automagically added to the universe.