Announcements post #67: More economy changes!

Autoposter

<pre>From: Garryn, the Reshaper
Subject: More economy changes!

The next batch of economy-related changes is now live! The immediate change that you will notice that all the refineries and factories have been removed, and you got the Marks (current price) back.

AUTOFACTORIES AND REFINERIES
============================

* Every player can now own TWO types of autofactories and TWO types of refineries, and at most two of each type (so a total of 4 refineries and autofactories), with specialization-based exceptions.

* You can now use autofactories belonging to other players

* Autofactory owners can use AUTOFACTORY <id> PRICEMULT <x> to set the cost (and their profit margin) when producing for others.

* Every player can now pick ONE specialization out of three options - MANUFACTURING SPECIALISE mining/refining/autofactory

MINING:
- 10% higher yield from asteroids and refineries
- no speed penalty when turning around with an asteroid
- reduced scoops movement penalty
- autofactories and refineries operate slower
- refinery and autofactory cost doubled

REFINING:
- refineries operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of refineries, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- autofactories operate slower

AUTOFACTORY:
- autofactories operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of autofactories, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- refineries operate slower

If you have no specialization, you incur all the listed penalties.

IMPORTANT - the specialization is a one-time choice. You CAN change it, but it'd cost you 100 credits, so pick wisely!


PERSONAL MARKET ORDERS
======================

Every player who has picked a specialization will now be able to take up to FIVE personal market orders every day. These orders are automatically generated, and are much more lucrative than other market orders. You can see them on your order lists, or you can use MARKET ORDER PERSONAL to list only the personal orders. These are replaced every RL day.

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Ilyos

Small note here: We're going to be looking at recipes and making some adjustments so as to make comms / parts more useful across the board.

Steve

Do freighters and super haulers still affect ship movement when hauling asteroids or scoops, even if a specialization penalizes those aspects of movement? I understand that they're sluggish to begin with, but I'd appreciate some clarification.

Kitrana

miners got ripped off with the doubling of costs

Yayeh

Has there been any decision on whether or not bonuses derived from achieving previous manufacturing honors are still in effect or not? (I.e. Mastering gases/asteroids/products) 

Matlkael

Kitrana said:

miners got ripped off with the doubling of costs

@Ilyos can we get a clarification on this? Do Mining-specced people only get the double cost malus if they use their own refineries, or can they use (for example) the refinery of a Refining-specced person and enjoy the speed and low cost in full?

Kitrana

so it appears that it is only the buy cost of refineries that doubled. but i still think miners got ripped off. since most people mine with interceptors the speed thing was never that big of a deal. we get double cost on our refineries and autofactories and they work slower and all we really get that is actually a bonus that matters is +10% on the yield of our harvests. it's something but it is nowhere near what the others get and they don;t have to spend hours looking for the materials in order to make marks.

Paqu

I wonder if that 10% is chained with existing production bunus in locations, or as an addition to that bonus.

Matlkael

Kitrana said:

so it appears that it is only the buy cost of refineries that doubled. but i still think miners got ripped off. since most people mine with interceptors the speed thing was never that big of a deal. we get double cost on our refineries and autofactories and they work slower and all we really get that is actually a bonus that matters is +10% on the yield of our harvests. it's something but it is nowhere near what the others get and they don;t have to spend hours looking for the materials in order to make marks.

It's a give and take. Mining spec is indeed the 'active' one where you have to go around and gather resources. However, Refining and Autofactory specs can't do much without Mining; that is, the power of Mining spec is that it is the start point for the economy.

Also, I've said this before elsewhere: you can simply use the refineries of others (in particular, those who have chosen the Refining spec). The main point of the changes was to dissuade vertical integration.

Kitrana

Matlkael said:

Kitrana said:

so it appears that it is only the buy cost of refineries that doubled. but i still think miners got ripped off. since most people mine with interceptors the speed thing was never that big of a deal. we get double cost on our refineries and autofactories and they work slower and all we really get that is actually a bonus that matters is +10% on the yield of our harvests. it's something but it is nowhere near what the others get and they don;t have to spend hours looking for the materials in order to make marks.

It's a give and take. Mining spec is indeed the 'active' one where you have to go around and gather resources. However, Refining and Autofactory specs can't do much without Mining; that is, the power of Mining spec is that it is the start point for the economy.

Also, I've said this before elsewhere: you can simply use the refineries of others (in particular, those who have chosen the Refining spec). The main point of the changes was to dissuade vertical integration.

yes you can use the refineries of others, like slander who is charging 15 per titanium batch, a fair price if it does indeed still cost 10 per batch to refine. i would even say it seems perhaps a little low. but that doesn't change the fact miners didn't really get much of worth for the costs of their specialization. a refinery can have 9 refineries of three different types and 4 autofactories of two different types and both at a cheaper rate then miners could buy. manufacturers swap those refinery and autofactory numbers and dont pay a higher price for either of those either. and they are rather passive income sources. i know autofactories rake in marks faster then refineries. for those bonuses plus the faster production in the specialization they took they get slower turning and acceleration, when scoops out or towing a rock, a lack of 10% bonus to yield and the specialization they didn;t take produces slower. BUT they can still refine at their own refineries at base cost which for some resources will be as high as 50% price reduction. IE titanium costs me 15 marks at slanders titanium refinery but they pay the base cost of 10 marks per batch. How am as i a miner spec supposed to compete with that even with the 10% bonus to yield? before this change i could compete by opening up my own refinery, and i did over time i had the whole set. so i could refine at the base cost. my conclusion is that miner specialization got ripped off.

Kirin

I think refiners should need to BUY raw materials from miners and then the commodity should belong to the refiner. The risk of selling it on further should be his or hers

MINERS - mine for resource and sell unrefined materials to refiners. Let this be a purchased commodity. Mining specialists profit by getting a higher yield from asteroids/ clouds than other miners.

REFINERS - refine the ore and then sell finished material to manufacturers. Specialists get faster production and production bonus to outcompete non specialists 

MANUFACTURERS - procure refined material and produce and sell useable items. Again their speed and bonus production allowing them to compete with others in the supply chain

this lets miners control prices for resources based on what they think is the relative rarity of materials.

perhaps have a benchmark rate at which refiners can acquire limited quantities of ore on black market or such to keep costs under control

Kitrana

Kirin said:

I think refiners should need to BUY raw materials from miners and then the commodity should belong to the refiner. The risk of selling it on further should be his or hers

MINERS - mine for resource and sell unrefined materials to refiners. Let this be a purchased commodity.

REFINERS - refine the ore and then sell finished material to manufacturers

MANUFACTURERS - procure refined material and produce and sell useable items

this lets miners control prices for resources based on what they think is the relative rarity of materials.

perhaps have a benchmark rate at which refiners can acquire limited quantities of ore on black market or such to keep costs under control

it's a start but nothing stops refiners from going out and getting their own materials. mining and refining are two sides of the same coin. manufacturing is more it's own thing. so long as refiners can just undercut miners with their own manual efforts, which are exactly the same basically as what miners already do, then miners cant compete.

Kirin

Kitrana said:

Matlkael said:

Kitrana said:

so it appears that it is only the buy cost of refineries that doubled. but i still think miners got ripped off. since most people mine with interceptors the speed thing was never that big of a deal. we get double cost on our refineries and autofactories and they work slower and all we really get that is actually a bonus that matters is +10% on the yield of our harvests. it's something but it is nowhere near what the others get and they don;t have to spend hours looking for the materials in order to make marks.

It's a give and take. Mining spec is indeed the 'active' one where you have to go around and gather resources. However, Refining and Autofactory specs can't do much without Mining; that is, the power of Mining spec is that it is the start point for the economy.

Also, I've said this before elsewhere: you can simply use the refineries of others (in particular, those who have chosen the Refining spec). The main point of the changes was to dissuade vertical integration.

yes you can use the refineries of others, like slander who is charging 15 per titanium batch, a fair price if it does indeed still cost 10 per batch to refine. i would even say it seems perhaps a little low. but that doesn't change the fact miners didn't really get much of worth for the costs of their specialization. a refinery can have 9 refineries of three different types and 4 autofactories of two different types and both at a cheaper rate then miners could buy. manufacturers swap those refinery and autofactory numbers and dont pay a higher price for either of those either. and they are rather passive income sources. i know autofactories rake in marks faster then refineries. for those bonuses plus the faster production in the specialization they took they get slower turning and acceleration, when scoops out or towing a rock, a lack of 10% bonus to yield and the specialization they didn;t take produces slower. BUT they can still refine at their own refineries at base cost which for some resources will be as high as 50% price reduction. IE titanium costs me 15 marks at slanders titanium refinery but they pay the base cost of 10 marks per batch. How am as i a miner spec supposed to compete with that even with the 10% bonus to yield? before this change i could compete by opening up my own refinery, and i did over time i had the whole set. so i could refine at the base cost. my conclusion is that miner specialization got ripped off.

you compete based on the fact that you pay lower  than anyone else to gather resources.

you don’t have to sell to Slander( slandering Slander I see) - but over time there will be enough competition between mining specialists to cut costs else they may not get enough raw material to feed their refineries 

Ilyos

Going to have an internal talk about some of these concerns and will get back at you all later today

Slander

Heeey I got mentioned. I feel special. Sorry, half-awake. Anyway, my refineries are set to cost+5 like they always have been and, honestly, calling that a profit margin is inaccurate. At that price I need 5,000 batches run through one refinery to break even. Best case scenario, that would take 34.7222 RL days of queue where production never stops (assuming 10 minutes per batch). In all the months I had refineries, not one got anywhere near paying for itself. Closest I've gotten are iriil with 1,973 batches and helium-11 with 1,649.

Kitrana

yes refining has never been an overall money maker, for me it was something i went into so i could pay base cost and raise the profit margins of my mining. all my refiners were run at the base cost for someone who had no masteries which meant at most i was getting 2 marks profit for refineries of mine someone else used.

Yayeh

Another question: do personal market orders reflect your specialization? (I. E. Do miners get personal market orders primarily for materials, while manufacturers get personal market orders for final products?) 

Yayeh

Also, I want to throw some thoughts out on specializations. I have not chosen yet BUT, I actually see all three specs viable at the moment for different reasons, depending upon receiving clarifications for these questions:

1. Will freighters/superhaulers still have no maluses involved in mining/gas scooping?
2. Are bonuses from previous honors still in effect (i.e. mastering gases/asteroids/products?)
3. Does the 10% bonus from the mining spec stack with the production bonuses of refineries and autofactories in the various subsecs in space? (Also clarification on the wording of "10% higher yield from asteroids and refineries" - Does this imply that there's a 10% bonus at the moment you tether an asteroid AND refine that same asteroid at a refinery?) 

Kitrana

Yayeh said:

Also, I want to throw some thoughts out on specializations. I have not chosen yet BUT, I actually see all three specs viable at the moment for different reasons, depending upon receiving clarifications for these questions:

1. Will freighters/superhaulers still have no maluses involved in mining/gas scooping?
2. Are bonuses from previous honors still in effect (i.e. mastering gases/asteroids/products?)
3. Does the 10% bonus from the mining spec stack with the production bonuses of refineries and autofactories in the various subsecs in space? (Also clarification on the wording of "10% higher yield from asteroids and refineries" - Does this imply that there's a 10% bonus at the moment you tether an asteroid AND refine that same asteroid at a refinery?) 

freighters lost their maluses for tethering and scoops a while back

Yayeh

Kitrana said:

freighters lost their maluses for tethering and scoops a while back

Yes, I just wanted to verify that this remains true post-changes, regardless of what specialization is chosen.

Garryn

Let's see ...

* previous manufacturing bonuses should all be intact

* location and spec based bonuses should stack

* for the mining bonus, every asteroid/gas is treated as 10% bigger when you deposit it at a refinery

* freighters currently have the same malus as everything else if you aren't specced for mining

* personal orders somewhat reflect your spec - if you are autofactory specced, you get orders for finished goods, otherwise you get ones for refined comms; we will likely be tweaking this depending on how things play out

Yayeh

Thank you Garryn! Much appreciated!

Kirin

The issue is that given the relative lack of use of stesium/ elessium/ ultarine/ duramine - there is little incentive for anyone to specialize with these commodities to support 3 of these refineries.

Similarly, there is not enough demand for items such as bots, qpcs and processors to justify investing upto 3 autofactories on them

even personal missions notwithstanding it seems like a stretch to operate 3 autofactories or refineries with lower usage items

Kitrana

one question i have is do miners pay for that extra 10% they get from their refining or is it just a free 10%? like a full scoop of iriil will net me 44 units of iriil instead of 40 am i paying to refine 40 units though or 44 units?

Rylek

I really like the new system. However, it feels like it requires a larger population than we have

Steve

First of all, I agree that this sort of change was necessary for the long-term health of the game. I also like the change to opening up factories to the public, and I like the idea of mechanically-enforced specialization. However, I'd like to offer some feedback, which is similar to what others have said.

Why would one player want to have more than one of a factory? For example, why would I want more than one battery factory when there are location bonuses that tell me where it's good to put them and where it isn't?

I could see having several of the alloy, nonmetal, and other basic goods autofactories because those batch numbers are so low and the location production bonuses don't seem to matter as much there. The better strategy becomes placing these non-final goods autofactories where the refineries that feed them are located so as to reduce travel time.

The incentive for multiple autofactories of a single type seems very low. I would definitely build one, but never two or three, of explosives, batteries, resources, or repairs factories. I would consider building a second alloy or nonmetal factory. (And, personally, I'd just use somebody else's QPC, processors, or bots factory.)

I'm still mulling over refineries, but I might as well put what I'm thinking right now. Before the changes, I enjoyed investing in a single location with some dynasty members so that we could set up a hub for refinery and intermediate-goods manufacturing collaboration. Now, that can still be accomplished, but it requires a few more helping hands -- no big deal.

And I might not mine dropping a second refinery somewhere like a capital planet, but what's the point in a third? Is the idea to try to put down refineries out in the far-flung reaches of the sector? This might sound nice, but, as a miner, I'm never going to spend the travel time going all around the sector to gather the materials once they're refined. I'd rather travel back to my hub and refine there. (Gas, as currently implemented, can function differently because you can set up a farm near a location-bonus refinery.)

The mining perk is simple and helps miners get more resources. They can actually turn a profit quickly if they don't invest in refineries and autofactories. Seems good to me.

Am I over-valuing the refineries and autofactories perks that increase number of facilities for those two specializations? Is it really all about the tax break?

Conclusion: I don't see how the refining and manufacturing specializations offer perks that fit how people play the game.

Ikchor

I think the draw for having multiples of the same factory is to try and deal with the inevitable backlog of queuing up a lot of material. Like some places pre-rework were looking at a full RL day to refine things, and that is just your stuff never mind the people ahead of you in the queue. So having multiple factories/refineries would help alleviate the backlog. Maybe? I'm not sure as I didn't play around with the refining process much, and am just getting back into the swing of things with mining.

Matlkael

Yeah...yayeh took a couple of days to fill an order of 50 batteries!

Kirin

I have another grievance with the whole Personal Market orders as of now

1) Refiners and more strongly Autofactory specialists have to rely on others to fulfill their personal orders. 
2) A miner can simply hunt for material, go to the refinery and viola ... ready for delivery.

An autofactory owner on the other hand has to have several resources of different types before attempting to make and deliver goods towards personal market orders.

This makes it much more difficult logistically to actually fulfill market orders for autofactory specialists. 

Potential Solutions
1) Have autofactory specialists be able to procure materials from a market for a fee
2) Increase profit margins on finished goods to account for the logistical challenge of the fulfillment

Rylek

I'm not sure about other things, but as mentioned above, batteries, in particular, are taking WAY too much to build. I can't tell if it's the small population, or the randomness of space resources, or if the process is just too much. It takes actual days to produce what takes much much much less time to expend. This a game, and it's extremely not fun to spend such a horrid time ratio on gathering:using batteries. Much less selling them for others. And the Starforge costs are super high, making incursions themselves something my friends and I seldom get to enjoy, despite actually enjoying them quite a bit.

Razzy

Gotta agree that the speed was never really an issue - I always, and still, mined with my corvette and there's not really a noticeable decrease in the time it takes me to find, harvest, and then drag things back to a refinery.

Bumping the yield bonus up a bit (or a lot  ) might help alleviate some of the issues with getting supplies to people with autofactories... Or for a less blatantly obvious attempt to get a buff to my specialization, increasing the batch sizes of stuff like batteries, repairkits, etc could help drive the costs per unit down while still allowing the people that produce them to make a profit, though perhaps that's not the most elegant solution.