Midway step in refactoring trade

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Deus Siddis
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

travists wrote: A refinery, however, is where I see gasses and mined metals as well as silicon, carbon, etc. combined into alloys glass and other developed commodities. Those used by factories to make useful stuff.
I'm well aware of this, but what I'm suggesting is to get rid of separate refining facilities and instead have the refineries built into mining facilities. Because unrefined ore is very heavy and only a small part of it is something you actually want. So launching it into orbit and/or shipping it across many millions of kilometers doesn't seem very economical.
I was not intending to imply that we have every manufacturer of every device, but rather that the consumer is as large as government purchasers.
However big or small a part consumerism plays in the distant future, in a space setting it is really out of place. Consumer may or may not be king planet-side, but as an astronaut trading commodities the player isn't going to deal with consumers directly. He deals only with large producers and organizations that need standardized bulk resources. From the perspective of realism, space is too expensive for picky individualistic consumers, so there is no need for us to worry about them.

Also, for more perspective, keep in mind VS is set during real and direct wartime. Wars are won by production, not consumption, so you would expect to see rationing and larger group purchasing in such times.
Universities mainly produce intellectual property. But they consume what would be expected of a mostly young population. And thus differ from a research station proper.
But universities don't take up entire planets nor dwell in space, so they are well outside the scope of the space based commodity trade. Their own well developed planet can supply them with more than enough ethanol production, whereas shipping it in from another planet or solar system would be insanely more expensive.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Deus Siddis wrote:
travists wrote: A refinery, however, is where I see gasses and mined metals as well as silicon, carbon, etc. combined into alloys glass and other developed commodities. Those used by factories to make useful stuff.
I'm well aware of this, but what I'm suggesting is to get rid of separate refining facilities and instead have the refineries built into mining facilities. Because unrefined ore is very heavy and only a small part of it is something you actually want. So launching it into orbit and/or shipping it across many millions of kilometers doesn't seem very economical.
Why then have separate factories? Ore can go, rather have iron blocks.

I suspect the university type planet is a holdover from Privateer's Oxford. A sector planet wide university that services the entire sector.
Deus Siddis wrote:However big or small a part consumerism plays in the distant future, in a space setting it is really out of place. Consumer may or may not be king planet-side, but as an astronaut trading commodities the player isn't going to deal with consumers directly. He deals only with large producers and organizations that need standardized bulk resources. From the perspective of realism, space is too expensive for picky individualistic consumers, so there is no need for us to worry about them.
Why then is there space manufacturing? It seems that in your vision every planet and base can make sufficient consumer goods for it's population. During WWII were there no radio purchases? This is why the ultimate goal of a truly dynamic economy works so well. Front areas have few consumer goods, while more peaceful areas have more. Thus price differences. Maybe even a black-market for food!
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

travists wrote:Why then have separate factories? Ore can go, rather have iron blocks.
Because factories input and output much higher value-to-mass ratio goods. Refined metals and manufactured equipment are both much higher value density than ore.

And also because of that a factory has a better chance of being an asset worth centralizing. Which is to say having one big factory in the middle of an area with lots of smaller mines, or different kinds of mines that harvest different kinds of resources which are needed in combination to produce finished goods.
I suspect the university type planet is a holdover from Privateer's Oxford. A sector planet wide university that services the entire sector.
Yep, and the commerce center is I believe a holdover from Privateer's New Constantinople.
Why then is there space manufacturing? It seems that in your vision every planet and base can make sufficient consumer goods for it's population.
The most dramatically important reason is that if you leave resources untapped in space instead of converting them into war machines, the Aera will overrun your space and take all of your worlds and resources from you. You must tap every resource you can to compete, because its survival of the fittest out there, not more or less peaceful M.A.D. equilibrium like in today's world.

The secondary reason is these worlds can pull down some extra high value-to-mass resources from space, beyond what they might presently be able or willing to produce for themselves. But this is only economical if they are high value-to-mass resources. Antimatter good, name brand footwear bad.
This is why the ultimate goal of a truly dynamic economy works so well. Front areas have few consumer goods, while more peaceful areas have more. Thus price differences. Maybe even a black-market for food!
But recall that this topic only covers the static economic variables in the current engine, as you said we can't yet build a dynamic economy.

So the engine as it is now has no idea where the war front is or where the peaceful locations are. You can only affect the price of food across all asteroid mine bases at once, or the price of computers on all industrial worlds at once. At present we can only make interesting price differences between base and planet types, not sociopolitical regions.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Funny thing is New Constantinople was supposed to be the government seat for the sector. Worth building a base for, but even more pointless here as the universe has yet to have many creation rules. Clearly more voices are needed, lest we continue in circles.

Let's return to bases later. Time for the “Goods Talk”. There is no escaping it, while I think much should stay it will end up here anyway. Here goes...

Tier 1: Very broad| Tier 2: general class| Tier 3: Item type| Tier 4: Items.

T1
Initial source
Processed form
End product

T2
Raw materials: ores, mixed gasses, etc. Even if mining bases do their own refining the player could gather these with a tractor beam and blasting smaller asteroids **IS
Raw foodstuffs: Grain, livestock, fruits, etc. While perhaps useable directly as food a large consumer would be in the manufacture of processed foods **IS

Processed materials: Iron blocks, aluminum sheets, separated gasses, etc. Few outside of manufacture would find a use for these **PF
Packaged Foods: nutri-pack, instalunch, bulk peanut butter, etc. One of the few processed forms that has End User value, but also contains pastes and such for further processed foods. **PF

Manufactured Goods: most every non-organic commodity from sneakers to warships. **EP
Refined foods: luxury and convenience foods, as well as deployable military rations. **EP
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

travists wrote: Let's return to bases later.
Alright then. And also planet types, BTW.
Time for the “Goods Talk”. There is no escaping it, while I think much should stay it will end up here anyway. Here goes...

Tier 1: Very broad| Tier 2: general class| Tier 3: Item type| Tier 4: Items.
I have an idea for how we could define each Tier by specific criteria, that will make dealing with items a bit easier and more organized:

T1 Sectors

T2 Sector to Sector Export Categories

T3 Base Specific Sub-Categories

T4 Items


An Export Category is defined as anything from one particular sector destined specifically for use in another particular sector. For mining, biologically useful elements go to agriculture, while most metals, exotic gases, stored energy, etc. goes to manufacturing. For manufacturing, mining equipment goes to mining, farming equipment goes to agriculture, scientific equipment goes to research and weapon systems and platforms go to the military. For Agriculture its a bit less fitting unless we assume there are different economic classes of folks working the different industries- miners are dirt poor, manufacturers are middle class, researchers are upper class and soldiers need top notch nutrition with an infinite shelf-life but taste is absolutely no consideration. :)

A Base Specific Sub Category is the specific destination type within the destination sector. For example equipment for collecting gases, collecting water for deuterium extraction or collecting metal ore all go from the manufacturing sector to the mining sector, but each to a specific part of the mining sector- gas, energy and metal mines.

There can of course be special items that overlap categories and sub categories but I think these rules can apply for most cases. And they also tie directly into gameplay (where should I try to go based on what I have bought or vice versa).
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

If I am understanding correctly you want cargo entries like:
Resources\metalic\iron
Equipment\mining\ATBM (Automated Tunnle boring machine)
Supplies\Agricultural\artificial fertiliser
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

Close, but more like:

Mined\Manufacturing\Shipyard\Titanium
Manufactured\Research\Observatory\Telescopes
Agricultural\Military\Barracks\Unpalatable Nutripacks

The pattern being-- Source Industry \ Destination Industry \ Destination Site \ Item
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Works well enough for development, but do we want to spoon feed the player where to go with his load? I think we need two break down rules. One for develop-ment with the full economic path and one for the game-side listings.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

Agreed, the trade interface that the player sees in game should use shorthand: Source \ Item

Mined\Titanium
Manufactured\Telescopes
Agricultural\Unpalatable Nutripacks
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

I think having raw and processed forms would allow greater flexibility. There also needs to be an item type especially for end products. This would include a hint as to where it goes. "Mining equipment" obviously would be used at a mining base, but also any world with mining interests. "Atmospheric maintenance" is a wide area (perhaps if that is a category it should be planetary and space). While AtMa is in high demand at most stations, Ag stations have all the air filtering and oxygen they need.
So:
Source\form(processed, highly processed, raw)\category\Sub-category(if applicable)\item
Remember early in the game you are more long hall trucker than owner of a panamax container ship. As such hulling a load of grain to the Krispy Krunchies plant is not out of the question.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

Raw and processed is already covered by the source, IMO. If it comes from the mining sector it is going to have to be raw materials and if it comes from the manufacturing sector it is going to be processed.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Raw = grain/ore or pure ingots (depending on purchace/self harvest)
Processed = flour/steel or other aloys
refined = bread/starships

Glad I re-read that one, I was thinking roals of aloys was part of mining! If you go that far just put manufacturing there too.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

There wouldn't be any advantage to mixing up alloys at a mining location since the mass and therefor transportation costs will be the same as pure elements. And it comes with the disadvantage of being less flexible for manufacturing when it arrives. So don't worry, I'm not for that.

Anyway, to clarify what I mean about not needing raw/processed/refined categories is this:

Raw = Mining Sector
Processed = Refining Sector
Refined = Manufacturing Sector

So for example the mining sector can only produce raw materials, it can't produce refined materials, thus it wouldn't make sense to have Mined\Refined\Agribot. And it would be superfluous to have Manufactured\Refined\Agribot if we know refined goods can only come from Manufacturing.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by pheonixstorm »

mining bases would not refine ore or cut crystals unless planet based
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

I think we are getting somewhere! (Quite an accomplishment for something that has been stalled for years.)

The inorganic line, ignoring back feed, looks like this then?
Mining --> Refining --> Manufacturing

Organic is a bit tougher
Agriculture --> initial processing? --> packaged foods

I'd say that it makes only slightly more sense to have ag bases do much more than initial prep work than it does to have a mine blend alloys. The various blends of ag products are about as specific and numerous as mined goods.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Took a miniute for what you where saying pheonix. So is your take then that a mining base exports ore rather then say iron ingots? Launch costs space-to-space does let this work.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by pheonixstorm »

for mining in an asteroid space would be at a premium. So there would be no room for large bulky smelting operations. Not to mention the fact that such operations also produced most of your various flavors of bars/alloys.

Refining operations should also be located near a mining base, preferably in the same system since value/transport costs would make profits razor thin for the hauler (except in the case of rarer raw materials).

As for Ag goods.. this is much more difficult to fill out as you can use the raw materials as is w/o the need to refine or process.

So that leaves us with much the same menu as before. Raw materials, refined good, process goods, maybe specialized goods such as AI Cores and the like.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Hicks »

In regards to ore refining, i would think that most refining would be done planet based in a large complex. If you were mining an asteroids, you would be moving a lot of large machinery around every time you finish an asteroid, and setup time would be rather high. You would expect a single large refinery in a sector for each company. And there would also be a lot of waste from refining, whch would be hard to dump on an asteroid.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Hicks »

What about something like this? i tried to use some of the exsisting groups

Raw Resources
-Mining Sector (ores, gems)
-Agricultural Sector (Cattle, wheat)
-Natural Resources (Gases, water, oil)

Refined Resources
-Metals (Ingots, Coal, Uranium)
-Food products (Flour, meat)
-Synthetics
-Fuel

Manufactured Products
-Electronic (Computers, Radars, display consoles, robots)
-Household (Whitegoods, Funishings, luxury goods)
-Agricultural (Machinery, seeds, fertilizer)
-Mining (Machinery)
-Medical (Machines, supplies)
-Construction (machinery, building supplies, prefab kits)
-Food (Bars, meals, rations, supplies)

Vehicles
-Land vehicles
-Space Craft
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by pheonixstorm »

Not a bad list, now we wait and see what Deus and Travis have to say about it :)
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

List looks good to me. May need "uncatigorised" later, but we'll take care of that as needed.

In regard to planet-only refining, I don't think so. Not and have space based manufacturing anyway. Launch costs for one. Also there is no reason that an astroid mine need to only mine the rock it is sitting on. So an orbital refinery works well, it also serves as a centeral point for several mines to ship to.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

So then it looks like we are heading in the direction of keeping the Refining Sector.

But this only covers refining industrial materials, not agriculture. So the next step is to decide if something in a similar vein is needed for foodstuffs, and if so how does it interact with the other Sectors of the economy.

My opinion on this, is that the only sane thing to do is to not have separate locations in space that mill flour or makes sushi tv diners. Instead the agribase or earth-like world processes the food into a dense format for economically shipping or ships it in raw form and then any further processing is done at the destination internally, using a sub-facility known as a kitchen.

What this means to the space trading player, is that there is no "pick up wheat at agribase X then sell it to spacemill Y and pick up flour there and takes it to spacebakery Z." Because planets are big enough to do this internally and space bases plus space travel are too expensive/pointless for this degree of specialization. And because food doesn't need to be so processed in the first place, it is at least very close to being edible by its very nature, unlike say mineral ores which are useless until heavily processed.

Either way, once this is decided I believe we will have a solid mechanic for how the economy works at the sector level.


Next we must create a complete and sane list of all the individual locations the economy should have, and in general terms what they do and what they need and thereby how they interact through trade.

Then we can create a complete and sane list of all the items there should be based on what we have come up with for locations.

Finally we can decide the prices for each item based on the locations mechanics plus any other general gameplay affecting factors like item mass which affects in game flight physics.

Now we should finally have interesting, intuitive, balanced and relatively realistic trade gameplay.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by travists »

Makes sense to me.
--Brain drain, working on a system that's kicking my but. Computer tech you know.--
Many facilities just ship in corn, wheat, milk, etc. and mill it to specifications. Though I suspect Ag planets have the facilities to export finished goods.... mostly.
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by pheonixstorm »

Considering that most agri products are planet based there would be no real need of a seperate refining facility. Also, for the most part refining organics doesn't have the nasty side effect of exploding. That would be the reason for orbital or system refineries and manufactoring facilities.

Organics = No boom
Non-Organics = possible boom
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Re: Midway step in refactoring trade

Post by Deus Siddis »

Image

So this is what the economy looks like now at the industry level.

Are we agreed on this and ready to move on to the next step?
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