[MOD] Galaxy Mod - Economy: Balance & Difficulty Mods

[Wayleran]

Please visit my Galaxy Modpack page for any of my other mods or to ask questions and leave feedback.

 

 

This mod has been COMPLETELY redesigned to only impact raiding and not have a negative effect on trading. Previously the volumes of certain high priced goods were modified to try to curtail the ludicrous profits of raiding but this of course also negatively impacted legitimate trading. The new system of only restricting the amount of goods on "trading ships" that you destroy during raids, I feel is a better solution to the problem and has nearly no impact on normal trading.

 

 

Galaxy Mod - Economy

 

- Trading ships such as cargo haulers and salesman previous had between 50 to 500 goods on board regardless of the volume OR value of those goods.

 

- Roughly 50% of those goods survive to be looted when that ship is destroyed which would lead to players being able to easily attain 100's of high priced goods PER ship they would raid.

 

- To slightly counteract the extremely high profits one could attain, I have restricted those trading ships to carry only between 10 to 50 goods total.

 

- So a player can still amass great wealth through raiding trade ships but you just have to be a bit more patient and "farm" trade routes that involve transporting valuable items such as Mining Robots or Body Armors for example.

 

- I find this to be more fun and getting a "good haul" of maybe 15-20 goods on a kill feels more satisfying than making 10's of millions of credits in a few seconds.

 

 

I would recommend you undo any changes made by the previous mod before installing this version. Simply because that of course changed the volume of certain goods and this does not. However if you liked those "volume changes" simply add the goodsindex.lua file into this mod to get BOTH effects.

Galaxy_Mod_-_Economy_0.15.7.5.zip

[Shrooblord]

Hey there, more feedback from me: I know you tweaked the cargo space requirements for goods, but were super low-end goos like Carbon also supposed to be tweaked? Simple carbon now takes 100 volume per unit. That's a lot of cargo space I'm gonna need to retrofit onto my ships! :P

[Wayleran]

Hey there, more feedback from me: I know you tweaked the cargo space requirements for goods, but were super low-end goos like Carbon also supposed to be tweaked? Simple carbon now takes 100 volume per unit. That's a lot of cargo space I'm gonna need to retrofit onto my ships! :P

 

Yeah I adjusted everything so you wouldn't get a lot of "useless" stuff, but I went way overboard because I was also trying to compensate for the 2-10x increase in ship hull sizes too from my other mod...

 

This new version is MUCH MUCH lower in all respects while still adding about 10 times the volumes in general. But again the volumes and prices for goods were "generated randomly by a program" according to the original script so they were WAY off, balance-wise.

 

These new volumes should be a lot more reasonable but also will only affect NEW locations/sectors unless you delete your sectors folder in your galaxy which will refresh them all but can cause some other small inconsistencies.

 

But definitely try this version instead. Carbon will be like 10 instead of 100 and mainly the REALLY expensive stuff like Mining Golems will be about 100 instead of I think 1500+...

[Nachtu]

Am I right to assume this mod makes ordinary trading (already quite unprofitable) very difficult? :D

[Shrooblord]

All of Wayleran's Galaxy Mods are aimed at making the player experience more challenging, but in a fun way. This part of the mod suite is aimed at making raiding Stations for billions upon billions of goods less easy, while trying to keep the trading part of the game balance as-is, except for the highest-tier Goods.

 

Basically, if the goods are top-tier, they're going to take up more cargo space, so you'll need to invest some more into cargo bays and buffing through System Module Upgrades to compensate. Just to make it a little less easy to go with the "punch face, win money" strat.

[Nachtu]

All of Wayleran's Galaxy Mods are aimed at making the player experience more challenging, but in a fun way. This part of the mod suite is aimed at making raiding Stations for billions upon billions of goods less easy, while trying to keep the trading part of the game balance as-is, except for the highest-tier Goods.

 

Basically, if the goods are top-tier, they're going to take up more cargo space, so you'll need to invest some more into cargo bays and buffing through System Module Upgrades to compensate. Just to make it a little less easy to go with the "punch face, win money" strat.

 

All that sounds very reasonable to me. Still...

 

Carbon will be like 10 instead of 100..."

 

Carbon isn't quite a top-tier product, and it's volume here is tenfold. What can I expect from other low-tier goods that are already difficult to make profit with (to my experience at least)?

[Shrooblord]

Here's a diff of goodsindex.lua as it is after installing this mod against a vanilla version. Don't mind the very last block of additions. That's something I've got in my personal goodsindex.lua as part of a mod I'm working on.

 

You can see which values were edited in the diff.

[Wayleran]

Here's a diff of goodsindex.lua as it is after installing this mod against a vanilla version. Don't mind the very last block of additions. That's something I've got in my personal goodsindex.lua as part of a mod I'm working on.

 

You can see which values were edited in the diff.

 

I also found in shiputility.lua that spawned trader ships (ie, trader attacks, etc) have a set 500 amount of goods, not VOLUME, total amount. So I wrote a mod to make that like math.random(100, 500) instead to make it randomly spawn between 100 to 500 instead...even that might be high but 500 if it has carbon OR like mining robots...is not a good idea.

[Nachtu]

Thx for the diff. Those values seem very reasonable!

 

This mod will also force players to actually make specialized cargoships if they want to haul lots of valuable stuff. I like that.

[Wayleran]

Thx for the diff. Those values seem very reasonable!

 

This mod will also force players to actually make specialized cargoships if they want to haul lots of valuable stuff. I like that.

 

Yeah but actually I'm also working on an even better solution and it's about ready to release. I am going to reduce the storage capacity on stations and freighters to naturally reduce the number of goods available to either buy or steal.

 

This seems like a much nicer solution.

 

I noticed that trading ships that spawn for things like "Trader Attacked by Pirates" missions or just "passing ships" that go through sectors had a set AMOUNT of goods they'd be loaded with of 500! Which I think is silly because it totally wasn't dependent upon the price OR volume of those goods. So it could easily be 500 Carbon or 500 Mining Robots, which are of course drastically different in both price and volume.

 

Also stations have a rather large maxCargoSpace dependent somewhat on their individual size, but in general are just VERY large. And this impacts the amount of goods the trading ships deliver and/or sell to them that you see flying around in sectors. So whether you destroy only trading ships on raids (like I do) or even if you like to destroy everything including the stations, this created an issue that would result in a small trading ship dropping 50-500 very large, very EXPENSIVE goods like Vehicles or Mining Robots.

 

So I am testing out reducing both the maxCargoSpace for stations, which should impact not only them but those trading ships on their "trade routes", and also I am making the other spawned traders for missions and passing-by ships have a RANDOMLY spawn amount of goods (instead of the fixed 500). And that amount will be roughly between 10-100 and not a fixed 500! (Still working on that number so it's both fair to the players and also helps make raiding/trading more fun and challenging)

 

If these new approaches work well than I feel the need to modify the individual volumes of goods won't really be neccessary.

 

Stay tuned here or even better on my Modpack page. I'm probably going to re-incorporate the new Economy Mod back into the Modpack download IF I get it to a place that seems fun and balanced.

 

Modpack: http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php?topic=4375.msg23108#msg23108

[Nachtu]

I am going to reduce the storage capacity on stations and freighters to naturally reduce the number of goods available to either buy or steal.

 

I wonder if it were possible to make a modification that would destroy a fair part of the goods when a ship/station blows up. Would make perfect sense too. That would nerf piracy without the needless punishing of player trading.

[Wayleran]

I am going to reduce the storage capacity on stations and freighters to naturally reduce the number of goods available to either buy or steal.

 

I wonder if it were possible to make a modification that would destroy a fair part of the goods when a ship/station blows up. Would make perfect sense too. That would nerf piracy without the needless punishing of player trading.

 

I actually do think that is the case normally. I don't know for sure or what the percentage is, but I have been testing that out. I'll spawn some cargo ships and then look at their amount of goods and then destroy and completely salvage the wreckage and it seems to be maybe 10-50% of the goods "survive" normally.

 

And I FOR SURE have figured out how to minimize spawned trading ships AMOUNT of goods from a fixed 500, to a randomly generated amount between 10 and 100. There's no need to have a fixed amount of 500 IMO.

 

I am also reducing the maxStock on stations by 10 to see how that feels. What happens is on smaller stations small goods still have a lot of quantity but don't cap out at the max which is 25000, and on larger stations some still hit the cap of 25000 but bigger goods tend to have a small maxStock which may be nice but it needs more testing.

[Shrooblord]

I wonder, do you also aim to tackle that hard-coded "500k cap" in trading that's imposed on Factories and Stations by vanilla code? That, to me, is one of the biggest knee-caps to the current Economy system. Not because it nerfs an otherwise broken and unbalanced system (which is I assume why that restriction was put in place), but rather because it hides the underlying problem in failing to properly balance the system itself.

 

Since that's essentially what you're doing, I was wondering whether removing the 500k limit is in this mod's purview.

[Wayleran]

I wonder, do you also aim to tackle that hard-coded "500k cap" in trading that's imposed on Factories and Stations by vanilla code? That, to me, is one of the biggest knee-caps to the current Economy system. Not because it nerfs an otherwise broken and unbalanced system (which is I assume why that restriction was put in place), but rather because it hides the underlying problem in failing to properly balance the system itself.

 

Since that's essentially what you're doing, I was wondering whether removing the 500k limit is in this mod's purview.

 

Well that 500k cap is only on the initial amount of goods that are SPAWNED into the station upon the player's first time entering the sector. From then on the station can and will begin to either produce more or buy more from it's trading route partners. So I don't think that's worth messing with too much.

 

If you see a factory is stuck at a certain amount and you want more you can go and buy the prerequisite goods it needs (indicated by the goods it's buying) and stock it up so production can continue. Otherwise you can wait and watch for trading ships that are entering the sector. Eventually there should be some carrying the goods it needs.

[Shrooblord]

Is that so? I remember a lengthy conversation within this community fairly recently that people had discovered that apparently trading is capped at 500k per trade, i.e. Stations will never produce and stock up on more than 500k worth of goods to be sold.

 

If this is a misconception, then that's fortunate news indeed.

[Wayleran]

Is that so? I remember a lengthy conversation within this community fairly recently that people had discovered that apparently trading is capped at 500k per trade, i.e. Stations will never produce and stock up on more than 500k worth of goods to be sold.

 

If this is a misconception, then that's fortunate news indeed.

 

That's in the script but apparently only for what to spawn into the station initially. Right above that though is a line that restricts the maxValue to 300*1000*the "richness" of the sector (which ranges from 1 to 20 roughly as you go towards the center. And that appeared to be the cap on trades I believe but the 500k is supposed to just be the max upon the first initial spawn of the factory/station.

[Shrooblord]

And I FOR SURE have figured out how to minimize spawned trading ships AMOUNT of goods from a fixed 500, to a randomly generated amount between 10 and 100. There's no need to have a fixed amount of 500 IMO.

Question: does this affect Traders who come into Stations to buy goods, too? I have seen all my economy crippled to about 5-10% effectiveness in relation to previously - was this your mod, or the balance changes introduced by the Beta patch?

[Wayleran]

And I FOR SURE have figured out how to minimize spawned trading ships AMOUNT of goods from a fixed 500, to a randomly generated amount between 10 and 100. There's no need to have a fixed amount of 500 IMO.

Question: does this affect Traders who come into Stations to buy goods, too? I have seen all my economy crippled to about 5-10% effectiveness in relation to previously - was this your mod, or the balance changes introduced by the Beta patch?

 

My mod. Instead of a random amount between 50-500 they'll buy/sell only 10-50 which I now know is way too low. I've adjusted it in my own scripts but haven't updated this mod yet.

 

Just go to shiputilty.lua line 288 and adjust those numbers but they are JUST for trading ships that are spawned for missions like distress signals or trader attacked by pirate events...

 

line 288: entity:addCargo(g:good(), math.max(10, math.random() * 50)) -- MOD

change the "10" and "50" to the min and max you want the ship to either buy or sell. 50 and 150 or something. But again this is only for mission trading ships not normal trading ships. Go to the next part for those.

 

Go to tradingutility.lua line 206 and change:

 

line 206: local amount = math.max(10, math.random() * 50) -- MOD

 

change the 10 to something like 50 and the 50 to maybe 150-250. By default those values are 50 and 500. But these ships will always drop EXACTLY 50% of their cargo upon total destruction and salvaging wreckage. So if you select 50-200, you'll get 25-100 goods to drop.

[Shrooblord]

Thanks. I changed both to range from 25 at minimum to 350 at maximum. You may think that's got a high variance, which is true, but I felt like it more accurately represented trading behaviour: sometimes they'll want a little shipment, sometimes they'll want lots and lots. Meanwhile, it's still nerfed the maximum from vanilla down 30%, which I felt was fair without impacting my income too, too much.