Economics and Stations Balancing

[theCrow]

I have multiple "problems" and I hope someone can help.

 

Case A:

I'm creating a water and a wheat station. (I start with low-level easy ones)

The wheat station S needs 14 sec. to produce wheat. Station S have two parallel lines.

Wheat station needs 40 water for the production with one line.

The stations are 1.7km away.

The speed of the cargoshuttle is 400m/s.

One Cargoshuttle needs 21 sec. per flight with one water: water -> wheat -> water

I can assign max. 20 cargoshuttles (the 20 shuttles of the wheat station serve to transport the wheat further)

The result is that the wheat station can only produce every 42 sec with one line. The rest of time the station is waiting.

Why I should create a XXL station? I can not supply all the water I needed.

(for XXL I need 360 cargoshuttles for the transport of water)

 

If I kick the stations together (distance: 0 km)...the cargoshuttles needs approx. 10 sec. per flight.

(This can not be the solution and I have also a waiting time in the wheat station S)

 

OK, the station can actively buy...but why I should create stations if I can not deliver all/most needed products?

 

It should be possible for me to change the transport capacity of the cargoshuttles. (I like the idea of small cargoshuttles and it looks nice. I would not create big ships for the transport between stations.)

 

 

Case B:

Would I build high end stations, i.e. mining robots? I need approx. 30 stations and 10 mines. I never find a sector with more then 4 claimable asteroides.

It is not fun for me to fly around and just take products from A to B.

And if I think I have a sector with 40 stations...I hope I find the station I'm looking for.

 

Case C:

I need 3,468 + 9,75 mio. credits for the stations S. The average price for wheat is 35. At best I produce every 40 sec. with one line 48 wheat and sell it with 35 credits...I need 86 hours to get the credits I invested back. (excluding the investment costs for cargoshuttles)

Other example: With one wheat station XXL (and for the 360 cargoshuttles I need 18 water stations with 20 cargoshuttles): 3,468+20*9,75=198,468 mio. ...I need 82 hours (without the costs for the cargoshuttles and if I can sell the wheat every time)

This little calculation shows me, that I need a higher cargoshuttle capacity.

 

I don't think it's possible to build a good production line right now.

I need the possibility to automatically bring the goods for production without actively buying from other nations.

...And I have not tested how many products the other nations buy automatically.

 

What I need? Or I hope I can do:

- Higher cargoshuttle capacity

- and/or: More cargoshuttles in the stations (why 20? a squad have 12 airplanes...please 24 shuttles?)

- the possibility of transporting automatically goods from sector to sector. (for example with a warehouse/teleport station in sector A and one in sector B)

 

[Kamo]

Case B is why we need full-on cargo run orders to be implemented. Right now the solution seems to be to let NPCs and their "economy" do the cargo runs for you, so that the supplied goods coincidentally "come" from your own stations ;). (Like, there's your Solar Power Plant, and your Wheat Farm in the nearest sector, and traders just happen to haul the energy cells to the farm because it's the nearest buying station ::), making profit from resulting margins)

Since passing traders usually always jump away, that probably means the goods are always sent to another sector, so I build stations in "chains" along the gate grid, assuming they use the grid for their jumps (big assumption as they do not use the gates) and can jump at least twice, so that a station is always one or two jumps away from where it's supplied from and what it's supplying. That usually makes the chain turn around on itself, haulers going back and forth.

It somehow justifies the gate grid itself.

With offgrid stations, same things, station chains of 2.5 sectors long, usually made from autonomous agroindustrial stations, to eventually "connect" mining stations to the grid.

 

(Though I've seen ships hauling back and forth from farther away, and even then, I've seen ships hauling back and forth from a faction hundreds of sectors away, so I guess it's just roleplay and there is no economy per se - or that the non-economy predictably outperforms the economy).

 

Shuttles are also badly implemented, only carrying one unit of cargo at a time regardless of volume: it's even less efficient than cargo ships, even with ease of use (as cargo ships need to be made and crewed with several types of crewmen, armed and escorted...). They should have volumetric capacities, ranging from more or less 2 to 60 m³ (for little electronic delivery shuttles to big ore mini-haulers) and having varying resultant sizes and speeds as a result :).