Freighter Network

[douglas]

110% is sufficient. The freighters will be built at no cost in the scrap resource thank to the 0 construction rate of the Launch Pad, so you don't need a really high scrap return to get a decent profit from them. Meanwhile, you probably don't want repeatedly building and scrapping ships at the spaceport to be a viable source of income except as a last resort, so the scrap return shouldn't be much higher than 100%.

[Magnum357]

Are you sure? I did give my Frieghters in my mode 0% Maintance and set scraping at 110%, but I'm a little concern about the 110 figure. Doesn't seem like much. Would haveing many launch pads sending Frieghters increase this amount considerably?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

In a word: Yes.

[douglas]

Say you have mineral freighters that cost 10000/2000/0 to build and 10 colonies with 0/2000/1 mineral Launch Pads building them. Each colony will produce one such freighter per turn at no minerals cost. Each turn, assuming safe routes and after the first freighters from each world have had time to reach the spaceport, you will gain 10000 * 10 * 1.1 = 110000 minerals from scrapping freighters. Assuming resource costs in general are on about the same scale as stock, that's quite a substantial income, especially coming from just 10 planets.

The overall rate of income is per Launch Pad and can be easily scaled simply by changing the build cost of the freighters. In fact, you don't even need a scrap return above 100% at all, since the build cost is never actually paid anyway. It just needs to be sufficiently higher at a Spaceport than at a Launch Pad that it's almost always worth taking the time to send the freighter to the Spaceport before scrapping it. Also, you could have technologies that increase the effectiveness of your Launch Pad-based mining by giving more expensive freighter hulls or components. The extra cost is never actually paid and does not affect build times, so it only affects the gain from scrapping.

[Parasite]

You would still need to pay to build the ship right? even if it has a "0" build amount, it means you can build as much as you want, but I think you would still need to pay for it.

So each turn you would spend 10000 * 10 colonies to produce the next round of frieghters when you scrap them you would get 10000 * 10 * 1.1 back. So you would net 10000 minerals from the ten colonies to spend on other things like warships or building more launchpads.

Also the "1" rads able to be built means that the frieghter engines and movement would need to be modded or adjusted somehow. Possibly the bridge and engines could just cost organics, then it is getting better.

[geoschmo]

What he's doing there is taking advantage of the bug where if you mod a construction queue to have a 0 rate in minerals it will build at an infinite rate in minerals and not deduct the minerals from your totals. So the answer to your question is, no, you don't actually pay to build the ship. At least not minerals. In his suggestion you would pay mainly organics and get back minerlas when you scrap it.

[Puke]

interesting, this sort of fits in with the organics based economics model from my old GritTech mod, and the more recent (and actually complete & published) Grit-Econ mod.

Just working off the numbers that you quoted (sure, they can be lowered) I think thats too much profit. Rather than lowering them much, I think it would be better to actually make the empire pay for the mineral cost of the ship. That way, you would have to produce enough resources (could still have a 1 turn build rate) to make it worth building the freighter in the first place.

Also, it may be good if the launch pad generated resources. That way, you would be incented to place a mineral launch pad on a high mineral planet. you would be incended to place a radioactives launch pad on a high radioactives planet.

[geoschmo]

Puke said:
Also, it may be good if the launch pad generated resources. That way, you would be incented to place a mineral launch pad on a high mineral planet. you would be incended to place a radioactives launch pad on a high radioactives planet.

The idea though, as I understood it, was to disassociate resource production from facilities and make it dependant on a steady stream of merchant traffic flowing around the empire.

[Puke]

well, right.. but youve got to be able to build your initial ships somehow. would the original colony construction and freighter investment be funded completely by the homeworld?

and would resource bonues on planets be simply ignored, then?

if thats the way of things, you might completely change the gameplay, and reduce all planets to one slot each. that way their colony type would be directly related to what facility they had on them.

[Magnum357]

Ya, I sort of agree with Puke. In my mode, you still need to have Mineral/Organic(Workforce)/Radioactive facilities to produce Resources for you. The Frieghter Network is in my mode to give you an "Extra Boost" of income for your empire, not as the sole basis of income. Besides, how would the AI build anything without stock resource facilites? Got to give em a chance right?

Another problem I'm having is resource storage. In stock play, you have 50000 points for each resource. I was thinking of lowering this amount considerably, but am not sure if this is wise. In my mode, I set this at about 5000 points, so far, my frieghters are going the Shipyard to be scraped at a fairly regular basis (at 110% scrap). The game seems to give me the extra income for one turn, but the next turn it sets back to 5000 points. What I want to know is it better to just keep the storage value at 50k like in a stock game? Or would setting the storage value of things at lower values make this Frieghter Network idea more valuable (and more costly if your Frieghters are destroyed)?

Also, I wanted to make the Storage values low because it would create more incentive to build Storage Facilities on Colonies instead of just tying to build as many Launch Pads as possible.