A discussion on economy: By the numbers!

[MrFURB]

Greetings, folks! This thread is the place to discuss your opinions and expectations on Starmade's mining mechanics and economy-fueling crafting system.

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the Buy-with-Blocks (BwB: using the blocks that the blueprint ship is made from instead of the credit value) becoming the vanilla method of purchasing ships. Some folks have voiced concerns about this.
I see two primary complaints with the new system:

1. Mining for the blocks required to buy a sizable vessel requires a prohibitive amount of time.
2. The innumerable miscellaneous decorative blocks are hard to obtain legitimately.

I noticed that both of these issues have nothing to do with the BwB system being broken but rather with facets of the game's economy not properly supporting player activity. Starmade's natural economy should only limit activities that are undesirable while providing ample infrastructure for players to do everything else.

Regarding #1, I've done some tests to gain solid numbers on the value of asteroid mining. All numbers are averaged from 10+ results, so you may have a small amount of variance. Here's the results:

Ore/shards per asteroid = 113
Asteroids per sector = 5.1

Raw resources per asteroid sector = 576.3
Capsules per asteroid sector = 2,881.5

Raw resources per other faction sector = 1,728.9
Capsules per other faction sector = 8,644.5

Raw resources per own faction sector = 3,457.8
Capsules per own faction sector = 17,289

Average asteroid sectors per ring= 80

Raw resources per ring = 46,104
Capsules per ring = 230,520

Raw resources per other faction ring = 138,312
Capsules per other faction ring = 691,560

Raw resources per own faction ring = 276,624
Capsules per own faction ring = 1,383,120

Average asteroid rings per star system = 2.72

Raw resources per system = 125,402.88
Capsules per system = 627,014.4

Raw resources per other faction system = 376,208.64
Capsules per other faction system = 1,881,043.2

Raw resources per own faction system = 752,417.28
Capsules per own faction system = 3,762,086.4

Capsules per standard armor = 6
Standard armor per asteroid = 94.16
Standard armor per sector = 480.25
Standard armor per system = 104,502.4

Capsules per utility module = 25
Utility modules per asteroid = 22.6
Utility modules per sector = 115.26
Utility modules per system = 25,080.57

Capsules per weapon module = 50
Weapon modules per asteroid = 11.3
Weapon modules per sector = 57.63
Weapon modules per system = 12,540.28

Capsules per advanced armor = 66
Advanced armor per asteroid = 8.56
Advanced armor per sector = 43.65
Advanced armor per system = 9,500.21

Capsules per effect module = 75
Effect modules per asteroid = 7.5
Effect modules per sector = 38.25
Effect modules per system = 8,360.19

Capsules per shield module = 100
Shield modules per asteroid = 5.65
Shield modules per sector = 28.81
Shield modules per system = 6,270.14

The following vessel is my mass salvager and pirate hunting vessel. It has 9.8K mass, which means that for what I'm used to (I can't say for anyone else, but I'm sure the larger factions go by slightly larger classifications) it's classified as either a large subcapital or small capital vessel. It is worth about 30 million credits and measures 160 meters along it's longest axis. I know major factions don't but I do consider this a reasonably sizeable investment, especially for a player working alone with below average playtime at their hands.

This vessel has a total of 33,770 shield blocks and 24,363 standard armor blocks of varying shades.
The armor requires about 258 asteroids worth of resources to craft. That's 50 sectors mined, give or take a few. That's most of an asteroid belt mined out.
The shields require me to completely mine out just over 5 star systems. That's somewhere around 1,172 sectors mined.
Mining one asteroid every 20 seconds, it would take a player about 33 hours of solid non-stop mining in order to manufacture this vessel's shielding and 1.4 hours of mining to manufacture it's armor layer.

While I do believe that a vessel of this size should carry weight if lost, I do not consider it worthy of (guessing) 80 hours of mining to manufacture.

Now that there are some baseline numbers in place, what are your thoughts on how long a vessel with similar statistics to this should take to acquire via mining?

 

[Criss]

Right. So I'll be honest. I applaud your work. I would never have guessed that it would take 5 systems to acquire shielding for that ship. If it is only 160 meters long then I would consider it a frigate-destroyer with the ships that I build. That says a lot. 33 hours of straight mining is not worth it for that vessel.

Now I am still all for the thoughts behind that staggering time sink. The devs wanted to push armor tanking instead of shield tanking with the past updates. This certainly proves it! I'd want to cut the time spent for shield blocks at least in half by your math.

1.4 hours of mining for that ships armor structure sounds great. Keep that as is. As for shielding. Lets push it down to 5 hours tops. Again. I want armor tanking to be possible. It might be more viable with a HP system but shielding currently grants invulnerability until they are depleted. Even armor bonuses on ships cannot do that really. Some degree of damage is always taken. Perhaps a shield mitigation system should be considered instead of an armor HP system.

As for decorative blocks. I don't really see why they cost so much to make. They should be easier to get if they are anything like the shield cost. They serve no gameplay function other than aesthetics. Seems strange.

I am still against the concept of filling out the rest of a blueprint with credit costs. The only way I would be convinced is if a certain % of the materials were already there before that option came available. Lets say 70~ of the resources for the blueprint have been put in place. Then PERHAPS we could be able to buy the rest for triple as much or more.

However... If the time it takes to get shielding is reduced significantly then I would see no need to finish blueprints with credits. You would be spending less than 7% of that 33 hours mining for shields if the total time it took was pushed down to 5 hours. That's not really that bad. I'm sure it could be pushed even further. 3 hours maybe.

 

[Mr.Steam]

Building large ships will require the efforts of many people. A framework will need to be established where others have an incentive to help supply resources for large projects. I think this is where shipyards will come into play as many players could deliver supplies to a common faction shipyard area. Perhaps AI can be set to mine? Maybe we are going to see large ships just become more rare. At least on standard servers.

Of course when you do see a large ship you will know it is something special.

 

[Criss]

Maybe we are going to see large ships just become more rare. At least on standard servers.

Of course when you do see a large ship you will know it is something special.

I completely agree and endorse this. Smaller ship fights are more exciting. Lets save the big ships for truly epic moments and keep their value in the game high.

 

[Viridis00]

I can think of two solutions to better complement the way the system is now, because with those numbers I do think that there is way too large of a time investment needed for a 160m ship.

We can either get some larger asteroids, which I really think would do the game good aesthetically and in terms of mining, or we can decrease the cost of current materials slightly while keeping the same ratios. The system is in no way finalized so this is as good a time as any to analyze. Thanks for doing the legwork OP and providing some numbers.

 

[MrFURB]

As for decorative blocks. I don't really see why they cost so much to make. They should be easier to get if they are anything like the shield cost. They serve no gameplay function other than aesthetics. Seems strange.

Blocks that are aesthetic use only (personal computers/screens/cables) cost only a bare minimum of a few crystal circuits or meshes each. More than basic hull but still not enough to be any trouble. Some people tend to use other blocks as decoration due to them having such awesome artwork. I like the sides of jump modules and utility beams. Shiny.

Building large ships will require the efforts of many people. A framework will need to be established where others have an incentive to help supply resources for large projects. I think this is where shipyards will come into play as many players could deliver supplies to a common faction shipyard area. Perhaps AI can be set to mine? Maybe we are going to see large ships just become more rare. At least on standard servers.

Of course when you do see a large ship you will know it is something special.

My personal goal is to rewire what is left over from older time periods and economies in order to be intuitive for the size of vessel that is most likely going to be used. I don't want the average player's most expensive ship to feel small and I don't want the time to design/place blocks be the only size gate for vessels. I'd like to find a balance in the middle that gives players enough choice in size of ships that they don't feel forced into a small size bracket due to prohibitively long mining times.

The problem I'm coming up with is that mining is the safest, most reliable method of obtaining resources... But it is also the least entertaining. It's like EvE Online mining, just staring at a rock until it disappears and then moving on to the next. If we force people to do too much of it, they may turn away from it in disgust.

I firmly believe that the above ship should take approximately 1.5 hours to mine for. That's a massive difference, but I believe that having something akin to that as a vanilla value will ensure that faction titans and their ilk take at least a week of material gathering in order to be manufactured, while the regular warrior's and explorer's vessels capable of holding their own represent at the least least an hour of mining. At that point you could measure asteroids by how many drones worth of materials they yield, which makes shuttles, scouts, fighters, and drones feel like enough of a throwaway that you aren't worried about using them with the expectation of losing them.

Tomorrow I'll run some numbers on test values for crafting/refining as well as try to address the second issue of having to track down elusive miscellaneous blocks.

 

[молоток]

Something you are overlooking is that in dynamic economies, result per effort increases with size. The amount of resources you get per time increases exponentially with larger harvesters, and trading also serves to increase gathering capabilities. A ship like yours, MrFurb, might take 80 hours working alone in a small mining ship, but when you factor in multiple people mining in larger ships, then trading between each other to optimize resources, this reduces the effort threshold enormously. Asteroids DO re-spawn, so asteroid mining is not a finite resource like planetary mining.

Additionally, everyone after this update seems to be discounting shops entirely. There still are trade guild shops, that sell items for credits. Sure, they don't have unlimited supplies, but they are restocked.

Finally, everyone seems to neglect one last aspect of resourcing: Salvage from kills. Not only do pirates drop loot (server variable of course) but their ships themselves can be salvaged for valuable materials. All you need do is fill your pirate catalog with an assortment of ships and suddenly you have a massive source of supplies.

The way I would make things work is to have a base station with several assembly lines set up to produce valuable materials, shield generators say. I would set up automatic defenses on this station, and patrol the area around it. Then, on an active server, I would open trade with other players, selling the materials I do make and buying the ones they make. I would have several favorite shops I would check for materials to buy if the price is right, and keep selling the things I make to these shops.

By these methods, I would confidently expect to be building titans within a week.

 

[MrFURB]

Something you are overlooking is that in dynamic economies, result per effort increases with size. The amount of resources you get per time increases exponentially with larger harvesters, and trading also serves to increase gathering capabilities. A ship like yours, MrFurb, might take 80 hours working alone in a small mining ship, but when you factor in multiple people mining in larger ships, then trading between each other to optimize resources, this reduces the effort threshold enormously. Asteroids DO re-spawn, so asteroid mining is not a finite resource like planetary mining.

Additionally, everyone after this update seems to be discounting shops entirely. There still are trade guild shops, that sell items for credits. Sure, they don't have unlimited supplies, but they are restocked.

Finally, everyone seems to neglect one last aspect of resourcing: Salvage from kills. Not only do pirates drop loot (server variable of course) but their ships themselves can be salvaged for valuable materials. All you need do is fill your pirate catalog with an assortment of ships and suddenly you have a massive source of supplies.

The way I would make things work is to have a base station with several assembly lines set up to produce valuable materials, shield generators say. I would set up automatic defenses on this station, and patrol the area around it. Then, on an active server, I would open trade with other players, selling the materials I do make and buying the ones they make. I would have several favorite shops I would check for materials to buy if the price is right, and keep selling the things I make to these shops.

By these methods, I would confidently expect to be building titans within a week.

Excellent, more feedback!

Be aware that in my calculations I lowballed a time of 20 seconds per asteroid. That's 20 seconds from the time you first fire salvagers on it to the instant you're about to fire salvagers on the next. Such a goal would be unrealistic without both a Keptick sized salvage array and an extremely nimble craft capable of darting from one sector to another in a few seconds.
You are right that I only calculated for yield per territory and not per salvage module. I could go into the numbers of that as well (0.2 blocks/second/salvage module) but while it would change the required time to mine it would have no affect on the total resources needed. Territory is still an issue, especially in an environment that doesn't restart too often. It takes an uncanny number of asteroids in order to produce a surprisingly small number of modules.
I'm attempting to focus my sights on mining and manufacturing alone; there's tons of other facets to the economy that tie in at one point or another but I'm going to be calculating things with only solid mining in mind and work from there.

 

[Malacodor]

I think mining planets is more efficient since there are way more blocks in one spot. I'm afraid larger faction will leave behind entire galaxies full of destroyed planets.

This vessel has a total of 33,770 shield blocks and 24,363 standard armor blocks of varying shades.
The armor requires about 258 asteroids worth of resources to craft. That's 50 sectors mined, give or take a few. That's most of an asteroid belt mined out.

How much would that be with advanced armor?

 

[marcus87]

Greetings, folks! This thread is the place to discuss your opinions and expectations on Starmade's mining mechanics and economy-fueling crafting system.

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the Buy-with-Blocks (BwB: using the blocks that the blueprint ship is made from instead of the credit value) becoming the vanilla method of purchasing ships. Some folks have voiced concerns about this.
I see two primary complaints with the new system:

1. Mining for the blocks required to buy a sizable vessel requires a prohibitive amount of time.
2. The innumerable miscellaneous decorative blocks are hard to obtain legitimately.

I noticed that both of these issues have nothing to do with the BwB system being broken but rather with facets of the game's economy not properly supporting player activity. Starmade's natural economy should only limit activities that are undesirable while providing ample infrastructure for players to do everything else.

Regarding #1, I've done some tests to gain solid numbers on the value of asteroid mining. All numbers are averaged from 10+ results, so you may have a small amount of variance. Here's the results:

Ore/shards per asteroid = 113
Asteroids per sector = 5.1

Raw resources per asteroid sector = 576.3
Capsules per asteroid sector = 2,881.5

Raw resources per other faction sector = 1,728.9
Capsules per other faction sector = 8,644.5

Raw resources per own faction sector = 3,457.8
Capsules per own faction sector = 17,289

Average asteroid sectors per ring= 80

Raw resources per ring = 46,104
Capsules per ring = 230,520

Raw resources per other faction ring = 138,312
Capsules per other faction ring = 691,560

Raw resources per own faction ring = 276,624
Capsules per own faction ring = 1,383,120

Average asteroid rings per star system = 2.72

Raw resources per system = 125,402.88
Capsules per system = 627,014.4

Raw resources per other faction system = 376,208.64
Capsules per other faction system = 1,881,043.2

Raw resources per own faction system = 752,417.28
Capsules per own faction system = 3,762,086.4

Capsules per standard armor = 6
Standard armor per asteroid = 94.16
Standard armor per sector = 480.25
Standard armor per system = 104,502.4

Capsules per utility module = 25
Utility modules per asteroid = 22.6
Utility modules per sector = 115.26
Utility modules per system = 25,080.57

Capsules per weapon module = 50
Weapon modules per asteroid = 11.3
Weapon modules per sector = 57.63
Weapon modules per system = 12,540.28

Capsules per advanced armor = 66
Advanced armor per asteroid = 8.56
Advanced armor per sector = 43.65
Advanced armor per system = 9,500.21

Capsules per effect module = 75
Effect modules per asteroid = 7.5
Effect modules per sector = 38.25
Effect modules per system = 8,360.19

Capsules per shield module = 100
Shield modules per asteroid = 5.65
Shield modules per sector = 28.81
Shield modules per system = 6,270.14

The following vessel is my mass salvager and pirate hunting vessel. It has 9.8K mass, which means that for what I'm used to (I can't say for anyone else, but I'm sure the larger factions go by slightly larger classifications) it's classified as either a large subcapital or small capital vessel. It is worth about 30 million credits and measures 160 meters along it's longest axis. I know major factions don't but I do consider this a reasonably sizeable investment, especially for a player working alone with below average playtime at their hands.

This vessel has a total of 33,770 shield blocks and 24,363 standard armor blocks of varying shades.
The armor requires about 258 asteroids worth of resources to craft. That's 50 sectors mined, give or take a few. That's most of an asteroid belt mined out.
The shields require me to completely mine out just over 5 star systems. That's somewhere around 1,172 sectors mined.
Mining one asteroid every 20 seconds, it would take a player about 33 hours of solid non-stop mining in order to manufacture this vessel's shielding and 1.4 hours of mining to manufacture it's armor layer.

While I do believe that a vessel of this size should carry weight if lost, I do not consider it worthy of (guessing) 80 hours of mining to manufacture.

Now that there are some baseline numbers in place, what are your thoughts on how long a vessel with similar statistics to this should take to acquire via mining?

holy shit!

 

[Sha3es]

This mining operation might be possible if the overall number of asteroids for belt sectors was increase to a min of at least 10 or so. This would allow for a more realistic feel to an asteroids belt, and would make those large empty sectors of belts more full and entertaining to be in as a miner.

 

[Keptick]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this MrFURB . It shows that the average cost of certain stuff badly needs to be reduced.


The bug causing larimar belts to be non-existent is also insanely economy breaking (they have sertise, sertise is the mineral required to make shields), I honestly don't understand that it hasn't been put in "extreme" priority (or just fixed). I just hope that it won't require a server reset to get them to spawn once it's fixed...


In the meantime I'll just harvest other player's vessels

 

[Mr.Steam]

Many players want to fly around in Capital ships and are upset they can't because it takes to long to build. Maybe Capital Ships will become exactly that: a CAPITAL ship (One large ship other smaller ships congregate around). Perhaps Capital Ships will become carriers that mainly carry other players smaller vessels with them. Maybe a real economy will mean not everyone will have the time or patience to own a Titan.

 

[Mered4]

Many players want to fly around in Capital ships and are upset they can't because it takes to long to build. Maybe Capital Ships will become exactly that: a CAPITAL ship (One large ship other smaller ships congregate around). Perhaps Capital Ships will become carriers that mainly carry other players smaller vessels with them. Maybe a real economy will mean not everyone will have the time or patience to own a Titan.

The main problem isn't that capital ships have a high demand - it's that the combat system forces the creation of larger vessels to defend oneself against larger factions and/or richer factions. If fleets were more viable to use against large ships, then this whole issue would go away. Right now, using a fleet in combat is nigh on impossible without already outnumbering your opponent, which already gives you a tremendous advantage.

Essentially, in a world where cap ships can one shot frigates, people will build cap ships. If cap ships DON'T one shot frigates, suddenly more possibilities open up.

Right. So I'll be honest. I applaud your work. I would never have guessed that it would take 5 systems to acquire shielding for that ship. If it is only 160 meters long then I would consider it a frigate-destroyer with the ships that I build. That says a lot. 33 hours of straight mining is not worth it for that vessel.

Now I am still all for the thoughts behind that staggering time sink. The devs wanted to push armor tanking instead of shield tanking with the past updates. This certainly proves it! I'd want to cut the time spent for shield blocks at least in half by your math.

wut.

I've been modding planetary annihilation for around 3 months now, adjusting the balance because the developers refused to take the time to fix it. Some of my changes have recently been added to the vanilla build.

So now you know, that when I say that cost is the last tool for balance and actual combat testing is best, I'm not talking out of my ass.

If this is meant to encourage armor tanking, why the hell is armor so fragile? every single ship I build is an artificially shielded mass of pudding shelled in cardboard, being attacked by some guy with a flamethrower. Adding more cardboard isn't going to help much.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

FINALLY someone took the painfully long time to do the math and get some solid, credible, proven numbers down. I know not if this was done before the latest update (which is supposed to make a big difference with the doubled mining bonus in claimed sectors and larger, more ore-dense asteroids) or after it. Nonetheless, even a doubled yield (pretty much what's going on, I estimate a roughly 150% increase) means things are still slow, just painfully slow instead of unbearably slow. Also, as Furb pointed out, the estimated average 20 second/asteroid is optimistic at best. Especially if the server has increased sector sizes, like most actually do (because they want space to be spacious, and battles going down in a single sector instead of putting a strain on the hardware by ships chasing each other through multiple systems)
Still, I welcome this addition, as the devs finnally started to realise the initial math they did when calculating recipe costs (I at least hope there as actual maths done during that) was wrong. As Furb stated, materials for a ship that size should be harvested in 1.5-2.5 hours. You still would have to craft the actual blocks after that, which would require more time and an elaborate factory setup that's also taking resources and time to establish.

Finishing blueprint with credits should (if ever implemented) work only for misc. and decorational blocks. Crystals, displays etc. Save the fuss for crating every single tiny block one by one.

I have no trouble with economy, I actually have been longing for a decent one. But it needs to do 2 things:
- Keep it reasonably fast without making it effortless
- Keep it reasonably simple, without oversimplifying it

 

[Winterhome]

A lot of games get around the problem of small ships being worthless against capital ships by making large individual weapons inefficient power-wise, and either reducing projectile speeds for superweapons, or making ships much more maneuverable (as in atmospheric flight levels of maneuverability).

Idea being that a capital ship can instakill a fighter - if it hits it. And that's a really, really big "if".

 

[Mered4]

FINALLY someone took the painfully long time to do the math and get some solid, credible, proven numbers down. I know not if this was done before the latest update (which is supposed to make a big difference with the doubled mining bonus in claimed sectors and larger, more ore-dense asteroids) or after it. Nonetheless, even a doubled yield (pretty much what's going on, I estimate a roughly 150% increase) means things are still slow, just painfully slow instead of unbearably slow. Also, as Furb pointed out, the estimated average 20 second/asteroid is optimistic at best. Especially if the server has increased sector sizes, like most actually do (because they want space to be spacious, and battles going down in a single sector instead of putting a strain on the hardware by ships chasing each other through multiple systems)
Still, I welcome this addition, as the devs finnally started to realise the initial math they did when calculating recipe costs (I at least hope there as actual maths done during that) was wrong. As Furb stated, materials for a ship that size should be harvested in 1.5-2.5 hours. You still would have to craft the actual blocks after that, which would require more time and an elaborate factory setup that's also taking resources and time to establish.

Finishing blueprint with credits should (if ever implemented) work only for misc. and decorational blocks. Crystals, displays etc. Save the fuss for crating every single tiny block one by one.

I have no trouble with economy, I actually have been longing for a decent one. But it needs to do 2 things:
- Keep it reasonably fast without making it effortless
- Keep it reasonably simple, without oversimplifying it

I'd also like to add to your list that we not make it overly complex.

Sometimes people forget how devastating to new players complexity can be[DOUBLEPOST=1417627578,1417627347][/DOUBLEPOST]

A lot of games get around the problem of small ships being worthless against capital ships by making large individual weapons inefficient power-wise, and either reducing projectile speeds for superweapons, or making ships much more maneuverable (as in atmospheric flight levels of maneuverability).

Idea being that a capital ship can instakill a fighter - if it hits it. And that's a really, really big "if".

Which does work (to an extent) in scales of, say, fighter -> frigate, IF the frigate isn't using lock on missiles.

But between a 100k mass ship and a 25k mass ship?

It's nearly insta kill. Single shot from a siege laser, swarmers or beam missiles or punch through or explosive cannons, and it's over.

 

[Majorfatboy]

edit: wrong tab!

 

[SkylordLuke]

Yes,with the old system ,and how we currently play ,its crazy to even think of trying to mine 30+ hours to build that ship.
Very nicely put together!
But lets consider it this way,where we have player/NPC built shipyards,where many players will arrive to build their ships,the amount of materials that they will gather there together will be massive! and i dont think mining out planets will be too much of a problem,after all,StarMade universe is huuuuuuge,and building big salvage ships will be only for big factions.

Now here is something mindblowing
even one galaxy which is 126x126x6 systems
1 galaxy=95 256 systems = 390 000 000 sectors
60-70% is void systems ,so lets say 1 planet per star system (non-void)
so lets say 35% systems contains a star with 1 planet ,that is somewhere around 30 000 systems
that is still 30 000(ish) PLANETS in only ONE galaxy!!!!!
so i say,mine those planets,not even a 1000 player faction will make a dent

 

[Mered4]

Yes,with the old system ,and how we currently play ,its crazy to even think of trying to mine 30+ hours to build that ship.
Very nicely put together!
But lets consider it this way,where we have player/NPC built shipyards,where many players will arrive to build their ships,the amount of materials that they will gather there together will be massive! and i dont think mining out planets will be too much of a problem,after all,StarMade universe is huuuuuuge,and building big salvage ships will be only for big factions.

Now here is something mindblowing
even one galaxy which is 126x126x6 systems
1 galaxy=95 256 systems = 390 000 000 sectors
60-70% is void systems ,so lets say 1 planet per star system (non-void)
so lets say 35% systems contains a star with 1 planet ,that is somewhere around 30 000 systems
that is still 30 000(ish) PLANETS in only ONE galaxy!!!!!
so i say,mine those planets,not even a 1000 player faction will make a dent

Regardless of how many people you bring together, each one will need their own ship. I don't like limiting FEATURES to people with higher organization skills - this isn't EVE, much as you or I may want it to be.

That's still 33 hours per ship per person, which evens out to 33 hours per person.

With your last calculation, skylord, I think we can safely divide it by three - because the galaxy isn't a perfect cube. Hell, i'd go for dividing all those wonderful numbers by ten :P

That would be more accurate.