Ships in production should cost upkeep

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Ophiuchus
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Ships in production should cost upkeep

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

Put up PR-2629 which includes your ships in ship upkeep and part upkeep as soon as you start working on it.

This means if you spent at least PP on your ship project (99 Luftballons uhm comsats) and pause the project you still have to pay upkeep for those 99 comsats.
If you only plan to build, but did not start working on it the ship does not increase upkeep.

For part upkeep I am missing the underlying value so currently the same cost as in ship upkeep is applied. This makes comsat a lot cheaper to maintain if the project ist finished.

It might generally make sense to penalize ships in the build queue. First it gives an incentive to keep your prod queue short/clean and second if we switch to pay-upkeep-every-turn youe are always sure if you can afford those ships you want to build.
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Vezzra
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#2 Post by Vezzra »

While I think that this is basically a good idea, I want to suggest a small but significant adjustment: only incur upkeep costs for items in the queue if they have already received PP (that is, work on them has started), AND for whatever reason they do not receive any PP on the current turn. Meaning, if production on them starts and they receive PP every turn until completion, their actual build costs are the same as they are now.

Otherwise the balance of things changes quite significantly: if you incur upkeep costs for items in the queue after they have received PP regardless of if they are put on hold or are worked on, their actual production costs are raised, especially for items that have a long minimum production time. Things that are supposed to be cheap (low PP costs) but take long to build would no longer be as cheap as intended. Which definitely changes balance.

The rationale behind this would be that as long as an item is worked on, you don't need to pay extra maintenance (as that is supposed to be covered by the build costs). Only if you stop/pause working on it, you need to pay a certain cost to maintain the item in it's current unfinished state.

Don't know how much more complicated it will be to implement it that way, though.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#3 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 1:43 pm only incur upkeep costs for items in the queue if they have already received PP (that is, work on them has started), AND for whatever reason they do not receive any PP on the current turn.
That might be problematic, as it would make the available PP change the number of things being worked on, which would change the upkeep penalty, which would change the available PP, which would set up a dependency loop. And even if it didn't cause a runaway loop issue, it could set up an issue where a player would have a production item they could fund but can't start funding it while the PP are consumed due to it being initially not funded.

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 1:43 pm Otherwise the balance of things changes quite significantly: if you incur upkeep costs for items in the queue after they have received PP regardless of if they are put on hold or are worked on, their actual production costs are raised, especially for items that have a long minimum production time. Things that are supposed to be cheap (low PP costs) but take long to build would no longer be as cheap as intended. Which definitely changes balance.
We are talking only of ships here. And the difference for a cheap but lot of build turn ships at maximum is you have to pay upkeep for that ship for 5(?) extra turns. That is 5% vs e.g. 3%. If that changes balance something is really off.
Vezzra wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 1:43 pm Don't know how much more complicated it will be to implement it that way, though.
Implementation is not the problem the logic of upkeep is the problem as geoff stated. And I do not see the benefit.
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Krikkitone
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#5 Post by Krikkitone »

One possible solution.

If something is in the queue, every turn that it does not receive PP, it loses some PP.. So the upkeep is not charged to your "general PP" it is charged against the object itself.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Krikkitone wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 4:03 pmIf something is in the queue, every turn that it does not receive PP, it loses some PP.. So the upkeep is not charged to your "general PP" it is charged against the object itself.
Would need to add a way to keep it from finishing while re-enabling it intermittantly to top-up to within one turn of completion... Otherwise the player would need to do so to maintain the ability to keep the project ready to finish any time, which would still be potentially useful...

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#7 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 2:09 pmThat might be problematic, as it would make the available PP change the number of things being worked on, which would change the upkeep penalty, which would change the available PP, which would set up a dependency loop.
Doh! Of course :oops:

Well, everything I can think of seems to get far too complicated for what's probably only a medium issue. I guess we should just leave it and see how much of a problem it actually turns out to be. If it isn't too bad, we can certainly live with it for a while, and once influence and potentially new upkeep mechanics become a thing, that might change anyway and the problem just go away.

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:09 pm
Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 2:09 pmThat might be problematic, as it would make the available PP change the number of things being worked on, which would change the upkeep penalty, which would change the available PP, which would set up a dependency loop.
Doh! Of course :oops:

Well, everything I can think of seems to get far too complicated for what's probably only a medium issue. I guess we should just leave it and see how much of a problem it actually turns out to be. If it isn't too bad, we can certainly live with it for a while, and once influence and potentially new upkeep mechanics become a thing, that might change anyway and the problem just go away.
So ... you agree with the OP, right?
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#9 Post by Krikkitone »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:01 pm
Krikkitone wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 4:03 pmIf something is in the queue, every turn that it does not receive PP, it loses some PP.. So the upkeep is not charged to your "general PP" it is charged against the object itself.
Would need to add a way to keep it from finishing while re-enabling it intermittantly to top-up to within one turn of completion... Otherwise the player would need to do so to maintain the ability to keep the project ready to finish any time, which would still be potentially useful...
That's only useful because of the current mechanics for upkeep of existing ships... if that was changed to be similar (PPs deducted from Imperial PP supply and or stockpile based on cost of ships) then an "almost completed" ship would have no cost savings over a "completed" one.

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alleryn
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#10 Post by alleryn »

Krikkitone wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:53 pm
Geoff the Medio wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:01 pm
Krikkitone wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 4:03 pmIf something is in the queue, every turn that it does not receive PP, it loses some PP.. So the upkeep is not charged to your "general PP" it is charged against the object itself.
Would need to add a way to keep it from finishing while re-enabling it intermittantly to top-up to within one turn of completion... Otherwise the player would need to do so to maintain the ability to keep the project ready to finish any time, which would still be potentially useful...
That's only useful because of the current mechanics for upkeep of existing ships... if that was changed to be similar (PPs deducted from Imperial PP supply and or stockpile based on cost of ships) then an "almost completed" ship would have no cost savings over a "completed" one.
Just because there is no cost savings doesn't mean there's no advantage to an almost-completed ship. Holding a large defensive fleet in one-turn-reserve to only be unleashed when there is an opposing fleet incoming could launch a brutal surprise attack.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#11 Post by Krikkitone »

There is the surprise factor there....
(meaning the issue is that ships under production-
1-cost no maintenance
2-are undetected

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#12 Post by Ophiuchus »

Krikkitone wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:07 am There is the surprise factor there....
(meaning the issue is that ships under production-
1-cost no maintenance
2-are undetected
Exactly! I would like to keep the option for surprise production but make "maintenance" of ships under production at least as expensive as for finished ships - so if you want to do the surprise thing you can, but i will cost ya. And if you go for cost efficiency you will choose to finish building ships as fast as possible, cleaning up the queue by "cluttering" the map with ships :D

The suggestion of taking maintenance cost from stockpile is interesting. First impression while giving another use for stockpile PP it adds complexity (adding a second kind of upkeep) for not adding enough distinctiveness. Also if we switch to influence base upkeep stockpile clearly does not suffice.
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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#13 Post by Krikkitone »

Well the goal should be to allow that ability without "fiddling"

So proposal
Ships in queue;
-cost maintenance if you are not working on them
-are visible

Ships can be put into 'hiding/mothballs'
where they cost less mainentnance & are hidden
but require production to "reactivate" (but that can be done in one turn)

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#14 Post by Oberlus »

Krikkitone wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:26 pmShips can be put into 'hiding/mothballs'
where they cost less mainentnance & are hidden
but require production to "reactivate" (but that can be done in one turn)
Yes: park those ships down there, make sure they are properly greased for storage and close the hangar. I like that, an alternative to scrapping for old ships, as well as the possibnility of surprise attack.
Krikkitone wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:26 pmShips in queue;
-cost maintenance if you are not working on them
-are visible
I'd like "make visible what is being built in a planet" to be an espionage thing, not the default.

Regarding other questions raised in this thread:
I wouldn't like any addition to the game that forces me pay more attention and take more actions (clicks) or more frequently for whatever reason. The same applies for having a batch of whatever on the fringe of completion for the sake of surprise, or anything else.
I think having to pay for ships in production (active or not) the same you have to pay maintenance for finished ships (whether they are on duty or parked in a lonely outpost) is the way to go.

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Re: Ships in production should cost upkeep

#15 Post by Vezzra »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:02 amSo ... you agree with the OP, right?
Yes.

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