SW Economy

[stranger]

Thank you, Milo!
It is very specific case indeed. Main station has extremely high rate of energy restore so it is practically impossible to destroy it using vanilla lasers/missiles. But space accidents like asteroid impact or Nova explosion can destroy main station.
Technically it is easy to add check of this specific condition. But there is more deep issue beyond this OXP competence.
Having Nova explosion you'll probably lost all secondary ports in system. So system economy will be completely eliminated.
Having main station destroyed by asteroid impact you'll have remaining secondary ports with markets affected by this accident.
Cool setting for specific OXP (like urgent SAR missions from nearest systems to provide supplies and/or evacuate personnel). But is it technically possible to declare secondary ports without main station in system?

[Milo]

I am not sure.

Observation: I jumped into the system where the main station was destroyed. It has a constore buoy, but no constore. No other stations either.

In the log, I see:

19:32:24.135 [stat] GlobalLog: Main station removed

That line is somewhat earlier than the line where the constore buoy spawned:

19:32:26.366 [LogEvents] GlobalLog: Constore Buoy 19487 spawned at 28 km

Unfortunately, I did not think to check the condition of other stations when the main station originally was destroyed (before I left the system).

[Cholmondely]

Critique of this OXP

Good Points.
•The idea of the three node economy is excellent. A major advance on the 8-bit Elite 2-node economy trading model.
•The idea of the planet itself impacting on production/markets is excellent. Especially in combination with TL. (no food/wine/liquers if uninhabitable & low TL).

Issues.
•Implementation of third node is awkward & confusing, with the "poor agricultural" label/icon also including the non-agricultural mining planets.
One automatically tends to focus on Rock Hermits instead as the "mining extracters". This is the most important issue to my mind. Vincentz had been hoping to do something more radical along these lines, but only ever published his icons.

•This model seems to me to ignore cim's critique of Oolite trade:
- Cim explains that planets must be self-sufficient (as they cannot import enough food to feed more than several thousand people).
- Hence trade in water/oxygen (except to stations, rock hermits & dockables such as liners) seems nonsensical - unless there is a special trade in premium oxygen blessed by the witchspace lobster god, or The Holy Waters of St Giles - see the Eschatology section)

•Impacts of piracy on disrupting trade. This is an entire subject on its own which is relevant here and elsewhere (how does the piracy lead to changes in the Oolite economy ... see this video

•It is a pity that this oxp is not compatible with phkb's Smugglers. And that it is not worked into GNN's news broadcasts (eg when plagues are announced, there could be repercussions for trade in medicine).

Conclusion
An excellent oxp.

It would be interesting to know where the vanilla game code hampered the implementation of this oxp.

Appendix: Vincentz's icons

2 each (primitive/advanced) for

Agricultural
Mineral extraction
Industrial
Commercial/finance.

[stranger]

I completely agree with cim's arguments. All 2048 systems must have enough internal sources to provide primary needs like food, drinking water and oxygen. I have my own study of Oolite economy model. It was summarized in document Oolite - economy, statistics, demography (PDF format, on Russion). Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_OS-F ... 8sTCD2DMug
Moreover, 128 t capped value for each goods category (non individual item) is unrealistically low not only for needs of billions of planet population, but for observable system traffic too.
I think the only way to solve this paradox is to assume that private trader have access not for global system market per se, but to very limited free trade pool (maybe private companies again, restricted in trade volumes?).
You have no possibility to export enough drinking water for billions of population indeed, but you can purchase some water to supply external ports.

[phkb]

I think the only way to solve this paradox is to assume that private trader have access not for global system market per se, but to very limited free trade pool (maybe private companies again, restricted in trade volumes?).

That's the game I've always played in my head - the TC limits are on a per-pilot basis, not per-system.

[Cholmondely]

What needs to be changed in the Vanilla game code to allow this OXP to function properly?

SW Economy's tri-polar trade system creates a third pole - the mining planets (in addition to the already existing agricultural & industrial planets).

BUT: The mining planets, in effect, are merely redefined agricultural planets too small to support agriculture.

Thus:
a) Icons are identical to agricultural planets (confusing)
b) Market prices are identical to agricultural planets, and differ only because they have no food, textiles, wines or furs for sale (breaks model)

So: they pay rock bottom prices for food (which they presumably have some need for) - and the tripolar aspect of this oxp is hobbled, since it makes little sense to import food to them. (Model is: Agriculturals > (food) > Mining > (minerals) > Industrials > (computers) > Agriculturals)



I can imagine two possible fixes:

1) Ideally the oxp could recognise these mining planets and impose a new prices and quantities template, different from the agricultural template, and also show a new icon.

2) Or the oxp could painstakingly rewrite every single one of the affected planets and provide a custom market template and a custom icon.

Am I correct in presuming that the first is not yet possible but that the second may be?

[Redspear]

a) Icons are identical to agricultural planets (confusing)

As you know I'm doing things somewhat differently but...

There are already 3 icon groups, at least from a certain point of view:

• agricultural
• industrial
• 'mainly'

While it's true that the mainly's are just a combination of the other two icon types they are never the less distinct.

If you think of the crop symbol as representing primary production (resource gathering and farming), while the cog represents secondary & tertiary production (manufacturing/processing), then a mix of the two might represent mining fairly well (processing of extracted minerals).

Of course, as long as it works how stranger would like it to then I'd say it works

That's the game I've always played in my head - the TC limits are on a per-pilot basis, not per-system.

That's how I see it too. Explains both quantities and relatively static nature.

Cim explains that planets must be self-sufficient (as they cannot import enough food to feed more than several thousand people).

I think he acknowledged that it could reach to the millions. Having sat outside of stations, sampling docking behaviour for far longer than I'd have liked, I could well imagine that many more than '2 or 3' boas worth of food are arriving. The thing is that the trade model doesn't make them rewarding enough to make it seem likely.

However, combine with the point above (pilot specific market allocation) and food could well be so cheap because systems aren't relying on chancers such as the player to deliver something as important as food when they could have multiple freighters with full escort deliver it for them. Those guys signed the big contracts and were paid the big bucks, meanwhile the player is left picking up the scraps. *

From recent memory, Leesti is a small, poor industrial planet with a population of 5 billion. One might assume a large workforce from that. One might further assume they would take some feeding on such a small planet with (relatively) little agricultural focus. One might further assume that many, if not most, of the frieghters arriving at the station could in fact have been contracted to deliver food (personally, I make it the most profitable commodity for the player to deliver to a poor industrial).

In short, assumptions abound. Oolite offers a 'bare bones' trading system with plenty of room for interpretation (certainly via oxp) even if it doesn't appear to make much sense sometimes.

The good news however, is that it's such a bare bones approach that if one of the aforementioned assumptions isn't to the player's taste, there's plenty of room for another one.

* and an anaconda known to be shipping food (company registered) is much less likely to be predated upon by pirates than one known to be shipping furs - it wouldn't matter how much food they drop if you don't have the room to scoop that much of it.

[Cholmondely]

What needs to be changed in the Vanilla game code to allow this OXP to function properly?

SW Economy's tri-polar trade system creates a third pole - the mining planets (in addition to the already existing agricultural & industrial planets).

BUT: The mining planets, in effect, are merely redefined agricultural planets too small to support agriculture.

Thus:
a) Icons are identical to agricultural planets (confusing)
b) Market prices are identical to agricultural planets, and differ only because they have no food, textiles, wines or furs for sale (breaks model)

So: they pay rock bottom prices for food (which they presumably have some need for) - and the tripolar aspect of this oxp is hobbled, since it makes little sense to import food to them. (Model is: Agriculturals > (food) > Mining > (minerals) > Industrials > (computers) > Agriculturals)



I can imagine two possible fixes:

1) Ideally the oxp could recognise these mining planets and impose a new prices and quantities template, different from the agricultural template, and also show a new icon.

2) Or the oxp could painstakingly rewrite every single one of the affected planets and provide a custom market template and a custom icon.

Am I correct in presuming that the first is not yet possible but that the second may be?

Reposted with questions emphasised!

[Redspear]

Thus:
a) Icons are identical to agricultural planets (confusing)
b) Market prices are identical to agricultural planets, and differ only because they have no food, textiles, wines or furs for sale (breaks model)

a. I don't know where the icons are defined but it might be possible to overwrite them.

b. I don't see why a script can't adjust prices according to the creator's whim. If I could do it I'm sure stranger can - is there some other aspect to this problem?

[phkb]

Economy icons are stored in the Oolite font file, along with the government icons.

[Cholmondely]

Economy icons are stored in the Oolite font file, along with the government icons.

But is not the issue (adumbrated above with a propadeutic of tedious length) that of treating the smaller mining planets differently from the larger agricultural planets whilst not otherwise changing the 8 main categories - squeezing in a 9th economy as it were - and yet somehow having a different icon/market model for it? Can this actually be done?

[Redspear]

But is not the issue (adumbrated above with a propadeutic of tedious length) that of treating the smaller mining planets differently from the larger agricultural planets whilst not otherwise changing the 8 main categories - squeezing in a 9th economy as it were - and yet somehow having a different icon/market model for it? Can this actually be done?

'Economy' in oolite is (mostly/effectively) defined by the following things, ALL of which can be changed:

Goods
Prices
Quantities

Want a mining economy?
Decide upon the goods they supply, the goods they demand, then price accordingly.
Don't have the goods you want? They can be created and (again) priced according to your understanding of the particular economy type.

You could try thinking of it this way if it helps:
In oolite there are 8 economy names but only really 2 economy types - industrial and agriculural. Like a set of scales, as agriculural prices go up, industrial prices go down and vice versa (there migt be a bit more to it than that but not significantly I would argue). The 8 economy names are effectively just carving a gradient into steps.

However, you could have as many groups as you have goods going up or down independantly of each other as you see fit.

OXPs like the one I've recently released actually change that into 8 economy types in that they each demand different goods in particular.
So if I wanted a 'mining economy' I could create it according to the three changes above.

So what about the cosmetics? Name/Icon?

Well phkb has just mentioned the icon so I'll head straight to names.

This is from destcription.plist so you should be able to rename them I think

Code: Select all

	economy =
	(
		"Rich Industrial",
		"Average Industrial",
		"Poor Industrial",
		"Mainly Industrial",
		"Mainly Agricultural",
		"Rich Agricultural",
		"Average Agricultural",
		"Poor Agricultural"
	);

As for a '9th' economy it's true it would be easier to redefine the 'mainly' or 'average' categories but sub categories could be listed in planet description as an addendum, You can also override an economy type under certain conditions - so you wouldn't strictly need a new economy type as much as to create a new exception (via script).

In station variation for example, I'm efffectively creating 8 new sub-markets for each species, interacting with the original 8. Therefore 8 x 8 = 64 'unique' markets. Actually inhabitant type influences differnt goods that economy otherwise it would be more confusing to the 'simple trader', nevertheless each of the 64 is unique.

To refer back to my 'economy names' vs 'economy types' distinction above however...
It does seem to me that you want a 3rd economy type rather than a 9th economy name if that makes sense.
If so then you already have 8 slots being used for two roles - perhaps the obvious answer would be to use the same 8 slots them for 3 roles.

[phkb]

I haven’t looked, but I doubt we could add an additional economy to the game without quite a bit of core code change.

[Redspear]

Quick oxp solution:

Instead of using economy to determine both agriculture/industry and rich/poor...

Have gross productivity be used for the latter and then you'd have freed up 6 economy slots out of the 8.

So the eqivalent of a rich industrial would be:
Economy: Industrial
Productivity: (very high)

An average agricultural:
Economy: Agricultural
Productivity : (average)

Then you've got all the space you'd need for Vincentz'

2 each (primitive/advanced) for

Agricultural
Mineral extraction
Industrial
Commercial/finance.

2x4 = 8, the only 2 occupied after the change suggested above would be one industrial and one agricultural with 6 going spare, do you see?

Two more points:

• personally speaking I'm not sure this is for me
• I think we're in the wrong thread BTW...

[Cholmondely]

I wonder if this could be made to work properly by rewriting the trade markets for the various affected star systems in each Galaxy and then changing the relevant icons for a ninth?

A bit similar to what Stranger did with his Sun Gear which redefines every single sun in the Eight in the planetinfo.plist!

Could it be done without needing to alter the basic 8 economies, just so-to-speak "adding a 9th" for mining with it's own special icon to the affected systems - done by rewriting the trade markets for each of the affected systems? And without mucking about with the vanilla code?

If somebody is capable and willing to do the coding, I'd be more than happy to spend the necessary hours rewriting the zillions of descriptions for the Trade-goods.plist if I can be talked through what's involved...

Edited to add:
Since one can change the font in Oolite - and thus change the economy icons, is it also possible to select an alternative icon for the individual mining economies?