Stock/in transit/unfulfilled resources

[mSterian]

Hi there.
I have big problems managing my resources
Actually the problem is I never know what is slowing/stopping my productions.
a)Do I not have enough stock of needed resource and need to mine/buy more of them?
b)Do I have enough of them but I'm just waiting for it to be transported by freighters?
c)Do I have enough freighters to transport it? And how do I get more freighters anyway?

I noticed there are 3 colums in the Expansion Planner that could help me but I suck at interpreting them:
Your stock / in transit / unfulfilled demand

Q1: Does my stock include the "in transit" resources? f.e: 100 in stock 50 in transit, means I have 150 of which 50 is in transit, or 100 of which 50 is in transit?

Q2: Does the "in transit" number include resources that are being shipped to/from my empire through trade or only resources shipped to fulfill demands of constructions

Q3: The "Unfulfilled" number includes the resources in transit or does that number represent the ammount that still needs to start transit. f.e: stock is 300 / transit is 100 / unfulfilled is 200. Does this mean:
a)I need a total of 300 to finish all curent constructions, of which 100 are already in transit, and the other 200 will start transit as soon as possible.
b)I need a total of 200, of which 100 is already in transit.
c)I need a total of 500, of which I have 300 in stock, 100 in transit, and I need to get another 200 somehow (mine or buy it)
The list of possible interpretations can go on a bit more but I'll stop here as you I'm sure you get my point.

[mSterian]

deleted

[Jeeves]

I've played Shadows about a thousand hours as a beta tester since Jan, and even I don't know the answers to those questions, don't use the resource planner much anymore except to check for good colony locations. I use the galaxy map filtering by resource mostly myself for constructors, and learn the territory near a spaceport for my state mining ships. Maybe Elliot or the staff will answer your questions, or better yet put the answers into the Galactopedia, which is sadly outdated.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

I've played Shadows about a thousand hours as a beta tester since Jan, and even I don't know the answers to those questions, don't use the resource planner much anymore except to check for good colony locations. I use the galaxy map filtering by resource mostly myself for constructors, and learn the territory near a spaceport for my state mining ships. Maybe Elliot or the staff will answer your questions, or better yet put the answers into the Galactopedia, which is sadly outdated.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Personnally the more I play the game the more I'm beginning to agree with you, although it's not completely useless it is pretty close to being so, with many of the terms missleading.

Finding Potential Colonies is what I use it for most but even that has it's flaws. For instance, distance! Distance from what? To be useful you should be able to set a starting point but if, as I suspect it's the home planet then why? Not all colony Ships are built on the home world.

Resource Targets by your Your Empire does not include all resources you are short off. I've forgotten what the actual problem was here but I posted earlier when it first came up. I now use the Galaxy Map filter like you.

The Galactopedia (and manual) lack vital information for playing the game. Another for instance, you do not know what resources are needed to build ship components prior to researching them. I use this knowledge by, in theory using the Expansion Planner to located the needed known resources, send Constructors out to mine them. This would enable me to be as ready as I can be to once the component is researched.

This is called planning.

[Jeeves]

Distance is from the nearest active spaceport of your empire, not the homeworld. All distances are like that.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

Distance is from the nearest active spaceport of your empire, not the homeworld. All distances are like that.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Thanks for that. Still not much use though, it might not be able to build the right colonyship or in the case of a resources, show the nearest/available/your choice constructor. Also the spaceport should be highlighted in some way.

[mSterian]

I think I may have found an answer to my own question.

One thing I'm almost certain about, is that the Unfulfilled resources do not count the ones in transit. So for example if you have 20 in transit and 10 unfulfilled, that means you need another 10 besides that 20.

Now only the following scenario remains unanwered:
Stock In transit Unfulfilled
100 30 20

Does this means I need to get 20 more, on top of the 100 stock and 30 in transit?
Or do I just need to wait for more freighters to pick up the resources and transport it?


As a remark, I noticed that the constructions do NOT stall every time that you have Unfulfilled resources.
Maybe it's because the construction has enough resources to construct some of the components, and it does so until he has no more resources for any of the remaining components. Which is pretty logical actually.

Anyone can give some more insight?

[Starke]

I'm 99% sure that unfulfilled is not on top of your current stock, as late game you have bazillions of common resources stocked and yet the unfulfilled number will rarely (never?) drop to exactly zero. =)

[mSterian]

OK so that kind of settles it:
If unfulfilled is 20k... and you have 20k in stock... you just need the damn freighters to start picking up and transporting the freaking goods I'm kind of frustrated about this, freighters seem so stupid sometimes.

BTW, I can confirm yet again that when something gets "in transit" it will be deducted from the unfulfilled demand.
In an early game (where it is easiest to track such things) I had as unfulfilled demand Dylithium Cristal of 0.3k
I had 0 sources and 0 stock of such goods so I quickly sent a constructor to build a mine for Dilithium Cristal.
As soon as the mine finished... 0.3k became in transit and unfulfilled became 0.

So.. I guess the only improvement needed here is to be able to set a freaking priority to freighters.
I think they waste time fulfilling demands for Galaxy requests instead of empire. Or who knows.. transporting them needlesly from one place to another.
I SWEAR I saw a freighter once carry some.. I don't know, chromium I think, from my space port to an ALREADY BUILT mining station.
What the hell does that mining station need chromium for(or any other resource for that matter)?

One more thing, anyone can give me some tips on Resupply ships? Is their only purpose to be a mobile refueling station?

If so.. why the hell isn't it called just that? "REFUELING SHIP" Would make this so much more clear.

[garfield666]

all your stations keep enough resources to upgrade. that is, when first you construct a station, constructor ship leaves enough resources to refit it to newer model. i assume that your mining station upgraded so freighters needed to restock the station. why chromium? probably you use it for something like energy collectors.

re resupply ships, as far as i know their only purpose is to refuel.

[Plant]

I think all mining stations automatically demand 25 of every resource automatically for use when upgrading themselves.
No idea what happens when the upgrade itself takes up more than 25 of any one resource.

[mSterian]

I get it. Some buffer resources for retrofitting.
I guess 25 of each required resource would be enough to keep the station busy with retrofitting until some more resources are transported.

Thanks all. But, this still shouldn't be a priority for my frigates :/

Btw, I'm lazy to start another thread.
Any idea why I can't gain influence (playing pirates) over a certain NORMAL empire's colony?
I think it might be bugged. I keep ships there, raid id couple of times... nothing. No influence.
And no, another pirate does not have facilites/influence there.
It's the capital if that's of any importance. But I can gain influence over other capitals of other empires just fine.
Also, when my advisor says to attack them(not raid) it labels them as "pirate enemies". As in.. advisor suggests to attack our pirate enemies... the bla bla. And it's in fact a normal empire.

[Plant]

No idea, Sounds like a bug. Screenshot please, or report as bug in tech support.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: mSterian
Hi there.
I have big problems managing my resources
Actually the problem is I never know what is slowing/stopping my productions.
a)Do I not have enough stock of needed resource and need to mine/buy more of them?
b)Do I have enough of them but I'm just waiting for it to be transported by freighters?
c)Do I have enough freighters to transport it? And how do I get more freighters anyway?

I noticed there are 3 colums in the Expansion Planner that could help me but I suck at interpreting them:
Your stock / in transit / unfulfilled demand

Q1: Does my stock include the "in transit" resources? f.e: 100 in stock 50 in transit, means I have 150 of which 50 is in transit, or 100 of which 50 is in transit?

The numbers in each column are exclusive of the others, i.e. 100 + 50 = 150

The meaning of each column is as follows:
Your Stock: total units available for use (unreserved) at all colonies, spaceports and mining stations in your empire
In Transit: total units currently being transported by freighters to meet requests in your empire
Unfulfilled Demand: outstanding amount that has been requested at locations (colonies, construction yards, etc) but has not yet been assigned to freighters for transport

Q2: Does the "in transit" number include resources that are being shipped to/from my empire through trade or only resources shipped to fulfill demands of constructions

Only amounts that are fulfilling specific requests. Freighters will also transport bulk cargo from mining stations to spaceports and colonies. These bulk transports are not included here.

Q3: The "Unfulfilled" number includes the resources in transit or does that number represent the ammount that still needs to start transit. f.e: stock is 300 / transit is 100 / unfulfilled is 200. Does this mean:
a)I need a total of 300 to finish all curent constructions, of which 100 are already in transit, and the other 200 will start transit as soon as possible.
b)I need a total of 200, of which 100 is already in transit.
c)I need a total of 500, of which I have 300 in stock, 100 in transit, and I need to get another 200 somehow (mine or buy it)
The list of possible interpretations can go on a bit more but I'll stop here as you I'm sure you get my point.

Only resources in transit.

Hope this helps,
Elliot

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: mSterian
Btw, I'm lazy to start another thread.
Any idea why I can't gain influence (playing pirates) over a certain NORMAL empire's colony?
I think it might be bugged. I keep ships there, raid id couple of times... nothing. No influence.
And no, another pirate does not have facilites/influence there.
It's the capital if that's of any importance. But I can gain influence over other capitals of other empires just fine.
Also, when my advisor says to attack them(not raid) it labels them as "pirate enemies". As in.. advisor suggests to attack our pirate enemies... the bla bla. And it's in fact a normal empire.

Hard to say for sure without a savegame, but likely the colony is simply too big for your pirate faction to gain much influence over. The maximum level of control a pirate faction can achieve over a colony decreases as the colony population gets larger. Colonies under 1.5 billion population can be controlled to 100%, but larger ones get progressively lower control caps (lower max percentages). Anything over about 3.5 billion cannot be controlled much at all.

Check out the Galactopedia in the Pirates topic, under the "Controlling Colonies" heading.

Thanks,
Elliot