Money

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Chris21wen
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Money

Post by Chris21wen »

I all the games I've played on a computer (and I've played many going back to 1980) I cannot remember one where I've struggled to master money but I cannot seem to do so in this game. I pick the game up ever three or four months and put it down after two weeks ish having failed to understand why my cash flow is always in the red. I've read the manual and this forum but nothing helps me come to grips with it.

Has anybody got a simple guide, and I mean simple?

johanwanderer
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RE: Money

Post by johanwanderer »

All of this is offered without knowing the specific of how you play the game, so take them with a grain (bucket) of salt... Some of these might help...
 
[ol][*]Try an easier setting to get the feel of the game (if normally played on "Normal", them bump it down to "Easy", etc.)
[*]Try playing a "classic" start instead of "shadow" start.
[*]Try playing as an empire instead of a pirates faction.
[*]Don't always listen to the advisers.
[*]Don't keep paying pirates (maybe turn the number of pirates down)
[*]Try a more friendly government type.[/ol]
Having said that, it's very easy to over-build in this game. Money is pretty straight forward, you simply have to pay for construction and maintenance of all "State" ships and bases. A few points to consider:
[ol][*]You are allowed to queue a bunch of things up, and sometimes, money gets spent elsewhere, leaving you in the red.
[*]A new colony takes forever to generate positive cash.
[*]The advisers always want to spend all your money, without any consideration for maintenance.[/ol]
So, just try to start slow. Build up your home system, and be very strategic about expanding. Don't build ships unless you have a reason to (defending your home system is a good reason). And I can't re-iterate this enough, don't always listen to the advisers when it comes to building things.
 
If you can, take a screenshot of your "Empire summary" screen and post it. It would be a lot easier to see why your cashflow is bad.
 
-Long.
 
Chris21wen
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RE: Money

Post by Chris21wen »

Thanks for the reply I've tried most of these. Problem I have is in nearly every other game I'v played you have direct control over money, in this game you don't it appears to be abstract.

ORIGINAL: johanwanderer

All of this is offered without knowing the specific of how you play the game, so take them with a grain (bucket) of salt... Some of these might help...

[ol][*]Try an easier setting to get the feel of the game (if normally played on "Normal", them bump it down to "Easy", etc.) Tried both
[*]Try playing a "classic" start instead of "shadow" start. Playing Classic but from the start of DW I've had trouble.
[*]Try playing as an empire instead of a pirates faction. Always play Empire
[*]Don't always listen to the advisers. All turn off
[*]Don't keep paying pirates (maybe turn the number of pirates down) Latest game I've paid pirates nothing except for some smuggling
[*]Try a more friendly government type.[/ol] This I've not experimented with.

Having said that, it's very easy to over-build in this game. Money is pretty straight forward, you simply have to pay for construction and maintenance of all "State" ships and bases. A few points to consider:

[ol][*]You are allowed to queue a bunch of things up, and sometimes, money gets spent elsewhere, leaving you in the red.
[*]A new colony takes forever to generate positive cash.
[*]The advisers always want to spend all your money, without any consideration for maintenance.[/ol] Turned off

So, just try to start slow. Build up your home system, and be very strategic about expanding. Don't build ships unless you have a reason to (defending your home system is a good reason). And I can't re-iterate this enough, don't always listen to the advisers when it comes to building things.

If you can, take a screenshot of your "Empire summary" screen and post it. It would be a lot easier to see why your cashflow is bad.




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Flinkebeinchen
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RE: Money

Post by Flinkebeinchen »

Too many escorts, frigates and destroyers.. they only adds up maintenance. One Spaceport should be enough for 7 colonies. I would also scrap the two research stations and just drop your scientists on your Home Spaceport. Also, too many troops. You just don't need that much except you have a war going on or plan to invade Independents.
johanwanderer
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RE: Money

Post by johanwanderer »

A couple things I notice:
[ol][*]Your tax is less than 20% (75K out of 485K). I would recommend turn that up a bit on the main planet(s), as long as they don't become unhappy (happiness ~16 is good enough). At 30% tax, you may get an additional 70K or so to play with.
[*]Your escorts / frigates / destroyers all seem to be about the same size. At ~1K maintenance a piece, those are capital class ships (IMHO), so you have about 36 capital ships for 5 systems. That's probably too many at this early stage. I would recommend keeping the escorts and frigates to around 300-size at the beginning, which probably will save you another 8-10K in maintenance. As the outlaying colonies develop, then build them to be more powerful.
[*](Assuming it's not the beginning of the year) You have no trade. Playing as a natural merchant race, you should try to get some Free Trade agreements. That will boost your income considerably.
[*](Assuming it's not the beginning of the year) You have no resort incomes. Build a few resort bases. They will help with income as well.
[*]Facility maintenance. 12K (~6 facilities) is okay if they're on your planets with positive cash flow. If you build them everywhere, then it may be a waste this early.[/ol]
Hope that helps, let me know how it turns out.
Chris21wen
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RE: Money

Post by Chris21wen »

ORIGINAL: Flinkebeinchen

Too many escorts, frigates and destroyers.. they only adds up maintenance. One Spaceport should be enough for 7 colonies. I would also scrap the two research stations and just drop your scientists on your Home Spaceport. Also, too many troops. You just don't need that much except you have a war going on or plan to invade Independents.

As you can see from the pic I'm spread out and plagued by four gangs of pirates therefore I need the ships. I have three space ports (1 large and 2 small) but being spread out I need them. Again pirates keep raiding so troops are essential but the main reason I have them is to load onto, the yet unbuilt troop carriers for planned invasions.


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Chris21wen
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RE: Money

Post by Chris21wen »

ORIGINAL: johanwanderer

A couple things I notice:
[ol][*]Your tax is less than 20% (75K out of 485K). I would recommend turn that up a bit on the main planet(s), as long as they don't become unhappy (happiness ~16 is good enough). At 30% tax, you may get an additional 70K or so to play with.
[*]Your escorts / frigates / destroyers all seem to be about the same size. At ~1K maintenance a piece, those are capital class ships (IMHO), so you have about 36 capital ships for 5 systems. That's probably too many at this early stage. I would recommend keeping the escorts and frigates to around 300-size at the beginning, which probably will save you another 8-10K in maintenance. As the outlaying colonies develop, then build them to be more powerful.
[*](Assuming it's not the beginning of the year) You have no trade. Playing as a natural merchant race, you should try to get some Free Trade agreements. That will boost your income considerably.
[*](Assuming it's not the beginning of the year) You have no resort incomes. Build a few resort bases. They will help with income as well.
[*]Facility maintenance. 12K (~6 facilities) is okay if they're on your planets with positive cash flow. If you build them everywhere, then it may be a waste this early.[/ol]
Hope that helps, let me know how it turns out.

1. So I can increase tax to approx. 15 without to many problems.
2. Don't understand this. Other than the two capital ships I found the current size are escort 176, frigate 224 and destroyer 266. All slightly larger than normal which would be 150, 200 and 250. See above for reasons I have so many.
3. Met my first race 3 days ago and at the moment they won't play ball. I have great difficulty in getting any to accept many of my proposals.
3. Star date 2109.01.06.
4. Only two and both on my home planet.
fruitgnome
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RE: Money

Post by fruitgnome »

Have a look at the corruption on your planets.
3 construction sships are really less.
The private sector has money, so you could
- let more mining stations build, by the expansion planer
- make the private ships more expensive
Aeson
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RE: Money

Post by Aeson »

As you can see from the pic I'm spread out and plagued by four gangs of pirates therefore I need the ships. I have three space ports (1 large and 2 small) but being spread out I need them. Again pirates keep raiding so troops are essential but the main reason I have them is to load onto, the yet unbuilt troop carriers for planned invasions.
If you're trying to defend everything, I suggest that you should revise your priorities. Small colonies are not worth that much, and defending them with two or three frigates and three to five infantry units will cost you much more than simply ignoring raids on them will. Instead, concentrate your fleet to protect important systems - your homeworld, large colonies, systems with significant numbers of mines - and build a task force or two strong enough to go after the pirate bases.

If you feel that you really must protect all your colonies, remember that a planetary shield generator, available from Massive Shield Projection off of the final upgrade to Corvidian Shields, will prevent pirate raiders from landing on a colony, and that a planetary shield generator costs 2K credits in maintenance - the equivalent of 2 infantry units. 7 planetary shields will set you back 140K credits when you purchase them and cost you 14K credits in maintenance per year, while protecting your worlds from raids much better than your armies of infantry will. Pirates can still gain enough control to build a pirate fortress if the colony is small and you don't drive their ships off, but they won't be raiding your worlds after the shield generator completes. I also find that three or four ships of about size-300 are typically sufficient to drive off, kill, or capture lone raiders and can give a larger raiding group enough reason to stick around for a big fleet to show up to crush them. As such, if you truly wish to defend each colonized system, I would suggest forming five fleets consisting of a destroyer and two frigates, or three frigates, or two frigates and an escort or two, and assigning each such fleet to a colony with defensive stance and system-wide operations range. Then you can concentrate everything else into one or maybe two big fleets for dealing with major raids and for attacking pirate bases, and scrap any extra vessels or use them as spares.

If I were going to do something like this with the assets you currently have, I'd scrap the eight escorts and four of the frigates, and form five fleets of 1 DD and 2 FFs stationed at each colony. The remaining 7 DDs and the 2 capital ships would then be formed into a big fleet to jump on large raiding fleets and hit any pirate bases that I know about. I'd also be looking into replacing the armies with planetary shields (requires the three techs for Corvidian shields as well as Massive Shield Projection; 20K to build and 2K per year to maintain each planetary shield generator), because a shield generator per planet costs about as much, in the long run, as two infantry units per planet and is a much more effective defense against raiders, though overall this probably won't result in any significant savings as I'd still be keeping several infantry units for invading independent colonies, and you should also note that in the long run, once you start fighting other normal empires or pirates who have started claiming worlds like a normal empire, you will begin to need to station troops on your worlds again. I would also want to make certain that the DDs have predominately long-range weaponry, probably missiles at this stage of the game, so that the fleet can sit out of range of most of the guns on the pirate bases rather than risk losses by coming closer to engage with more powerful weapons. Also remember when base-busting not to bring the fleet directly to the base, especially if you have reason to suspect that the pirates you're targeting have a large fleet. Send the fleet somewhere else in the system and let the pirates send ships out to engage your fleet. Kill them, and only then should you consider moving against the main base.

I will once again caution you that not all colonies are worth the effort and expense of protecting, and add that you can considerably reduce the defensive burdens on your navy if you concentrate your mining operations in your colonized systems or, failing that, into as few systems as possible, as this way you can use a single fleet to defend several targets.

Also, your defensive fleets are trying to cover too much territory. It's much better to set them to system or maybe nearby system range until you have a hyperdrive with 25K+ speed, as early drives like the Gerax will not allow them to respond in time to attacks, and so the setting will either do nothing for you, or, worse, drag your defenders out of their positions over valuable colonies or in systems with lots of mines.
johanwanderer
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RE: Money

Post by johanwanderer »

ORIGINAL: Chris H
2. Don't understand this. Other than the two capital ships I found the current size are escort 176, frigate 224 and destroyer 266. All slightly larger than normal which would be 150, 200 and 250. See above for

That is odd. From the summary screen, you have:
- 8 escorts, costing 5K in maintenance
- 14 frigates, 12K
- 12 destroyers, 13K
- 2 capital ships, 3K
To me, that seems very high (see attached summary). I know it's quite an apple-to-orange comparison, but my small ships cost much less to maintain than yours. In another game, the figure are quite similar to yours, but by that time I have some 90 colonies, and my ships started to get quite big.

Maybe check one og your designs, say, frigate, and see why it cost so much to maintain. It could be that your resource inflation is very high. Open the resource planner, and check to see if you have all the strategic resources. If you don't, the inflation could be high (1.8) and causes all your maintenance costs to sky-rocket. If that is the case, build the appropriate mining stations will help a lot.

Long.

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fruitgnome
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RE: Money

Post by fruitgnome »

If you don't have hyper drive technology pay the pirates.
And think for yourself is paying pirates or have so much military cheaper in the end.
Chris21wen
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RE: Money

Post by Chris21wen »

ORIGINAL: johanwanderer


Maybe check one og your designs, say, frigate, and see why it cost so much to maintain. It could be that your resource inflation is very high. Open the resource planner, and check to see if you have all the strategic resources. If you don't, the inflation could be high (1.8) and causes all your maintenance costs to sky-rocket. If that is the case, build the appropriate mining stations will help a lot.

Long.

Now that's something that I never thought off.
fruitgnome
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RE: Money

Post by fruitgnome »

See at older components they might be cheaper.
Nanaki
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RE: Money

Post by Nanaki »

One of the big problems is that the AI Advisor recommends a far larger number of ships than you actually need. On top of this spaceports tend to have a lot of extra frills and such you do not actually need.
One Spaceport should be enough for 7 colonies.

Just remember that a planet will not export resources unless it has a spaceport over it. You might want to develop a super light weight spaceport design just for the purpose of exporing resources from planets with critical strategic resources.
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
Bingeling
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RE: Money

Post by Bingeling »

ORIGINAL: Nanaki
Just remember that a planet will not export resources unless it has a spaceport over it. You might want to develop a super light weight spaceport design just for the purpose of exporing resources from planets with critical strategic resources.
This is not true.

The image is the cargo of the minor colony (with no spaceport) starting with young expansion. The spaceport sends a load of freighters to get its excess cargo, and we see the total amounts as reserved.

The colony is an Aculon source, but that hardly matters. The spaceport will fetch what is needed.

What is lost in resource distribution with no spaceport, is that a construction ship will not pick up at the colony, and other colonies will probably not order things from the colony either. Which should be a good thing, since the "single spaceport" strategy helps prevent shortages.

The original poster seems to expand too fast. Don't get another colony unless you have defense forces to spare.

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Nanaki
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RE: Money

Post by Nanaki »

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
This is not true.

Not exactly. I ran a test by having two colonized planets close by with one having a spaceport, and the planet without the spaceport had never exported any resources whatsoever even if the spaceport had shortages in those resources. I am thinking it might just be a bug with Smuggler AI, though. It seems like Smugglers are missing many of the AI improvements that Empire Freighters got over the years.
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
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