Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

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Njordin
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:27 am

Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

Post by Njordin »

Hi there, i just started playing Distant Worlds with both Addons a few days ago.

i´m really getting in this game but i still have some questions. I searched for hours and unfortunately did not found useful informations. ( Maybe i´m too dumb for searching answers effective )

Economy. I know there is demand ( luxuries ) and that it is empire or galaxy-wide.
but it seems that there is no "demand" for basic ressources as they only get used if you build military or civilian ships / bases / whatever. So where can i see how much mining bases i need for this and that ressource to have enough for producing and not too many maintanance costs for rendundant mining bases? ( i think they are about 19 different basic ressources, right? )
i know, there is "on stock", but is there a graph or indicator for what ratio i should mine or have on stock?

next question: galaxy-wide demand. without any trade-agreements its useless right?

thank you for your help in advance : )
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Jeeves
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RE: Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

Post by Jeeves »

Welcome to the forum! I have a browser problem, so I'll type a bit then edit my post. If you are still online when I post, maybe we can go back and forth with question and answer. Yes there are 19 strategic minerals, 19 luxuries, and the three super luxuries/drugs Korobbian Spice, Loros Fruit, and Zentabia Fluid. You use the expansion planner screen to track your resources for stock and demand. It is a good idea if you manually manage your constructors to look at both the empire AND the galaxy priority for mining locations. It is best to do mines inside your systems, which are in green. By preference you want to build mining stations in systems with an active spaceport. You can determine that by looking at the list of your empire locations for mining. Explore all of the command interface for the expansion planner to get the maximum benefit. More coming.

Lonnie Courtney Clay
Live long and prosper!

Lonnie Courtney Clay
Njordin
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:27 am

RE: Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

Post by Njordin »

thanks a lot for that answer ! "So where can i see how much mining bases i need for this and that ressource to have enough for producing and not too many maintanance costs for rendundant mining bases?" thats my main-concern, since i dont know when i have too much of an ressource or less than i need. i could look up the components of each ship and calculate an ratio, so i know when i build every 10 minutes 5 ships i need 3:2:8:1 fibre, gold, steel, silikon. for example... but thats far to complex. isnt there any way to look up how much of each ressource i should have on stock or actually mining with bases ?
vonboy
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Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 2:56 pm

RE: Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

Post by vonboy »

A rough indicator of if there's enough of a resource or not is it's price. If it's .8, that means there's enough of that recourse in the galaxy to meet the demand. If that price goes up at all, it means there's not enough. This not only means you have to pay more to buy it from another empire, but the maintenance cost of anything you built that used that resource will also go up.
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feelotraveller
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RE: Economy and Mining - Noob Questions

Post by feelotraveller »

On galaxy wide demand, two points. First resources can be sold without a trade agreement, it merely adds a bonus tariff on top of the usual transaction. Secondly galactic stock versus demand is used to calculate the resource price even if no inter empire trade is taking place. If the price of steel rises (through galactic demand) not only the build cost but also the maintenance cost for all ships/bases which use it rises. These costs can triple from low price to high price... Short story it still matters to you.

On your other question about how many bases you need for each resource there is no clear answer. I will do my best. Experience is probably the best gauge here, although that does not help new players. Keep an eye on the stock levels of your starting spaceport: you are given generous amounts to start the game with. As these go down it indicates a need for that resource. The ones which are dropping most quickly are the ones you need to prioritise building bases for. There can be be quite a lag between realising this need and getting a flow of supplies from a base that has to be constructed. To start with early in the game you should aim to get at least one source for each basic resource. Some you will need more of, for example, steel, caslon. If you look around in the design details screen (where you design ships/bases) there is a button which gives a breakdown/summary of the resources used to contruct that ship/base. Check out the ones you are building. If you have demand for a resource and no source if your private sector can find a tradeable source (another empire/independent) they will buy it from them. This can be both good and bad. Also it is not simply a matter of number of bases since they have an extraction rate (number of extractors x tech modifier) and mining locations have a % richness of deposit. Look for high % deposits close to your spaceports. Remember colonies also produce resources. Don't worry about the maintenance fee for private mining bases (i.e. anything which is designated 'mining base') since this is carried by the private sector and it is very hard to make them broke. Early game definitely build bases flat out - it is a matter of prioritising for what. I keep going like this all game but some differ on mid/late game strategies.

[Edit: where there are multiple resources of the same type (basis/gas/luxury) present they are all extracted at once, so 50% steel, 20% gold, 10% lead means 80% extraction of 'stuff'.]
I hope that helps somewhat and is not too confusing. [:)]
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