Production Decrease?

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Althis
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Production Decrease?

Post by Althis »

Hello all!

My friends and I play long games of SR Ultimate, generally starting in the 1936 campaign and running onwards. We have noticed, however, that around the Cold War era (1949) or if you start a game later on, the production of buildings decreases over time quite rapidly.

This evening, my friend and I started a match of 1949 Cold War, and the coal power plant produced 615,000 units of electricity. Now, Mar 9, 1951, it only produces 483,385 units of electricity. The same is happening with the goods factories.

What is happening? Is this a bug??

Thanks,
Althis
Camaro
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by Camaro »

I've long been lurking on these forums, but have never posted anything. Althis and I frequently play this game, and I have sunk more hours into SR1936 and SRU than I care to admit, however, I believe I have found the answer to the question that we have posed above. This variance appears to be described in the following patch note:
Version 9.0.50
Node production will slowly increase/decrease if less/greater than world demand (not U)
I was able to confirm this effect on one of my games where my maximum output tooltip had fallen by 2/3rds from 2017 through 2032. Per the files, the base electric hex production is 1,252,000 x .50 factor for coal = 626,000... the tooltip value of maximum output for a coal plant in my game is currently 206,704 (33% of starting) and falling daily.

I was able to confirm this looking at the hex production, a full hex of fusion power isn't even producing 100,000 despite the fact that I have cold fusion researched.

Needless to say, it is fairly annoying that I must have 3x as many power plants to keep the lights on in my country... and since the rest of the world has a net abundance of electricity, my power output will continue to fall, causing me to have to build additional power plants. This becomes rather annoying when the country has a population of nearly 3 billion people. I have had to build 575 fusion power plants to meet my electricity needs. If this affect didn't exist, I would only have needed about 192 fusion power plants. Now, my country can afford to build all of these plants, but the inflation it has caused is immense to say the least.

If i deactivate a couple hundred fusion plants, that is sufficient to start driving the output per hex number upwards again, by my calculations it would take a bit more than 8 years for electric hex production to return to its starting values. I understand why this was implemented, to fix the global market, but this has annoying effects on games that last over a decade.

My question is this: Is there any way to disable this effect via modding the game files?
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George Geczy
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by George Geczy »

Camaro wrote:My question is this: Is there any way to disable this effect via modding the game files?
Thanks for the detailed look at this, and I tend to think you're description is correct, this is caused by the world production modifier.

If that is turned off I think it would cause significant issues in the world economy, though it is not unreasonable to have a flag that could be set by modders to change this behaviour. I'm hoping to add a number of new modding settings in future updates so I've made a note of this to take a look at.

-- George / BattleGoat.
way2co0l
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by way2co0l »

I can definitely understand the reason for this feature existing to shore up weaknesses in economy balance long term, but I wonder if there might be better ways to do it. I've gotta agree that it would be annoying choosing to build something, paying the set price for it and expecting the production it's supposed to give. Perhaps the rest of the world is being flooded with the resource already, but maybe you're trying to to meet local demand and not trying to export. In that case, having it produce only a portion of what it should can be an annoying aspect.

From my perspective, something I've advocated as a solution for a long time would be improving AI economy decisions, primarily when it comes to producing goods for export despite the fact that their production costs exceed world market price resulting in a net loss. If countries were more willing to scale back production of goods that they are producing where production cost exceeds world market value, I think it would solve quite a few problems. You'd experience fewer price crashes as the world market would be flooded with fewer goods, which would theoretically keep prices more stable. Their economies would likely be stronger as they aren't bleeding money producing and exporting goods at a loss. And the world economy might even be stronger as the world market prices for goods would be less likely to crash as hard.

I understand there are complications to balancing these things, but I personally believe it's worth trying to implement it as an option. In that case, you could even keep your current scaling system in place to increase production for goods when world production fails to meet worldwide demand. Since countries would be scaling back their production for unprofitable goods, they'd be less likely to overproduce goods which should prevent the system from decreasing production as a result of world production being too high.

Ideally for me, I envision the AI reducing production for any good where production cost exceeds world market price to produce only to demand at the most. In an even more ideal sense, I'd like to see them actively importing in those circumstances as they can get the goods cheaper that way while also potentially bringing the world market price for that good back up as them importing increases demand in the process. The only exception I can currently envision for this rule would be with rubber where production cost is pretty much guaranteed to exceed the world market price unless you're Malaysia and yet Malaysia is unable to meet world demand on its own once the world demand for it has become substantial. In that instance, local production should probably never drop below 100% demand, or maybe even slightly over that, despite the fact they'll almost never be able to produce at a profit.

World economy balance requires that other nations continue to produce rubber in order for it to function properly, but it doesn't need every other resource to be produced to do the same. It should function just fine even if several large producers cut back production to demand, or even import, as the increase in world market price should encourage others to build more facilities, and the production balance mechanic will increase the production of existing buildings for those countries that continue to produce it under the world market price to continue exporting it.

Just my suggestion on this topic as I feel it will allow the mechanic to continue to exist and do what it's supposed to do without punishing the player for expecting his purchase to actually produce what he expects it to.
Camaro
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by Camaro »

George Geczy wrote:
Camaro wrote:My question is this: Is there any way to disable this effect via modding the game files?
Thanks for the detailed look at this, and I tend to think you're description is correct, this is caused by the world production modifier.

If that is turned off I think it would cause significant issues in the world economy, though it is not unreasonable to have a flag that could be set by modders to change this behaviour. I'm hoping to add a number of new modding settings in future updates so I've made a note of this to take a look at.

-- George / BattleGoat.
Thanks George! I had a feeling that would be a hard coded setting, but figured I'd ask anyways. Greatly appreciate the response and look forward to seeing what y'all have planned.
jonsteen
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by jonsteen »

Any way to disable this absurd mechanics?
evildari
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Re: Production Decrease?

Post by evildari »

jonsteen wrote:Any way to disable this absurd mechanics?
yes, please and make it a lobby/new game option (and per default already disabled)
my mods
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 79&t=25932 (even techs and units for everyone - AI will own you too)
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 79&t=29326 (MARSX2)
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