Unmodded AI economy with no player stations or miners.

[Coffeepot]

Works very well, the start of a new game is rough with shortages but the AI will correct supply to match demand and currently my game with only experimenting with one faction (HOP) they have very low demand and high supply of everything except smart chips for obvious reasons, they are actually building more smart chip modules too.

Now to actually get it to this state I had to spend hours ♥♥♥♥ing around doing manual trades at♥♥♥♥♥♥all profit to supply their build storages and production modules, the result is 111 stations after 3 days 22hours 11minutes (including SETA benefit) most of which have multiple production modules, the highest buy order is for smart chips (due to missile spam) and everything else is taken care of by the AI.

This leads me to believe when people complain about a broken economy they are actually breaking it themselves and the AI doesn't deal well with that because it's not able to predict player interaction.

Some notes: I stay out of sector in my own ship, I do one trade at a time to prevent reserving wares that the AI might use, I use Large freighters because pirates don't seem to harass them, I didn't initially trade for maximum profit but instead delivered hull parts to build storages asap and then supplied production modules with what they required, all trades were done through HOP owned stations only.

Some things I would like implemented: a better way to see total sector supply/demand instead of having to zoom in to individual stations and add them up.

[ImHelping]

What can a player do in one hour, literally one hour, that would break the economy harder than the AI does to itself?

Particularly if all they are doing is odd jobs for stations, rather than gunning for crystal mining. Because that's the general trend for 1.5 observations of a bunch of wharfs shutting down between 1-2 hours of a fresh save.

You admit that you are bending over backwards to work around AI at every turn because of how afraid you are the least nudge of natural gameplay will cause it's brain to melt out of it's head. But still try to throw in "It must be the player doing something wrong!" because... what, habit?

[Asmosis]

Didn't they resolve most of the issues with AI production by increasing conflict before xmas? Or are there still large problems with the economy grinding to a halt because end of line products aren't being consumed?

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Didn't they resolve most of the issues with AI production by increasing conflict before xmas? Or are there still large problems with the economy grinding to a halt because end of line products aren't being consumed?

1.5 patch was intended to fix some known engine problem issues, but of comedy note it has caused a frequent increase in how quickly multiple wharfs shut down due to engine parts shortages on a fresh game start.

Results may vary! But it's been consistent enough that it's not exactly edge case territory.

For example, I had LESS (as in, it took longer for it to lock up) economy issues than most. But after 1.5 I'm usually lucky to squeak in a teladi trader purchased before TEL, PAR, and HOP all have their wharf's crash.

And that's just one example, but a rather front facing one. There is a reason so many defenses of the state of the simulation have a ton of "After I bent over backwards to coddle the AI-" qualifiers, or reach for "But think of the profits!" as an entirely unrelated answer.

Posts like the OP would be just as likley to be a parody of the usual defenses of the state of the sim, as they are an honest attempt at defending it. Given how common "AI economy sim is fine! (after I fixed the economy personally). Must be player error and no other possibility." hot takes are.

[Coffeepot]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

What can a player do in one hour, literally one hour, that would break the economy harder than the AI does to itself?

Particularly if all they are doing is odd jobs for stations, rather than gunning for crystal mining. Because that's the general trend for 1.5 observations of a bunch of wharfs shutting down between 1-2 hours of a fresh save.

You admit that you are bending over backwards to work around AI at every turn because of how afraid you are the least nudge of natural gameplay will cause it's brain to melt out of it's head. But still try to throw in "It must be the player doing something wrong!" because... what, habit?

you are confusing a broken economy and a broken game start, I agree the start of the game is broken and that the AI has to be hand held but that's not because the economy is broken, it's because of what controls ship behaviour, as evidence of my experiment the AI fixes every issue you have with "the broken economy" by itself it just takes time and that is because the traders run around doing 16 energy cell trades just like player auto traders do, that's not an issue with the economy.

Also I didn't bend over backwards to coddle the AI I did what a trader should be doing and supplied buildings, I shouldn't have to do that but I also didn't add anything extra to the equation as in player owned stations or resources from mining or outside trading, I didn't FIX anything because it didn't need to be fixed what I did do was simulate what would happend if the actual trader AI was of an acceptable level and proved the faction AI has a working economy.

The actual issue is that Egosoft haven't designed a very good game start for how they change the faction wars so the shipyards are just pumping out ships regardless of current supply and their tradeship AI doesn't seem to have priorities for supplying and instead goes after profit.

[Coffeepot]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Didn't they resolve most of the issues with AI production by increasing conflict before xmas? Or are there still large problems with the economy grinding to a halt because end of line products aren't being consumed?

it's fixed on an internal level but if you supply them then it just breaks something else which isn't necessarily the economy, it's more to do with the faction streaming ships into combat and the ratios of what is being supplied and their internal fleet setups, in my game the AI is spending as fast as it produces but the ships are just being minced at the other side of the gate or due to in sector combat mechanics they are losing several destroyers to a large hostile mining ship that has missiles on it's rear turrets while they do not.

[D55]

The biggest problem in my play throughs has been shipyards running out of a ware and not creating a buy offer for it (normally weapon parts) which grinds that shipyard out of the game, the only shipyard that seems to run flawlessly is in Argon prime

[Helldriver o7]

Take in consideration there is a proceduraly generated game start.
I've restarted multiple time the unworthy entrepreneur starting plot to familiarise with the economy (and be a teladi of course).
Each time i've noticed there is not the same station configuration in the initial sector (space weed factory, teladianium sometime not ect..), after some exploration i've figured out it is the whole galaxy wich have his initial configuration changed with not the same supply and demand in average.
I've also watched some streams and videos, same statement.
Except for the Smartchips demand wich seems to be remanent.

Whatever it's up to the player to be able to break the economy (storage speculation for exemple buy all the goods low price when the economy saturates into massive storages, and resell it when price goes up), not to babysit it.

[Alith-Ahnar]

Great find and write up.

Thank you for an example that the economy is not broken but just stagnates of a flaw in the distribution network aka faulty trader scripts most likely.

I noticed myself that a player can easily crash a Sectors industrie just by idleing there as transports end up stuck in structures because of the way pathfinding to the docking bay is handled in 1.50.

[Helldriver o7]

Originally posted by Clunge plunger minge mangler:

Clunge plunger minge mangler a écrit :
Not rich at all, there is nothing to spend credits on since we can't make our own ships yet and all stations are behind on parts which I can't be ♥♥♥♥ed to fix so theres no point in making credits.

the problem is that it's a chore to fulfill orders and I don't want to play that way, it's tedious and evidence of a broken economy/AI.

OP quote on another thread, 30th déc. 2018 "How rich you are" Maybe you've had a lucky start this one.

[Coffeepot]

Originally posted by Maza! FR:

Originally posted by Clunge plunger minge mangler:

Clunge plunger minge mangler a écrit :
Not rich at all, there is nothing to spend credits on since we can't make our own ships yet and all stations are behind on parts which I can't be ♥♥♥♥ed to fix so theres no point in making credits.

the problem is that it's a chore to fulfill orders and I don't want to play that way, it's tedious and evidence of a broken economy/AI.

OP quote on another thread, 30th déc. 2018 "How rich you are" Maybe you've had a lucky start this one.

it was a standard start as every wharf/shipyard except for ALI had the same issues with shortages etc, I spent the time and did the experiment to see what was happening and to see if the AI was doing anything about it, the result is the factions respond to supply and demand albeit slowly so the economy does work it just starts badly, however the AI is in a bad spot especially if you are in sector for most of it because the AI traders do weird pathing things.