The number of colonists needed to build new commodities on planets is going way, way UP. We noticed that most planets produced the extra commodities at amazing rates. A good example is Ship Hulls. It takes 2 million colonists every 5 minutes to create 1 Ship Hull. There are planets in the last game that had produced over 30,000 Ship Hulls. Then there is the planet building Consumer Electronics with over 100 BILLION.

When you check the settings after the reset you will see the new commodities need massive numbers of colonists to build. You will notice Ship Hulls need 200 million instead of 2 million colonists to build a single Ship Hull. Before you break out the Torches and Pitchforks read on.

We have changed how colonists build the new commodities. When a planet builds anything it REQUIRES that you have the exact number of colonists to build 1 item. If a commodity needs 100 colonists to build 1 item then you have to have that many. If you only have 99 colonists building that item then you would NEVER build one. All their work would be for nothing.

We have changed how special commodities are built by colonists. If you need 100 colonist to build an item and only have 99 then those 99 will build 99% of the item. The next time they will build another 99% and you will have 1.98 of that item. Your planet will only show 1 but you will have 1.98. This means even if you don't have enough colonists to build an item what you do have will build as much as they can each tick.

This is based off the code for Research and Build, yes we are working on it still. It's how new items will be researched and built by colonists you assign to the work. We will be making this change in the future to Ore, Organics, Goods and Energy but it will not make it for the game reset.

So don't despair if it looks like a planet commodity needs millions of colonists to build an item. You can build no matter how many you assign to the job. It just might take a long time to build one.

Colonists needed to produce 1 Construction Equipment each turn 68,965,517,241
Colonists needed to produce 1 Weapon Systems each turn 133,333,333,333
Colonists needed to produce 1 Communication Satellites each turn 90,909,090,909
Colonists needed to produce 1 Entertainment Software each turn 20,000,000,000
Colonists needed to produce 1 Consumer Electronics each turn 40,000,000,000
Colonists needed to produce 1 Ship Hulls each turn 200,000,000,000
Colonists needed to produce 1 Bio Weapons each turn 166,666,666,667
Colonists needed to produce 1 Prefab Housing each turn 117,647,058,824
Colonists needed to produce 1 Bio Medical each turn 13,333,333,333
Colonists needed to produce 1 Hovercraft each turn 54,054,054,054

do you made error?
200B colonists for 1 ship hulls? i think it impossible. other settings commodities wrong too:(

They are right and you apparently DIDN'T read the above post and missed...



You will build the special commodities with whatever colonists you have assigned. It will just build then a fraction at a time each tick.

bad that we cant see how long till next unit

The new requirements make having planets with special commodities no better than a standard planet in most instances.

There are only 4 special commodities that will give an advantage over normal credit production. This takes into account the maximum price that a commodity could be sold for. At the start of the round there is only 2 special commodities that have a better than normal planet production value.

I understand that each tick the assigned percentage of colonist will build a percentage of the commodity. But unless that commodity has a sale price greater than the value of credits that the same percentage of colonist would normally produce, then it isn't worth assigning any colonists to build that commodity.

The only real questions I have about this are:
How did you decide on the values to use?
Can you change these values mid round?

Those commodities for planets are not supposed to be making players profit until mid to LATE in the game. In other words not until a month or more has passed for the mid range commodities and not until 2 months have passed for the top range commodities.

It was designed this way specifically. After a month players will have their planet built up enough with enough colonists to make it worth while as ports buying those commodities will be paying big bucks.

These new commodities are not supposed to be making people a lot of money this early in the game and that is the way they are designed. They are designed to TRY and keep trading viable at all points in the game and not just the first couple of weeks a person plays.

If people were able to build the new commodities on planets as you wish then scores would skyrocket out of proportion to what is made by normal planet credit production.

As an example we had planets with BILLIONS of the new commodities on them last game.

Just remember the new commodities are designed to come into play as you play the game for a longer period of time. They are not designed to let you make a lot of money when you just start playing.

I understand the concept and what it is trying to achieve. I am merely drawing your attention to anomaly between the commodities that will always have a value less than standard production rates regardless of the final price that they could be sold for.

The standard rate takes 67 colonists to produce one credit and only four of the special commodities will produce credits at a rate better than this standard rate of production towards the end of the game. The other seven commodities will always produce credits at a rate less than standard credit production, so they will never be worth producing as they will never make a profit greater than what can be produced by stranded credit production.

One of the four profitable special commodities can be produced in the first day, and can be produced in large numbers. The other three have a portion of them being made each tick and could start to be available to sell in as little as two - three weeks depending on how quickly a player populates the planet. (Some players already have over 1 billion colonists)

This imbalance will give players that have one of the planets that produce one of the 4 profitable commodities a huge advantage regardless of what stage the round is at. I am not suggesting lowering the number of colonists required to produce the commodities but suggest that the final price of the other seven special commodities needs to be reviewed to make it more balanced.

Well this gives you incentive to find planets that produce the extra commodities and of course protecting them. Sure it gives players that went to the trouble to find planets that build the commodity, but they still have to hold that planet... it will give an attacker a reason to take it from you as well. Also what you have to understand that over trading ports with the commodities will drive prices down, you have to work at finding fresh well paying ports all the time once you have those planets. I had a good 6 diff planets producing extra commodities in real space (they are pretty worthless in SGs) but each day I had to track down profitable ports. I could make 50 tril in less than 2000 turns but I had to find fresh ports all the time.

I'm not seeing where there is an imbalance.

Help me see what your seeing.

What I think he's saying is that it takes 67 colonists to produce one credit. By PJ's chart it will take aprox 21,000 colonist to produce 1 credit of Entertainment Software.
By the chart Entertainment Software will pay 918,*** credits and take 20 billion colonist to produce. It will be more productive to have the colonists build credits rather than commodities.

Oh I see where your going. May need to review those numbers. I calculated that even with 20 bill col and 50% production on that item, you could only produce 50 items of entertainment software a day. Would take a long time to make a profit with that production. Will have to discuss with PJ at lunch tomorrow.

This is from the Forum Announcement "Commodity Price Restructuring for the next game..."


Take the final value of a special commodity after 84 days eg: Communication Satellites
95.753,788
And take the number of colonists needed to produce 1 Communication Satellites per tick 90,909,090,909

Compare to the value that the same number of colonists would produce per tick if assigned to credit production eg: 1 credit per 67 colonists
Divided 90,909,090,909 by 67 equals 1,356,852,103 credits

1,356,852,103 credit production verses 95,753,788 High port price

Planets are better to the value of 1,261,098,315 credits per turn if they only produce credits and not Communication Satellites.

If the figures in the tables are for the high port values ( I am assuming that that is the highest port price available if you are selling) then the numbers just get worse if you trade the commodity as the price at the port will then reduce.

If the final value of a commodity is less than the value of credits that the same number of colonists can produce per tick then the commodity isn't worth building.

Colonists needed to produce 1 Slave each turn 50 divided by 67 equals 0.746 credits. Best High Port Price 1
Colonists needed to produce 1 Bio Medical each turn 13,333,333,333 divided by 67 equals 199,004,975 Best High Port Price 379,576
Colonists needed to produce 1 Entertainment Software each turn 20,000,000,000 divided by 67 equals 298,507,463 Best High Port Price 467,601
Colonists needed to produce 1 Consumer Electronics each turn 40,000,000,000 divided by 67 equals 597,014,925 Best High Port Price 918,367
Colonists needed to produce 1 Hovercraft each turn 54,054,054,054 divided by 67 equals 806,776,926 Best High Port Price 4,538,303
Colonists needed to produce 1 Construction Equipment each turn 68,965,517,241 divided by 67 equals 1,029,336,078 Best High Port Price 19,160,380
Colonists needed to produce 1 Communication Satellites each turn 90,909,090,909 divided by 67 equals 1,356,852,103 Best High Port Price 95,753,788
Colonists needed to produce 1 Prefab Housing each turn 117,647,058,824 divided by 67 equals 1,755,926,251 Best High Port Price 680,635,461
Colonists needed to produce 1 Weapon Systems each turn 133,333,333,333 divided by 67 equals 1,990,049,751 Best High Port Price 29,154,738,572
Colonists needed to produce 1 Bio Weapons each turn 166,666,666,667 divided by 67 equals 2,487,562,189 Best High Port Price 71,681,381,741
Colonists needed to produce 1 Ship Hulls each turn 200,000,000,000 divided by 67 equals 2,985,074,627 Best High Port Price 1,447,892,995,581

I notice in the settings that the colonist limit is 2,000,000,000 or 2B.

Does this mean there is a limit of 2B colonist per planet? or am I not understanding something?

I thought there were planets last round with over 25B colonist.

2B colonists for a planet with tech level 0. not upgraded planet
for each tech level + 75M colonists
lvl 0 = 2.000.000.000=2B colonists
lvl 100 = 2B + 75M*100=9.5M colonists
lvl 200 = 2B + 75M*200= 17B colonists
lvl 300 = 24.5B
lvl 400 = 32B
..............
lvl 600 = 47B colonists

for each other you can calculate yourself.

That is a base planet limit, a level 0 planet has a limit of 2 bill and as the tech increases so does the col limit.

thanks to both of you.