I don't understand economics

[Gorgo]

It's on PBW, and my empire has been broke for some time - no good mineral planets, too many ships.

Then I colonize a great, tasty mineral planet http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif, my net ressources (in all areas) get positive for about 0.5 years, yet every turn I get "lack of resources" Messages (although I always have about +5.000 in minerals), and my "resources in treasury" are still close to zero!

How come? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/confused.gif

[dogscoff]

Zounds! Egads!


I don't know. Sorry.

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[mac5732]

Gorgo, you didn't, say, but could your apponets be using intel, ie: steal resources or trade disruption against you? or some of the other intel ways to ruin your resources?? Also with crumy planets, research those that give you bonus's, like system wide or planet wide facilities. I also believe that maintenance for all your units etc, is deducted after everything is added but not sure. I would ask SJ, Puke, Atrocities, or some of the other modders, if anyone knows it would be one of them..

just some ideas mac

[Suicide Junkie]

Possible problems:
- Intel ops destroying your resources
- No spaceport in the system
- Non-budget expenses (retrofitting can reduce your resources without being noted on your budget screen)
- Storage overflow? (your storage maxes out at say, 50K, but you are trying to spend more than 50K per turn?)

[Kadste]

When there is an intel op against you, do you receive a message saying what happened?

IIRC there is a message. Does this not also apply to this type of op?

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Never Give up, Never Surrender!

[Gorgo]

I have spaceports everywhere, intel is disabled, and I have not retrofitted anything during the Last turns. I have 70.000 organics and 50.000 radioactives.

I'll give you an example:
2405.3
Income total: 26311

Maintenance: 8840
Construction Queue Usage: 9750

Net Ressources: +7721
Current Total: 863


2405.4:
Income total: 27540

Maintenance: 9276
Construction Queue Usage: 10600

Net Ressources: +7664
Current total: 1657

In my opinion, on my Last turn I should have had about 8.000 minerals.

Suicide Junkie, what else are costs that don't appear on the budget screen? Maybe this could help.

Thank you all for your input!

(If anyone is interested in the savegame of theses turns, please mail me: vradke@gmx.net)

[This message has been edited by Gorgo (edited 28 September 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Things that don't show up in the budget are usually instant effects.
-retrofitting
-scrapping
-resource conVersion
-trade offers (not treaties, but item swaps)

Another possible way this could happen is if the host of a game has different files from yours. Your budget would think that you're making profit, but the host would calculate a different result.

I doubt it, but if you checked the budget, then added some one-turn build orders just before ending the turn, you might get this.

One more idea: finite resources. If you've got this set, and you've got some low values, your miners could be running out of resources to mine, thus not getting the full production the budget expects.

[Kadste]

Gorgo,

I have not looked at his for some time, but I think you take out expenses for your empire before you add revenue. This might lead to not having enough resources in treasury before adding to them. (Maybe a wild guess). There was a thread a little while ago about this topic, try looking at the thread on the resource income bug? dated Sep 06 by Puke.

Can you send us a saved game or a screenshot?
Maybe someone can see something?

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Never Give up, Never Surrender!

[Gorgo]

It's getting worse: Next turn, a plus of 11.000 minerals, and still a current total of 1909.

Suicide Junkie, I checked all of your ideas, but that's not it.
For quite a few turns now, there's only one construction queue working, all others don't.

I'm getting the idea that I won't win the game if this continues.

[Lemmy]

Try putting your construction queues on hold for one turn.
If the resource are first subtracted like Kadste said, then production will halt for one turn and you get your extra resources.
But maybe it's a bug and the resources are still subtracted after your resource have been added.

[Slaughtermeyer]

Another item that can account for losses: broken trade treaties. In one of my games I'm getting far more resources from trade than I'm actually producing myself.

[geoschmo]

Gorgo,

I know what your problem is. I will send you an email explaining it.

Geoschmo
PBW Admin Team

[Gorgo]

Thanks, Geoschmo!

Now everything is clear. The player that played the Federation in the beginning had brought an extra cultural trait - "explorers". As the game is standard 1.41, you could not look at his empire without inserting the cultures.txt file he had uploaded. So I used his file (and recommended everyone in the game to do so too), not knowing that it changed many modifiers for most of the cultures.

This changed what has been showing on my empire expenses screen, but as the game on PBW has the original cultures.txt file, it did not affect my production in reality. The surplus was not real, now I'm getting the correct - lower - number of minerals on my screen.

Thanks to everyone that helped me!

Gorgo

[This message has been edited by Gorgo (edited 29 September 2001).]