Reading this thread it sounds like way too much focus is on 'surviving' the economy by having to rush for high-end economy buildings.

While they help a lot and are a valid tactic, the point of the game is that I'm not railroaded into a single method of playing the game. For the same reason I don't like the Thalans, being forced to do certain things a certain way just makes it feel like a clunky, boring RTS game with build orders.

Well sure, that's the entire point of having the new tech trees - you find what suits you.

Right now, we're just seeing different ways per race of doing the same thing, even going so far as it becoming nearly mandatory to trade for techs you aren't really supposed to have (ie: the Yor and government).

Yeah, runaway economies suck and trivialize the game, but there really should be another way of doing things, like inflation. After all, that's the nature of economies in the world NOW - the more money you have, the less it's worth. The trick is doing it in such a way that it doesn't feel like you're climbing up an escalator - the better you play the more the game hurts you. That's not fun either.

But I shouldn't really be FORCED to rush certain techs - that's just amateur.

Because frankly that'd be like playing HL2 and having sliders for how much damage each gun does, how much health each enemy has, etc.

I agree Beta 4 economy has gone too far in that it forces you down a road that is verging on "not fun" any more. Balancing is always a nightmare as clearly many play on many different levels of difficulty, and what works at one level may well - often doesnt - at other levels. Economy has always been a roll-a-coaster depending on your experience level. One thing is certain at any level however, it must remain Fun, or the game dies.

A "one size fits all" strategy to balancing economy at the Dev end of the equation does not necessarily fit the need. Arguably, the economy model should be graded by level of difficulty, so that as you move up the difficulty ladder, it gets tougher to run. At the mid range and lower levels, economy must not be a limiting factor - at present it is. The overiding motive must be to keep the player interested and having "Fun". Beta 4 is arguably not Fun for mid and lower levels of player experience, and ultimately that will kill take up of the game.

What to tweek? Probably write a book on that and still get it wrong, as there are so many things one can tweek, but we are not aware of the over-riding design drivers and the real reasons things are set as they are - only the Devs really know, we can only sratch the surface. However, the bottom line is the game Must be Fun for lower and mid range difficulty levels, and arguably Beta 4 is not Fun for lower experience level players. If its not Fun, you lose the players before they even get a chance to get the needed experience at managing economy.

TA is an incredible game, and a marvellous testiment to Dev inovation and dedication. Please dont wreck it by implementing a "one size fits all" economy. The latter is the over-riding limitation for less experienced players who want to get into the "fun" stuff - but are zapped before they get a chance. The end result is obvious, the game goes back on the shelf, and that would be very sad as they will never know what they missed.

Regards
Zy

One slider, no. But there have been requests for habitable planet sliders, extreme environment sliders, economy sliders, maintenance sliders, asteroid sliders, anomaly sliders, anomaly respawn rate sliders, etc. Basically anything and everything you can think of has had someone advocating a slider for it.

Adding a slider for something like ship maintenance cost, or some overall economic difficulty setting, seems premature to me. Let's wait and see how the devs balance the game in the next few updates. If we're all still struggling with the economy when the game is close to release, then we can start looking for band-aid fixes like that. I'm hopeful that we won't need them.

Heh, that would probably bring it up to what it was in the earlier beta... (beta 2 was it?)

Still, Tourism Income in the larger galaxies is a joke, so this wouldn't help as much there.



The same could be said for the option to disable Mega Events or Super Abilities, but we certainly have those options (although, the option for disabling Super Abilities was given somewhat begrudgingly if I remember correctly).

Honestly, any option at game setup could spoil the "vision of the game itself". After all, the AI is said to work the best at Medium galaxies with lots of planets, and yet, we have larger galaxies, don't we? And, heck, the game's AI functions fully at "Tough" (or is it Challenging?) difficulty without cheats, but there are difficulty levels above and below that, no?

It's all a matter of preference. Some like to play at lower difficulty levels, some higher.



Definitely cannot agree here. If the game allows you to adjust the cost of ship maintenance or the overall difficulty of maintaining an economy, it isn't cheating... ever. It's part of the game at that point. Heck, we are talking about a single player game here, too, you know.

As for metaverse scoring, lowering the sliders down would decrease the overall score of the game, much like playing on Cakewalk instead of Suicidal would.

However, a slider just for Ship Maintenance would be too much, of course. It could be part of an "Economy" slider, though.

Wyndstar, you are still assuming you have 1 trade route going through that starbase's area. When I am trading for profit rather than political reason (improving relations) I make all my freighters from the same planet, and send them out in a tight cone, keeping all my routes mostly along 1 very long path. It's not unusual for me to have 7 or 8 routes going through a starbase's trade area. And I line that path from planet of origin until it breaks up with multiple fields of interlocking bases. +10%? How about +90% on 8 different trade routes, for more than half their length?

IMHO Trade is a "whore" it always comes and goes. Its best with one minor race that is within your empire. Alot more stable and controlable.

Duh

The 20k limit, if there, is not absolute in my experience. I've gone into six digits playing the Terrans in Beta 4 and 4a. That being said, I have noticed in some games that right around 20k bc, income becomes restricted or even goes into negative growth so there could be some kind of "limit" there.

There's "steps" to income, and you take a tax hit at each income. It's basically your populace saying "Where is all our money going? Why do we have a huge horde? I'm not paying this."

And yes, mid-late game, you simply CAN'T spend money on stuff, as buying a large/massive hull ship outright costs over 100kBC.

Um werid guys, is this in the new "cough" features of TA. In DA I am always running between 50k and 100k BC in my treasury about the time in get Disruptors (yeah I know missles weapons are "cheaper" but I like the bright lights beams make plus all my crews are scared of the dark). I wonder if your popluction is happy if your Taxes will go up. I try to keep mine as close to 100% as possible.

Also it should be one of scale. The larger your empire the more taxes (assuming the same tax rate) there should be more people to taxes and there for more money coming in. But it also could mean that you have a growing beauracy that has sticky fingers. There should be some tech or something to work out the corruption.

Duh