"Development Level >>"? Figuring out what all these numbers do.

Tbh, after years of figuring out the BGS, i am convinced that an empirical approach helps more than a theoretical one.

Just press buttons and see what happens. And if it works, do more of it.

There are many things in Elite that do not make sense from a theoretical perspective. Like
  • population not changing, ever (now building stuff changes population, bit only once when you actually finish the building)
  • Supply/Demand not changing when you import raw materials or production items. (Like importing Bauxite has no influence on the supply of Aluminum, only on the demand of Bauxite)

Elite is basically a fixed state economy, not dynamic. Only thing that changes anything are the BGS states. And they do so in a fixed way, and revert back after ending. So we need to find out how to set up the systems to give them the state we want to have. If things work as they did, they won't change after that. And i am convinced this is still the case, otherwise I'd see growing population in my system.
"Thanks a lot for your understanding" was refering to the conditions under which Cdrs could join the experiment ;)

edit: I do not doubt your experiences at all, but its a game, a sandbox, which has no content if you do not create it yourself - so I do that experiement to verfiy or negate my theory :)
 
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"Thanks a lot for your understanding" was refering to the conditions under which Cdrs could join the experiment ;)

edit: I do not doubt your experiences at all, but its a game, a sandbox, which has no content if you do not create it yourself - so I do that experiement to verfiy or negate my theory :)
Yeah, the quote was just because i had to quote something. :)

Experiment with whatever you like. My experience is just that anything complicated usually falls flat.

I will experiment more along the lines of "Push Wealth, Standard of Living or Development to 100 and see what happens". My next system will be one with loaaaaads of planetary building slots. From what i have seen so far, these are pretty much key to everything.
 
Yeah, the quote was just because i had to quote something. :)

Experiment with whatever you like. My experience is just that anything complicated usually falls flat.

I will experiment more along the lines of "Push Wealth, Standard of Living or Development to 100 and see what happens". My next system will be one with loaaaaads of planetary building slots. From what i have seen so far, these are pretty much key to everything.
yep - they are. that makes the limited claim distance even more gruesome, you need to daisy-xhain systems which no developer would touch, because of just that. Similar in RL to have to develope a settlement in a natural reserve - also nobody wants to touch that one....
 
it says in the pilots handoobk. Buildings on planet surface and in orbit influence economy. Thats it.
I guess they forgot to think about an earthlike worlds that cannot be built on.
 
My understanding was that tool was mostly for tracking your builds and stats, not what the actual effects were... @Nowski ?

Yeah, it just adds up the stats and lists markets and economy influences which are shown for the facilities in the game's facility picker UI. It doesn't attempt to track any "hidden" stats. I think no-one really knows what the effect of stats are, hidden or apparent, in any case (though there are some promising hypotheses.)

Mostly, it's to model the rules on construction points and prerequisite facilities so you can't add facilities that the game wouldn't allow you to add (except for the construction point hike, which ... I'm working on :) )
 
So, we're starting to get a bit of a handle on how this colony building thing works. But the question I wanted to throw out there, especially if anyone has already experimented with this, is: How many economy-influencing facilities are needed to change the economy of an outpost, a Coriolis station, an Ocellus station, or a planetary port (both "small" and large)?

Personally, I had assumed that a T2 facility would be worth more (in terms of "swap points") than a T1 facility, but I'm not so sure anymore.

A friend of mine in our squadron built on a planet. First, he placed a Refinery Hub (T2). Then, he added a Mining Settlement (T2). After that, he built another Refinery Hub (T2). Finally, he constructed a large planetary port (T3) on the same planet. Currently, after the first daily tick, the port has changed from a Colony economy to a Colony/Extraction economy. This definitely surprised us. Furthermore, the market at the port has indeed shifted towards Extraction, but it's only extracting Water, Hematite, and one other material, in generous quantities.

I'm expecting it to change to Refinery/Extraction this morning, but I'm not certain. Yesterday, I thought we'd see it become Colony/Refinery, and today maybe Refinery/Extraction, or it might even stay Colony/Refinery. I absolutely didn't expect to see it change its secondary economy to Extraction after just one day.

Has anyone else tried to figure out "how much" is needed to make the economy change?

My initial assumption was that to change a T1 settlement (outpost or small planetary port), one T1 facility would be enough. For a T2 settlement, I thought a T2 facility or two T1 facilities would do the trick. While for a T3 settlement, I figured it would take two T2 facilities. But at this point, I think my assumptions might be wrong.

Any insights or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated!
 
My initial assumption was that to change a T1 settlement (outpost or small planetary port), one T1 facility would be enough. For a T2 settlement, I thought a T2 facility or two T1 facilities would do the trick. While for a T3 settlement, I figured it would take two T2 facilities. But at this point, I think my assumptions might be wrong.

My primary orbital station in my small system was a science outpost. This turned it's economy into High Tech/Colony. Then after finishing my medium agricultural settlement (no construction points needed, so T1) it immediately shifted to High Tech/Agricultural.

Btw, the UI told me the settlement size was Small(+) which is very misleading. It definitely was a medium settlement - it even had large pads!
 
My primary orbital station in my small system was a science outpost. This turned it's economy into High Tech/Colony. Then after finishing my medium agricultural settlement (no construction points needed, so T1) it immediately shifted to High Tech/Agricultural.

Btw, the UI told me the settlement size was Small(+) which is very misleading. It definitely was a medium settlement - it even had large pads!
Yes, the progression you're seeing makes sense. However, you're talking about the system economy, which is quite different from the economy of individual ports, outposts, and stations. The system economy is more of an indicator; it doesn't actually influence anything directly. It's the ports, outposts, settlement and stations within the system that influence the overall system economy, not the other way around.

So, while your settlement changed the system economy, the question is more focused on how many facilities are needed to directly alter the economy of a specific port or station itself.
 
So, we're starting to get a bit of a handle on how this colony building thing works. But the question I wanted to throw out there, especially if anyone has already experimented with this, is: How many economy-influencing facilities are needed to change the economy of an outpost, a Coriolis station, an Ocellus station, or a planetary port (both "small" and large)?

Personally, I had assumed that a T2 facility would be worth more (in terms of "swap points") than a T1 facility, but I'm not so sure anymore.

A friend of mine in our squadron built on a planet. First, he placed a Refinery Hub (T2). Then, he added a Mining Settlement (T2). After that, he built another Refinery Hub (T2). Finally, he constructed a large planetary port (T3) on the same planet. Currently, after the first daily tick, the port has changed from a Colony economy to a Colony/Extraction economy. This definitely surprised us. Furthermore, the market at the port has indeed shifted towards Extraction, but it's only extracting Water, Hematite, and one other material, in generous quantities.

I'm expecting it to change to Refinery/Extraction this morning, but I'm not certain. Yesterday, I thought we'd see it become Colony/Refinery, and today maybe Refinery/Extraction, or it might even stay Colony/Refinery. I absolutely didn't expect to see it change its secondary economy to Extraction after just one day.

Has anyone else tried to figure out "how much" is needed to make the economy change?

My initial assumption was that to change a T1 settlement (outpost or small planetary port), one T1 facility would be enough. For a T2 settlement, I thought a T2 facility or two T1 facilities would do the trick. While for a T3 settlement, I figured it would take two T2 facilities. But at this point, I think my assumptions might be wrong.

Any insights or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated!
This is my first port of call tbh. I want to plan a kickstart outpost.
 
How many economy-influencing facilities are needed to change the economy
You may be able to quantify this a bit with the Journal.

If you look at the "Docked" event for a station, it'll tell you what components its economy is made up of (they don't have to add up to 1, by the way) so might be able to see very directly how much effect a new building has had.

(And possibly look back through your old journals to find out what it was before you built the recent ones, too)
 
You may be able to quantify this a bit with the Journal.

If you look at the "Docked" event for a station, it'll tell you what components its economy is made up of (they don't have to add up to 1, by the way) so might be able to see very directly how much effect a new building has had.

(And possibly look back through your old journals to find out what it was before you built the recent ones, too)
Thanks, that's a great suggestion, I'll definitely take a look at the journal files. I was also wondering if anyone had already noticed any patterns or made estimations about how the percentages change depending on the facility type, tier, and things like that.
 
Right, this is promising.
- start with an Industrial Outpost: hydrogen fuel supply 73t (TL 3, DL 2)
- build a Colony planetary port - decreases security, increases SoL: HFuel 73t (TL 3, DL 2, Sec -2, SoL 3)
- build a Military settlement - increases security to above its starting point: HFuel 73t (TL 3, DL 2, Sec 2, Sol 3)
- build a Satellite installation - increases wealth, SoL and development slightly: HFuel 435t (TL 3, DL 3, Sec 2, Sol 4, W 1)

So it seems likely that wealth or development level are the ones which affect market sizes - I'll be building some more things which affect just one of them to see what happens next.
When you note hydrogen fuel supply of 73t there... is that max or literally day 1?

1742300553238.png


Because I built a new Military outpost this afternoon, been about... 7 hours? Nothing else in system.
1742300477115.png
 
Elite is basically a fixed state economy, not dynamic. Only thing that changes anything are the BGS states. And they do so in a fixed way, and revert back after ending. So we need to find out how to set up the systems to give them the state we want to have. If things work as they did, they won't change after that. And i am convinced this is still the case, otherwise I'd see growing population in my system.
It's only been two weeks - hardly enough time for emigrants to sell their houses, pack their suitcases and move their furniture, let alone have babies in the new place. Give it 18 years or so.
 
When you note hydrogen fuel supply of 73t there
Supply cap. I haven't been buying any up, and haven't yet had any economic states which would change the cap. I check it every few days but no change other than when I finished the installation (which was then near-instant: I went out of system briefly to get a medium-pad ship and it was already up to the higher level when I got back)

Because I built a new Military outpost this afternoon, been about... 7 hours? Nothing else in system.
That initial population boost probably helps it - it'll be a larger baseline economy.

But there does also seem to be some variations - whether to the initial property values, or maybe based on something to do with the system itself - not every new industrial outpost other people are constructing seems to get exactly 5500 population and 73t H-fuel.
 
my feedback for a new Primary Port - Sience Outpost Prometheus, Stats and Market after first Daily Tick

View attachment 421891
View attachment 421892
View attachment 421893

besides of the Outpost nothing build yet.

Space-Farm, Relay and T2 Security will be finished today, I´ll update tomorrow after daily tick
This one is interesting, please do share further details, as there is nothing on inara to further explore it: https://inara.cz/elite/starsystem/133246/


It does seem to have excellently stocked markets, and 11k pops right out of the gate? My industrial station had 5k pops, and barely struggles to stock 25 water purifiers even with a refinery hub, sattelite and comms station in the system built later. Im certain it is not because of supply ive got refineries next door a plenty
 
This one is interesting, please do share further details, as there is nothing on inara to further explore it: https://inara.cz/elite/starsystem/133246/


It does seem to have excellently stocked markets, and 11k pops right out of the gate? My industrial station had 5k pops, and barely struggles to stock 25 water purifiers even with a refinery hub, sattelite and comms station in the system built later. Im certain it is not because of supply ive got refineries next door a plenty
yes thats the advantage of Science Outpost - it gives 1 Pop-Point for free
edit: and as I just realize - it does so without lowering Sec by one Point! All other Pop-increasing Facilities/Installation lower Sec!
Seems them Scientists are a bunch of law abiding folks!

Stage 0.png

and in combination with T1 Relay, T1 Farm and T2 Security-Installation that results in a nice starter config for a system
Stage 1.png

Stats for that I can give tomorrow after daily Tick - Prediction:
Pop 14K - 14.5 K
Med Sec
Eco: Hightec/Mil or Hightec/Agri
 
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