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

[photomankc]

I would presume so, but I haven't made any orbital outposts with colony economy over planets in my small test-system. That will be something I can try out in a bigger system later.

I'm about to do that... because apparently I enjoy pain

Built the initial station as a type that would become Colony and about to build a refinery hub below it on the 1 slot that planet has. Hoping that is enough to at least get me a T8 landable supply of metals. We shall see.


On another note: Has anyone had their settlements re-enable docking access after a BGS war in a colonized system? The war finally resolved and the system control faction has now shifted but the settlements remain with offline docking. Was not sure if that was just something that is slow to recover or totally busted.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

On another note: Has anyone had their settlements re-enable docking access after a BGS war in a colonized system? The war finally resolved but and the system control faction has now shifted but the settlements remain with offline docking. Was not sure if that was just something that is slow to recover or totally busted.

Took a day longer than I expected for docking to come back online for mine, but they did recover.

Not sure if that was a "new system" bug, a "you built these after the war had started so you confused it" bug, or just part of the general political BGS bug which means that "conflict days" can randomly take between a day and a month to evaluate in any system.

 

[hutandrei]

Will one single Refinery hub (there is just one slot) have any effect whatsoever on the market of an orbiting Orbis?

 

[photomankc]

Took a day longer than I expected for docking to come back online for mine, but they did recover.

Not sure if that was a "new system" bug, a "you built these after the war had started so you confused it" bug, or just part of the general political BGS bug which means that "conflict days" can randomly take between a day and a month to evaluate in any system.

I'm reasonably certain it is a new system bug. Almost all my settlements predated the conflict by a week or more.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Will one single Refinery hub (there is just one slot) have any effect whatsoever on the market of an orbiting Orbis?

It should have some effect, but almost certainly won't convert the Colony economy entirely. Exactly how much effect it has is not completely clear from the data right now so it's going to be a risk. (if you do risk it, please let us know how it goes!)

 

[Born Free]

i dont think the refinery hub has to be right underneath your orbital station.
i have 3 of them. on the galaxy map my system economy shows up as
Refinery
Extraction
Hyades Sector ZK-X c1-17

so the refinery hubs carry a lot of economy weight. before i built the third one my economy showed up as tourism/extraction i think. the third one is not near my primary station but under where i'm building a new station

i do have a tourism settlement somewhere and several agriculture settlements and even a space farm.
then many extraction settlements and the relay station with 3 security stations and 1 comm station

 

[Ian Doncaster]

i dont think the refinery hub has to be right underneath your orbital station.

It does if you want it to influence that station's specific economy.

It'll still do other good positioned elsewhere through its effects on Wealth and Development Level, but if you want a dockable market to get Refinery exports and imports, it needs to be positioned on the same body as that market is on/orbits.

(System economy is just the weighted sum of your construction's economies, but doesn't guarantee that those economies are accessible - so the hubs provide moderately large Refinery economies but don't have any way to get those goods to market without a suitable dockable nearby)

 

[Cymoril]

As regards a colony outpost in Slot 0 being influenced by facilities on the planet below... Both the Commercial and Civilian Outpost are colony economies but the Commercial has a higher SOL and wealth and the Civilian has a slightly higher DEV stat. Would either be suitable to pick up planetary economy?

 

[Tyrrel]

As regards a colony outpost in Slot 0 being influenced by facilities on the planet below... Both the Commercial and Civilian Outpost are colony economies but the Commercial has a higher SOL and wealth and the Civilian has a slightly higher DEV stat. Would either be suitable to pick up planetary economy?

In this case it's up to preference, I would personally lean towards the Civilian outpost then build a space farm and comm array. If you're looking to build up a large economy, however, it appears that the more initial population a port has the better.

 

[Slooperopols]

After you have built your first station the needed materials should decrease for the next one and so on to encourage players to fully populate their system, otherwise we are not going to see too many finished systems. just a load of systems with one outpost.

Also because ED is a "simulator" and tries to be realistic. And in real life cities form because the more you build the easier it is to build more. Not harder. Making successive assets more difficult to build is as heinous to realistic-ness as if gravity got stronger the farther you get from a mass. It is heinously wrong.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

In the ongoing shuffling, my Agri-influenced planetary outpost has now gone from Algae/Fruit/Grain -> HFuel/Tea/Leather -> HFuel/Algae/Coffee after I built another construction.

The quantities of the goods in common at each step are going up in line with more general increases in system variables, but it's still weird.

 

[Kzak]

Small update: My T1 civilian surface port now recognizes the economy influences, having an economy identical to the Coriolis in orbit, but the markets are still completely empty. Will no doubt need to wait some more for FDev to get the server-side stuff right.

Spoiler

{ "timestamp":"2025-03-28T18:41:34Z", "event":"Docked", "StationName":"Hindenburg City", "StationType":"CraterOutpost", "StationEconomy":"$economy_Refinery;", "StationEconomy_Localised":"Refinery", "StationEconomies":[ { "Name":"$economy_Refinery;", "Name_Localised":"Refinery", "Proportion":1.800000 }, { "Name":"$economy_Industrial;", "Name_Localised":"Industrial", "Proportion":0.450000 }, { "Name":"$economy_Colony;", "Name_Localised":"Colony", "Proportion":0.000000 } ], }

 

[Tyrrel]

In the ongoing shuffling, my Agri-influenced planetary outpost has now gone from Algae/Fruit/Grain -> HFuel/Tea/Leather -> HFuel/Algae/Coffee after I built another construction.

The quantities of the goods in common at each step are going up in line with more general increases in system variables, but it's still weird.

Yeah once the planetary port market bug gets patched I imagine you'll have the proper selection of commodities.
Here's the link to the issue https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/73231

 

[Cmdr Sylveste]

Yes - ED's economy is a lot more abstract than X4's, which tracks each unit of cargo and production chain and ship moving them around individually.

In Elite Dangerous:
- you have an economy of a particular type, which has a particular import/export set
- this is presumed to be kept in an equilibrium state by NPC trades, which keep its supply and demand levels at a particular cap
- player activity can reduce the supply or demand below that cap by using/meeting it faster than that presumed equilibrium
- sufficient player activity can induce BGS political states, which then change the deemed NPC activity and update the equilibrium positions

The overall effect is similar to X4 - prices get temporarily worse as supply or demand is met, bringing in needed trade goods tends (via creating a Boom state) to increase production, blowing up trade ships might create Civil Unrest and therefore reduce economic activity - but the underlying mechanism is designed for handling hundreds of thousands of stations and tens of millions of off-screen ships rather than hundreds or thousands


Yes, exactly so. If you have a system with plenty of gas giant moons, since you only really need an orbital slot and a few surface slots to get a nicely-influenced and set-up economy, you can get a lot of influencing going of various types.

What can you do if your gas giant moons only have 1 surface and 1 orbital slot? One surface installation may not be capable of influencing the market of the orbital, and I am assuming that each moon is in effect a "body economy" and can't affect the other moons around it.
Isn't there a danger that if you try to fit too many economies in one system, they cancel each other out by consuming each others output?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

What can you do if your gas giant moons only have 1 surface and 1 orbital slot? One surface installation may not be capable of influencing the market of the orbital, and I am assuming that each moon is in effect a "body economy" and can't affect the other moons around it.

I've been keeping ones like that for things like military settlements and installations - you're going to need to build a few in bigger systems (unless going for Anarchy controlling faction) just to keep your security level positive (and more than a few if you want high security), but the Military economy isn't all that interesting so I don't want it going anywhere. Or things that are a prerequisite for something you want but aren't directly useful themselves

... or you could stick something like an Industrial or High-Tech orbital outpost in place, which comes with its own economy, then build a matching settlement below it to boost it further and get you some T2 points for later.

Isn't there a danger that if you try to fit too many economies in one system, they cancel each other out by consuming each others output?

If you try to fit too many on the same body, yes, definitely.

But all economies on different bodies are completely independent.

 

[Cmdr Sylveste]

I've been keeping ones like that for things like military settlements and installations - you're going to need to build a few in bigger systems (unless going for Anarchy controlling faction) just to keep your security level positive (and more than a few if you want high security), but the Military economy isn't all that interesting so I don't want it going anywhere. Or things that are a prerequisite for something you want but aren't directly useful themselves

... or you could stick something like an Industrial or High-Tech orbital outpost in place, which comes with its own economy, then build a matching settlement below it to boost it further and get you some T2 points for later.


If you try to fit too many on the same body, yes, definitely.

But all economies on different bodies are completely independent.

Thanks for confirming that. I have a number of 1 slot moons in my system.
Do all surface installations need a dockable port as well? I know that this applies to hubs, but I have a surface mining settlement in one of the 5 slots which produces only H-fuel when I land there. I can add more settlements in the other slots, but at what point does the market actually produce the materials it is supposed to be mining? I'm not keen to place an orbital around the body unless I have to.

 

[Tyrrel]

Thanks for confirming that. I have a number of 1 slot moons in my system.
Do all surface installations need a dockable port as well? I know that this applies to hubs, but I have a surface mining settlement in one of the 5 slots which produces only H-fuel when I land there. I can add more settlements in the other slots, but at what point does the market actually produce the materials it is supposed to be mining? I'm not keen to place an orbital around the body unless I have to.

You don't need a port around settlements/hubs unless you want to converge an economy onto a port's market. In my case I like to place military settlements without a port purely for the system stat bonuses. Only place a port if you want to build up a stronger economy using the modifiers granted by the planetary facilities.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Surface settlements are just like that, to an extent. Leaving aside that some of them will get the "no market" bug where they don't supply or demand anything, even NPC settlements generally don't export many items. Combine that with them having a much smaller population than other dockables, and they can end up with very low supply levels until you've got your general economy (development level, etc.) up and running.

They do seem to improve a bit as you do that, but they're never going to be anything really impressive.

 

[betel01]

Data points:
Initial Coriolis + Refinery Hub (Silenus) = Colony 0.50, Refinery 0.50

Spoiler

"StationEconomy":"$economy_Colony;", "StationEconomy_Localised":"Colony", "StationEconomies":[ { "Name":"$economy_Colony;", "Name_Localised":"Colony", "Proportion":0.500000 }, { "Name":"$economy_Refinery;", "Name_Localised":"Refinery", "Proportion":0.500000 } ]

T1 commercial outpost (Plutus) + T1 surface agricultural settlement (Annona) = Colony 1.0

Spoiler

"StationEconomy":"$economy_Colony;", "StationEconomy_Localised":"Colony", "StationEconomies":[ { "Name":"$economy_Colony;", "Name_Localised":"Colony", "Proportion":1.000000 } ]

 

[MoridinUK]

Conversion efficiency
Market influence appears to vary with influencer type and target economy port size, though this doesn't appear to be entirely reproducible and may also depend on other factors. Please let us know if you have other data points (you can get economy factors from the Docked event in the Journal)

Convertor / Converting	T1 Planetary Outpost	T1 Orbital Outpost	T2 Orbital Station	T3 Planetary City	T3 Orbital Station
Small Settlement T1	0.6
Medium Settlement T1				0.5	0.15? [1]
Large Settlement T2	1.0	0.5	0.45 to 0.6	0.5	0.45? [1]
Hub T2	0.45		0.45	0.5
Installation T1		0.5
Installation T2					0.3
Criminal Outpost T1		1.0

[1] Two large + one medium reported = 1.05, three large + one medium reported 1.5

Influence levels can exceed 1.0 - "Proportion" is best read not "of the station's total economy" but "of a standard-sized station economy".

If an influencer has two markets in range, it gives its full influence to both - the effect is not split but copied.

Hey I just built a T3 Planetary City on a planet with 3 Hub T2 (refineries) and My journal entry has 135% Refinery, which suggests it's not 0.5 per hub..

But otherwise this info is great and useful, just trying to contribute!


Corbin Prospect (Col 285 Sector ZL-K b22-4 4), Latitude: 46.2757°, Longitude: -4.5309°
Economy: Refinery, Government: Corporate, Faction: Azura Corporation, Allegiance: Unknown
Station services: Dock, Autodock, Market, Contacts, Universal Cartographics, Missions, Outfitting, Crew Lounge, Restock, Refuel
Repair, Shipyard, Workshop, Interstellar Factors Contact, Flight Controller, Station Operations, Powerplay, Search And Rescue, Station Menu, Shop
Livery, Social Space, Vista Genomics, System Colonisation, Refinery Contact
Economies: Refinery 135%, Colony 0%