A Yardstick - Comparative Value in Stellaris

[Copperwire]

We all just want to go fast; be "Snow-Ballers". The thing is, to do that you need a way to measure - to "frame the question" if you would, so you can compare things that are not "like" a bit better.

U (Unit) = 1 Energy = 1 Mineral = .5-1.5 Food* = .5 Consumer Goods = .25 Alloys = 1 Research = .25 Unity = .1 minor Strategic Resource /.15 Building Slots = .1 Influence

* Food can be a bit messy.

I think this is where it needs to start. The above is based on the market values/exchange rates and what a single pop makes after upkeep/inputs in a workplace. It is a bit squinty when it comes to food, unity, influence, and a few other things. The harder ones are based on the best way I know to "buy", trade for, or "make" each product using simpler products as inputs.

It isn't "Truth" or even close.

I am hoping some of you can help improve on this, because it is a bit past my mental comfort level and I would appreciate outside thoughts.

- and -

Hi forum people

 

[Stadtpark]

Since

Base Production of Generator District = 8 Energy Credits
Base Production of Mining District = 8 Minerals
Base Production of Agriculture District = 12 Food

I would argue that you edit your original post to be 1.5 Food instead of 1 Food.

 

[Copperwire]

Since

Base Production of Generator District = 8 Energy Credits
Base Production of Mining District = 8 Minerals
Base Production of Agriculture District = 12 Food

I would argue that you edit your original post to be 1.5 Food instead of 1 Food.

Actually, it is a lot worse then that.

Food trades for the same base price as minerals.

The miner's base upkeep is 2U so he is making +2 a turn of "profit". The farmer has the same upkeep (2U) so he is making +4 a turn of "profit". If we are looking at it per worker it is important to observe that if we factor in % bonuses to production the gap between 4 per miner and 6 per farmer gets bigger - because upkeep stays the same yet you are adding % bonuses.

If both get +50% bonuses, miner is making 6 per turn (so 4 after upkeep) and the farmer is making 9 per turn (so 7 after upkeep) and it doesn't get better for the miner as we get deeper in the game.

With either Agrarian as a trait or the Galactic Trading Hub, making food and selling it is just as efficient as making energy and you can do things with it you can't do with energy. If you have both, you can pretty much make food, sell it, and buy minerals and be as efficient as mining, or very close. On the other hand, selling minerals to buy food is silly. It also usually bribes AI's better then minerals and energy in early game. There is also no Dyson Sphere or Matter Compressor for food or way to "trade" it into existence.

If we just go by production per worker, your right. If we go by "what can I trade it for or make it into" it is very unclear.

You can also directly trade food for population, which is rare with energy and impossible with minerals.

How about I put .5 - 1.5 in for food and put a * next to it and leave a note that it is a bit messy?

 

[Stadtpark]

Also currently in v2.2.4 the value of Consumer Goods depends on how you get them:

If you get your CG via Trade Policy "Consumer Benefits" it's 1 Energy = 0.5 CG.
If you get your CG via "Civilian Industries" (building) converted from minerals it's 1 Mineral = 1 CG.
(Not sure in which patch they changed it, but since they broke parity so to speak, IMHO the main reason not to produce them by converting minerals is to save on building slots.)

Of course you can also change your trade policy to "Marketplace of Ideas", resulting in 1 Energy = 0.3 Unity. (Not so much difference, but still.)

On the other hand you can't get any bonus on the things you get from trade (other than bonus on Trade beforehand that is), while you can have bonus production of CG (- let's say from an Ecumenopolis / Arcology (+20%?); or Industrial world (5%) plus Ministry of Production (15%); or Bonus-Unity from jobs, if your species is happening to have the "Traditional" perk.

P.S.: As for food, now I am a bit confused: the fact that 2 workers will produce 12 food but only 8 minerals or energy, makes it sound as if 1 food is worth less than 1 energy or 1 mineral (1 Food = 2/3 Energy or Mineral). But the fact that you produce 50% more makes exactly up for it so to speak.
(If you assume that one workers work is worth one workers work so to speak.)

But with the market values being able to wildly fluctuate I'm not sure if we can ever reach a consensus on what "one unit" should be worth. - in the early phases of my current game I tend to overproduce minerals, and sell them quite a lot, depressing their value more than the value of food... - food is pretty much 99% from planets, while minerals is pretty much a byproduct of my expansion in space (until you are boxed in / hitting the wall there). Since I tend to have more jobs than pops, pops tend to become specialists, and only the absolute minimum of farmers stay farmers - research and unity buildings tend to be priority in jobs... - I mean endgame you end up with overcrowded planets and unemployment, but most of the game I need my pops and building slots for other things than basic resources...

Even when not considering the market (F3) mechanics but what you can get from trade deals: I had occasions when I was trying to sell minerals per month to friendly empires for other stuff, and they would show -1000 willingness: meaning minerals were practically worthless to them at that time - no matter if I asked for energy or food or CG or alloys. - That is the good thing with the market: there will always be a price that will clear the market / take my offer no matter how large it is.

Man this thread is already too complicated for me discussing with myself^^

 

[Kryndude]

Evaluating exact worth of every resource would be very difficult to do since their value changes depending on the internal game situations and external factors like patches. Notably the value of minerals have plummeted in 2.2.4 due to it becoming much more abundant in space. Throughout the entire game it would rarely go over 0.5 EC per unit which makes mineral district a joke. Whereas in 2.2.3 mineral was a major limiting factor to your late game development.

 

[KingAlamar]

Evaluating exact worth of every resource would be very difficult to do since their value changes depending on the internal game situations and external factors like patches. Notably the value of minerals have plummeted in 2.2.4 due to it becoming much more abundant in space. Throughout the entire game it would rarely go over 0.5 EC per unit which makes mineral district a joke. Whereas in 2.2.3 mineral was a major limiting factor to your late game development.

I may not be playing correctly but mineral consumption [for alloys and CG] still limits me esp. on builds that don't generate massive trade. I'm often "right on the edge" of not having enough alloys and CGs for fleets / pop upkeep / job upkeep / etc. There's always something I wind up relying on the market / mega structures / or something else (?) to provide.

 

[Kryndude]

There's always something I wind up relying on the market

That's what I'm talking about. Minerals are so cheap on the market currently for whatever reason that it's not worth to produce it on your own. Just like clerks and technicians being worthless in 2.2.3 because there's a bug that drives up the the prices even when people sell stuff. Now it's the opposite. Even when you buy minerals in thousands per month the price remains extremely low.

 

[Todie]

If you are taking the market into consideration, it makes a huge differance if you play (/calculate) on 2.2.3 where ai sales INCREASE the price, or 2.2.4 where this bug was fixed.

ai typically keep way too high incomes of basic resources, and sell the exess. Broadly speaking this is the result of lack of depth in AI scripting to utilize and balance bigger comitments in the specialized parts of the economy.

This results in: 223. Pick a favourite of basic resource (food seems good) - sell the exess like ai, and benefit from the inflated prices from their bugged sales.

224 : depending on how large and active the galactic economy is, you can buy most of your basic resources for cheap. This is a good milieu to run a heavily specialized economy with high amenities (you can go extreme by keeping it lean on admin with housing districts +megaplexes - especially if corporate )

... personally im not that intrested in this kind of min/max though; it needs context to mean anything, and with trivial AI, you dont need to be particularly efficient to suceed - the context gets uninteresting.

 

[Losttruppen]

I think the extra food you get from farmers is meant to offset their food upkeep and make their gross income on par with the other two, though that falls a bit flat after you add production bonuses and consider Generator districts cost 2 energy.

As others have said because the market fluctuates so much depending on a multitude of factors(types and number of AI empires, in-game year, number of habitable planets, number of stars in the galaxy, etc...) there isn't really a fixed ratio that applies universally.

Even when you buy minerals in thousands per month the price remains extremely low.

I think this is a consequence of the new +7 mineral nodes that were added to a bunch of planet modifiers in abundance, now every AI is getting more minerals than they ever need and sell them on the market constantly driving the price down. There is definitely a lot of balancing that needs to happen before the Galactic Market will be an effective way to overcome shortcomings in production for each resource type. Advanced strategic resources(zro, dark matter, living metal) are always worth getting more of and selling, despite most empires having zero use for them.

 

[Blurb]

For quick estimates of a nation's strength I use pops and fleet power.
In terms of economic significance, pops dwarf most other factors and similarly offensive military strength is overwhelmingly about raw fleet power.
For a more accurate assessment I'll then consider whether the nation is a genocider (ship build cost) and level of military technology (ship models and weapons being most important), if such information is available.

As for the relative values of individual resources, I don't think you'll find universally useful yardsticks of any kind.
I find that my fleet power is usually limited by alloys and energy, leading me to value those resources above others - others may experience bottlenecks elsewhere, possibly depending on playstyle.
If you're valuing resources purely based off market exchange rates, you'll find your yardstick often being completely inaccurate, depending on actual AI behaviour.

That being said, I assume that all pops have a base output equivalent to 4 energy, regardless of their actual job, providing me with an estimate base value of a sector.
A governor then increases this base value by 2% per level: I'll typically assume a governor is level five and adds 10% output (5% would be more conservative).
If the increased output is then larger than the leader upkeep, the sector gets a governor. It's reasonably accurate, and lets me do quickly assess which sectors need governors.

 

[Copperwire]

Lots of good points and posts. I am not sure where to start or who to quote.

First, a tool like this is most useful, or even possible, in early game - say, maybe 50 years. After that, there are so many things that can change "value" it is silly.

As it happens, in 2.2.4, the galactic market event won't happen until turn 50 - which means the market is a pretty stable thing, at least for that long. It recovers X amount a turn from whatever you do and that is the only noise in the system.

2nd, the goal has to be comparing things that are not "like" BETTER. Exact precision isn't intended. If it makes it a little easier, more precise, or faster to compare, say, Gene Clinics vs. settling a 20% hab planet vs. Nutritional Plentitude, that is success.



Base values came from deciding to translate everything to E. I was doing that for a long time in my head, without giving it too much thought, for M, F, CG, and Alloys. I mean, the baseline prices on the market make it pretty clear. E = M = F = .5 CG = .25 Alloys. Not perfect, but kinda useful.

Then, I got silly and decided to try and work research and unity into it (I was trying to decide when it was worth it to mine research in space I think). The best I could come up with is the whole "assume all workers output is about equal and account for imputs/upkeep" thing, which is also fairly solid, because it is the base price that you can "buy" resources with, using pop over time.

This looks pretty good, because, at first glance. workers all tend to make 6 U or so (the old U, which just covered the market price thing) of goods after you take out inputs. 12 minerals becomes 12 CG or 6 Alloys. Which is consistent with the market. That looks like design to me, so it is hard to ignore.

Then I messed up my day and accounted for upkeep (including the building, specialists tend to cost 4U each and district workers cost 2U) - which kind of says stuff isn't really equal at all - because now the profit on specialists without bonuses making CG and Alloys looks tiny (4 profit per building. 2 profit per pop. Just like miners and technicians). Like, might as well buy it tiny.

Looked at that way, I feel like the design is not telling me that all these things have value kind of like this. Instead, it is telling me to abuse food production, at least in the early game - because, "Snow-Baller". It is telling me that Egalitarian, with it's early bonuses to specialists, may be a bigger horse then I thought and that you might want to just skip manufacturing until you can make an Arcology.

It is also telling me that I may be out of my depth. So I thought to make the OP. Then I abused Food for a while, and then trade. Then I made the OP.

 

[Badesumofu]

I think the extra food you get from farmers is meant to offset their food upkeep and make their gross income on par with the other two, though that falls a bit flat after you add production bonuses and consider Generator districts cost 2 energy.

The problem with that is that it doesn't make sense. Mining and energy districts cost just as much food to maintain as farms. It's not really a problem for minerals because it takes two trades to turn food into minerals, but it's a major problem for energy which takes only one trade to convert into. Either food needs to have its base value cut to 0.66, or if the intent is that one unit of each base resource be of equal value then they need to make each district produce the same quantity of resources. Maybe they should all produce 5 per job.

 

[AlanC9]

Looked at that way, I feel like the design is not telling me that all these things have value kind of like this. Instead, it is telling me to abuse food production, at least in the early game - because, "Snow-Baller". It is telling me that Egalitarian, with it's early bonuses to specialists, may be a bigger horse then I thought and that you might want to just skip manufacturing until you can make an Arcology.

AIs tend to buy up alloys, so I'm not sure buying them yourself on the market is viable in the long term. Selling alloys, on the other hand, can work since the AIs will keep the price high. Depends on your galaxy, of course.

 

[Copperwire]

AIs tend to buy up alloys, so I'm not sure buying them yourself on the market is viable in the long term. Selling alloys, on the other hand, can work since the AIs will keep the price high. Depends on your galaxy, of course.

Your correct.

Leans one towards buying it during those 1st 50 market stable years though.

 

[Stadtpark]

Now you all really got me interested and even more confused: you think running highly specialized economies is worth doing?
Like buying base resources from the market and selling CG / Alloys back?
Trying to run an economy without own resources, much like Japan and Germany in reality, trying to run a surplus by exporting CG / Alloys / refined materials?

I mean forget about the real life comparison: in the game "trade-income" is a purely national phenomenon and has nothing to do with market-trading what so ever: it is like an additional base resource trying to represent the service economy etc.

As an aside: Much like in Tropico 4 Modern Times, where you no longer needed to look at natural resources / geography etc., but you could build skyscrapers with deskjobs (what exactly do all the people with deskjobs?), or you could sell art from museums or get income from megachurches (pretty much selling "religion"): I mean it worked pretty well as a commentary on modern life, but it completely destroyed the whole concept of the game Tropico; you could build factories near the harbor and import all the resources, feed your people from "supermarkets" with an import-budget... - no longer needing to even produce enough food yourself. - The high point of the Tropico series as a relatively closed economy sandbox was Tropico 3 (I know - the ships doing the exporting and bringing the tourists made it never a closed system) - but at least your builders would actually need to get to the construction sites, whereas in Tropico 4, you could pay double, and the building would just come into existence / build itself. Tropico 4 Modern Times was the high point of the Tropcio series as a very sarcastic comment on modern Life!

Now also in Stellaris the addition of "the market" seems like a bad idea, like a bottomless pit as well as a cornucopia: you don't really think that it is linked in anyway to theoretically limited resources currently produced in the galaxy... (- you would be able to corner it late-game), but instead it is limitless in amount, and probably somewhat limited in prices. - Maybe I'll load my endgame from 2500+ where all my stores are full and test how much I can drive up prices (or drive them down)... - ( although that game was from v2.2.3... - and you're never able to reproduce a game anyway).

The more I think of Stellaris as a game about economy and a very imperfect simulation of that, the more it becomes a meta-game: trying to "game the system" / breaking the game in every possible way. That is how game testers must feel... - I think a similar thing happened before with all the deathstack / frigate-spam discussions: people found some things to be bad game design, thus breaking the immersion. PDX makes the widest and deepest games out there, and yet we break them all and complain afterwards.

I guess I should be playing more and commenting less. The only games that ever work as games are probably e-sport / PvP: you stop trying to beat the game and beat another person instead: although even in those games people will try to find glitches and abuse them...

Getting depressed here. Time to play some more.


Edit:
P.S.: I guess the yard stick for a good game is pretty much the same as for a good book or a good film: it needs to tell an interesting story and don't break the immersion needlessly. You can break the 4th wall, like Berthold Brecht did to teach people something - like Tropico 4 Modern Times did, but for most "normal" games keeping the immersion high is the trick, and so you can get away with one or two "deus ex machina" moments for dramatical purposes (- like the endgame-crisis), but want the rest of the game to be consistent / not have things come out of nowhere.

 

[Copperwire]

Now you all really got me interested and even more confused: you think running highly specialized economies is worth doing?
Like buying base resources from the market and selling CG / Alloys back?
Trying to run an economy without own resources, much like Japan and Germany in reality, trying to run a surplus by exporting CG / Alloys / refined materials?

I think it is probably worth doing for at least the first 50 years - seeing as you have a "captive" market. After that, I think you probably need to somewhat convert to a more "normal" economy. From there, I think you should probably specialize again - an arcology, a ring world for food, more arcologies, commercial megaplexes to make CG, matter-compressor, and admin cap starting to matter, but only when your huge, all lean things that way.

Districts and Buildings Slots have both costs and value. Understanding that better is one place I feel like I fall short. Admin Cap factors into it, but ... that is not all, and Admin Cap has a "weak" effect at best.

I think you may have it backwards using Germany and Japan as example - early anyway. I think you want to "export" Food, "import" CG and Alloys, and make pop, research, and unity. With enough research and unity, you get to a point where you have enough bonuses, and the market stops being stable, that it starts to make sense to make CG and Alloys, and that happens right about when you can get an Arcology built. Basically, I think you want to be a "Tiger" in mid game. Korea in the 80's.

I think that "rushing" bonuses might be worth doing; max happy from amenities is something I have only done on accident in late games with a lot of trade. It is 20% happy, which is ???% stability which is ???% production. If you look at a specialist making alloys, if his base profit is 2U, yet his base output is 12U, any bonus means more then is obvious. Like, maybe we have been looking at amenities wrong, to add to the list. That +15% from Militarized Economy starts to look mandatory; it might really be a "do you want to make CG or Alloys?" and the answer is Alloys, because you can make CG with trade.

You know the only racial bonus that effects Alloy output? It is the +10% that synths get.

Short version? Specialists, because they have both higher upkeep and higher gross production, are much more effected by bonuses.


Specialized economies are a go at this time.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

I think what some people are forgetting about farms is that the farm eats 1/6 of his product. Those farm jobs are only producing +5 food net, a +1 increase over miners and technicians. Throw in Nutritional Plenitude and habitability and you'll see the farmer generate even less returns.

Here's my attempt at a comparative value starting at 2200 with default policies, living standards, etc. Since the market converts everything to energy credits, I am going to put everything in terms of that. Assume buildings/districts fully staffed:

A mining district produces 8 minerals with an upkeep of 1 energy, 2 food, and 0.5 CG

Farms create 10 food with an upkeep of 1 energy and .5 CG minerals.

And Civilian Factories produce 11 CG with an upkeep of 4 energy, 2 food, and 12 minerals.

1e + 2f + 0.5CG = 8m (mineral district)

1e + 0.5CG = 10f (agricultural district)

4e + 12m + 2f = 11CG (civilian industries)

Solving that system gives me these values:

1 food = 0.13 energy
1 mineral = 0.195 energy
1 consumer good = 0.6 energy.

That means a generator district produces 7.44 net energy.

I started with these 3 resources because every pop requires 1 food and CG, and through CG require minerals.

That means a generator district produces 7.44 net energy

Alloy Forges produce 6 alloys with an upkeep of 4 energy, 12 minerals, 2 food, and 1 CG.

This comes out to 1 alloy = 1.2 energy.

Now beyond that things get kind of tricky because unity, research, amenities, etc aren't used to build anything else and aren't produced solo.

Amenities from a Holo-theatres have an energy cost of 0.203 energy per amenity. While from a Commercial Hub they don't cost anything due to trade value. However you get 4 unity from Holo-Theatres. This is made even more complicated by the fact that trade value can be exchanged for unity or CG. Is CG cost set by trade policy? Or is the value of trade policy set by CG cost?

And this all changes with how much resources are valued on the market and how much you're willing to interact with the market. At the beginning of the game 1 mineral and 1 food is worth 0.7 energy. But how often you're willing to use the market affects your calculations. Even if I could get 2 energy per 1 food I sold on the market, I doubt I'd dismantle all of my generators for agriculture districts because I don't want to constantly be selling food on the market to fund the basic upkeep of my empire.

 

[Todie]

Now you all really got me interested and even more confused: you think running highly specialized economies is worth doing?
Like buying base resources from the market and selling CG / Alloys back?
Trying to run an economy without own resources, much like Japan and Germany in reality, trying to run a surplus by exporting CG / Alloys / refined materials?

I mean forget about the real life comparison: in the game "trade-income" is a purely national phenomenon and has nothing to do with market-trading what so ever: it is like an additional base resource trying to represent the service economy etc.

[...]

As i mentioned specialized economy, i was primarily thinking of it in conjuction with how the AI tends to use the market in 224; how this makes specialization cheapet in relative terms. I dont know how the math turns out in avsolute terms. For sure you cant go to any extreme scale with it...

Additionally, i wasnt much thinking of selling manufactured goods on large scale. Rather, to not empasize domestic basic production districts, in favour of commercial zones. Then combining low prices for those goods, with persuit of lower market fee, and use much of the trade income to buy basic resources; sell some manufactured goods when imbalances occur.

... with limited admin cap from rural districts, admin cap can be kept low, favouring research (especially for corps)

...and with high anenities from clerks, efficiency of research and other specialized production is also favoured.

Later in the game you’ll want to suppliment this strategy to enable support of bigger fleets.

... i can immagine variants of this like authorian agrarian megachurch(?) who adopts a similar approach but deals in food and slaves, but im not sure how well this would work rn, what with ai selling so much food

Now also in Stellaris the addition of "the market" seems like a bad idea, like a bottomless pit as well as a cornucopia: you don't really think that it is linked in anyway to theoretically limited resources currently produced in the galaxy... (- you would be able to corner it late-game), but instead it is limitless in amount, and probably somewhat limited in prices. - Maybe I'll load my endgame from 2500+ where all my stores are full and test how much I can drive up prices (or drive them down)... [...]

As an AI-modder i can tell you the parameters that determine rate of fluctuation and recovery in prices are static in character, but still moddable (in 00_defines).

I think it resonable to, in a later patch, at a galaxy-setup slider for market volatility and/ or to make these parameters dynamically connected to galactig-economy-size.

... in my view, if we are able to mod the AI to be sufficiently non-stupid in the most fundamental economical decisions, and stabilize out of any shortage - at any cost... then it might become interesting to modify how the market works - make it more volotile and increase market fees. This would make market use seem more ... spicey, and disable most long term market-abuse scemes that relly predominantly on artificial price resillience.

- higher market fees would reduce the notion of the domestic economy only beeing valuable in relation to galactic prises

- more volatile prices would make the market easier to crash and slower to recover without further empire interaction.

Regardless of this, the inclusion of a market mechanic does massively help the AI as compared to before, as it tends to need the cruch for rebalancing its economy much more than the player does. In 2.2, Players could trade any resource at 1:1 ratio given a bit of foresight. The ai could not; it was restricted to proposing trades only so often and only pf a set minimum size.

 

[strangebloke]

Ultimately, there are a lot of ways to compare resources.

For instance, in the early game, you're constrained by pops, so the question is mostly "How can I produce the most resources per pops?" Or stated another way "Which resources are the cheapest to produce?" And everything is evaluated in terms of how many pops it takes to produce a thing. Here, farming districts truly shine. This is also, BTW, why farming robots are so important. They have limited pop growth, so they have to compensate by getting the most possible out of the pops they have.

Of course, in the later game you'll be more concerned about districts. Resource districts waste admin cap and planet space atrociously. A city district with a commercial zone produces ludicrously higher returns than a single farming district. So the fractional districts that you'll need to produce 1 trade are crazy low compared to the fractional districts you'll need to produce 1 energy (with a technician).

Then too, you can look at it as a matter of building slots.

With the higher level resources, you also have to consider that they're being made by specialists, who are more expensive, and that they also require base resources to use. Alloys, CG, and rare resources are all very expensive to produce, to the point that I actually think its arguable to not upgrade your buildings and just sell your excess rares at times.

Finally, the value of housing is reversed from everything else. Housing is ultimately just a way of fitting more people on the planet.

My more complete thoughts on the subject:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CKgTb0N7Cr3LoCyU2rd7bHGCxlgSFVOvQ11uuOS_FpA/edit#gid=0

EDIT: When I compare stuff I usually look at policies and market to see what can easily be traded for what else:
energy: 1
trade: 1 (in reality its pretty much strictly better than energy, so 1.2?)
consumer goods 2
alloys 4 (in practice, more like 6 due to market constraints)
rare resources 10 (more like 8 due to market constraints)
UltraRare 40
Unity 2.5 (the 'marketplace of ideas' would put this at 3.33, but its easier to produce than that.)
research 1 (its actually more like 0.7 in terms of how hard-to-produce it is)
food 0.8 (using bioreactor as a baseline)
Minerals 1
Housing 0.75
amenities 0.25

Also, BTW, the chart only works for the very start of the game. Scaling techs later in the game make things like clerks a lot more viable.

 

[AlanC9]

A city district with a commercial zone produces ludicrously higher returns than a single farming district.

Well, a district and a building ought to produce more than just a district, of course.