Factory Modernisation

[EntropyAvatar]

Will the game model the costs of installing the latest and greatest equipment in a factory? In real life, you can build a factory with the best available technology and have cutting-edge efficiency. But as technology marches on, you don't get free upgrades to the equipment in the factory. Every potential upgrade has a cost, and some upgrades are harder than others.

Take the situation with say battleships. Someone invents a new range-finder, that's something you can upgrade. Someone invents new propellant, maybe that will work with you existing guns with a few modifications. But your existing ships don't get faster because now you can build turbine engines - that's an expensive refit. I think something analogous holds for factories and most types of production - there needs to be some kind of investment to fully deploy the new technology, and sometimes that means throwing out some of your existing machinery.

I think it would be interesting if the game modelled some of this. Say when a new technology comes along, there is a required investment to upgrade to the new tech, and sometimes it's more attractive for the owners to delay that investment as long as possible. So if it say takes 100 machine parts to build a new factory at base efficiency. Maybe a new comes along that raises throughput by 50%. New factories can be built and only require 100 machine parts to gain the bonus. But upgrading an existing factory to make use of the new tech would take say 50 machine parts. If you don't make the improvement, then the existing factories will gradually become less and less competitive in the market.

 

[dunka2]

What we know is that goods are produced in a variety of buildings, from plantations to collectivised farms and from guilds to worker coopertives. So far, they've only mentioned that the type of building will determine who is employed there, what share of profits they get, who pays for maintenance, and that each type will have differing productivity. It seems like this may cover what you are asking, though as they haven't gone into depth on the types of economic buildings, who can say? Perhaps they'll have something like a water-powered mill, which can then upgrade to a steam-powered mill, before upgrading to electric-powered.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Perhaps they'll have something like a water-powered mill, which can then upgrade to a steam-powered mill, before upgrading to electric-powered.

Yeah you could go the route of representing this with a number of different types of buildings. Personally I'd prefer if it was a mechanic that could be activated by tech, for ease of modding and to prevent too many building types.

Basically it seems to be a story that happens fairly often: a dominant industry refuses to adopt the new tech because it would invalidate a lot of existing capital investment, and eventually the industry get's left behind and out-competed by upstarts.

 

[Hammrtime]

Investment in businesses is the corner stone to growth so I am 100% onboard with this. You should have to spend capital not only to increase factory size, but also upgrade the tech in the factory. You shouldn't get a magical increase to throughput because you researched a new important tech. Maybe you don't have to upgrade machinery with every tech but some more important tech should require investment to reap its rewards.

In theory upgrading a business would be cheaper than building a new one. It would create a good dynamic on whether it is worth building a new factory in a possibly very profitable business or upgrading two factories that have only mediocre returns.

But for all we know this is already a thing and we will find out with the DD that is coming on Thursday.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

But for all we know this is already a thing and we will find out with the DD that is coming on Thursday.

Fingers crossed! I imagine there is a lot to explain about the basic operation of buildings, so I suspect they won't get into that level even if it's already a feature.

 

[ikki]

This being the reason britain started sagging as time went on, the issue of a practically antique industrial base eventually led to the accounting principle of depriciation. Had depriciation been employed the factory owners might have been alerted to the fact their factory assets were worth zero. In the meantime markets were lost to the modern and far more efficient german industrial base.
Which in turn led to colonies being exploited ever more harshly to extort raw materials so as to keep the antique industry going even in a limping state.

Oh and the issue nothing was done? Well, new technology would have required the demolition of the old factories before building new. Pay for the destruction of our assets?? Surely this is madness! See the machines still function! This one was made a week ago and isnt a century old at all! (no but the technique is)

 

[Meanmanturbo]

This being the reason britain started sagging as time went on, the issue of a practically antique industrial base eventually led to the accounting principle of depriciation. Had depriciation been employed the factory owners might have been alerted to the fact their factory assets were worth zero. In the meantime markets were lost to the modern and far more efficient german industrial base.
Which in turn led to colonies being exploited ever more harshly to extort raw materials so as to keep the antique industry going even in a limping state.

Oh and the issue nothing was done? Well, new technology would have required the demolition of the old factories before building new. Pay for the destruction of our assets?? Surely this is madness! See the machines still function! This one was made a week ago and isnt a century old at all! (no but the technique is)

Heh, I had a period of morbid fascination with the death of the UK manufacturing industry, looking through youtube for 70s-80s clips of things like the crisis of British Leyland.

 

[dunka2]

Yeah you could go the route of representing this with a number of different types of buildings. Personally I'd prefer if it was a mechanic that could be activated by tech, for ease of modding and to prevent too many building types.

Basically it seems to be a story that happens fairly often: a dominant industry refuses to adopt the new tech because it would invalidate a lot of existing capital investment, and eventually the industry get's left behind and out-competed by upstarts.

You may be in luck with the need to replace machine components in factories. If you look at the teaser posted to the Victoria 3 twitter, there's a section on the building tab that says 'Production Methods', and it appears as though you can purchase upgrades for the building that way if that little box with the pound symbol means what I think it does.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

it appears as though you can purchase upgrades for the building that way if that little box with the pound symbol means what I think it does.

Good catch. I noticed the production methods area, but not the pound symbol. Super interested to read about it.

Definitely appreciate when the dev's read my suggestions and consider them good enough to fire up the time machine so they can be implemented.