Factorio Economics

[kasper747]

Hi all,

my name is Kasper and I work in an IT/Economist role in an utility company in Sweden.

I like the industrial side of the game but I really lack a challenge. In our world with our economic structure the real challenge is not to build a factory but make it profitable. And there are few thing which are influencing profitability, which are not in the game.
Mainly there only TWO concepts are missing:
*Taxes (for cutting trees, killing bugs, mining minerals, using water)
*License costs (For production and use of goods: Licenses for Laser Turents per Kill, Production licenses for Modules)

If we will introduce money here for start a very simple method:
*Building calculation centers which sell calculation power: no spaceport needed. Only electricity is consumed
*Just give some sum of money in periods of time.


I can cod, but I don’t have any experience with moding factorio. If some one can take a programming lead on it I would gladly support him.

[Boogieman14]

*Taxes (for cutting trees, killing bugs, mining minerals, using water)

Those taxes are called Pollution in Factorio

[n9103]

Also, the player is the sole source of civilization on the planet at this time, so the only person he'd pay taxes to is himself.
When Diplomacy and/or Settlements get in, then this idea could become relevant in the post-Rocket Defense game.

[immibis]

I agree with n9103 here. Who are you going to pay taxes to? Or license fees? You're literally the only person on the planet!

And there's nobody to sell things to or buy things from. The game is about survival and technological advancement, not economics.

[Xecutor]

You guys are lacking imagination
You can always see at this as some intergalactic organisation lending a planet (or part of a planet) to some weirdo, who wants to build giant factory on his own.
So the taxes are being paid to that organisation.
But!
I'm afraid the only thing how taxes, licenses and fees will affect gameplay is slowdown.

[ssilk]

I can think of this idea like so:
The native live on this planet is deathly, but once you become a certain level (Power Armor) they don't have any chance. You will kill them in thousands.

Nothing can stop you! Only yourself. I tried to play like so: I tried to keep in peace with the biters. But there is this BIG ore-field you really, really need now, cause otherwise you cannot expand. There is really no big hurdle to kill them and mine all the stuff.

This is boring.

So - see just here on earth what happens: The whales have been killed, many thousands per year, but since Greenpeace this isn't that easy anymore.

The same will happen - and I'm quite sure with this! - in 1000 years, when we come to such a planet with native liveforms: There will be some kind of organisations, which try to protect the native life.
They pay you for example some money or other needed stuff if you
- build a reservat for the biters in the center of your factory.
- research behavior of the biters, or observe them
- instead of killing the biter nests transport them to a new place.
...

Or they will send you some kind of protest-group:
- They coordinate attacks from the biters much better, so that they attack from every side at the same time.
- They mutate them, so they become much more dangerous
- They protect them, or give them better weapons or dig natural blocks.
....

The point is: The decision to "go green" is then not more longer some kind of self-chastening, it is part of the game to decide, which direction you wanna go and there is a much higher benefit than now, if you go green.

[kasper747]

You guys are lacking imagination
You can always see at this as some intergalactic organisation lending a planet (or part of a planet) to some weirdo, who wants to build giant factory on his own.
So the taxes are being paid to that organisation.
But!
I'm afraid the only thing how taxes, licenses and fees will affect gameplay is slowdown.

As Xecutor says there are was always a bad Empire out there, which try to squeeze last penny from the colonists. And the colonists must squeeze all the resources from the planet regardless pollution!!!
Nothing against The Great Emperor. Of cause its only burocrats fault, who make taxation way too high for new worlds...

Regarding Imagination. I love (old) science fiction books. One of my favorite is "Deathworld" from Harry Harrison.
In the book the people fight against beasts of the planet. And planet fights against men, seeing them as pollution. Very much as the concept of factorio. BUT...
The main problem of the people is not to fight the beasts off, but to get money to buy weapons and pay taxes.

For now we have pollution and the beasts. But no money problems.

What do you mean with slow down? Perfomence or gameplay?

[kasper747]

I can think of this idea like so:
.....

So - see just here on earth what happens: The whales have been killed, many thousands per year, but since Greenpeace this isn't that easy anymore.

The same will happen - and I'm quite sure with this! - in 1000 years, when we come to such a planet with native liveforms: There will be some kind of organisations, which try to protect the native life.
....

As example buy building a wind park in Europe you deal alot with enviroment regulations. So why it should be different in the future? I was also thinking about Greenpeace of the future. You find this concept very often in science fiction books.
"Killing all this bites? Destroy all this diversity? No way!!!" - Greenpeace Spokesman on 256th Congress for "New World Industries and Bio-Diversities" - " I am glad that we were able to stop this massacre by introducing a new taxation model for fees for each killed life form."

As you see I was thinking about much simpler concept. Just pay for each biter or nest killed. Even if turrets kill it. This way you will think a lot before producing pollution. Now it makes also sense to think how to reach a resource field destroying as less nests as possible.

Pay a fee per kill is a very simple concept. Simple to implement, simple to mod and simple to follow. I was moding long time before AI for "Distant Worlds" and "HOI3" - from there I learned that simplicity of the rules in a game is a key to enjoyment.

Other things from ssilk are also very interesting. A bit harder to implement but offer much more storyline and flexibility.

I can think of this idea like so:
.....
The point is: The decision to "go green" is then not more longer some kind of self-chastening, it is part of the game to decide, which direction you wanna go and there is a much higher benefit than now, if you go green.

It may sound evil, but I want to achieve actually the opposite. Money => Greed. I want the player to become greedy. I want a situation, where the taxation system pushes you to produce pollution, to increase your profitability. I want a situation where I actually would like to use "efficiency modules".
http://cashsherpa.com/wp-content/upload ... y-man1.jpg

[ssilk]

Agreed, but what I don't want is, that the player is forced to go into one direction. It is his decision. What the game provides are some benefits for one or the other direction. If you need to pay for every kill, well, that kills also the fun killing them. That is not, what I want to achieve.

[Cybervantyz]

Dude, the game action takes place on the ALIEN PLANET!
What the hecking taxes? Licenses? What are you talking about, man?
Player seems to be trying to survive in hostile environment, alone, with just machines being able to help him
Maybe you wanna also some stock exchanges, securities and currencies? Banks? Government and laws? LOL

[keyboardhack]

Maybe this should be a multiplayer focused mod.

Players are able to pay eachother for power, commodities and land.
One player secures some land and then another player rents the land for x amount of money or commodities.
Players could then declare war against eachother over land, money or even access to resources through gates or railways.

There is lots of possibilities with economics even though it takes place on an alien planet.

[kasper747]

Maybe this should be a multiplayer focused mod.

Players are able to pay eachother for power, commodities and land.
One player secures some land and then another player rents the land for x amount of money or commodities.
Players could then declare war against eachother over land, money or even access to resources through gates or railways.

There is lots of possibilities with economics even though it takes place on an alien planet.

This Idea is very good. It is however probably hard to mod. I would like to have some concept that is interesting and also more or less simple to implement.
And from my experience two persons can really easy make arrangements between them just by speaking, without any mod
However I think an economic mod will lay basics for this kind of cooperation. Because I will need some counter to count for example how many resources was taken from this field. Or how much energy was produced. Even though I need it for single player, it can be used for multiplayer.


About the question if the planet is alien or not:
In my imagination world there is no "alien" planets. All of the planets and worlds belong to The Great Emperor. We can only rent them from The Great Emperor. Or have for free, as fare it is only about survivor. And if an anarchist says, that the planet belongs to no one and is "alien", then this is one more of a reason for The Great Emperor to keep death penalty allowed...[/spoiler]
About the question if you need to pay taxes:
Here are to personalities, who were thinking that taxes are not for them. This one was thinking he dont need to pay taxes in an alien country: Al Capone. Here is one who was thinking he dont need to pay taxes if he makes money in a distant world: Uli Hoeneß. So if you are thinking, that the taxes are not for you, only because you are making business in an distant alien world, which anyway belongs to The Great Emperor, then you may shear a destiny this this two persons and many, many others.

[kasper747]

Agreed, but what I don't want is, that the player is forced to go into one direction. It is his decision. What the game provides are some benefits for one or the other direction. If you need to pay for every kill, well, that kills also the fun killing them. That is not, what I want to achieve.

Maybe if you consider this in other way, it can be even more fun. If you for example make a lot of money and then go on a complete meaningless killing spray, relieving all this money in form of death.
It is like speeding and then getting tickets for it (what actually just happened to me today..

The game, where you actions bare consequences are always more fun. And I think a consequence that we all (who had/have a job) can relay to is to pay for stuff what you deed. Deed good - get paid. Deed bad - be paying.