[FRDF] Player owned industries

[jfs]

Please stay on topic

Industries can be owned by a transport company. The player then recieves a share of the profit the industry makes. Companies can pay a fee so that all products go to that industry and that the revenue by that industry goes towards the companies with a share in it.

If a player owns an industry, they can set the amount of productions for different types of end products.

What if the player owns a coal mine and a steel mill, and builds a route between those two? Since you would be transporting goods for yourself, you shouldn't profit from the transportation.
If you own an industry, would you let another transport company transport goods from it? (Owning an industry should give you monopoly on transportation to and from it.)
If you own a steel mill, and transport coal to it, from a coalmine not owned by you, you should lose money. (The steelmill buys the coal from the mine, and the mine expects you to pay for the transport since you own the transport.)
Unless:

A possible model for transporting cargo is the following: cargo must be bought before transporting and sold to a compatible industry. This means that buying or selling at different places will change the buying and selling price of the cargo. Ofcourse, if the player owns one of the industries, profits will be higher.

I think it's unrealistic for a transport company to buy goods from one industry and sell to another.

I don't especially like the idea of owning industries. I say "drop it" unless someone can convince me it adds something important to gameplay. I can imagine that owning too many industries could almost be a disadvantage. If you own every single industry in a long chain (producing eg. canned food) you would first realistically earn anything when the final product has been delivered to a city for sale.
This is a game of building a transport empire, not a world empire.

The player is able to invest in industries, making them expand and/or increase production.

A secondary industry is (probably) always interested in having as high a production as possible. Secondary industries should always produce as much as possible, given the amount of raw materials.
Primary industries are also always interested in selling as much as possible.
If an industry is being well-serviced it should automatically attempt to expand production, and if it's not being well-serviced, production may fall. This should be the only way a player can influence industry production.

[Hyronymus]

I hate to say it but your analysis makes sense. I always thought the owning of industries like in RT2/3. You buy an industry and can write the profit of that industry in your own books. But it might be far-fetched for a train simulator. Your analysis on the invest possibilities sound reasonable too. Maybe we should even forbid player from funding new industry at all. However, you might be able to initiate new industry in the same fashion as you (should) initiate airport construction: ask the Local Authority to invest a sum of money in a new steel mill that you promise to supply from Iron Ore Mine X.

[Zuu]

I say drop the owning of industries. You should not have the control of them. You might have a contract, but you should not own them.

[Hyronymus]

Anyone feel like discussing contracts in this topic then perhaps?

[Zuu]

Anyone feel like discussing contracts in this topic then perhaps?

Create a new one, and keep this clean.

[Steve]

Drop it. If we use the same money system from TTD and Loco, where you get paid for the actual transporting of materials, it doesn't make sense to own the industries.
Funding doesn't much sense now that you mention it, but that doesn't have as many implications on the game.

[PJayTycy]

I am pro owning of industries. However, none of the comments in this thread deal with the specific advantages/problems. They are all about the economy system in general.

You are mixing 2 examples of cargo traffic. The first is about contracts:

What if the player owns a coal mine and a steel mill, and builds a route between those two? Since you would be transporting goods for yourself, you shouldn't profit from the transportation.

Money flow in this example :

Steel mill: income = selling steel; expense = buying coal + transport cost
Train : income = transport cost; expense = train running costs
Coal mine: income = selling coal; expense = coal mining cost

So, for the 3 together, you would have : income = selling steel; expense = train running + coal mining costs


The second one is about "free" cargo, where a transport company itself buys and sells cargo. Ofcourse this is not realistic, but it's easier and the player has more control over it than a contracts-only system.


So, your remarks don't really apply to owning industries, but to the cargo economy in general. As there is an other topic for that, I won't comment on it any further here.


Your last remark is another thing about the cargo economy, unrelated to the player owning industries or not. It's about industries having an unlimited amount of production capacity or not. I would vote for a limit on yearly production.



Now, after these side-comments, some real discussion of players being able to build/own industries might be needed.

pro : it adds competition to the game on a different level. Players can choose to play as an industry tycoon, a transport tycoon or a mix of both.

contra : same as above

[Steve]

The problem with your model is that you can't just sell steel. If we transported it to a town, we'd get paid for transporting it.. but if we own the steel.. then we would need to be paid for the actual selling of materials rather than the transporting.

If we have a system where we buy and sell materials, we have a completely different situation in TTD. Rather than long routes being more profitable, they are less profitable as your only likely to get the same about of cash for selling the materials, but much higher running costs. Longer routes are much funner, as they involve more route building and planning.

Industries should produce material at a constant rate, having a maximum amount per year isn't great, you could run out after 6 months and not get anything for the next 6 months. But i guess that's not what you meant.

[jfs]

The problem with your model is that you can't just sell steel. If we transported it to a town, we'd get paid for transporting it.. but if we own the steel.. then we would need to be paid for the actual selling of materials rather than the transporting.

If we have a system where we buy and sell materials, we have a completely different situation in TTD. Rather than long routes being more profitable, they are less profitable as your only likely to get the same about of cash for selling the materials, but much higher running costs. Longer routes are much funner, as they involve more route building and planning.

Exactly, we'll end up with a strange mix of a transport simulator and an industrial-market simulator.
Usually long routes are the most profitable, but if you own all industries in a chain, then as short routes as possible are suddenly better. It basically makes the game two-in-one, which IMO isn't what we should aim for.

Industries should produce material at a constant rate, having a maximum amount per year isn't great, you could run out after 6 months and not get anything for the next 6 months. But i guess that's not what you meant.

It is indeed more realistic having some kind of limit on the production of secondary industries, but on the other hand it can also make the game less playable/fun. (It doesn't make as much sense to deliver every single grain of wheat on the map to the same food processing plant if most of it won't turn into food anyway.)
IF we do agree on having limits on secondary industry production amounts, it should also make them not accept raw materials when they aren't able to produce anything. No winyry would pay for getting grapes delivered, if they have to throw those grapes out because they can't use them. One option would be to allow certain kinds of goods to be stored at the industries as a stockpile, but should stockpiling capacity then be limited?
Limiting secondary industry production might introduce some more strategical elements, but it just might make the game too complicated to stay fun.

[PJayTycy]

Wow

Seems like I have very different views on this aspect than most of you...

If we have a system where we buy and sell materials, we have a completely different situation in TTD. Rather than long routes being more profitable, they are less profitable as your only likely to get the same about of cash for selling the materials, but much higher running costs.

Ofcourse, that's the whole point. I don't like TTD that much, just because irrealistic long routes are more profitable than the logic routes. I do not think it is normal to transport coal from a mine on the west to a steel mill at the east, while passing 3 or 4 other steel mills on the way. This is exactly the thing I wanted to prevent.

Industries should produce material at a constant rate, having a maximum amount per year isn't great, you could run out after 6 months and not get anything for the next 6 months.

Well, if you have a constant rate, you also have a max. amount / year, don't you? (eg : rate = 10 tons / week => max = 520 tons / year).

(if you do this...) It doesn't make as much sense to deliver every single grain of wheat on the map to the same food processing plant if most of it won't turn into food anyway.

That is also something I consider as a good effect, not something "bad" or "problem". It was my intention to limit these things...


So, I'm kind of puzzled now, because I feel the things that annoyed me in TTD actually made it fun for you?

[Zuu]

Sad to say PJayTycy, but I agree more with Steve and jfs, than you. The freedome to transport what you want where you want makes me like TTD. I can live with that it is not the most profitable to transport all grain far away to the same food processing plant, as long as I am allowed to do it.

I feal it pretty anoying in Simutrans that factories have a max capacity of raw materials that it can produce per time unit. On top of that you can't transport where you want.

hmm, what has this with the topic to do?

[Steve]

You shouldn't be sad for not agreeing with someone. We should concentrate on making the best choice .

I realise you were talking about secondary industries having caps on the max amount of production.. i'm in no way against that, as long as it's clearly shown what's getting wasted and that the industry will expand if it is constantly losing materials. So if you pump a factory, it'll make new buildings and machinery until it can manage everything you bring it. Realistic, simple, automated.

[uzurpator]

Well - I'm on PJTycy side here. RRT3 economy model is fun - or would be fun if applied correctly.

Also - this would add depth to multiplayer - as some players would concentrate on industry - and others on transportation.

And most iportantly - It can be optional for those who want classic TTD feel.

Destinations for cargo don't need to be static - they can change over time.

Processing power of secondary industries can be variable - as well as its storage capacity.

[PJayTycy]

Like I said some time ago in the General forum, these economy factors will be the biggest thing people's opinions differ on. So we could let the players choose which economy system they want. The downside is our game would loose a "common" feel. Players would playing really different games. and we would have to code it too ofcourse

[Zuu]

To say, I have only played RRT2 or wasit just RRT, never mind. But that was my friends CD that I lent a month or two. And it was ages ago. So I am not that verry used to their economy model.

If it lead to a game with less transport I think the TT style can be better, but if it is just a diffrent way, that make it possible for complex networks. Becuse RRT didn't enabled you to make complex networks, at least not that complex as TTDP or OpenTT, I think many people including me accosiate the RRT economy with RRT networks. If you can prove that it will still be possible to make complex networks that are econmical, then I might consider to vote for it.

[PJayTycy]

The economy in RT3 was very different from RT2, RT1 and any other transport game.

For each cargo, each cell has a market price. If supply > demand, the price falls, if demand > supply, the price rices. Your transport company basicly buys and sells the cargo at different places and receives the price difference for that cargo between different cells.
Industries buy the input cargo and sell the ouput cargo's in their cell, and get revenue from the price difference.

It is far from perfect (mostly because it was the first game with such an economy), but it's more realistic than TTD and it doesn't bother the players with complex contracts.


The thing most TTD fans annoys in RT3 is the lack of signals, the gosthing of trains, the innabillity to have a station with more than 2 tracks, ... These have nothing to do with the economy but with their design goal to make train networks simpeler, while we want them complex.

[Hyronymus]

Aren't we making a small error here? I truly believe a steel mill signs a contract with i.e. coal and iron ore mines themselves. What I believe is being suggested is that the transport company buys the raw stuff and sells it to the manufacturer too. And all this should avoid that transport companies should make (or fake) contracts with industries. I think I have a nice solution that puts contracts in the proper perspective:

Primairy (=raw material producer) and secundairy industries (= manufacturer of end-products) have contracts with eachother. I.e., Heerlen Refinery has a contract with Arnhem Chemical Works to deliver 10.000 tons of propyleen per year. The game produces these kind of contracts between primairy and secondairy industries randomly. Influencing factors could exist however, such as distance between the industries or the production level. The signing of these contract takes place in a dark silicon molecule on your PC's motherboard. Players do not get messages that these contracts are signed only until these industries announce a service subsidy offer to any transport company who has interest in transporting the propyleen.

[You can think of a bidding procedure for each subsidy offer to eliminate the ugly TTD annoyance of the AI building a track alongside your profitable route. These bidding procedures shouldn't be too complex however. You can make them easy by only allowing transport companies with a minimum company worth/cash to the bidding. Competition might be small as a result but more options to keep it easy exist naturally.]

If the transport company is capable of transporting the given amount (10.000 tons of propyleen per year) it will receive a bonus from the subsidy offerers and be granted the contract for a fixed time/eternity.

Does this add fun or not?

[Steve]

Hyr, your suggestion is good, although how is it different from TTD style subsidies? I'm not suggesting it should be, i just sense your trying to get something across that i haven't understood.

I don't think buying and selling items will be a good idea. Firstly, we have to have the TTD style of getting money for the actual transporting as you don't buy and sell passengers. If we try and have both systems, it could get messy. Company A wants to BUY the coal from Coal Mine Alpha and SELL it to Steel Mill Beta. Company B wants to get paid for TRANSPORTING the materials from Coal Mine Alpha to Power Station Lambda. Who does the coal mine give the materials to?

[PJayTycy]

I know there are problems with RT3's system. I just wanted to give those who never played it a very short summary.

Hyronymus, I like your idea too, but it doesn't give any freedom to the players to transport goods where they want. RT3's system is something in between TTD and contracts: you can transport where you want, but you get paid based on the "usefullness" of your transport instead of the length.

If we try and have both systems, it could get messy. Company A wants to BUY the coal from Coal Mine Alpha and SELL it to Steel Mill Beta. Company B wants to get paid for TRANSPORTING the materials from Coal Mine Alpha to Power Station Lamda. Who does the coal mine give the materials to?

Company B gets the amount of cargo specified in the contract between coal mine alpha and power station lambda. Company A buys the rest ? I don't really see a problem here, if you have a contract, the contract should have priority.

[Zuu]

Company B gets the amount of cargo specified in the contract between coal mine α and power station λ. Company A buys the rest ? I don't really see a problem here, if you have a contract, the contract should have priority.

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