Cyclical Credit Income Rate change and Economic Freefall

[wargamer620]

I was playing as the new republic today when I noticed something weird, my saved up credits were vanishing rapidly. I hovered my mouse over to see the income rates and my planetary income was positive, so was my trade income, and my fleet expenses were slightly less than my trade income. Despite this, the income rate was fluctuating rapidly cycling from about +60 to about -20 at which it would roll over back to +60. I dont think it was constant in the meanwhile either but rather the number updated too infrequently to give the full picture. Eventually my bank account hit zero and continued to fall(despite my attempts to offset the glitch with extra trading posts.) After I quit the game I went to the economic charts and saw that the same thing had occurred to each of the AIs and although they had managed to stop it somehow they were unable to regrow their credit count.

[Corey]

That's not a glitch, and is documented in a few places. Every ship has its own upkeep cost associated with it directly, on top of the flat percentage you pay from the research itself. The ship infocards tell you how much they're costing per second as well, (for AI purposes, since they deal better with larger amounts the cost is actually paid every five seconds instead of every second), and because of how the game cycles things (it applies on the buff firing, not on every economic cycle second), it's never going to be completely in sync with your actual income. So, how much money you're making in the breakdown is correct, but how much you're spending is not. There is, unfortunately, not a satisfactory way around this while still keeping the upkeep.

[wargamer620]

thanks for the response, sorry to waste your time, I had considered that it may be what you said but I got fooled by the fact that both of the AI's and I must have picked close the exact same moment about 2 hours into the game to drastically expand our fleets  so the graphs made it look (to me) like something weird was going on since we all had our income nose dive in tandem. The cyclical nature mentioned also fooled me, my bad. Thanks for making such an enjoyable mod!

[Corey]

No problem, glad you enjoy it.

[Furious_Toaster]

Sorry to bring this back up but this feature does seem to be working strangely. I noticed this my first time playing a campaign well into the late game, and have noticed it in every single match since. The problem, unless you look for it does not rear it's head until the late game where it is impossible to maintain a positive  credit income with a full fleet (maxed out empire tree). So I sat down and decided to try and figure out what was happening and why.

I started a new game on the Dissolution map with four normal AI players and myself. My intention was to see how the effect was late game but I noticed it fairly early. I was playing as Imperial Remnant and had yet to do any empire research so had the base 3 command and 60 supply with upkeep at 0%. My fleet consisted of 3 ISD Mk Is, 1 Dreadnaught, 2 Escort Carriers, 2 Lancer Frigates, 8 Carrack Cruisers, plus the two Mu scouts leaving me a total of 14 unused fleet supply. According to the info cards, the ISDs each cost .2 credtis/sec, and the rest .0 credits/sec. Since I cannot actually tell how much that adds up to I assign .05 to the .0, which gives a cost of 1.15 credits/sec for my fleet, which if triggered every 5 seconds as mentioned above would come out to 5.75 credits/sec.

My credit income was entirely from planetary taxes and gross tallied at 18.2 credits/sec from two planets. However, my net income would start at the gross 18.2 credits/sec and would drop by .1 credits/sec every half-second until it reached a sum of 8.6 credits/sec and then it would reset to the 18.2 credits/sec and begin the cycle again. This, however, does not seem to actually hold over into the actual tics and amount of credits received. So, in terms of actual credits received I followed the tics and tracked them: starting at 864=>859=>873=>868=>882=>877=>890=>886=>899=>894=>908=>903=>917. So over six tics, being six seconds, I tracked each interaction. Each tic I would gain 14 credits and then lose 5 credits before the next tic, however, my credit income should have been 18.2 credits/sec with a loss of maybe 2 credits/sec from what I could see in game. If the upkeep payout occurs every five seconds as accumulated over that period I ought to lose up to 10 credits every 5 seconds, however, this does not appear to be the case. Over the course of five seconds I had lost 24 to 25 credits on top of the amount already deducted from the gross income of 18.2 credits/sec which was about 4 credits/sec lost additional. In total, over five seconds I lost 44 to 45 credits total as opposed to the roughly 6 credits that, according to what I can see on the infocards, I ought to lose every 5 seconds. This issue only grows as the game continues, until in the late game it seems to be impossible to have a positive income.

I hope this makes sense, and that I explained the problem as clearly as I could. Furthermore, I am running Ascendancy 1.15X with menu patch with income rate maxed, research speed maxed, build speed maxed, and all other speeds at default.

[Corey]

The game gives you the amount of credits you're supposed to be getting, and the different buffs all take away the amount they're supposed to be taking away. Trying to figure out *how* it lines up in terms of the cycling income won't really give you good information because it will never be synchronized between all your units. Your upkeep is paid out every 5 seconds per unit, not paid out every five seconds overall, and each one is done on its own timer. One second is also not actually a "tic" ingame as far as when the credits are being subtracted, so it's not really broken into 5 distinct possible moments where stuff is being added or subtracted, it's more granular than that.

Here's the exact costs (these will hopefdully be worked into the tooltips in their per-second amounts, but for now should at least help you knwo exactly what you're paying out in any 5 second period)

Tier 1:
   credits
      Level:0 -0.200000
      Level:1 -0.200000
      Level:2 -0.200000
      Level:3 -0.200000
Tier 2:
   credits
      Level:0 -0.500000
      Level:1 -0.500000
      Level:2 -0.500000
      Level:3 -0.500000
Tier 3:
   credits
      Level:0 -0.850000
      Level:1 -0.850000
      Level:2 -0.850000
      Level:3 -0.850000
Tier 4:
   credits
      Level:0 -1.250000
      Level:1 -1.250000
      Level:2 -1.250000
      Level:3 -1.250000
Super:
   credits
      Level:0 -10.100000
      Level:1 -10.100000
      Level:2 -10.100000
      Level:3 -10.100000

[Ketamarine]

There is no way this mechanic is working properly.

I have had the exact same issue two games in a row now.

My credit income is massive and fine, then at some point (this time I noticed it after building the titan), the credit income when you mouse over the credits shows all planetary and trade station income, then it calculates a number below it. That number was changing every second, starting really high, then dropping quickly until it went negative.

From there it just starts jumping all over the place and my credits are constantly going up and down like crazy - eventually falling into negative territory.

I had an income of over 30 credits/second that was being eaten up by this bug.

I think you need to test the new republic faction specifically as this did not happen when I had a massive end-game fleet with the empire remnant. I had the eclipse and a huge flight touring around and it was all good.

[Corey]

It is working how it's suppsoed to, like I said, the mechanic as you described is doing what we'd expect. The income doesn't and can't sync properly with the upkeep modifier on each ship, since the game doesn't group ability income with that on the same tick, and since the ship income ticks are every 5 seconds, there'll be different clusters of ships on different ticks. The smallest, worst ships have either negligible or no income modifier, and if you have a supership, it's gonna be more consistent because that's a large chunk on one thing, whereas the NR's income modifiers are more significant on individual capital ships, which they're relying on more. It is not a bug, the buffs are wrking as expected even if in an ideal world Sins would have a cleaner way to present it; it just doesn't. The income value presented is expected to jump around. Luckily they still update the game and because it's become a more popular mechanic that multiple mods have implemented with the exact same results, Ironclad is looking to add an additional buff type modders have requested which should help with it.