Suggestion: PoB ore refineries

[Lord Caedus]

It'd be nice to be able to see PoBs integrated further into the economy, or at least to be able to diversify into more roles than equipment factory or storage. One method by which this can be done is the introduction of refineries to convert ore commodities into some form of "premium" goods. Given the existence of regular commodities as refined goods, this doesn't make a great deal of sense, but then neither does the current ore system in general so lets just ignore that inconvenient fact.

Righto, on to the meat of the matter. Each ore gains it's very own refinery module. So there wouldn't be a singular "refinery" that processed everything and anything, oh no sir! Instead, you would have to customise your station to the goods you wish to refine and sacrifice module slots for that choice. So Cobalt Refineries, Gold Refineries, Platinum Refineries. You get the picture.

A refinery will take 1 catalyst commodity (see below) and 2 units of ore. Over a to-be-decided time frame, this produces 1 unit of Premium commodity and 2 units of 'by-product' (conservation of mass). For this hypothetical example, our unit of ore is worth 10k - the produced premium version would be worth 17.5k. "What? What lunatic would sacrifice 2.5k of profit for going through the hassle of merging 2 units of ore?" Let me elaborate, hypothetical question-asker!

Looking at things from a macro level, you are indeed taking a slight hit. $2.5k has just evaporated. However, there are some side effects which potentially make this a valuable investment nonetheless. Firstly, true buy and sell differences could be set up for the first time ever. Currently, reselling for a profit requires an enormous amount of micromanagement by tinkering with price and min/max settings on a daily basis.

With two commodities, this is no longer the case. For bases being run as actual businesses, as opposed to depots for the owner's traders, this would be a godsend. Secondly, if a trader is looking to do one run and then log off, premium is far more attractive than ore. For one run, they don't care about that lost $2.5k. All they care about is the fact that they're making an extra $7.5k per unit for that particular run.

Now then, there are two factors I mentioned that I haven't looked into yet. 'Catalysts' and the ominous 'by-products'. I didn't go into catalysts above because there are two potential options on the table, both having pros and cons; Industrial Hardware or a new PoB commodity based on Mining Machinery.

Industrial Hardware is interesting because it is already used for many PoB modules and pieces of equipment. Adding a persistent use for it through refining would make managing your stocks far more important than before. There are also sell points for it placed in all of the Houses, making access fairly centralised. Despite this, many of these sale points are a long distance from actual mining fields, inconveniencing depots which want to refine goods on-site. Certain areas would be vastly disadvantaged against others - for example, refining Aluminium in Munich would be leagues better than attempting the same in Omega 7.

The alternative would be to use a new PoB commodity based on Mining Machinery (Industrial Miners?). This is useful because it allows for the commodities to be locally placed in a manner that doesn't discriminate against certain fields in each House, without affecting existing balance for IHs. Prices for stock MMs are also already set for NPC mining stations, which would act as a neat pricing guide for PoB owners. Ideally they would be placed at the current 'prime' selling points for MMs, which are generally located in House capital systems. There are obviously pros and cons to both options, so feel free to vote on which you feel is better in the poll.

Now, I also mentioned industrial by-products. This part will potentially be contentious, but as I mentioned, conservation of mass is a thing - goods don't evaporate into thin air. For every premium commodity refined, 2 waste commodities also appear. There would be a waste commodity that is specific to each type of ore, and these waste products would be purchased by solely ALG's Wuppertal Refinery at a rate that works out around 200c/s if calculated from the mining site. Now, ain't nobody got time for that crap. But something special could happen through the magics of FLHook wizardry when you mount an ALG ID: that price suddenly rises to a rate of around 600c/s, again if calculated from the mining site.

This is important because some of your evaporated profit is currently sitting in those waste units. Most people would have no use for this commodity and would simply delete it from their stock as it accumulated (yes, you're that monster the Gaians are always complaining about). However! Rope in some ALG transports to ship it for you, and you suddenly have a new revenue source for your base that your refining has conveniently generated for you, in addition to the stuff you actually want. ALG now has a new activity and exclusive ore: they get it not by mining, but by taking waste away from actual industrial bases.

So, what do you guys think? Pros, cons, discuss. Also, cheers to cAast for the ideas about Mining Machinery and other general troubleshooting.

Couple of small recommendations. First off, as your catalyst commodity, I would suggest something new, perhaps called Industrial Acids for the refining process, as this is the most common method used in metal refining, particularly in the ores that are actually mined in Discovery. ALG could even produce these acids, though it wouldn't be surprising to see corporations such as DSE or Solar capable of doing the same.

My second suggestion would be having the refining process produce Pure versions of the ore, instead of Premium. Pure metals have obvious value, as they can more easily be made into alloys. Pure silver, gold, and copper would have obvious other values as well.

[FynnMcScrap]

I already have this fully programmed with the module. I finished it about two years ago.

Oha ? Then what is slowing it down ? Balancing and fine tuning ?

[Alley]

I already have this fully programmed with the module. I finished it about two years ago.

Oha ? Then what is slowing it down ? Balancing and fine tuning ?

Pretty much creating the items and balancing the whole thing.

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Alley was right.

[FynnMcScrap]

And I was always wondering why all suggestions to bases where not being added.
All the while there has been a technical solution, but it just has not been implemented jet :-(


Sorry Alley, I though developers just didnt care because priorities stacked up somewhere else.... mea culpa, I apologize.

Admins ! Nocoffe till BAZE !

[jammi]

Start making up some infocard ideas for the refinery commodities I'd say. POB refineries will come at some point (hopefully soon), this idea looks totally solid from my point of view to start with.

'Commodity' Ore:
Ore is a type of rock that contains minerals such as metals which can be extracted through mining and refined for use. The ores must be processed to extract the metals of interest from the waste rock and from the ore minerals. Many organizations prefer to receive unsmelted ores in order to keep the additional cost of their production and finish within the local economy, as opposed to paying markups to foreign laborers to do the work for them.

Pure 'Commodity': (ore minerals)
Mineral ore is contains a large degree of impurities and waste material, preventing their industrial use. Many refineries have since been established on modular bases which are pioneering new methods using smelting and acid based systems. These produce goods that contain far less impurities than the market average. These 'pure' goods are consequently in high demand due to their improved characteristics.

'Commodity' Slag:
Slag is the industrial by-product left behind after a raw ore has been smelted and refined. Due to the industrial acids used during the extraction process slag is highly toxic, but often contains trace elements of useful but unwanted minerals. Specialist ALG facilities on Wuppertal Refinery focus on safely processing slag into more ecologically benign products and extracting valuable minerals.

Above works for: Aluminium, Beryllium, Cobalt, Copper, Gold, Niobium, Platinum, Silver, and Uncut Diamonds.

The commodities this won't work for is Helium 3, Premium Scrap and Raw Hydrocarbons. Some additional thought would have to go into how they'd actually function and whether they'd even fit into my proposed system. Presumably Raw Hydrocarbons and Helium 3 could be sorted with a 'cracking facility' instead of a refinery or something like that. Maybe scrap could be a sorting workshop? Not sure.

Couple of small recommendations. First off, as your catalyst commodity, I would suggest something new, perhaps called Industrial Acids for the refining process, as this is the most common method used in metal refining, particularly in the ores that are actually mined in Discovery. ALG could even produce these acids, though it wouldn't be surprising to see corporations such as DSE or Solar capable of doing the same.

My second suggestion would be having the refining process produce Pure versions of the ore, instead of Premium. Pure metals have obvious value, as they can more easily be made into alloys. Pure silver, gold, and copper would have obvious other values as well.

Both suggestions sound good as small terminology tweaks. I'd advocate that Industrial Acids be the new commodity based on Mining Machinery primary sellpoints mentioned in the OP. Currently that'd be Essen Station, Thames Outpost, Narita Outpost, Hamilton Station and Etampes Shipping Platform.

Also, names for the by-product commodities: there are a few options which would be appropriate. Spoil, slag, tailings, gangue. That last one sounds ridiculous but it'd probably be the most accurate for what we want to use it for, seeing as it's the uneconomical fraction of mineral that's left after extraction. It also sounds ridiculous, so it's possibly not a good choice. Thoughts?

[Pavel]

No offense to anyone supporting this, including people with yellow names, because objectively it would be a good idea was Disco's reality a bit different, more active, more fluid, but for current mod it is not.


It'd give even bigger advantage for groups who can afford building and maintaing bases over those who don't. The big would get even bigger, the dead would stay even deadlier.

It's de facto impossible to destroy high core well supplied bases now, and everybody, not only factions with battleships, should be able to besiege base this way or another. This should be adressed first.


In their current form POBs are neoplasm. This neoplasm shouldn't be given space to develop even more.


Edit:
Tanker's old idea was to make NPC stations process ore into refined commodities, you "sell" ore and get two times less the refined commodity units.

[Highland Laddie]

Should probably take more than 1 commodity. Ore refining is quite a complex process.

More commodities would then either render the entire endeavour unviable, or force premium products to be priced so high as to be insane. Over a certain value, it'll just become more trouble than it's worth to add them.

Not necessarily, depending on the pricing and availability of the catalyst(s), but I also do think it should make the process more expensive (moneysink), and I also think that "Pure" value commodities should sell for way more (somewhere in-between regular Ore pricing and "Buffed" commodity pricing). They should also have at least 1-2 high sellpoints for Unlawful groups in each House as well, as this will promote more cargo piracy. I also think that Refineries should take up more than 1 slot on a PoB as well (probably at least 4 slots), seeing as it is a very space-consuming endeavor.

Another thought: could just make 1 new specific commodity for refining, but instead of being as specific as Industrial Acids, you could just make it generic like "Refining Equipment."

[jammi]

@Pavel - There are problems with the ways PoBs are currently integrated, I agree. I personally fully support Karst's proposal from a while back to drastically reduce base regen rates and massively increase their health as a way around that.

More people would then be able to inflict damage on bases which repairs slowly over time, as opposed to needing an entire fleet to simply overcome the repair rate. It'd also stop the current system of cheesing, where the base is invulnerable until you get enough people to very, very suddenly kill it.

That said, the argument is entirely irrelevant to new developments for bases, and I don't feel that should affect the potential for positive changes in the future.

The proposal to convert ore commodities into a number of regular commodities is also entirely unworkable. It doesn't make any sense because while said commodity still has an infinite supply from NPC stations, you're trading something that's scarce and valuable for something that's common and not. Refining would simply never be used.

The only goods that could ever practically be used for a refining system involve ores, precisely because of their limited supply dictating value and closing down buy/sell exploits. Similarly, the only viable solution to the refining problem is the creation of a third tier of commodity to act as a continuation of the ore value system.

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[jammi]

Not necessarily, depending on the pricing and availability of the catalyst(s), but I also do think it should make the process more expensive (moneysink), and I also think that "Pure" value commodities should sell for way more (somewhere in-between regular Ore pricing and "Buffed" commodity pricing). They should also have at least 1-2 high sellpoints for Unlawful groups in each House as well, as this will promote more cargo piracy. I also think that Refineries should take up more than 1 slot on a PoB as well (probably at least 4 slots), seeing as it is a very space-consuming endeavor.

Another thought: could just make 1 new specific commodity for refining, but instead of being as specific as Industrial Acids, you could just make it generic like "Refining Equipment."

Well, lets run the numbers on our hypothetical ore to see the margins involved as they're currently proposed. Hypothetical ore is worth 10k a unit, and lets say the PoB is buying them for 3k each. Whatever the singular catalyst is will have to be imported from a central location in the capital system. Lets say you're paying $1,000 per unit to have that shipped in.

Currently that's a cost of $7,000 for every unit of Pure commodity produced. It's selling for $17.5k though. If you were to resale the Pure commodity for anything over $7,500 you're rapidly sliding towards the point where the trader is making less than selling a single load of normal ore. It's not worth it for them, but carries a huge risk due to the massive buy value of the cargo and the demands pirate will surely hit it with.

Throw in additional catalyst commodities and the price projections go through the roof. It simply wouldn't be viable to produce Pure any more. This is what I'm talking about - one commodity is more than enough to balance things out, and continues to straddle the line between balanced and outrageous.

I'd also strongly contest the idea of them taking up 4 slots. I don't see how a refinery would be any bulkier than any of the factories that currently exist. What I would strongly advocate for though, is to have refining happen extremely slowly. This would then require the construction of multiple refinery modules if you wanted to speed things up. So specialised bases that are looking to deal with one type of ore would work very quickly. Generic depots that store a range of ores? Less so.

[Pavel]

With respect Jamie, that argument is very relevant to the further development of POBs, and the potential future changes which'd give POB owners even bigger advantage over those who can't make Disco their second job should be affected by it. Important issues with POBs - such as the mentioned siege problem, or associated grind, should be adressed before POBs get new function which can endanger already problematic balance.


With that said, what I had in mind, wasn't "selling" ore at NPC bases for normal non-ore commodity, but rather special refined one, which normally wouldn't be "buyable" like Tea or SynthPaste.

Such commodity could also be "bought" by selling ore only at smelter bases, and not local NPC bases such as Graves - you'd have to take gold ore to New London to "convert" it to refined commodity.

Once again, let me clarify this isn't my idea but Tanker's, he had it few years ago in XA cgat when then newly introduced POBs started creating all those controversies.