Explain effect of colonization stats and their effective soft caps

[long aurora]

I know this has already been requested a lot but I'm also putting this request here to not get mixed up and forgotten as easily.
Self explanatory request. For FDev to give an official, preferably detailed explanation for what the colonization stats actually do and at which point it is not worth increasing them further.

[native junco]

I feel like the statistics behind colonization are obfuscated by design. You're not likely to get a detailed breakdown from Frontier saying, "X stat does Y to your colony" any more than we've ever gotten a detailed breakdown of how missions, trade, etc., influence BGS. It's a black box on purpose, and if you want to understand it, you have to experiment with it.

To that end, folks like @pure skiff (who developed Raven Colonial and SRV Survey) have done some substantial work deciphering what we do know of the colonization system. Mechan interviewed him a week or so ago for a video on how Raven Colonial and colonization work, at least to the best of our understanding.

As to "at which point it is not worth increasing them further," that's going to be an entirely subjective judgment based on what planet types and other resources are available in the system. Is it worth it to drop a Dodec in a system with a brown dwarf and no planets? Probably not for most folks. Is it worth it to drop that same starport in a system where you have an Earth-like world and an ammonia world? Probably.

[long aurora]

Issue is, a lot of Colo stats, their effects can't even be "figured out"

[ionic hedge]

I made a forum post about this

[plain tree]

Does anyone know the effect of SoL seems like a useless stat

[ionic hedge]

Short answer:
security: -10/+10
wealth: 0-10
SDL: 0-20
Tech level: 0-35 at least, 0-60 likely, but may influence outfitting even past that
Sol: nobody knows

[plain tree]

Ah, maybe SoL is meant to affect happiness, but because its still broken it effectively does nothing

[native junco]

Thing is, we don't even know if it's broken. But I think it might affect positive states like investment and boom.

[plain tree]

the logical thing here is that it is broken as at most you can get +8% or - 8% happiness from states

and this ties into system payments as well

as +8% happiness gets you 8% more payment for the system

and well, -8% does the same thing obviously in reverse

[native junco]

I've gotten +10%.

[plain tree]

im guessing you had investment maybe?

or some other positive state? i dont expect SoL to increase happiness to 100% but Standard of Living would presumably make the population happier if its high

[native junco]

OK, so, I looked up my System Architect payment for last week. Col 173 Sector PQ-A c15-5 had a happiness of 15%. Vela Dark Region DL-Y d60 had a happiness of -10%. The happiness acted as an additive/subtractive to the normal system score for computing system payout:

Col 173 Sector PQ-A c15-5: Score 22, Happiness 15%, Payout 253k (~220k + 15%); SoL 9.8
Vela Dark Region DL-Y d60: Score 77, Happiness -10%, Payout 693k (~770k - 10%); SoL 18.6

The following BGS states applied to the dominant faction in those systems on Nov. 12:

• Col 173 Sector PQ-A c15-5: Boom, Holiday, Expansion
• Vela Dark Region DL-Y d60: Terrorist Attack, Expansion

It's unlikely the Expansion state contributed to happiness, because it was in Expansion states across several of my other systems, none of which received a bonus or penalty.

So we can infer that Terrorist Attack gives a 10% happiness penalty. If I had to guess, I'd say Boom gives +5% and Holiday gives +10%.

[plain tree]

yeah seems right, havent had a holiday yet so i didnt know what the benefit would be, id be fully understanding if happiness through SoL could hit at most 50%.

cause if this isnt its intended affect then whats the point of SoL? it doesnt affect population

[native junco]

Oh, thanks for reminding me, I was going to include Standard of Living for both systems.

[long aurora]

Is this educated guessing based on observing built systems?

[ionic hedge]

Yes

[long aurora]

Nice. I speculate SoL might be related to the happiness slider which isn't visible like the security one

[ionic hedge]

Production levels for SDL, economy and security sliders for wealth and security, shipyard and outfitting for tech level, and … nothing for standard of living

[ionic hedge]

It’s not

That much we know

Happiness is exclusively tied to faction states in the system

Get Boom, Investment, Civil Liberty, etc - happiness goes up. Get bust, lockdown, outbreak etc, opposite

Those are tg only factors that change happiness as reported

[long aurora]

Ah ok

[ionic hedge]

SOL may be related to the shape of the logistic formula for pst-fast-growth-phase pop growth

[long aurora]

I wonder if the obfuscation is on purpose, depending on FDev's vision for the BGS.

It could be that BGS is supposed to be hazy and gut-feely, to avoid people optimizing the fun out of it, only doing the minimum necessary work or trying to game the system

If we knew the caps, colonies would start to converge towards those

[ionic hedge]

That entirely speculatory theory is informed by the inflection point of said formula being measured pretty precisely at different levels for different situations - at either C+100 or C+120 days - and we don’t know why that is / what drives that. Could be SoL but could also be any other property or even an intrinsic of certain ports.

[ionic hedge]

Well we now know the caps. I’ve told you the caps …

[long aurora]

True true, but I'm trying to rationalize why we weren't told the caps from the get-go

[ionic hedge]

For everything but SOL… and part of tech, which I think might not have a cap at all for outfitting specifically, and soft caps at around 50-60 for shipyards

[ionic hedge]

You can’t point to mistakes when you’re not told how systems are meant to work

Saves on quality control

[long aurora]

In fact, now that you've published those caps, it might be worth monitoring to see if future colonies converge on average towards those values

[ionic hedge]

They won’t

Because anything past medium systems blaze past the caps

That is what FDEV was trying to solve for with the nerf

[long aurora]

ye i was gonna say, 10 sec is easy to get past

[ionic hedge]

But they bungled it hugely

[long aurora]

Do you think the security stat affects the quality of the system police ships?

Like, can wings of 3 condas really spawn at merely 10 sec?

[ionic hedge]

I have no idea. It affects how quickly they spawn and how quickly th flying station lasers spawn

[long aurora]

Ah yeah the response times definitely get better with the sec rating

[ionic hedge]

It also affects frequency of military interdictions

And the shape of security sliders

[long aurora]

And speaking of the sliders

[ionic hedge]

I gotta bounce now

[long aurora]

Fair

[ionic hedge]

All of this should be in the mega guide if you want to read more

[long aurora]

But if the sliders get bigger does that mean changing the current state gets harder?

[ionic hedge]

Yes. And population growth also makes it harder. The latter having a much bigger impact than the shape

Changing states for 1bn+ population systems is incredibly difficult and time consuming

Which is another reason to rail at Dodecs

[long aurora]

Great. My system's too big then lmao

[ionic hedge]

👋

[plain tree]

its likely meant to but is broken and thus doesnt work, much like many other things in the game

and in real life, if your standard of living in a country is high your naturally happier, i do believe it was meant to be for the happiness ratings and thus increased credit gains alongside the boosts that a factions states can provide, cause as it stands you cant get very high happiness %

[native cedar]

My stations are filthy. Pizza boxes and Alu cans on the floors. In an extraction system, where every extraction POI built reduces standard of living significantly. I don't see this in a military-turned-agricultural port near the sun surrounded by 6 Agri installations. Just my independent observation.

[plain tree]

Ive got a system with high SoL and it still has dirty stations, i think its just random or maybe dependant on economy type

[torn sail]

it is completely dependent on main economy type

[ionic hedge]

Can you say more on this?

Interesting info

[torn sail]

as far as I have noticed the main economy of a port decides the interior

I am experimenting with it still

[ionic hedge]

Interiors - definitely. All documented in the mega guide. Does that extend to the on foot part as well? That haven’t tested.

[torn sail]

the hangar yes, but the station lobby, no clue

[cunning lake]

Have not done comprehensive testing, but doing missions moved happiness in one of my colonies when I was trying to BGS my minor faction into control, but it reverted to 0 quick. SoL may influence how much happiness is gained, max happiness etc that can be achieved from missions (im speculating)? If doing missions in other cases doesn't move happiness, then I would assume happiness works like faction influence and it is harder to move in higher pop systems (i intentionally put my faction in control while the population was low to make it easier)