W3C - Wind Farms Maintenance

Wind farms finances were corrected with the last upgrade and are now showing the full advantage to countries that build and utilize them.

The numbers of wind farms is expected to increase slowly and a larger percentage of electric power supply will be produced in this way.

wind farms however, require maintenance.
An average of one wind turbine must be replaced each game month. it is one of the 300 wind turbines which means that a wind turbine will function 25 years before it needs to be replaced.

a country with 30 wind farms, needs 30 wind turbines each game month to make sure all wind farms are maintained. Some countries are now showing negative numbers of wind turbines.

If maintenance is not done, wind farms will deteriorate.
The next upgrade will reduce the output of wind farms by 50% if the number of wind turbines in the country is negative.

make sure you have the wind turbines needed for maintenance, available in the country.

Overall, wind farms seem pretty good. There are certainly some bugs that hopefully get worked through, but I do have one particular question:

"Wind Farm finances were corrected with the last upgrade and are now showing the full advantage to countries that build and utilize them."

Almost true, lol. Several of my countries are broken now that weren't before. They have 30 finance index despite having big profits. Do you mind sharing what the criteria is now for judging a 30 finance index? I'd love to be able to advise other players on the limitations.

Country: Khaganate
Planet: White Giant
Profit: 215b / game month
Finance Index: 30

In the image below I circled the parts I'm seeing.

Images fail too much on the forum hahaha. Trying again from prior post:

Eeeee OOOooo,

Finance Index is calculated by dividing income, by cost, on the profit and loss screen, and them multiplying the result by 100.

IE, if a country has 75B in income, and 50B in Costs, then the finance index will be 150. (75 divided by 50 is 1.5, multiply by 100 for total index of 150).

This equation can not account for negative numbers.

IE, if a country has 75B in income, and -50B in costs, dividing income by cost would result in a finance index of -150. (75B divided by -50B is -1.5, multiply by 100 for a total index of -150).

Since the finance index can not be a negative number, it is set to 30 by default, whenever the result would be negative.

Increase your spending, so that costs are no longer negative, and the finance index should calculate correctly.

I wish what you said about negative numbers was true and the answer (because then I'd understand), Daniel, but it's not. Additionally, that's not the formula for positive numbers either. The formula is more complex than that.

See the image below where there is an negative total costs and a healthy finance index.

Eeeee OOOooo,

The complexity comes from the fact that the index doesn't update immediately. It will eventually trend towards the result I outlined above, but on any given month, it won't be exactly that.

So, it's perfectly possible to have negative costs for a short time, and still have the financial index be positive, but eventually, it will become negative, which the game will default to displaying as 30.

Raise your costs until the financial index would result in a reasonable number, using the formula above (there may also be a maximum number that causes it to revert to 30. So I'd recommend against keeping costs so low that it would cause the finance index to be in the thousands for example).

Daniel, that's still not correct. There's a specific amount or formula that can trigger causing IMMEDIATE reduction to 30. In one month. I've seen it and posted about it several times in the last week.

The finance index in the image above is stable, and has had negative costs for real life days. It is not dropping to 30, even with negative costs. Regardless, there's more at play than just negative costs. Countries with very low, positive costs are impacted strangely too.

Do you have any documentation that's backing up your idea here or are you shooting from the hip?

Eeeee OOOooo,

Just literal real-life years of the finance index trending towards Income, divided by Cost, then multiplied by 100. In pretty much every country I have ever analysed. And the fact the equation would break once costs went negative for a sustained period, which is what has happened. Not to mention the fact that the finance index continues to operate as normal in countries that don't have negative costs.

As the GMs announced in recent posts, they have changed how wind farms effect the finance index. This has nothing to do with your years of experience (or mine). Wind farms change how the index is calculated. I'm hoping to hear from Andy what the details of the changes were.

I've shown examples where I am seeing negative costs with positive financial indices not broken nor trending toward breaking. Some countries with low costs have strange indices that are new. That is why I am asking the question. There have been changes made.

Some countries with extreme negative costs immediately go to 30 finance index. Others look stable with good indices. It could be that the threshold is now -50B, it could be a delay like you said, but again, I am not sure.

I shouldn't be complaining about this because a significant part of my corporations are Wind Farms and Wind Turbines, but because this wasn't an announced change I feel I should bring it up in case it's not intended.

The market price for Wind Farms and Wind Turbines are currently substantially above base value and appear to continue to trend higher. Every item in the game that I have checked up on has a market price cap of ~ 1.51x the base price. I would believe that the game admins balance products employment and supplies based largely on base price in an effort to keep the game relatively balanced. Currently using WG prices, Wind Farms have a market price 2.97x base price, and Wind Turbines aren't far behind at 2.65x.

I understand they're the new hot corps and like I said I personally run a ton of them. I don't think that the market price cap that applies to every other product shouldn't apply to them, however. Players should have freedom of choice in their construction without being pushed into a 'right' or 'wrong' choice.

Eeeee OOOooo,

Yes, they changed it so that the benefit of the electricity created by wind farms, would be deducted from government costs, which are a core factor in calculating the finance index. The math for the index itself, did not change.

Because they use a longer term average of income and costs to prevent volatility, the finance index can only be understood long term. On any given day, the costs or income can go up or down and the finance index won't react quickly.

It's like the employment index, or the welfare index, or the education index, or the healthcare index, or the transportation index, it doesn't react instantly. So, it's perfectly possible to have a sudden change, take a screenshot, and have the figures not line up, but long term, they will.

I've already told you how to fix the problem and get your finance index back to normal, if you don't like the solution, then there is really nothing else I can do.

Daniel, do you have any wind farms?

Your math doesn't line up with any countries I have with wind farms. That's all I'm interested in.

Just one of my fourteen countries has negative costs. Perhaps negative costs will eventually drop an index to 30. Regardless, the income/costs formula you present isn't the full formula anymore.

Nothing you've said has confused me. I understand what you're saying. I'm telling you that's not what's happening in my countries with wind farms, lol. I'm really not sure what else to say to you here.

From the documentation:

"14. The Financial Index

The financial index is a good measure of the financial situation in the country. The index depends on the relation between income and cost in the country in the current year and in the previous year. The higher the income, compared with the cost, the higher the index will be.

The financial index does not depend on the amount of cash or loans the country has. It is only a measure of income versus cost."

It's not about total profit, but the ratio of income vs cost. If cost is negative, the calculation breaks down and will instead display as 30.

I have been unable to find any countries with positive costs for at least the last two in-game years, where the income to cost ratio does not determine the finance index.

Edit, double post, the page didn't refresh when I clicked post

I'm *extraordinarily* clear what you're arguing.

Do you have any wind farms? Have you observed their impact? Can you point to them in the documentation?

I have never had any questions about finance index until this week after changes were made.

Can you tell me what finance index I have with 105b income and 8b costs?

+1 @Unsthable. Several players have mentioned this today in chats. Is it just WF and WT right now having the lack of cap that you've noticed?

@Daniel - can we not hijack this thread please? There is a cap on finance index if you have lower than 80b costs, for example. What exactly the formula is below that, I am unsure. If you know the answer to this, please DM me. There is more than just income/cost and wind farms are throwing this into the spotlight. My own countries show this.

Unsthable, you make a good point.

Myself, I'm more concerned about the rate of reduction of WT corps.

I originally built enough to cover my maintenance, plus some, because i was interested in more, maybe. but they decreased production, whittled away my stock pile. so i built up again, in anticipation of this continueing. At this point, i've got a really large stash, but need to build about 50% on LU to maintain.

I'm more interested in seeing how far the GM take this. These corps are making allot of money. And their is a constant need for more, both with the reduction of production and an increase in consumption. W/O this growing limitation to the WF industry, it can very potentially get to the point that we are waiting weeks to sell our EP, so that we can wait weeks to buy our weapons and ammo.

Its a balancing move i'm kinda liking. I'm just concerned about how much more i have to build, to keep what i got.

@EO as far as being so far beyond the market price cap those are the only two that I've spotted. EP is at 1.61x but they've openly talked about tweaking the prices on that. Everything else I can think to look at, high value or low, is 1.51x

We have now added a line into the financial report, showing the income from wind farms separately.

Government cost does not include the income from wind farms any more.

The problem with the financial index is resolved.

The way the financial index was computed did not allow for the entire cost of the country to become negative.

The problem with the wind farms contracts delivering their products to the country where they reside is also resolved.

It had to do with very low monthly production numbers.

wind farms are very large objects that come at a very high price and pushed the game computations related to both country finances and corporate finances over the limit.
It is now corrected.

Thank you for being alert and reporting problems in a clear and constructive way. It helped in resolving these problems quickly.

In the evolving situation it is now very clear that electric power production with wind farms is an attractive proposition.
It is even much better than we have expected.

as a result, many will want to increase such power production with more need for corporations that will produce wind farms and wind turbines.

Income and cost will increase but wind farms are and will remain very profitable.

We will have to continue tuning production numbers, cost and profitability and make sure this function remains atractive.

Wind turbines are essential in the maintenance of wind farms.
Shortages of wind turbines will disrupt/diminish the production in wind farms.

how about making level 1 boycotts, boycott WT?