Feedback

I do not believe Tiny Atlas justifies the effort and expense to maintain an empire. I did have my fun building a country from scratch without a fully functional world market, but maintaining it is exhausting.

To make the most of Tiny Atlas, I'll be leaving my country and focusing solely on my enterprise. This allows me to ignore population needs, and just focus on the few inputs the corporations need. It is a much more efficient way of playing in Tiny Atlas.


That said, I still enjoy the idea of Tiny Atlas, but it needs some rework.

Tiny Atlas can be the natural resource hub for all worlds, as the other 5 worlds always have large persistent resource shortages. And it can do this without exclusive resources. As such, I'd make a few changes:

1. Allow all natural resources to be available on Tiny Atlas;
2. Drastically increase the output on Tiny Atlas - as in an Oil corp produces four times more than one on Kebir Blue to counter the lack of quality upgrades.
3. Have a deposit size about two times larger than other worlds. This is so countries are exploited faster and keep players moving and potentially fight for new ones.

The aim is to be ensure TA has the building blocks for its own market, and be a very profitable venture by exporting to other worlds. This keeps and expands TA's role in the game. In turn, other worlds would be sending Robotics, Factory Maintenance and such to TA.

As an aside, if we can make it so space shuttles can do voyages where they deliver a good and pick-up another on the round trip, so they don't go empty, that would be awesome.


Population needs also need some rework, as that is where the bulk of the difficulty of TA stems from. I think this would be complicated to workout, but easiest and most sensible would be to not allow negative stocks. If you cannot meet monthly needs, your welfare index suffers, but your stock won't go below 0.


Anyone that dedicates the time to maintain an empire on Tiny Atlas should reap the rewards. And more so than any enterprise.

CEO only on TA is the way, there is zero benefit of having a country there.

Thank you guys for posting your feedback. It has helped some of us correctly decide that TA is not for us as it stands.

I just recently closed my country and ceo after being there more or less from the start. I'll add my feedback and suggestions in hope of being constructive.

Country:

I admittedly did not focus that much on my country, so I dont have too much to share but no auto ordering adds an insane amount of tedium that saps a lot of the fun out of it.

- disable auto ordering for C3 countries but allow players to either use this feature, or at the very least let us set watermark values and do the ordering off of that.

- Prevent a country from going into the negatives for assets. Make it hit the indexes harder or something. The common market contracts will only cover enough to meet the actual demand, so if you're already in the negative, it just adds a bunch of tedious clicking really, since a lot of those products were in surplus on the market already.

- Allow remaining un-tradeable products to be bought on the market. If there is supply. Forcing things like schools, airports, etc to all go through private contracts only adds overhead to products that are often already in ample supply.

Ceo:

- Corp profit is way off. You either are making huge losses, or insane profit. There seems to be very little wiggle room in the middle and more or less tied to whether the product is in surplus or not.

- Corp upgrades aren't available. We were able to produce these locally from the start, but they had no use, and they were unable to be moved out of the corp that produced them to use to upgrade other corps. This kept corps in a very "new" state and further hindered their ability to profit in spite of possibly being to overcome the material and employment requirements. This would help to alleviate the above point with upgraded corps being able to squeak more out of the same as you would expect a long-lived company to do.

- Certain products that are vital to the TA economy have no demand. E-trucks, etc. If these aren't meant to be consumed yet, they shouldn't be produced.

- Allow Targon weapons/ammo to be traded on regular markets on other worlds. Very few players make use of the space stations for trading between each other, and setting up an empire on TA just to produce a few weapons isn't feasible for most players. Allowing a local market on other worlds incentivizes players to come to TA and produce the special stuff since exporting and selling it is just that much easier.

- Prevent mass orders on the world market. This is probably a hot topic depending on who you ask, but attempting to build out a self sufficient and somewhat stable world economy is nearly impossible when players routinely come in and mass dump sometimes 100x the current traded volume of a particular good. Limit world market orders to a % of the traded volume, or some other sane amount. This could be TA specific, its less of an issue on other worlds.

- Common markets keep prices low. This is more of a limitation with the way common markets work rather than with TA, but TA made it very visible in my opinion. When the majority of goods going back and forth are at low and relatively static prices, the economy doesn't really grow, and you're just playing whack-a-mole with whatever shortage comes up next. Use of the world market should be incentivized somehow.


Overall, in my opinion, the difficulty of TA should stem from the non-participation of the C3 countries in the economy. This forces the players to step in make sure things are covered. When is the last time you thought about whether plastics or medical supplies were in ample supply on WG or any other world? Giving the players the normal tools they would have on other worlds but keeping the C3's out of it I think would create a more enjoyable experience while still focusing on the players as the primary driver of the economy. A player will still need to produce the soybeans, but it should be easier to sell those goods once they are produced.


I have a lot of other jumbled thoughts around in my head ill try to add them here if I think of them. I really want TA to be fun, and I enjoyed a lot of it, but after a while, it just started to feel like a second job.

thanks for coming to my ted talk

I think The same, I could make a country profitable with good indexes, but it was exhausting, or I ordered big quantities for 40 months or I had to be day by day looking onto the supplies, but what it really made me close my country was the manipulable market, for example the most needed good was military services it was about a deficit of - 13.000.000.000 and suddenly for one day to another there was a surplus of 13.000.000.000, no way that could be done by the CEO, so, it made bankrupt the 3 corporation I had. And so on with some other goods, I didn`t found that fair, clear, and in real life it could be assumed as corruption, because it made me spend GC to change the output. To avoid shuch a things I just closed my country and if anything like that happens again I will leave my CEO there and maybe the game too.

and as a plus o should I say a minus, We have to pay to run an enterprise or a country the world didn`t work for about 2-3 weeks, there was not any king of support, no game master and no one to talk, and we did not get any refund. This had never happened in any game I had played, when the game doesn`t works you receive something in return, so To pay a game, clarly manipulated, which can go out of service for more than 2 weeks, without receiving anything in retun.... sorry but is nor for me.

We have, already some time ago, made it easier to supply countries on TA with everything they need.
We will very shortly extend the automatic supplies to all corporations to 120 game months, substantially reducing the need for manual interventions.
Other features already automated transports and reduced the amount of clicking to supply countries with products.

Long before that, we have extended the scope of natural resources on TA. There are more natural resources, in much larger quantities and mines on TA deliver much more than on the other worlds. These corporations also have much larger reserves.

This trend will be extended and increasing numbers of natural resources will come from TA.

However, as long as you all, find it more beneficial to only have enterprises on TA, it will encourage us to continue enhancing the countries game on TA, making it more beneficial to also have countries there.

as soon as you improve that, I might have a country again

From what I see, the effort would have to drop, and the complexity and rewards would have to increase substantially to be worthwhile.

This is an example of my CEO selling on TA, taken from "Recent Sales by T3 TA"

Product

When

Quantity

Quality

Price Received

Price at 100Q

What happened?

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Jul 01 2688

1,000

292

738,377 SC$

715,347 SC$

Market Sale executed.

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Jun 01 2688

10,000

292

755,521 SC$

681,430 SC$

Market Sale executed.

Factory Maintenance on Tiny Atlas Market

Apr 01 2688

7,887

208

1.15M SC$

1.96M SC$

Market Sale executed.

Factory Maintenance on Tiny Atlas Market

Apr 01 2688

12,113

208

1.15M SC$

1.96M SC$

Market Sale executed.

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Mar 01 2688

20,557

292

750,329 SC$

1.26M SC$

Market Sale executed.

First row, Price at 100Q is 715,347 SC$, Quality is 292 and Price received is 738,377 SC$.

Either I dont understand how it works, or made mistake or its just wrong/bug.

That doesn't look right. Price Received should be Price@100Q*Q/100.

I just checked my Enterprise purchase log, and that is what is happening. Could you please look into tuco's logs, Andy?

What selling strategy did you use, btw, tuco?

I cant figure out how to post screen shots.

Later I tested with following settings:

Base Price: 157,000 SC$ per unit
Market Price without Quality Effects: 252,770 SC$ per unit

100 units offered at best price
1000 units offered at max price = 505,540
10 units offered at min price = 126,385

with this result:

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Jan 01 2689

100

254

727,243 SC$

1.26M SC$

Market Sale executed.

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Jan 01 2689

1,000

254

736,568 SC$

727,310 SC$

Market Sale executed.

Robotics on Tiny Atlas Market

Jan 01 2689

10

254

746,503 SC$

655,771 SC$

Market Sale executed.

When executing a direct sale, to another player, it looks as I am used to:

Robotics to Berfatre Trading Company

Nov 18 2689

10,000

251

635,792 SC$

252,770 SC$

Direct Sale executed.

Robotics to Berfatre Trading Company

Nov 18 2689

5,000

251

635,792 SC$

252,770 SC$

Direct Sale executed.

Robotics to Berfatre Trading Company

Nov 18 2689

50,000

251

635,792 SC$

252,770 SC$

Direct Sale executed.

Andy, I recognise the efforts made in the past months. Selecting all goods for space transport in a space center, really helped reduce the clickfest in supplying countries. Bringing Potassium and Oil helped round out the market in TA and step it towards some level of self-sustainability. But note the addition of more and bigger natural resources deposits would be extremely impactful in any other world, but in TA we cannot take full advantage of it, as the only profitable corps in TA's environment are Baradium and Metadium.


That said, I want to focus this discussion on TA's role in Simcountry's gameplay. Similar to what you envision, I believe it should be a world that exports natural resources. But not just the exclusive ones, I mean all natural resources. The problem with making this work is quality. There are no quality upgrades in TA, and we can't exactly use trading strategies that involve quality in TA. So, if there is any profit to be made is in buying low in TA and selling high in the other worlds.

Luckily, we can make two simple changes to enhance this role:

1. With everything else equal, double the output of every corp in the mining sector. This should make them largely profitable even in TA. There's no need for more or bigger deposits, just make them extract resources at twice the rate. To be clear, in all other worlds, the extraction rate remains as is.
2. Make all resources available in TA. The reason here is because some natural resources are needed to produce others, like Coal in Silver. And since natural resources are scarce in ALL worlds, it's hard to get some some into TA making the production of Silver in TA difficult. Naturally, I expect all other goods and services to be imported from the other worlds. If you want some in-game lore to add some flavour, you can exclude Wood and Rubber, but everything else should be available.

These two changes alone make TA's role in Simcountry clear, and by themselves will be enough to draw interest in using countries in TA. This because the framework as of now is as such:

1. All worlds have deep natural resource shortages at present, so they will be the sinks/importers.
2. Enterprises have a 100 corp limit for the mining sector.
3. So, there is big money to be made by starting an empire to open more natural resource corps.

Can we please consider my two suggestions on this topic? There are other steps to be taken in the future, but these two are the most obvious and simple. And I see them as a template to differentiate all worlds further in the future.

I should note that unlike creating exclusive resources and a whole new supply web that is dependant on these, and calibrating it, this takes advantage of an already existing structure. There's much less work involved.

Laguna,

Your suggestions are spot on.
I agree.

Currently, there are already more resources available on TA and the production of these corporations is higher and at a lower cost.

I agree with what you say and will make changes:

1. More natural resources will be added to TA. Gradually until all are available.
2.Production in natural resources corporations will increase.
3. We will look at quality upgrades on TA. If this is doable or not, will influence the extent of the increase in production.

There will be a quick start. The next upgrade will include some steps as described here.

A change is also needed in the purchase price of countries. It should be reduced.

TA will be the source of a lot of the natural resources and owning countries there will be very profitable.
There are only 670 countries on TA.

We are running profitable countries on TA.
There are profitable because of the income from the sale of materials on the other worlds.
These countries on TA however, need cash transfers because they pay for the production while the income goes to countries in the other worlds.

Thanks for the reply, Andy. Glad we are aligned.

I'm surprised you are also considering reducing the price of purchasing C3s, but that is good news indeed.

I'm of the opinion we should give up on quality and focus on production/output. I'll try to post something in the coming weeks to better explain this.

We want to reduce the cost of purchasing C3 countries because such purchases will give players a lot of natural resources and excellent profits.

The GC price of a country with many natural resources is quite high.

It will be reduced in the next upgrade.

I'll use this thread to request an update on the About tab for Natural Resources.

This passage needs updating, as it replicates the post used to introduce resources some 6 years ago. Italics are my emphasis.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Full members and countries without a president can build these corporations. Enterprise CEO's cannot.

Free players may have such corporations in their countries but cannot start new ones.

Existing natural resource corporations in enterprises and free countries will disappear in time when the resources are depleted.

New corporations, setup to mine the natural materials, will have enough product to last 40 to 480 years at full production capacity.<!-/Quote-!>

My correction below, please mind the bold.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Only Full members can build these corporations. Free players may have such corporations in their countries but cannot start new ones.

Resource deposits can sustain new corporations from 40 to 1680 years at full production capacity.

Tiny Atlas is a planet rich in natural resources and home to unique minerals that are key to some industries. Deposits are more abundant and larger than in other worlds, and corporations are able to extract these at higher rates.<!-/Quote-!>

On another note, I noticed the size for Baradium deposits is listed in tons, but production is in grams. Is this correct?... I suspect not.

Added information on Enterprises:

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Only Full members can build these corporations. In Enterprises, these are limited to those with 100 corporations or less.

Free players may have such corporations in their countries but cannot start new ones.

Resource deposits can sustain new corporations from 40 to 1680 years at full production capacity.

Tiny Atlas is a planet rich in natural resources and home to unique minerals that are key to some industries. Deposits are more abundant and larger than in other worlds, and corporations are able to extract these at higher rates.<!-/Quote-!>

Can we please have an update on the January 24th and February 24th posts?

Looking at the broader picture, can we expand on the electric corps that need Baradium and Metadium? Right now, just 7 Baradium corps and 9 Metadium corps are enough to supply all of KB and LU's needs.

On another note, can we revise the Targon weapon corporations? These corps are very unprofitable, because they of high supply costs and they are locked to base price. Should it be doubled, the profitability becomes just meh.

Yeah, and I have a buttload of that stuff, to sell.