Missing Shuttles?

I just had around 1500 shuttles go missing. Not sure if it is from over use as I dont watch them that closely. Seems like a lot to go at once. Has anyone else noticed this?

It seems nothing happened to my shuttles, I have around 700.

Shuttles age.
At some point they are retired.

I advise you to keep a steady stream of new shuttles.
not create hundreds in a short period because they will also retire in large numbers.

John Galt, Lord Mndz, Andy

To clarify Andy's statement, shuttles age, even if you aren't using them. Most items in Simcountry can be stockpiled forever, and never get old. Shuttles are the exception. If you buy shuttles now, make sure to use them. Since they will get 'old' over time, and be retired, even if they aren't used.

This is actually realistic, things age over time, even in storage. We just didn't expect it, because everything else in the game is eternal.

Andy told us about the change quite some time ago, but we didn't understand what he meant. He said something like "shuttle aging had stopped, this has now been corrected, shuttles will age". Most players assumed 'aging' meant by using them, not by storing them. That's where the confusion came from.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

Good to know. I must have missed that. I guess I won't be hoarding shuttles anymore haha. I think keeping 200-300 in stock at all times is a reasonable amount.

I am sorry if my previous message was not clear.

Yes, shuttles become older and become obsolete.

You can imagine why.

The real reason is that if we allow them to sit there for ever, the entire industry producing them will die.

I will make sure the updated document, describing shuttles, includes this.

We probably have more such issues in the game.
Ideas are welcome.

We probably should age more products of at least have their quality go down in time.

vegetables?
bread?
many more.

I think food corporations need to be tuned up in general. They could use more low lvl workers and less materials. People could build them until their countries are able to train high tech.

They could also be more profitable than today to compensate the bigger amount of workers needed.

Andy,

If other products are to be added to the aging process...

1). Don't downgrade quality, this would mess with consumption quality indexes, be difficult for players to manage, and simply encourage everyone to buy the lowest possible quality, so it couldn't downgrade.

2). Instead, reduce the size of the stockpile based on a percentage. ie, 100M units, 1% reduction, becomes 99M units. 1,000M units, 1% reduction, becomes 990M units. This keeps the reductions proportional to the size of the stockpiles, without messing with quality. Players with small stocks won't be wiped out, but players with large stockpiles, would still feel the effects.

3). Create a minimum stockpile quantity that is exempt from 'aging', for products the country needs to use each month. So that players don't lose billions because consumer goods disappear before the population uses them. Similarly, Corporations should

I suggest before thinking about extra costs like aging also add new sources of income. Adding more and more costs only hurts.

Thanks for the suggestions.

This is not for tomorrow. we will have to think about it in details before doing anything.

We have no plans that will reduce income.
The balance should be maintained.

I agree with Mndz. There is no point to this feature. It is just another thing to frustrate players.

As I said, it is not on our minds and will not happen any time soon.

The aging of shuttles however, makes sense.

Andy,

Shuttles are already used by Asset Maintenance Corporations, so the Shuttle industry wouldn't die, due to a lack of shuttle aging. On LU alone there are currently 605 Asset Maintenance Corporations. At 100% production they would require 30.25 Cargo Shuttles every game month. That's a fair amount of consistent demand to keep the industry viable.

If anything it is 'SC Maintenance Units' that have the demand problem. They have no consistent demand, aren't used by Maintenance Corps, and have hardly any Corps producing them. I have my automatic settings, set to buy 100 'SC Maintenance Units' at a time, just to provide a small consistent demand for them on LU. Most game months I'm the only one buying them on the planet. I was going to use them in my 200 Shuttles, but now they are gone due to aging.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

Each shuttle launch without maintenance costs 4 missions. With maintenance they cost 2 missions. At peak price, every shuttle mission is around 8 million dollars. Therefore a maintenance unit saves you 16 million, but costs around 20 million so it is actually better not to use them. It would be nice if there was demand for it like Daniel said, but also the price needs to come down for it to be viable for shuttle use.

I also agree with Daniel that shuttle aging is unnecessary given that missions deplete shuttles already. Most active players are constantly running space missions for interworld trade anyway so I think new shuttles will always be needed. I actually buy fewer shuttles now because of aging. I used to hoard them but now I do not see the point after 1500 of my shuttles disappeared from aging and not from use.

Good arguments.
need to look into the cost of maintenance units.
I will.

There are more reasons for shuttle aging.
during the period they were not aging, their numbers went only up.
we had more than 20.000 and this is when the portal server had 2 processors, evaluating shuttles full time.
this included frequent checking of their movements, new positions, updating the space situation, transports etc. x 20.000


Adding a server for these shuttles seemed a bit overdone and even then, numbers had only one way to go.

I am not sure how many we have now but numbers are much smaller.

I will check how fast they age and may tune it.