What's with the hyperinflation?

[Nanako =^.^=]

Im playing as united empire.
At the start of the game, i recall that buying stuff with influence was cheaper than with money. IIRC the influence cost was about 2x the production value, and the monetary cost was 3x the value. I remember that much when i compared them.

So what the hell is this, does anyone want to explain whats going on here?

http://i.imgur.com/CKbSWbK.jpg

I've been working hard all game to raise my income so i could buy things out more easily. But just look at this.
41k dust per turn should be allowing me to easily buy lots of things, and infact i'm apparently close to an economic victory. but i can still barely buy anything. Look at that price.

The ratio of buyout cost to production value is about 1:75 now, thats insane. The prices are rising as fast as i can make money. So whats the point of even making money?


Its not just dust either
http://i.imgur.com/olbNohG.png

I remember not too long ago i took part in a quest to help raise the total research output of the entire galaxy from about 4300 to 8600. I now have more research than the entire galaxy had then, but the costs of techs are going up

I went back to look at some earlygame techs to confirm, their research cost now reads as a few thousand where i could have sworn it was in the low hundreds earlier. if research had been that price the earlygame would have gone nowhere


why is this happening?

[Lack of Stuff]

Dust inflation is a function of all dust produced per turn for all empires, as you get into late game it can get pretty high. You can see the current inflation factor in your economic menu somewhere, don't be surprised if it's like x60 or something.

Tech costs just go up for every tech researched, nothing fancy there.

[Nanako =^.^=]

dust inflation x25 now, welp.

Why does dust even have inflation? Isn't the whole point of it that it has intrinsic value as a near-magical substance? That should make it immune to inflation, or at least highly resistant.

Is there anything i can do to fight inflation?

Does my inflation affect everyone else too, or just me?

[Lack of Stuff]

x25 ain't that bad. There are techs that can reduce the effect of inflation and the inflation itself should apply to everyone. That said if you have been building your empire properly you should be making so much dust and science that it doesn't matter.

The exponential nature of alot of the upgrades means you could easily be pulling in massive quantities of either as well as luxury resources which you can sell on the market for an inflation-free boost.

[Faust]

Inflation is here to stay. It's the mechanic by which snowballing is prevented. Devs might fiddle with the exact % or whatever but it isn't going away.

[Platonov]

That inflation is a way to blocade Lumeris to do money war on poor peon haha.

[Nanako =^.^=]

Originally posted by Faust:

Inflation is here to stay. It's the mechanic by which snowballing is prevented. Devs might fiddle with the exact % or whatever but it isn't going away.

This makes no sense, how does it prevent snowballing? As far as i can tell it does the exact opposite. If its based on total galactic income, then people with low incomes would see their purchasing power vanish into nothing, while larger civs are merely slowed down. Those with a larger share of the total galactic income are more able to deal with it

Saying it helps to stop snowballing is like saying making a race longer helps to prevent people with longer legs from having an advantage

[Spencer]

Inflation keeps things from becoming totally broken and unplayable when things start increasing exponentially. If you could buyout all the possible system improvements you could build or buyout a fleet of 60 ships every turn or research 10 technologies in one turn the late game would be really boring to play.

[Asuzu]

Yeah man, inflation is there to prevent ridiculous snowballing.
All the buildings you have in queue are mid-lategame.
Imagine you can build them all in one turn, where does this get us?

I mean, just around the corner there are topics saying dust is already broken, and Endless AI wins economic victory around turn 80, easy peasy.
You are on turn 136, which is super late, really. You should own more than half galaxy with conquest at least by now.

And even then - you use suboptimal race for dust, if you want to 1-click buyout stuff, look at Lumeris.
UE should buy stuff with Influence, really.

[Faust]

Originally posted by Nanako =^.^=:

Originally posted by Faust:

Inflation is here to stay. It's the mechanic by which snowballing is prevented. Devs might fiddle with the exact % or whatever but it isn't going away.

This makes no sense, how does it prevent snowballing? As far as i can tell it does the exact opposite. If its based on total galactic income, then people with low incomes would see their purchasing power vanish into nothing, while larger civs are merely slowed down. Those with a larger share of the total galactic income are more able to deal with it

Saying it helps to stop snowballing is like saying making a race longer helps to prevent people with longer legs from having an advantage

Did you not play ES1? It was very common to get mid-game absurd dust incomes that allowed you to instabuyout a full system's worth of improvments and several fleets on top. Per turn. Now it's a bit harder.

And of course hyperinflation punishes the poor even more than the wealthy. That's not a problem, this is a 4X game and you are supposed to aim for total galactic domination so falling behind is death in any case.

[Apheirox]

Originally posted by Nanako =^.^=:

Originally posted by Faust:

Inflation is here to stay. It's the mechanic by which snowballing is prevented. Devs might fiddle with the exact % or whatever but it isn't going away.

This makes no sense, how does it prevent snowballing? As far as i can tell it does the exact opposite. If its based on total galactic income, then people with low incomes would see their purchasing power vanish into nothing, while larger civs are merely slowed down. Those with a larger share of the total galactic income are more able to deal with it

Saying it helps to stop snowballing is like saying making a race longer helps to prevent people with longer legs from having an advantage

I'd argue inflation probably hurts those with much money more than those with less money. The wealthier empire is losing relatively more.

The real 'snowball prevention mechanics' is the approval system, specifically: over-colonization limit. That's the one it's difficult to overcome (in some situations, literally impossible).

I think the inflation mechanic is an interesting feature, regardless of whether one feels it makes sense lore-wise or not (I doubt even Amplitude really has any credible idea about what 'Dust' or 'The Endless' really means). If you start having massive inflation issues it may be a signal not to focus on Dust production as much. I believe there are also options for reducing inflation in the game.

[pendantry]

Originally posted by Apheirox:

[...]
(I doubt even Amplitude really has any credible idea about what 'Dust' or 'The Endless' really means).
[...]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2yN_HIxLzI

[gerzald]

What is with my hero leveling up and my home system going from 300 dust to 10000 in one turn? Really?

[Faust]

Originally posted by gerzald:

What is with my hero leveling up and my home system going from 300 dust to 10000 in one turn? Really?

Vodyanoi hero? Normal.

[Premier Kisov]

Originally posted by gerzald:

What is with my hero leveling up and my home system going from 300 dust to 10000 in one turn? Really?

hero,rare resource,lots of resource,trade HQ,or on a major trade route.

[Frogsquadron]

Originally posted by Apheirox:

I think the inflation mechanic is an interesting feature, regardless of whether one feels it makes sense lore-wise or not (I doubt even Amplitude really has any credible idea about what 'Dust' or 'The Endless' really means).

Not sure we've made Dust hyper-inflation make sense lore-wise. It's primarily a game system, similarly to arbitrary fleet cap. Not *all* things make sense lore-wise, as much as it pains us to admit. :p

(The Endless, though? We're locked and loaded on these guys)