Faction.txt Ability Parameter Question

[AlexanderIII]

I've created this faction that uses the INTEREST command in the faction.txt file. I was intending for the faction to have the equivalent of the Caretakers' "energy grid" ability. According to alpha.txt, it says:

; INTEREST = Energy reserves interest.
; Non-zero = constant percentage per turn (including negative)
; Zero = +1/base each turn

I gave them "INTEREST,0," to give them +1 energy/base/turn, but I have not seen any evidence to support this comclusion in my recent test games with this faction. Could it be that I am missing something minor about this? Does anyone understand exactly what the INTEREST parameter does? I could use some help on this guys, thanks.
INTEREST does?

[AlexanderIII]

Jeez, you'd think I'd learn how to tpye by now too...

[Jasonian]

Ugh... INTEREST is really messed up! I gave the Federation a 10% interest bonus, and after about 100 turns, they had over a million credits.

Does that seem right? In facedit, 10% is the LOWEST non-negative number for interest you can give out.

I've not tried INTEREST, 0, but from my experience messing with the INTEREST ability, it's probably messed up.

On another note, has anyone gotten that free commlink ability to work? It never works when I try it out.

[SEE]

Originally posted by Jasonian on 01-08-2000 04:34 PM
Ugh... INTEREST is really messed up! I gave the Federation a 10% interest bonus, and after about 100 turns, they had over a million credits. Does that seem right?

Yep. That's why compound interest has been called "the eighth wonder of the world". 3% compounded each turn will return more credits than loaning the energy to another faction.

Say you have a faction with a 10% interest rate, 100 energy, and the faction isn't earning any energy from anything except the interest. Since the interst compounds each turn, after 100 turns the faction will have better than 400,000 energy. (I don't remember the exact figure...)

[Jasonian]

Wow... so if I give them 2 or 3%, they shouldn't run away TOO much.

Facedit has the option to give a faction 100% INTEREST! That's absurd! Double your money every turn...

[Claus]

It's correct, 2%, maybe 3 is the maximum that I would give to a faction, and only on condition that it has a social malus that makes that group spend more money than the others (so the energy pile won't be higher than about 600 energy).

Good that one of you mentioned that commlink problem. It really does not work. Did the US patch alter that?

[Decx]

In my experince with the intrest command, anything above 25 will screw up the game. Your money will go up so fast and so much that the counter will reset, resulting in no apparent money. The problem is (as if that wasnt enough), the game keeps the old variable (your money amount), even tho it shows up as zero. Your money will begin to go from 0 to rolling over to 0 again in fewer and fewer turns, ultimatly ending up with a permenat "0" energy level.



[This message has been edited by Decx (edited January 09, 2000).]

[SEE]

Originally posted by Jasonian on 01-09-2000 12:58 AM
Wow... so if I give them 2 or 3%, they shouldn't run away TOO much.

I'd treat 1% as equivalent to a +1 Economy bonus, 2% as a +2 Economy bounus, and 3% as a +4 Economy bonus when initially designing a faction.

Note that the difference between human and AI players may be greater when dealing with factions that have interest than normally, since the AI (presumably) had less fine-tuning of its programming in that area than in others.

[AlexanderIII]

--Bump--

[Doug325]

Interest can be one of the most powerful economic factors in the game. Anything higher than 3% can serious unbalance the faction As an illustration your reserves will double at the following rate (assuming interst is your only income source)

1% - 70 turns
2% - 35 turns
3% - 23 turns
4% - 18 turns
5% - 14 turns
10% - 7 turns
15% - 5 turns
20% - 4 turns
25% - 3 turns

As you can see, with the high interest you will have an astonishing sum of money in a short time