Fwurg

[Brend]

These proposal were inspired by Stuiter's post in Brend & Chriz's Technological Emporium.

We have thought about how to represent recycling in FWURG, and most ideas ran into scale issues. If you just look at the factory level, any production facility with too much waste will just be replaced by a more efficient one, so that won't do the trick. After some thinking, we came up with a different approach: instead of explicitly representing recycling, we looked at the effects recycling has.

Based on this, we wish to propose the following technologies, special projects and zone upgrades:

(Boxes are technologies, octagons are special projects, hexagons are zone upgrades.
Solid blue arrows are technology dependencies, dashed yellow are project dependencies.)

Large Scale Recycling Processes

Investigating the waste materials created by planet-wide processes we can make a first attempt at formulating a way to reuse these materials. The first steps will be the deployment of infrastructure for organized waste handling and the introduction of local waste processing plants.

Deeper insight into the processing of industrial and domestic waste material allows the reuse of a fraction of this material. This technology allows the construction of Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure.

Cost: 2000 / 8
Prerequisites: (optionally a Currently unknown customary starting tech)
Prerequisites: Advanced Multi-Field Research Cooperation

Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure

The deployment of regional waste filtering and processing plants will allow the extraction of valuable reusable material from the flow of waste materials. This can only be made economically viable by deploying a large enough network.

By constructing a planet-wide infrastructure for the handling of waste material, a small fraction can be reused. Having a planet-wide system allows zones to be upgraded with small advantages. This project can also be applied to an Outpost. This project allows the construction of a single recycling upgrade per zone on the planet.

This project immediately unlocks the use of the 'Waste Material Post-processing Plant' upgrade.

Cost: 1500

Specialised Industrial Recycling Analysis

Large industrial plants produced enormous amounts of waste material. However, the waste material flow is more or less uniform in distribution of materials. Specialised facilities can be created to take advantage of this fact.

This technology allows the construction of the 'Industrial Recycling Facilities' and 'Raw Material Refining Facilities' recycling upgrades.

Cost: 2000 / 4
Prerequisites: Large Scale Recycling Processes

Waste Material Post-processing Plant

The easiest way to process waste is to burn it. Controlled combustion of waste material allows for small-scale generation of power, and thereby reduces the power demands of the local facilities.

This zone upgrade reduces the required for the zone by -5 . This upgrade can be applied to any zone on a world with Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure.

This is a recycling upgrade, a zone can only have a single recycling upgrade at any time.

Cost: 100 .
Prerequisites:Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure

Industrial Recycling Facilities

By recycling failed products, unusable intermediate goods and excess raw materials the industrial process can be made more efficient.

This zone upgrade increases the production of a second tier zone by +10. This upgrade can be applied to any second tier zone on a world with Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure.

This is a recycling upgrade, a zone can only have a single recycling upgrade at any time.

Cost: 250 .
Prerequisites:Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure

Raw Material Refining Facilities

The deployment of refineries, ore post-processors and improved filtering methods can improve the yield of several raw material processes. Unfortunately, this can only be done on a planet-wide scale for the investment to be economically viable.

This zone increases the focus bonus of a Raw material zone by +15. This upgrade can be applied to any first tier zone on a world with focus and Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure.

This is a recycling upgrade, a zone can only have a single recycling upgrade at any time.

Cost: 400 .
Prerequisites:Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure

Racial Recycling Infrastructure Affinity

Racial affinities have long guided the design of industrial processes to improve productivity and quality. By taking advantage of the natural affinities of different species, an efficient form of waste handling could be developed.

This technology allows the 'Harmonized Industrial Recycling Awareness' special project. Note that this project is an upgrade of the Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure.

Cost: 7000 / 8
Prerequisites: Large Scale Recycling Processes

Harmonized Industrial Recycling Awareness

A structured campaign of awareness and workplace improvements allows an immediate increase in industrial efficiency and productivity.

All of the planet's population segments with more than 2.0 ^(note) counts as 1.0 higher for purposes of calculation racial characteristic bonuses from the six raw material oriented characteristics. This project is an upgrade of the Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure, and can only be constructed if Planet-Wide Waste Handling Infrastructure has been constructed.

Cost: 4000
Cost: 300 per zone

We tried to balance them as best as possible by taking into account that recycling is a last-ditch effort to optimize the planetary industrial processes, as such, the economic benefits of these projects are at least 50% worse than building a normal +100 zone for 2000 . On top of that, these projects are conditional and the best bonus can only be attained by really scraping the bottom (i.e., first getting planetary focus).

Note that we made it possible to apply some of these recycling upgrades to an Outpost, which neatly fits in with the idea of having a more closed-loop environment.

We'd like to know what you think of it!

PS. When replying, please quote the relevant box.

[Stuiter]

Nice birthday gift guys.

For me it is not about the economic value but the moral/roleplay value. I really like it that you can also use it on an outpost. I think is should not be too restrictive. I am no economic expert but I had hoped too have a little bit more effect (now range is within climate effects). Maybe there could also be a tech that specialized in recycling just one certain material.

[Brend]

If you do this for the roleplay value, then the small effects should do fine. You can fluff this up for your world anyway you like, from advanced technology to social reforms and environmental awareness... If you want a powerful economic tool, recycling might not be the right corner of the field to look in.

We tried to find a way to do something with a single material, but anything we came up with was either way too good (such as converting one raw material into another; which very quickly becomes a magical tax-generator) or really very useless (such as recycling a product and recovering one of the two raw materials; which nobody would ever want to spend a zone on).

The thing is: recycling works with small scraps. Most production processes are really very efficient already, since any factory that isn't will just get replaced by the government, or competed out of the market by other companies. So, anything that has to do with recycling will have small effects as well. That's why we settled on a full-world project to initiate the tree with, it indicates that you are dedicating a planet-wide effort to more efficient recyling.

[Fedor]

I think that on the ladder of power, this is about in the right place, being a bit worse than constructing actual zones on crappy planets.

In response to Stuiter, the actual impact of this can still be quite okay, if I were to implement all of these upgrades on my largest planet I could still get a production bonus +20 or +25 on all of the zones, which is much larger than the effects of the climates, which give a maximum of a +15 bonus on a single type of zone. Of course this will take more tax to lay down in total.

[RemcoSwenker]

I'm just gonna put a simple i like this tech here because i think it is cool

[Gerben]

Slick and shiny :P

[Elmer]

Yes, I think this is cool as well :)

[Brend]

With five positive reactions and no objections, I propose to put these technologies and upgrades onto the wiki as soon as the prerequisite tech has been made available! Hopefully this can be the next weekend (2013-12-21)

@Mercury: That's your cue :P

[Mercury]

Looking at the numbers they all seem in a reasonable range, I have only two comments.

1) I might increase the cost of the Waster Material Post-processing Plant upgrade to 125, to put it on par with the other two recycling upgrades (which have similar production ratio's).

2) Harmonized Industrial Recycling Awareness should probably be priced based on the planets size. The benefit on a Small Planet vs a Large Planet is huge. To keep things simple, perhaps we simply add a bit of additional cost for large planets?

Other than this, I say go for it!

[Brend]

I have updated the First technology to require the new Advanced Multi-Field research tech.

1) Agreed.

2) We calculated it for a 19 zones world. Then, we kept it simple, since the bonus is a tad conditional, and getting the most out of a large planet will most likely require some effort in refurbishing or missing profits due to not constructing anything but the most optimal route. I will look into a good solution. There is a chance I might just let it be, as it requires a lot of investment already to get there.

[Mercury]

I may be using this technology on my large planet at some point, hence why I suggest raising the price, but I am okay with any decision taken on this.

[Elmer]

Is there a specific reason the raw material bonus is +15 production bonus, while the second tier product is only +10 bonus?

[Brend]

Yes. It is more difficult to recycle scraps of than it is to recycle .

The idea is that if you a) toss everything in a big furnace you can squeeze som out of it, or b) you recycle broken and used products which allows you to reuse components and such, or c) you create enrichment facilities, improve refineries, etc. to get the utmost out of your raw material plants.

The more homogeneous and bulky the mass is, the easier it is to refine and get profits from recycling. There is a scale problem there, so you are required to have planetary focus if you want the +15. (Note that what you call the +15 production bonus actually says "This zone increases the focus bonus of a Raw material zone by +15.")

[Elmer]

Okay, I understand :)

[Brend]

1) Agreed.

After some more reviewing, I think the 100 cost for the Waste Material Post-processing Plant stands. While it is true that the price per labour would be more equal if we put the price at 125 , the calculations

My calculations were based on the fact that the production bonus could also be acquired by building normal zones. The calculations (for all three recycling zone upgrades) were made as follows:

• Let bonus be the amount of bonus the upgrade gives (+5, +10 or +15)
• Let zones = 37, the number of zones assumed to be upgraded
• Let cost(zone+zonelessness) = 3000 , the price of a zone (2000 ) summed with the assumed price of zonelessness (1000 )
• Let cost(tech) = 500 if bonus equals +5, 1000 otherwise; the price you yourself pay for the technology assuming a mitigation factor of 4 (2000 / 4, or ( 2000 +2000 ) / 4)
• Let cost(project) = 1500 , the project costs you already paid
• Let cost(bonus production) = ( bonus * zones / 100 ) * cost(zone+zonelessness), the costs of all bonus production determined as if we were building the production as zoneless zones
• Let Fp = ( cost(bonus production) - cost(tech) - cost(project) ) / zones, the final price of a single upgrade

Using bonus = +5, +10, +15 we get Fp = 95.95 , 232.43 , 382.43 . Which, rounded to nice values, comes down to 100 , 250 and 400 .

The clue is the fact that the fixed costs (cost(tech) + cost(project)) remain constant while the bonus costs increase. This makes the price per labour higher for higher bonus values. I don't think this is bad, as higher bonusses are more desirable and can therefore be slightly more expensive.

[Mercury]

This seems convincing to me.

[Brend]

2) We calculated it for a 19 zones world. Then, we kept it simple, since the bonus is a tad conditional, and getting the most out of a large planet will most likely require some effort in refurbishing or missing profits due to not constructing anything but the most optimal route. I will look into a good solution. There is a chance I might just let it be, as it requires a lot of investment already to get there.

After recalculating the lot of it, I came to the conclusion that we can not let this be.

Using the above calculation with cost(tech) = 2250 ( ( 2000 + 7000 ) / 4 ) and bonus = +10 we can derive Fp = 198.65. This gives us a minimum cost per zone for a project scaling based on zones.

Given that the Harmonized Industrial Recycling Awareness project offers its bonus to a larger scope, I think that an increased price per zone is justified. After comparison with the 'price per labour' of the other options, I think that a price per zone of 300 is reasonable. This would mean that 'Cost: 4000 ' will become 'Cost: 300 per zone'.


I feel that this change is signifcant enough to warrant a further round of comments and remarks. Unless objections occur, I will put this updated version on the wiki in the weekend of 2013-12-28.

[Mercury]

Works for me!

[Elmer]

Although I don't understand all the details of your calculations, I understand your reasoning. The prices looks good to me.

[Stuiter]

I do not know the calculation but I get the idea.
But there are other tech that influence the planet as a whole and should they also not be recalculated then as to compensate for small or big planets?

[Brend]

@Stuiter: almost all things that affect something per zone are calculated per zone already. The things is that there is a difference between projects and technologies, and that usually the project does the per zone effect ^_^

[Brend]

There is another significant error in the Harmonized Industrial Recycling Awareness :(

It dawned on me that, with the current text, it is possible to get much more than a +10 bonus. Because the project currently boosts all population segments with 2.0 or more!

I have determined two simple fixes:

1. The project only works for the largest population segment.
2. The project must be constructed for a specific species.

Option 2 could also allow multiple projects on different species (though this could be seen as double-stacking, and might be annoying -- then again, you still have to pay 300 per zone).

I prefer the option 2 without allowing multiple projects. I think this offers a good explanation of why that species creates benefit: the project was tailored to their characteristics, and the bonus doesn't suddenly change if second species outgrows the first. It also allows for better follow-up technologies that could allow the execution of a second project, or other niceties.

What do you people think?

[Chriz]

It should only give a 1.0 bonus on population unless you research further for multiple races. I agree that option two is the most reasonable.

[Stuiter]

I am also for option 2. This offers more opportunities when have different races.

[Elmer]

I'm for option 2 as well.