Power isn't free!

[Guest]

In the game POWER requires no other inputs.
However, in reality, power isn't free.

Power comes from burning something.

I have wondered why it is that when you
build a powerplant you do not have to
specify whether it is
a) coal burning
b) oil burning, or
c) nuclear.

(Since there is no uranium
in the game, maybe nuclear plants
"burn" minerals?)

Obviously coal burning would be the cheapest
to build, with oil next and nuclear most expensive
of all.

Maybe like $150,000 for coal burning, $250,000 for
oil burning and $500,000 for nuclear?

Obviously the production costs per kwh produced would
be different as well. There should be some added efficiency
for the nuclear vs. the coal and oil. Maybe .01 for a
nuclear kwh, .02 for oil and .04 for coal?

I think this adds alot of realism to the game as well as
drawing attention to the environmental considerations
and long term consequences of industrial production.


btw, I LOVE kapilands! Great game!

[Guest]

and what are you going to do with ppl who have alot of powerplants and live from the profits of its? they got to chance everything or what?

[Guest]

I beg to differ on nuclear being the most expensive. *Looks at France and Japan's power system*

If you read this suggestion forum you will notice a large number of suggestions to bring more "reality" to the game. Most of them get turned down to the fact this IS a game and not really reality. (Sence when do I get charged 10% to place an ad for my oranges.)

I do like the idea but, I doubt it will go anywhere due to the major coding required. (What do you do with all the current "plain" power plants?)



Edit: Think of our current power plants as solar and wind plants.

[Guest]

I do like the idea but, I doubt it will go anywhere due to the major coding required. (What do you do with all the current "plain" power plants?)

Edit: Think of our current power plants as solar and wind plants.

I assumed that these suggestions were for future versions or servers. I didn't think anything would have to change about the current setups.

FWIW, I think kapilands is the best economic simulator/game I have ever seen on the web. (Especially that has a free account!) For all I know, it may also beat any stand alone economics "game" for pc too. (I teach economics at a small college and I use examples from kapilands alot.)

A model does not have to be exactly like reality in every particular in order to be a useful model. The 10% transaction costs are steep, but otherwise, it might be difficult to detect the impact of transaction costs
at all in this envroment.

The web of product inter-relationships and the required inputs is extremely well developed and well thoughtout already. However, it seems a shame to omit a glaringly important detail like power requires us to burn fossil fuels, when they do account for minutae like the cloth on car seats and the glass on TV screens.

[Guest]

I run the Kapi company California Solar (server 1) and I would like to say that if there will be any new types of power plants, I would like to see solar among them. I think solar would have to require silicon as a building material, but would not need coal, oil or minerals to produce electricity. I think the solar plants should also get price and production speed bonuses in areas like Africa and the Middle East that get lots of sun.

[Guest]

Ok...You say this:

Power is made from using coal...Coal is made in a factory using power...

This is like the Chicken or Egg question dude...

Really bad suggestion <dont mean to be rude>

[Guest]

Ok...You say this:

Power is made from using coal...Coal is made in a factory using power...

This is like the Chicken or Egg question dude...

Really bad suggestion <dont mean to be rude>

Yes, power comes from coal and coal comes from a mine (not a factory).
Each player starts off with an allotment of power, steel, wood and stone.

I don't see any problem with one player using his allotment to build a power plant and buying coal on the market, any more than one player building a mine and buying power on the market.

You don't have to supply all of your own inputs, that's the whole point of having a market.

If you need a product that comes from nothing, it would unfortunately have to be oil. That's what wildcatting is, you borrow money to drill a well and if it hits, free oil comes shooting out of the ground.

Its not a chicken-and-egg, either/or type problem. Its called interdependence. But that's for your input.

[Guest]

electricity in the mine for the elevator, drills..
i just don't think it would be possible to do this surely not in existing servers

[Guest]

Azer, nuclear plants are rather expensive to build. Compared to coal burning, nuclear energy requires much more precise and expensive technology to be included in the building at construction time (at least, we hope they include it ). The interesting part is that to operate, they are independant from the oil producing countries. And especially these days, it's also cheaper than having to rely on oil barrels.

So I think GSC had a good grip on things when placing a nuclear plant as the most expensive to build, but the cheapest to operate.

-----

The reason power doesn't require anything, is because to be viable as a game, the game requires base materials in its mechanics.

All product chains in the game require either power either water (or both), at their base. Once you have a power plant, you can make power. And once you have power, you can make water.

In real life, the industrial era is started. We'll never stop it and start it fresh to run a newer version. Or open a brand new RL server with no companies whatsoever, yet start directly in the industrial era
In RL, the historical context is such that before people ever had the idea to build the first power plant, coal mines had been around forever, and coal was used to make many things (including directly operate many items which nowadays run on electicity).
But in the game's context, on a freshly started server, if making power requires coal, or oil, or minerals, how would you produce these 3 products though ? You can't produce them without first having lots of power. It bites its tail. Neither can you say "ok, I'm not ready for the modern electric era yet. Let's run those textile factories on steam power for now".

So you have production costs. For the sake of realism, you can always pretend they use the production costs to go to the closest grocery shop and buy a big bag of coal (or oil) =D We had another thread where we similarly decided that the contruction costs definitely covered the bills of invisible lill NPC builders purchasing nails, cement and bolts, and that they weren't just neatly piling your wood, stones and steel without them.

If a product requires an ingredient that NPCs don't provide, then it's not a base material anymore. More importantly, if in the game mechanics, the base materials required something that NPC don't provide, it would be catastrophic. The game would become unplayable.
In real life, the problem doesn't exist. And on an "older" server, it's easy to forget because the landscape looks so much like real life =)

-----

There was a much more viable idea from Elwood along the same vein: Solar plants.
Because they only run in the daytime, they only produce half the power. However, every x power produced, you get an "environement friendly" certificate, worth 1 game point (much like contest certificates).

Possibly having their production bonus be in green, or yellow, like California Solar suggested.

[Guest]

In real life, the industrial era is started. We'll never stop it and start it fresh to run a newer version. Or open a brand new RL server with no companies whatsoever, yet start directly in the industrial era.

i beg to differ on that point but i guess that discussion would be way off topic for this thread.

[Guest]

The reason power doesn't require anything, is because to be viable as a game, the game requires base materials in its mechanics.

There was a much more viable idea from Elwood along the same vein: Solar plants.

Possibly having their production bonus be in green, or yellow, like California Solar suggested.

Thanks for the input. I like the solar idea too.

I guess I am just quibbling, but it seems that if something has to be the free product for the purposes of a game, it should be oil, not power. I see the reason for having power plants in the game, but they give you a power alotment at the start up, just like steel, and stone, and wood. They chose to program it that way. I just feel that with the problems we are facing as a society right now, it is a mistake to tell people that power is unlimited and requires no inputs to produce. Electrical power is a product that is produced just like everything else.

[Guest]

Azer, nuclear plants are rather expensive to build.

Though they do wonders for the soapbox market.

There's nothing inherently bad about the suggestion. But a couple of concerns do arise:

1. There is already the green vs yellow vs red decision, and people get that wrong. If you add 4 types, that's 12 choices just for power. Which leads into my second point.
2. If there exists a choice that is clearly "best," it's not really a choice. Instead it's quite possibly worse, a divide between the knows and the know-nots. To to some extent that's ok, even desireable - as the game should reward skill. But if the choice is an easy and obvious "always build a coal plant in green," then anyone who built, say, solar in red would feel like an idiot. That's not good.
   So everything would need to be balanced somewhat, with curving lines that cross in several places. And without getting into it, balance is already something of an issue.
   (Just to back this up, anyone out there start out making candy or coffee powder before you found out how good gas is? Remember how that felt?)
3. Once the decision is made (even if it's decided wrong), this doesn't really add anything new. It's interesting in the abstract, and maybe that first day (until you come here and some jerk like me lays out the numbers to tell you why 11 of those choices were clearly wrong.) But then the next day forward, it's just the same deal, start the plant and get power. So all that was added for not much real benefit.

Again I don't see anything wrong with it, but I don't see an impetus to go that way either. And hey, if you really want to do that - Red power plants are nuclear, yellow power plants are gas/oil/coal, green plants are wind/solar. Done.

However, it seems a shame to omit a glaringly important detail like power requires us to burn fossil fuels, when they do account for minutae like the cloth on car seats and the glass on TV screens.

I do agree with you, but here again I'm going to defend from a game standpoint. Suppose you need power to make oil, and oil to make power. This is, in fact, realistic - but it's also a vicious circle.

What happens on day 1? Fortunately the NPC does exist. But it's really really expensive. So how do we get power? Well build a power plant, but then you need oil. The npc doesn't sell oil. So you would need to buy NPC power to run an oil well to run your own power plant just to finally provide electricity for what you really wanted to do. (Or add NPC oil, but people already grumble at NPC products.)

Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of circular products. Just not on a basic level where beginners are likely to start. For some people, it's just better to have some simple no-input products.

[Guest]

Do you know that small companies almost always start from selling power? My company (Power Enterprise) lives from 5 power plants. And what if i will have to sell them? How will i earn money? Each other material need other materials to be produced. Making power by using other materials isn't good idea.

Did you think about sun power plants?

[Guest]

i ldont ike the idea, i make all my profits from power plants, i hav 99 powerplats that are all 470 m

[Guest]

if the pwoer plant has like a view like the products but is the producing ways you can choice produce electricy from only money that is solar produce less than other but is the current value, oil, coal, minerals, corn, sugar cane. so you doesnt need change the power plant you have just choice the way you wanna produce, suplying more products produce more power.

the already power plant problem, hun ... could be solar or water one. hidroelectry (sorry for the writing i forgot how to write it).
where you doesnt use nothin than sun and a river lake.
the new ones will produce more power and have a cost to produce power in raw materials.
uranium was discovery at by madam curie with filtering, refinery of coal so nuclear need thousands of coal or minerals or quartz(that will be good for the quartz economic).
no body will loose profit from who already in the game, and will open a chance to roll the economic of raw materials for produce mroe power.