"Crashing the economy" - why is this bad?

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

... ensure that you don't go into negative in both resources for rad and metal, they cause delay in production speed if you do

I've seen this "don't crash your economy" advice many times, but don't understand it. Does my overall build rate suffer if metal or rad production goes negative? Meaning, is there a penalty on this? Or are the indicators simply telling me that I'm trying to use more resources than I'm harvesting so production will be slower than "normal"?

I think it's the latter case, meaning it's actually desirable to be negative because then no resources are being wasted. But if so, why all the advice against getting into this condition?

In any case, I can't track and predict things well enough to stay in the positive resource band... I'm always building frantically to fend off the AI.  The only time I have both resources positive is when I'm finally advancing on the enemy Nexus.

36,794 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

What's the context?  Where are you getting that quote from?

I run deficits on both resources all the time and I've never noticed a slowdown unless the 'reserve' of either or both resources hits 0 (which makes obvious sense since there are no resources outside of your income at that point to build with).

I don't think there's a penalty for simply running at a loss and while it wouldn't be a first for Ashes, it'd be a really bizarre and counterintuitive design choice if there was.  That's what the stored resources are supposedly there for.

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Things will build slower if you are in the negative as you aren't feeding the demand fast enough. Perfect efficiency would be the eco remain around the 0 mark. Dropping into negative a bit is certainly better than losing resources forever due to full storage though.

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Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I omitted context because the comment was pretty clear and the same advice appears elsewhere e.g in PC Gamer's tips:

"However, if you constantly spend more than is streaming in, you risk crashing your entire economy. When a crash occurs, your income indicator will flash red ... During this time, your Engineers or Constructors will continue to build with what little resources they have to work with, but the rate of production will be extremely slow."

So I wondered about "crashing the economy" (one or both resource streams negative) actual consequences.  As mentioned, I can't keep things within the green band - I'm usually underproducing, and if a resource does go green I send engineers to start building stuff and use it up!  BUT if there were a penalty for being negative, I'd have to rethink this.

As mentioned, there would be little or no sense to having such a penalty, but I wanted to ask.  I've overlooked or misunderstood quite a few things in Ashes, and so have other people.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I suppose the wording was a little vague in that quoted segment but if it's from a general-audience site like PC Gamer, they're probably speaking as though their audience is new to the genre and knows nothing about managing an economy in an RTS. I'm pretty sure that by 'constantly spending more', the person in question is just talking about going negative until your storage is empty in which case, yes.  You'll build as slowly as your income allows.  Which makes sense. 

Until you're out of stored resources though, I haven't noticed any penalties for outbuilding your income and having been around since the original beta, this is the first time I've seen anyone mention it.  That would just be a really weird penalty to impose.

Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Having a negative resource income will not allow production. Running out of resources will. If you are at 0 stored,while production is running,  and you have Negative income then production will slow. Since you have insufficient resources to meet demand. 

 

So long as you have stored resources production will continue at normal rate. 

 

I hope that makes sense. 

Reply #6 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

This link might be helpful... 

 

https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/478258/page/1/#3641377

 

It DOES make a difference in play. 

You ultimately get the same number of units, but you get some earlier, which can be important.

This means you start to move them earlier, add them to your armies earlier, and wallop the opponent with a just a little more firepower.