Refineries anyone? Should they be deleted?

Refineries are profitable if you build them at the right well.  However, those locations on the map tend to be rare and so the issue almost never comes up in online multiplayer PvP.  No one even thinks about it and almost all players follow the general rule that you shouldn't waste money on refineries and thus don't build them even where they do make sense.

Refineries need a small buff.

Versus AI players they are usefull indeed, but as Sanchez said, they are practically never built in multiplayer games.

Well, they're both worth the same in MP and SP (and should rarely be built), but efficient use of your money and slots is much more important on ICO, so yeah.

Generally with things like refineries, you have to develop "rules of thumb"...for example,  you could have a general strategy of building only refineries at gravity wells next to 12+ extractors, and in all other cases simply build trade ports...

I don't remember the exact numbers and don't particularly feel like doing the calculations, but for any given trade length, there is a minimum number of nearby extractors needed to justify a refinery...

To return to the original question: I do not think they should be removed. They are a part of the game as much as trade ports and make room for different strategic options during the game. And if you think they are useless, well, it is always your own choice to build them or not.

Indeed. They definitely shouldn't be removed. After all, there are tons of things which are in Sins but are simply too worthless to use.

Don't remove them. But it would be nice if they could be buffed to the point at which their use would be viable, in at least some situations.

Agreed, do not delete refineries. I personally would like to see trade ports reworked a bit as they seem to easily get out of control. Just my opinion though.

I do think trade should be reworked a bit....for one, I'd reduce the per trade node bonus from 7.5% to 2.5%...that alone would help out refineries a bit...

Then, I'd reduce the cost of refineries such that they are more comparable to the cost of a trade port...logically, it would make sense that refineries cost slightly less resources but slightly more credits than a trade port....

Whether refineries would need to be buffed after that point I'm not sure, but I'd start with those two changes...

Nerfing trade a little might also make culture a little more important for the Advent to get early on as well and remain competitive.  I think the races should be able to rely on their strengths for their economy but have the other techs as extra to fill in gaps later.  The TEC should have to get trade up early on because trade is their thing but refineries should be worth it later on (resource focus, I'm looking at you too).  Vasari get trade so late I guess they have to rely on their dual extraction techs?  I don't play them often so I'm not sure.

The viability of refineries depends on a lot of factors.  Your credit:resource income ratio, how many good locations you have to build them, logistics saturation, opportunity cost versus trade in more marginal locations, and lots of other little factors all have a big overall impact on refinery viability.  The big problem is that for small early-game empires most of those factors are decisively in favour of trade, so it's actually rather uncommon for an empire to find itself in a position where refineries are really awesome.

Certainly if you can find a location where you can boost about 15 rocks then it starts getting very attractive to build refineries, but such locations are few and far between.  More often refineries will be placed in moderately good locations with 10-12 rocks, which isn't good enough to merit the investment in most cases. 

I'm generally in agreement that a nerf to trade ports is in order.  They're simply outperforming everything else in the game.  Only homeworlds, high-loyalty asteroids and uncolonizable gravity wells are competitive income sources.  Those investments do not have any repeatability to them, whereas trade ports enable exponential growth upwards to the logistics ceiling, which for any moderately-sized empire can easily surpass 200 credits per second when maxed out.

Vasari start getting neutrals 3 minutes into the game and hold on to them forever. They're fine.

Which ... is simply ridiculous when your resource income is still substantially lower.

I have an idea for that (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/413585)...

Doesn't solve the refinery problem, but it does help to nerf trade...

It is my humble opinion that adjusting logistics is not the propper, or at least primary, way to deal with trade port spams. I believe adjusting the values for trade ports, as well as potentially changing the way they work (so as to make trade ships much more valuable a target), alongside reducing the cost of creating a refinery / making refineries more efficient.

I would like to see a bit more discussion along these lines as opposed to completely restructuring the logistics systems to compensate.

Could a developer from either IronClad or StarDock please comment on this?

If the sole purpose was to nerf trade, then adjusting the return values for trade ports would be the easiest and most direct way to tackle the issue...another complementary change would be to reduce the bonus determined by the length of your longest trade route (currently set at 7.5% per node)...

These changes are easy to implement and would almost certainly be effective in reducing the power of trade...and if that was your only concern, then I agree that messing with logistics would be kind of silly...

So, refineries become more competitive, but only because trade ports are nerfed...I personally would rather see refineries buffed to the level of trade ports, and I most favor a simple cost reduction (which may be all that is needed)...

Changing logistics is not the most direct way to nerf trade...more to the point, those proposed changes really are more targeted at exacerbating diminishing returns (something that is more controversial and probably an entirely different discussion)...changing logistics in that proposed manner reduces the impact of trade relative to your other economic assets, but it doesn't really nerf trade per se...after all, each trade port costs the same and yields the same returns...

I guess it really becomes a discussion of semantics...changing the logistics mechanism would not nerf trade on a per port basis, but economies invariably would depend less on trade (and refineries) and more on tax income and extractors...whether that actually qualifies as a nerf to trade I'm not so sure now, and I probably should have been more careful with my wording earlier...

Here is a series of changes I have worked with that seem to reduce the power and importance of trade:

1) Use the new logistic system suggested above

2) Change the trade length bonus from 7.5% per node to 2.5% per node

3) All ice/volcanic planets now spawn with 3 or 4 extractors instead of 2,3, or 4...

4) Base extraction rate is raised from .46 to .5 (it is important to note that currently the actual base rate is .4, but on normal speed the economic modifier is actually +15%, which raises it to .46...I'm working with a base of .5, but with an economic modifier on normal speed of +0%, so for all intents and purposes extractors go from .46 to .5)

5) Reduce the cost of refineries (the exact credit/metal/crystal has yet to be determined, but let's just assume it is exactly equal to that of a trade port for now)

Change 1 is more for diminishing returns, and equally affects both trade ports and refineries...change 2 is a direct nerf to trade ports (which consequently makes refineries more competitive)...change 3 is mostly to prevent those awful bad luck ice/volcanics with only 2 roids, but it does slightly raise the average number of extractors any given refinery could pull from...change 4 makes extractors more important relative to trade, but it doesn't actually help refineries become more powerful (two different values in the entity files)...change 5 makes both structures have the same capital costs...

In general, changes 1, 3, and 4 make trade and refineries less important relative to extractor income (ie trade and refineries makes up a smaller percentage of your economic output)...change 3 however means that trade is nerfed more than refineries (if only very slightly)...change 2 is a direct nerf to trade ports, and change 5 is a direct buff to refineries...

You could toy around with the actual outputs of trade ports and refineries as well, but so far I haven't done that...

Why should trade be nerfed?  It's a long-term investment that comes at the short-term cost of having fewer ships and combat upgrades.

As the thread title suggests, refineries have become marginalized...there are very few situations where a refinery is preferable to a trade port...

If you want refineries to be more competitive, you either have to nerf trade or buff refineries (or a combination there of)...personally, I'd rather buff refineries but in theory either approach could work if your only concern is to make refineries comparable to trade ports....

I think they just need to buff refineries significantly, such that 6+ rocks in surrounding wells would make them profitable in a reasonable length of time.

As much as I love trade, I hate to say it, but it might need a nerf - but only in very large empires with tons of trade ports already. Trade chain bonuses are fine, but maybe every trade port after the 10th or something should start getting serious diminishing returns. I don't know if the engine could handle a formula for something like that though, maybe the modders have an idea? (like have each trade port generate income equal to T - T(X/(50 + X)) where T is the default income of each trade port (with the trade chain bonus) and X is the number of trade ports total)

For an idea of what this would look like, plug into WolframAlpha:

Plot[2.3 - (2.3 x)/(50 + x), {x, 0, 50}]

Then again, even if it is possible, I'm not sure the devs would want to put something that weird-looking into the game.

This is a problem I've been wrestling with for a while, and I still haven't found an adequate solution that can be obtained purely through modding...changing logistics sort of helps, and GoaFan has suggested another mechanism that could yield similar results...however, in both cases I feel the proposed system simply "raises the threshold", the point where trade just becomes ridiculous...

What you are suggesting is, in concept, probably what would need to happen in order to directly tackle the problem...is 10 the right number to set as the threshold?  I don't know, but in concept I like your idea...

Unfortunately, it can't be accomplished in a mod (which is what I really really want)...Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had some pretty complicated formulas embedded in the game (as have some of the Civilization games) but those are different development teams, so who knows....

For super large empires, bonuses to trade become far more valuable than bonuses to tax income or resource extraction....however, bonuses to allegiance also become very powerful on large maps...so, at least in theory, all 3 factions have some mechanism that is pretty weak for super small empires but gets ridiculously powerful for super large empires...

I am unsure if I like trade being nerfed, mainly due to the fact empires have risen, and fallen due to trade, it should be a strategic option and worth the investment.

For example lets say I get really valuable resource on a planet, Spice for example, the trade bonuses should be rather huge due to its qualities (Think Dune) I can understand a slight nerf to trade ports that have no special resources to trade,(Or on a backwater planet with nothing of value) but over all should be left alone.

Perhaps refineries could do something else, like create a resource from raw materials/make a new resource? For example oil refineries take raw crude oil and refine it so we can use it in our appliances/make plastics with it and so on, we cant just take oil out of the ground and put it in our cars.

And how do you use refineries anyways? I never build them anymore because the help they provide is not noticeable...

I don't think anyone wants trade to be nerfed into oblivion, but it is out of control, especially for larger empires...

Because sins does not have things like "resources", a trade port anywhere is still a trade port...would adding things like "resources" make sins more interesting?  Probably....though how it would be implemented I'm not so sure...

I would point out that refineries are "limited" in that each extractor can only support three refineries...trade ports however have no such limitation, and don't require "favorable locations" that are nearby lots of extractors (something that is entirely the product of chance)....

Generally you want them at planets that are nearby lots of extractors...this includes not only the extractors of the planet the refinery is built at, but the extractors of all nearby gravity wells (so, within one phase jump)....

How many nearby extractors are needed to make a refinery better than a trade port is dependent on the length of your longest trade route (where each node provides a 7.5% bonus to all trade)...it is also worth noting that the extractors of uncolonizable gravity wells provide 33% more resources via refineries than do the extractors of colonizable planets...

But even if you did calculate that threshold, refineries cost a lot more than trade ports and therefore take a lot longer to payoff...so basically, refineries are almost always inferior to trade ports...modded versions of the game can easily change this, most often inadvertently by having a higher density of extractors....

I personally think that trade ports need at the very least a small debuff, and refineries need a serious buff, because refineries are very rarely worth building at the moment.

agreed!

I personally build like 1 per planet

Personal priority order when it comes to building the last 3 items of the tech

1. Trade ports (have as many as you like)(because of desert planets, and tec planet, I usually end up having like 5 on desert planet
2. 1 Research base (civilian or military) (1 per planet until I have like 8 of each)
3. 1 Refinery and / or Culture Center (1 should be more than enough for both)

Building a refinery per planet as a rule of thumb is definitely not an efficient use of your funds...