IC & BP: buying and rate of return

[KWorld]

In another thread, there were comments about the current systems costs for IC and their rate of return.  I know I've read that it was a problem in Navalism 3, that after a point buying IC would take a very long time to repay themselves.  What's everyone's opinion?

[Walter]

To be honest, I never paid any attention to the rate of return so I have no opinion.

[Darman]

The rate of return on investment for some of the countries when you built an IC eventually moved into the "never" zone.  Where we pretty much knew the sim wouldn't last 50 or 60 or 95+ turns and thats how long it was going to take for your IC to have payed for itself. 

[Logi]

The rate of return, if I recall properly, for a non-developed nation (max IC return) was 32.5 years. Developed nations had a return of 75 years. It was not like it was worse than BP (BP had a market rate of ~$4 by my impression) in return rate, but far less useful.

BP was required for use in far more important things, such as the research cap. IC did not have such utility.

IC was quite pointless in N3 defacto.

[Walter]

Yes. I knew that but never paid any attention to that.

Looking at the N3 figures, an IC produced $1 per half year, so that would mean that it would take 75 half years (*) for it to become profitable. In a non developed region, the production gain was $1.80 per year so there it was after 42 half years (*).

(*) Unless you were building military stuff like a maniac and did not have any military cash left at the end of all the half years.

[KWorld]

So what's folks opinion on this, how fast should IC pay off?

[Walter]

I would not really be able to give a proper figure. The others probably will have an idea what to use.

Darman mentioned static or "increase up to a certain maximum level" in the other thread. I would think that in case of the "increase up to a certain maximum level", you'd probably want to have a range for it as well as the increase of the cost. Simplicity might be the way to go if we were to use a minimum and a maximum cost for the IC. If for example we were to use a range from $40 to $60, a fixed number should be used to bump up the price.

+$1
IC 1 - $40
IC 2 - $41
IC 3 - $42
...
IC 20 - $59
IC 21 - $60

or
+$2
IC 1 - $40
IC 2 - $42
IC 3 - $44
...
IC 10 - $58
IC 11 - $60

or
+$5
IC 1 - $40
IC 2 - $45
IC 3 - $50
IC 4 - $55
IC 5 - $60

[Jefgte]

+$1
IC 1 - $40
IC 2 - $41
IC 3 - $42

This one first.
Rules could be modified if they are too hard or irrealist...


Jef

[Walter]

It is the simplest so it is impossible for a rule that applies that to be hard. :)

Would be nice if the others gave a suggestion. If not, perhaps apply the range I gave in the example ($40-60).

[Guinness]

The rule that got (sometimes willfully) overlooked in N3 was that you had to have enough IC to back your BP. So to a certain extent, after a nation was developed, the IC requirement simply increased the cost and lead time for BP. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing...

Still it annoyed me, so in the various post-N3 rules discussions I was always keen to simplify down to one expression of national industrial capacity which would pretty much be BP.

One idea that might add flavor would be a roll for the actual cost and time to complete of a new BP, possibly after some minimal threshold of investment had been reached.

[Logi]

We should also keep in mind what the return means to overall growth per year.

The annual growth rates for countries with $75 annual revenue and spending 25% of their income on IC (25% is derived from the average investment component of GDP from different countries historically):

N3	Developed: 0.267%	Undeveloped: 0.48%
New ($40 per IC)	Developed: 0.5%	Undeveloped: 0.9%
Historical (1900-2000)	Developed: 1.5%	Undeveloped: 4.8%
Suggested	Developed: 1.25%	Undeveloped: 4.67%

My suggestion:
IC returns $2 with Jef+Walter's suggestion for IC cost escalation.
IC not exceeding Pop limit costs 37.5% of the normal cost to build ($15). The normal POP added revenue exists.

[Logi]

I realized how foolish it is to base my suggestion on a 25% investment historical. That is little bearing on Navalism.

I looked at the N3 sim reports and came to the conclusion that the average total economic investment in Navalism was 45% of the total revenue.

N3	Developed: 0.600%	Undeveloped: 1.080%
New ($40 per IC)	Developed: 1.125%	Undeveloped: 2.025%
Historical (1900-2000)	Developed: 1.5%	Undeveloped: 4.8%
Suggested	Developed: 1.35%	Undeveloped: 4.50%

My modified suggestion:
IC returns $1.2 ($2 with undeveloped pop) with Walter suggestion for IC cost escalation ($40, $41, etc.)
IC not exceeding Pop limit costs 50% less ($20).