Wealth management

Wealth management is the practice of managing the wealth present in a colony to reduce the difficulty of the raids that it encounters.

Effect of wealth

Main article: Raid points

Colony wealth is one of the key determining factors in determining the raid points available to the storyteller, both directly contributing raid points itself, and scaling the points added by each colonist.

"Storyteller Wealth" = (Colony Wealth (items) + Colony Wealth (people and animals) + ( (Colony Wealth (buildings)) * 0.5 )

"Storyteller Wealth" is linearly interpolated on a graph to create a "Wealth Points".

Graph	Points	Storyteller Wealth
	0	0
	0	14,000
	2,400	400,000
	3,600	700,000
	4,200	1,000,000

Graph	Points	Storyteller Wealth
	15	0
	15	10,000
	140	400,000
	200	1,000,000

Analysis

While wealth is clearly a primary driver in the raid point scaling, the effect is often exaggerated and certain causes of wealth blamed unnecessarily. Put simply, it takes a significant amount of wealth to noticeably affect raid sizes and often it is colonist count and the normal scaling causing the actual problem.

That does not mean that wealth management is without merit - it just means that the gains must be considered objectively. E.g. Is a strategy requiring significant micromanagement worth it when it reduces raid size by one scyther?

Empirical testing

Due to rounding and modifiers to raid size based on its type, these numbers may not be entirely accurate.

A colony has 3 colonists and about $105000 wealth. For a scyther-only mechanoid raid, this is worth:

• 3 scythers in Strive to Survive (100% threat)
• 9 scythers in Losing is Fun (220% threat)
• 21 scythers in 500% threat scale

The same colony suddenly gains 1666 beer, worth  20009. For a scyther-only raid, this is worth:

• 4 scythers in Strive to Survive
• 10-11 scythers in Losing is Fun
• 23 scythers in 500% threat scale

A scyther is worth 150 combat points. Human raiders are worth anywhere from 35 to 150 points, depending on their gear level. A generic pirate is worth 90 points. A centipede is worth 400 combat points, or 2.66 scythers. An extra centipede is no joke!

Strategies

Wealth management strategies can be broken down into two general classes:

1. Wealth control, or wealth minimization, where the intent is to control the total wealth accrued by purposefully reducing both the total wealth of the colony and the rate of accrual.
2. Wealth investment, where wealth gain is not retarded in any way but instead steps are taken to ensure that sufficient wealth is reinvested into advancing the colony to keep up with advancing raid points.

As an example, a colony performing no wealth management might mass-produce flake for sale but allow the silver to build up in stores for later use, a wealth controlling colony might avoid making flake for sale at all or limit production, and a wealth investing colony would mass-produce the same amount as the first but prioritize use it to buy items such as doomsday rocket launchers to better deal with the increased raid points.

WHEN CONSIDERING COST SAVINGS RELATE IT TO NUMBER OF SCYTHERS SAVED

Wealth control strategies

Burning corpses and wooden bows, avoiding over production, combine rooms into one to save on the costs required for a given mood buff, and allowing excess items to deteriorate such as furs and leathers which can be rapidly accrued through hunting, or metals (in particular less useful ones such as jade or gold).

Wealth investment strategies

Buy doomsdays, neurotrainers, psylink neurformers, bricks, better weapons, Trade = investment but also = control - trade price improvement means your net wealth is always decreasing when you sell something for silver (unless you're selling buildings potentially) and always decreasing when you buy something with silver. So buying a doomsday for 200 silver mark up makes both reduces your total wealth by 200 but also improves your ability to defend the remaining wealth.

When bonded, persona weapons have no value, both for trade and for the purposes of raid points.

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