Colony Wealth

[Damien Hart]

What's a lot, and what's a little? Without knowing what is considered valuable, I can't actually derive any sort of meaning from the wealth counter, and I haven't been able to find anything definitive on the subject.

Does anyone happen to have an idea? Especially in regards to wealth vs time - is my 2 month old colony rich at 20k wealth, or are they poor?

I've been trying to keep the counter down, but I haven't the slightest whether I've succeeded or failed.

[sparda666]

I believe it is the sum of the value of all your structures and everything that you have in your stockpiles. it could involve other factors too but I think that is the main.

[Damien Hart]

I think you misunderstand me. I know what wealth is and how it accumulates, just not what is considered a high/low value range.

Btw, it also includes anything in your home zone, even if it's not in a stockpile.

[UrbanBourbon]

Currently only weapons have their value visible in their info sheet. For all the other items, you'll have to start digging through the game files (the XML files). The A.I. core is worth 4000, so you might want to keep it (them) out of your colonies. As a general rule of thumb, the more metal it takes to build, the more expensive it probably is. I once built the starship reactor just for the mad desire to have it as a power source but later I checked its effect on colony value and it was at least 2000... If you want to know the worth of something, then either check it in the game files or test each construct's effect on the wealth manually, and might I suggest you do it with the removal method - check value, deconstruct, check value again. Leftover guns from fights tend to litter the battlefield, which in turn boost the colony value by thousands. Also all of your silver counts towards the value, so keep silver at minimum. However! Armor and apparel have NO value so you're free to keep your power armor collection. As for walls, it doesn't matter, in my opinion. Walls have different values but in my colonies the difference is always within few thousands. I always go for stone walls, but then again, I never build any truly big-ass colonies...

I did once assign the whole medium size map (275x275 tiles) as home zone and the value skyrocketed to over 300,000. At that point the map was littered with guns and corpses since it was an old game (at least a year old). The following mech raid was.. well.. insane.

[HatesYourFace]

I keep all my most expensive stuff (A.I. Cores/Silver Stockpiles etc...) in what I call the "vault". Build a room and put a storage area in it on critical with all the things you don't want counting against your colonies wealth, let your colonists move said stuff, then remove the storage area/home region from the room. For added effect I like to put a security checkpoint in front of it with a sentry gun but that's just for fun lol! This is an easy way to keep your colony value (And thus your raid sizes) down to a minimum. It can be something of a pain to move things you need like silver but it's more then worth the effort imo. Some people may find this tactic cheesy but I liken it to burying your valuables so thieves won't know you have them.

As far as actual colony worth, it's really all relative since there isn't any way to compare yourself to others atm, you could try making a new thread entitled "How much is your colony worth?" and ask people to post some examples colonies they've built, how long they lasted, and what they were worth. Other than that, I'm afraid only Tynan might know what the average colony value per year is.

I took the liberty of including a screenshot of my latest colony, on year 2 for comparison. I'd say I'm a pretty average player so it can prolly give you a good idea of how your average colony grows in value over time. Hopefully others will join in! (If you look at the graph you can see the drop at the end, that's where I put all my silver and my two A.I. cores into a vault)

[Damien Hart]

-snip-

As far as "The Vault" goes, I'd had exactly the same idea. Great minds and all that lol.

Judging by that screenshot, and going by wealth at the end of each month, I've had roughly same initial progression as you, so I daresay that should be a fairly average (maybe slightly below average) value.

However! Armor and apparel have NO value so you're free to keep your power armor collection.

I wasn't aware of that. Excellent, my plan to set up armor stockpiles by the front lines and have colonists don their armor before a battle, and wear normal clothes in between (to mitigate movement penalties) can go ahead. 

[Dr. Z]

So, to compare, the Graph of my 3-month-old randy random colony. I'm a player who usually build less then the average, not so extended buildings, no smart defense areas or killboxes but relying on human power, so my graph might be lower than the average.