Toolbox Theory Part 1- Production and Demand (05.02.2026)

Welcome back everyone. There has been a bit break between dev diaries, mainly cause there was nothing to show of value. Let's get started then. 2026 we start with :

AoTD Theory of Toolbox - Economy Overhaul

Name is not random, TNO fans will get that reference. This module will be in kinda more unique situation than most. As on top of overhauling entire economy system of Starsector, it will be "core" module. Basically it will be required for two modules : Vaults of Knowledge and Seats of Power.

The main reason behind it is fact, that a lot of mechanics, especially in VOK, were made as in compromise with vanilla system, as I have believed, that overhauling economy is not possible. Until I was proven wrong.

To that I thank author of LTV-Economy Overhaul - WolframSiegler. Mod alone gave me hopium, that such overhaul is within possibility. After two months of gruesome work in design hell as well as codding hell, I have finally some results to show you today.

Overhaul of Production and Demand into Cargo

Right now, in colonies what only matters is biggest supply unit and biggest demand unit, even if 5 industries demand 5 supplies, demand is still 5, same goes with supply. As well as with whole : 6 supply can support infinite amount of demand, as long as it is lower or equal than 6.

This module will completely flip the script. Now each industry is treated separately, and each contributes to total demand, and total supply of market.

Big numbers

On top of that, some commodities scale exponentially, not linearly. In that case food production as well as demand, together with domestic goods have exponential growth. Which also is going to give weight to some markets, due to their size.

Even bigger numbers

As you can see such change causes also much bigger profitability from exporting, some commodities do have huge market to be filled. For now some values are placeholders, and will probably be adjusted, as development progresses.

Industry Grace Period

Now whenever industry is finished, or upgraded. It will enter first so called : Grace Period time. In this time it does not produce anything, nor it's active. This is done so market can import or fill necessary demand for industry to run.

Grace Period

This is to prevent sudden shortages on market,because of sudden demand increase.

There are going to be also some of number the changes regarding player - faction market interactions. Like selling on black market etc.

• Amount of commodities will be directly tied to combined value of demand,supply and excess.
• If there is deficit on certain market let's say for food, you won't find any food on market, due to shortage
• Excess and Deficit will be reset every 30 days as trade script will be at the end of month. So you have guarantee till the end of month, that deficit you saw will be there.

Surprisingly the biggest amount of work that has been put so far, was to make sure that commodity prices for player stays somewhat similar to vanilla.

This is one of main reasons, why I was not posting dev diary in prev month. Cause what I am gonna show, hey look, this stuff behaves normally.

There is still much more work in this year. This is why probably there might be only one major patch released : This module, together with VOK update. Due to this overhaul, a lot of mechanics in VOK needs total rework. Global Production mechanic, to which a lot of stuff is tied, basically became useless. In that case will mean rework of these things.

• Custom Production
• Black Site Projects
• Megastructures

Next dev diary I will be showing how trade is going to work between colonies, adjusted income values and hopefully new UI to see your faction production data as well as production history. I don't know when next dev diary will be. For the time being we will go with approach : When I have something new to show. Have a good day.