Cost

The credit price of one object of this type, or the multiplier a country or a difficulty applies to every price it pays.

Object price

Specification — Object price

Applies to: AircraftTypeBuildingTypeInfantryTypeUnitType
File: rules.ini
Section: [<ObjectType ID>]
Value: integer
When omitted: 0

The credits charged to produce one object of the type, before the country and difficulty multipliers scale it. Three other figures are derived from it: the base build time, the experience a kill is worth, and the price of one repair step.

Repair works from a reduced figure. A structure that hands something out has that removed first — the price of its FreeUnit, and, on the structure the first entry of PadAircraft docks at, the average price of the first two pad aircraft unless SeparateAircraft=yes. Production adds both back, so the deduction shows up in repair bills alone.

Three sections carry a hard-coded price of 250 after their own value is read: GAFSDF, GAWALL and NAWALL. Assigning anything else in those sections changes nothing.

Country price multiplier

Specification — Country price multiplier

Applies to: HouseType
File: rules.ini
Section: [<ObjectType ID>]
Value: floating point
When omitted: 1.0

Every price a house of this country pays is the object’s own Cost= multiplied by this value, so a figure above 1 pays more. The product is worked out once, when the house is given its difficulty slot, and not per order.

A campaign game drops the country’s contribution, so this value shapes skirmish and multiplayer games only; the difficulty setting’s own multiplier applies in both. Prices and build times are separate axes: this value changes what everything costs without changing how long it takes.

Difficulty price multiplier

Specification — Difficulty price multiplier

Applies to: difficulty settings
File: rules.ini
Section: [<Difficulty ID>]
Value: floating point
When omitted: 1The difficulty block is re-read from fixed defaults whenever its section is present, so a later file that carries the section without this key restores 1 rather than keeping the earlier value.

[Easy], [Normal] and [Difficult] each carry their own multiplier, and a house takes the one for the difficulty slot it is assigned. Every price that house pays is the object’s own Cost= multiplied by this value, so a figure above 1 pays more. It is the balance a factory charges out over its production steps, and the same multiplied price is what a computer house tests its credits against before it commits to anything.

The multiplier changes prices alone. Build time is a separate axis, set by BuildTime= in the same section.

The product is worked out once, when the house is given its slot, alongside the country’s own multiplier outside campaign games. In a campaign game the country’s figure is dropped and this one stands alone.

An object’s price is the figure nearly every credit amount in the game is worked out from: what a factory charges, what a sale refunds, what one step of repair costs, the score a kill adds, the experience it awards, and how much resentment damaging it earns its attacker. Points= governs none of these.

What a structure gives away

A structure that comes with something else has that thing’s price taken out of its own to make a second, lower figure:

a FreeUnit= grant deducts that unit’s own price, and the result is held at 0 rather than allowed to go negative;
the structure named as the first Dock= target of the first PadAircraft= entry deducts half the sum of the first two entries’ prices, unless SeparateAircraft=yes.

Almost nothing uses that lower figure. The price asked for the structure adds both deductions straight back, so what a factory charges, what a sale refunds, and what a kill is worth in score and experience all come to the written number. A refinery written at 2000 that hands over a 1400 harvester is still bought, sold and killed as a 2000 structure.

The lower figure reaches two things. It prices a step of repair, which is the only place a player sees it, so a structure that comes with something else is cheaper to repair than its written price implies. And it is the figure the test for handing over the free unit compares the price paid against, which FreeUnit= covers.

Where the deduction would take the figure below nothing it stops at nothing, and the price then adds back only what was given away — so a structure priced at or under the unit it hands out is worth that unit’s price rather than its own.

What a house pays

The two fractional forms of this key are multipliers rather than prices. A country carries one and a difficulty carries another, both starting at 1, and a house multiplies the price by:

In a skirmish or a multiplayer match, its country’s multiplier and its difficulty’s together.
In a single-player campaign, its difficulty’s alone. The country’s is not consulted at all, so a country priced above or below par plays a campaign at par.

See also — repair, difficulty