Extra colonies

[Rich.h (OP)]

In my current game Earth is starting to become somewhat crowded, nearly 30 billion crowded to be accurate. I have other colonies that have growing populations of 5 billion or less also. However I took the route of designing some new species types to give things some variety and to simply play with that game mechanic. This means that for hot or cold worlds I tend to use one of the two new species, which leaves few places where normal humans reside. Earth is of course making me plenty of wealth and I could simply stock up on some financial centers to watch even more wealth roll in. But is there any other reason to have more colonies in bodies that have little to no mineral value. Would two 10 billion sized colonies generate more wealth than a single 20 billion colony? Also are there any other major benefits of spreading the population out (other than avoiding extinction of course).

[Paul M]

More colonies means more trade good opportunities.  So while 2 10 billion colony worlds likely generate the tax of 1 20 billion colony world they will generate far more income in trade good transfers.

In the case of Earth and single colony there is only trade between them but with two colonies there will be a trade triangle and it is likely there will be more trade opportunities then if there is only a single body as what each colony produces is pretty random.  There is more chances that a colony will produce something earth needs for an import the more colonies there are.  And that means money on both sides of the trade route.

The other reason is that 2x10 billion colonies will grow faster than 1x20 billion colony and will eventually overtake it in combined population.

[Father Tim]

Actually, 2x10 billion pop colonies will not grow faster, as 10 billion is already over the limit for minimum pop growth.  As I recall, 100 million is the point where growth hits minimum.

[83athom]

Actually, 2x10 billion pop colonies will not grow faster, as 10 billion is already over the limit for minimum pop growth.  As I recall, 100 million is the point where growth hits minimum.

*sigh* I guess math isn't your strong point. The growth is in a percentage, and if 100 million is where the percentage is smallest (as in it cannot shrink any lower) that means the larger the colony, the more people you get ie 1% of 100,000,000 is 1,000,000 and 1% of 1,000,000,000 is 100,000,000. And I don't think 100 million is the smallest growth. When my population was at 5 billion the growth was at about 1.2%, whereas now it is at 6 billion the growth is at 1.13% meaning that the growth rate percentage is still going down. 1.2% of 5,000,000,000 is 60,000,000 and 1.13% of 6,000,000,000 is 67,800,000, so this means even with the percentage growth is decreasing the population growth is increasing. So simply do the math of the growth of 2 x 10 billion population over 1 x 20 billion. Oh, and to the original question about major benefits, different colonies will produce different trade goods that will influence supply and demand, thus influencing wealth gain.

[Prince of Space]

For a more succint answer, here is a post Steve made a few years ago:

Colony Growth Rate = 20 / (CurrentPop ^ (1 / 3))

This is capped at 10% before modifications for planetary and sector governors. It is also affected by radiation.

Steve

I think this is still accurate, but I welcome any corrections.

[Jorgen_CAB]

It is pretty clear that spreading out your colonies will make your population grow faster as will wealth and trade. With more population you also gain more workers for factories, labs etc...

I usually try to make all my colonies as self sufficient as possible but specialize them in one or two areas, this seem to work just fine. This way all colonies will have at least some ordinary factories in order to build necessary buildings for the colony while I do have certain factory worlds whose main job is to produce auto mines, terraform installations and other more generic stuff for other worlds. You also need local factories to build starbases, financial centers and underground infrastructure, things you will want to have in most places eventually.

I might also spread it out for role-playing reasons. I presume that local governments do think that autonomy is preferable from being forced to rely on other worlds too much, at least for really large worlds with hundreds of millions of people on them, not to mention billions of people. I do have a hard time seeing a planet with several billions of people not being completely self sufficient to the point of building their own fleets,  academies, labs and such. Such planets most likely become sector capitals.

I also always try to make sure planet populations don't go unemployed, at least I want planets to be between 90-100% employed if I can.

[Haji]

While it is true that more colonies will increase trade opportunities it should be pointed out that it's difficult to saturate all the potential trade between even two colonies of ten billion. In my current game a planet of five billion produces over sixty thousand units of goods per year while freighters move ten, twenty or fifty units at once depending on their size. So if you have two colonies then you'll need hundreds of freighters to saturate just one route (it's oversimplification as there is also the matter of demand, not simply production, but the larger point still stands). To be honest, since you have several colonies of five billion or more, adding more planets will likely not result in more trade income, unless their positioning will make them shorten the trade routes, as the earnings depend only on the amount of cargo moved, not distance, so whether your freighter spent five days or five hundred days moving cargo, you'll get the same amount of money.

The population growth has already been covered. As far as I know there is no point where population growth as a percentage becomes constant, so more colonies will always result in larger population growth.

Other than that there really is no reason to spread out, unless you're role-playing.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm not sure but should not your civilian fleet grow faster with more trade and wealth around?

You also can subsidize the civilian fleet if it is not enough to saturate the trading needs.

Also as you said, demand and supply will matter if you only have two planets both with huge population. They might still demand many of the same goods which obviously reduce the amount you can trade between them.

In general I usually start with relatively low numbers of people in my factions so civilian fleet will grow to quite easily support the trade and increase in population. But if you start the game with no civilian fleet and an Earth with billions of people you might get a civilian fleet that is rather weak.

I also think that it it is unfortunate that planets don't in some way cap population amount based on geography and technology, at least require infrastructure to be built after a certain amount of population. It simply is not realistic to have 30 billion people in one planet when there are other better options available. I mean, you can easily make the Earth moon into a place with 30 billion people which in my view is completely unrealistic. The only way to currently deal with it is through role-play.

From looking at history mankind tend to spread out before cluster up if they can, I believe they would do the same in space if they could. Anything to preserve the species in the long run. New places also give higher chance for personal wealth and exploitations.

I never get campaigns with such huge populations though so it never has been a problem for me.

[MarcAFK]

I would like an option somewhere to limit or stop population growth, even if it was buried in SM mode and only for rp purposes.

[sloanjh]

Actually, 2x10 billion pop colonies will not grow faster, as 10 billion is already over the limit for minimum pop growth.  As I recall, 100 million is the point where growth hits minimum.

*sigh* I guess math isn't your strong point. The growth is in a percentage, and if 100 million is where the percentage is smallest (as in it cannot shrink any lower) that means the larger the colony, the more people you get ie 1% of 100,000,000 is 1,000,000 and 1% of 1,000,000,000 is 100,000,000. And I don't think 100 million is the smallest growth. When my population was at 5 billion the growth was at about 1.2%, whereas now it is at 6 billion the growth is at 1.13% meaning that the growth rate percentage is still going down. 1.2% of 5,000,000,000 is 60,000,000 and 1.13% of 6,000,000,000 is 67,800,000, so this means even with the percentage growth is decreasing the population growth is increasing. So simply do the math of the growth of 2 x 10 billion population over 1 x 20 billion. Oh, and to the original question about major benefits, different colonies will produce different trade goods that will influence supply and demand, thus influencing wealth gain.

I believe what Father Tim was saying is 2*(0.01)*(10^9) = (0.01)*(2*10^9).  My reading statement he was commenting on was "2X10B colonies will grow faster than 1X20B".

John

[Prince of Space]

I believe what Father Tim was saying is 2*(0.01)*(10^9) = (0.01)*(2*10^9).

I feel like I missed something here. That equation is mathematically correct, but how does it reflect actual population growth in game?

Going off of the formula I found, two worlds with populations of 10 billion each will grow at 0.93%, yielding an additional 93 million on each planet over the course of a year. That's 186 between the two of them. One world with 20 billion will grow at 0.74%, yielding an additional 148 million over the course of a year. The two-planet arrangement produces 38 million more people.

All of this discounts governor bonuses and radiation, and it only holds true above populations of 8 million, when the 10% growth rate maximum no longer applies. Also, the growth rate should probably be applied at every five day build cycle, rather than applied to a year's worth of growth at once, but as with everything in Aurora, this isn't rocket science we're doing.

Edit: some significant figures errors

[sloanjh]

I feel like I missed something here. That equation is mathematically correct, but how does it reflect actual population growth in game?

Going off of the formula I found, two worlds with populations of 10 billion each will grow at 0.93%, yielding an additional 93 million on each planet over the course of a year. That's 186 between the two of them. One world with 20 billion will grow at 0.74%, yielding an additional 148 million over the course of a year. The two-planet arrangement produces 38 million more people.

All of this discounts governor bonuses and radiation, and it only holds true above populations of 8 million, when the 10% growth rate maximum no longer applies. Also, the growth rate should probably be applied at every five day build cycle, rather than applied to a year's worth of growth at once, but as with everything in Aurora, this isn't rocket science we're doing.

Edit: some significant figures errors

Father Tim posted before you posted the formula you found.  My vague recollection from many years ago is that the growth rate has a floor - above a certain large population it's constant.  I read his post to mean that he has the same recollection, and that 10 billion is above the threshold that he remembers as being 100 million.  So, if the recollection were correct, splitting the population between two worlds would result in no change of the growth rate.  The equation represents my mathification of his (paraphrased) statement "If the split population is above the size at which the growth floor kicks in, splitting won't change the grow", in rebuttal to a statement that he had gotten his math wrong.

Obviously the formula you found and the experiment you performed disagree with this recollection.  Could mean the recollection is wrong, could mean Steve changed the formula at some point.

EDIT:  Oh wait - just re-read your post.  It's not obvious you performed the experiment in Aurora, as opposed to plugging numbers into the formula.  Someone should probably do the experiment (easy in a clean game) to double-check whether the post you found describes the current behavior.

One other side point - this whole bit of the thread is a bit of a diversion, since in practice you wouldn't actually pick up 10 billion people and ship them to another world.  In practice, you'd move 1 million people from your world of 20 billion to a new colony, where there's no question their growth rate would be higher.  In addition, my gut tells me the main manpower savings lies in the fact that a smaller population can devote a higher percentage of its workforce to manufacturing (service sector percentage is smaller if you look at the population breakdown percentages), so moving that 1 million workers to a low population world results in an immediate gain in worker head-count available for your industry.

John

[Haji]

Also, the growth rate should probably be applied at every five day build cycle, rather than applied to a year's worth of growth at once, but as with everything in Aurora, this isn't rocket science we're doing.

If my memory serves while the population growth is given as a yearly figure, the actual population is calculated on a five day cycle basis. This actually means the population growth is slightly higher than given. Let's say you have population growth of 7.2% and population of ten million. If the calculation was applied once you'd get 720k people. However, if my understanding of population growth is correct, you actually get 0.1% population increase every five days, resulting in 746k new people (10 million x 1.001^72 results in population of 10 746 000).

In addition, my gut tells me the main manpower savings lies in the fact that a smaller population can devote a higher percentage of its workforce to manufacturing (service sector percentage is smaller if you look at the population breakdown percentages), so moving that 1 million workers to a low population world results in an immediate gain in worker head-count available for your industry.

The population breakdown is as follows: first pick gets agriculture and manufacturing, starting with five percent for habitable planets and additional five percent of population for every 1.0 colony cost (so planet with colony cost 3.0 will always dedicate 20% to agriculture). Second pick gets services, with the percentage changing on the current population. It starts relatively low and caps on 75%. The rest goes to manufacturing. As such a well developed planet with no colony cost would have 5% in agriculture, 75% in civilian sector and 20% in manufacturing. As such planets with small populations get much larger government workforce as a percentage.

However, and this is the important part, the population cap where civilian sector reaches 75% is very easy to reach in most scenarios. I don't know exactly where it is but somewhere between 300 million and 500 million people. And once you reach that cap you no longer have a planet with larger available workforce (as a percentage of population that is). So if you have a number of large colonies (into high millions/low billions), like in the example of the original poster, you won't have any gain in workforce size by spreading out.

[Jorgen_CAB]

With some simple experimentation I get that you reach 75% maximum people devoted to service industries at 315m people at a zero cost colony.

I also checked and the population increase have no cap on how much it diminishes. At a trillion people I got an Error but it was still decreasing the increase in population and was down below 0.1% per year.

Having a few high population worlds will obviously still be very useful so you can exploit your best governors, but you still want to have lots of colonies to "farm" population and overall resource growth.

[Bryan Swartz]

I don't even want to think about a trillion people.  Earth is just approaching two billion in my universe.  Because I'm just the kind of uber-nerd to do such things, I calculated at the present growth rate that even if that were to stay constant, I'd reach a trillion there sometime around 380 years from now.  I think I might die of old age before reaching that point.  Most likely I'd have one-week processing times per construction cycle