D'oh! Yeah, I meant automated mine.
Thought so.
As for the rest, Thebes' population will grow about 10% a year. That is 500,000 a year. And if the Commonwealth switches to just shipping colonists and automated mines, more population is available for production.
Agreed, the population growth of 10% is significant,
however the most
efficient was is to increase the automation, as increasing population results in a
decreasing efficiency.
That is the point that I have been trying to make.
Consider this example, a planet of 5 million people, with 10 manned mines. Two options:
1) automate the 10 manned mines;
2) ship in 500K population.
For a planetary population of 5 million, it will be split the following ways:
Food (5%) - 250K
Service population (26.6%) - 1330K
Mines (10) - 500K
Free - 2920K
Now, let's have a look at the planetary population breakdown after the mines have been automated:
Food (5%) - 250K
Service population (26.6%) - 1330K
Mines (0) - 0K
Free - 3420K
The increase in free population is 500K.And using the other option:
Food (5%) - 275K
Service population (27.2%) - 1500K
Mines (10) - 500K
Free - 3230K
The increase in free population is 310K.As can be seen, you end up with more free people from automating, then from importing more people. This is due to the fact that the population devoted to the service population increases with the population size......
And if the automated mines are shifted to somewhere with Mercassium, there is endless employment for new freighters and colony ships.
Agreed - but the mines don't have to go far. For example, in Mycenae (the system next to Thebes and between Thebes and Earth), there is 35000 tons of Mercassium at an accessibility of 0.4.
And two jumps away from Thebes (in Piraeus), there is 59000 tons at an accessibility of 1.
And that endless appetite means that more refits will be needed after a while too, requiring, ta da, more shipyards.
Eventually, yes, there will be a need for more shipyards.
But
at the moment nearly 73% of the shipyards are available.
Look at it this way, if you set the upper limit to shipyard usage devoted to overhauls to 50% (the remaining 50% devoted to refits and new construction), this would require another 25000 BP to raise the overhaul requirements to 50% - or about 5 years worth of production (or 14 Atermis II colony ships, PLUS 28 Thermistocles II freighters).
And so any new shipyards are NOT going to be needed for the next 5 years.....
So my thought is, if the mines now on Thebes are sufficient to meet the Gallicite part of construction and refit needs, it is time to shift the priority from increasing Gallicite mining to increasing Mercassium. Doing so, while continuing to ship colonists to Thebes, will allow Thebes to increase its construction factory capacity to the point that it becomes practical for Thebes to build a shipyard.
Agreed - I think that the main point of disagreement between us is the timeframe.
Thebes has something like 30 construction factories? Get it up to 100 and it could build a shipyard in little over three years with Construction Tech 2.
Agreed - which is why I think that the Commonwealth won't need a new shipyard for at least another 5 years - which gives 2 years to ship colonists/mines/factories to Thebes, and then another 3 years for the shipyards to be built (at Thebes).