Posted by: swarm_sadist
« on: August 04, 2014, 09:35:09 PM »But that's kinda the point - you have an option to buy all the TN elements depriving the civilian sectors of them. But whether or not any TN minerals end up in civilian hands the money generation (per capita income) is the same. Which means that the civilian sector is not using TN elements.That's a problem with per capita income, and does not mean that civilians aren't using TN resources. Also, buying TN resources is more expensive than simply taxing the civilian extraction. +150 compared to -250 I believe.
Quote
But that was kinda my point. A small recap: The original poster wants to implement the unemployment mechanic. Someone points out that the societies in Aurora are post-scarcity. This is countered by claiming that TN elements make the economy a scarcity based one.Except currently civilian ships just "spawn" without any resources. The civilian sector is not using TN resources because the game does not track civilian TN resources. It doesn't mean that civilians would not have a use for large scale applications of TN resources.
Quote
What I tried to do was to point out that TN elements are being used only in very specific industries, relating mainly to military and space travel. However the larger civilian economy is either not using them (which was the first point, about being able to deprive civilians of TN minerals) or using them in such a small amounts that the scarcity is artificial. And if the elements were being used in "minute (grams to micrograms) weight" then having planets with millions of tonnes of them, coupled with recycling, would remove the scarcity. Ergo, existence of TN elements does not prevent societies in Aurora from being post-scarcity ones.Again, there being no consequences to starving a civilian market of TN resources is because there is no mechanic to simulate this. My suggestion was adding a consequence. Also, rare earth metals are used in minute sizes in EVERYTHING, requiring several thousands of tonnes to be processed and used every year by perhaps only half of the planets current population. Having a material that defies the laws of physics would be sought after in everything.
Quote
But that's the thing - Aurora is already simulating that. Currently all people on a planet are part of one of three industries.20% of the population free for manufacturing is not the same as 20% unemployment. Also, a single "factory" employs millions of people, and that is just the TN factories. There are still factories that are (implied) making trade goods and regular conventional goods.
Agriculture and Environmental - feeds and houses people. The percentage of people employed in this sector increases with colony cost of a planet. For Earth it's five percent. For a planet with colony cost 2.0 it's 15%. The only exception are orbital habitats which have 0% dedicated to this sector.
Services Industries - The self-regulating, self-supplying civilian sector such as banking, household goods manufacturing, transport, entertainment and other services. The percentage of people employed in this sector rises with the population size and caps at 75% (I don't remember at which point).
Manufacturing - People employed by you or not employed at all. This is the least important part of the economy and as such only people who are not employed in the previous two go here. That means it's entirely possible to have a planet with no one working in manufacturing (for example a large planet with colony cost 5.0 would have well over 25% people in agriculture, the rest in services and no one in manufacturing).
Quote
All of the above means that on a well developed, habitable planet you'll have 20% people who are employed by either you or not at all. Which means the larger the population, the more difficult it will be to provide enough buildings/complexes to find them work and more of the new, proposed social structures to appease the poor. Which means that the larger the population, the less viable it will be. Which is why I'm saying that it has to be balanced and why I'm saying that no one is addressing this problem.Well uncapping the service industry or have conventional factories pop up and pump out trade goods would be one suggestion to fix this problem. There is no solution to this problem, because this problem does not exist in the current game, ergo, no reason to have a fix for this problem.
Quote
This also means that non-habitable planets produce less poverty as larger numbers of people are automatically employed in agriculture and services. Which is counter-intuitive as running infrastructure (keeping everyone alive in a hostile environment) should cost money.Good suggestion, have undeveloped colonies cost wealth. Just because it's not in the game, doesn't mean it will never be.
Quote
I don't know about you but I'm running into red in my games quite often, even with relatively large populations (over two and a half billion people). As such I'm in no hurry to add more money sinks.I've found that research is the primary money sink for me, with ship construction and facility construction being far behind. Everything else is basically non-existent. If I run into financial trouble, I just leave a couple of research labs idle until I'm a billion in the green.