Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Suggestions => Topic started by: Jorgen_CAB on March 10, 2015, 07:42:59 AM
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I would like if civilian industry actually consumed some preset number of resources based on the economy wealth factor and size of population. So as you raise your economy wealth your civilian industry consume more resources from your stock. Civilian Mining Complexes could reduce the resources needed in system where you have colonies to some extent.
If there are not enough resources then you should suffer economic penalties and gain some unrest.
This would in my opinion make the economic model in the game a little more interesting. You could add it as an option for those that don't want a more realistic economic model in the game when starting a game in the same way you have with other realism options.
There are probably other things that could be considered such as Commercial ships used by the government costing you some Wealth each year. I don't like the fact these ships are completely free of charge once constructed. A simple deduction of Wealth each five day cycle or month for running these ships would be a simple mechanic and at least not make them free of charge. The cost could be about 1/20 of their production cost in Wealth per year. Or simply add the option of Commercial ships needing maintenance in the same way military ships do but at a lower cost say half the cost of military ships.
Add a small supply cost to ships being maintained in hangars. A small supply cost for just maintaining them, slightly more for reducing the maintenance clock.
Add a wealth cost for running academies and maintaining your officer and crew base, this should not be a trivial number in any event.
Increase the incentive of long term industry and research planning. It has never been very efficient to change priority in either of these in reality. Exactly what would be needed I don't know. But I would like to have a slider mechanics in some way over the current way where you have to pay some efficiency whenever you change focus or priority on a specific world. The more you shift focus the harder the penalty will be before you can regain it after the industry or research has adapted.
It would be nice with a universal trading market of mineral, ship components and other structures where the game can set prices based on availability and demand. Societies that have open trade should be able to trade more or less anything that you can build and move. If this is connected to the efficiency of different industrial focus then trade will be more interesting even between empires.
There are probably allot more ideas that can be shared, so please share them here.
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I would like if civilian industry actually consumed some preset number of resources based on the economy wealth factor and size of population. So as you raise your economy wealth your civilian industry consume more resources from your stock. Civilian Mining Complexes could reduce the resources needed in system where you have colonies to some extent.
That would be interesting, however, I do not thing civilians would want strange/radioactive materials for themselves. The companies might but the average citizen would probably not. And civilian mines are already a thing, if you don't buy the material from them the materials already go to the civilian sector.
There are probably other things that could be considered such as Commercial ships used by the government costing you some Wealth each year. I don't like the fact these ships are completely free of charge once constructed. A simple deduction of Wealth each five day cycle or month for running these ships would be a simple mechanic and at least not make them free of charge. The cost could be about 1/20 of their production cost in Wealth per year. Or simply add the option of Commercial ships needing maintenance in the same way military ships do but at a lower cost say half the cost of military ships.
But commercial ships are designed to not cost anything after being built. That is why everyone isn't using top-of-the-line military gear. Commercial equipment is designed to last more than performance (that's the reason commercial engines start at .5 power). They still cost a bit (fuel requirements) already.
Add a small supply cost to ships being maintained in hangars. A small supply cost for just maintaining them, slightly more for reducing the maintenance clock.
They cost maintenance supplies already.
Add a wealth cost for running academies and maintaining your officer and crew base, this should not be a trivial number in any event.
There already is, its just really small. I have 33 units on Terra with a annual cost of 24.2 wealth. Although I think this only includes actual ground units, you could just RP that the officers are a part of this cost. I like to think that new recruits maintain the facilities themselves as a part of training.
Increase the incentive of long term industry and research planning. It has never been very efficient to change priority in either of these in reality. Exactly what would be needed I don't know. But I would like to have a slider mechanics in some way over the current way where you have to pay some efficiency whenever you change focus or priority on a specific world. The more you shift focus the harder the penalty will be before you can regain it after the industry or research has adapted.
Just RP. Many do that anyway.
It would be nice with a universal trading market of mineral, ship components and other structures where the game can set prices based on availability and demand. Societies that have open trade should be able to trade more or less anything that you can build and move. If this is connected to the efficiency of different industrial focus then trade will be more interesting even between empires.
The reason this shouldn't be a part is that different empires will have different standards of building, thus parts would be incompatible. Plus this is a very exploitable thing. However it is a good idea, it just needs to be refined more.
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That would be interesting, however, I do not thing civilians would want strange/radioactive materials for themselves. The companies might but the average citizen would probably not.
In what era of human history has civilians NOT dreamed about getting hold of high grade military quality equipment & materials?
If it is made by exotic materials with almost magical properties I can't see how this need would be lessened, quite the opposite... ;D
The way I justify/abstract it in my campaigns is that civilians do have/get access to it, and the amount you mine is simply the share for the military/space organization.
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I would like if civilian industry actually consumed some preset number of resources based on the economy wealth factor and size of population.
This is already done. If you set up contracts for civilian shipping to move mines, factories, research labs, etc. the government pays for those services and it is reflected in the economics tab.
What would be interesting would be the ability to place civilian shipping under government control during times of emergency. Of course this should also be charged against the Imperial coffers.
Something else that would be useful, and going along with utilization of civilian shipping, would be the use of colony ship and freighter pairs to transport troops during war emergencies. It makes sense that this is something that would really happen, and happens today. Ship the equipment in the freighters and the personnel in the colony ships. There would have to be rules to make sure the units were not combat ready if just the freighter or colony ship showed up. Maybe make them both be in the same TF.
Adam.
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That would be interesting, however, I do not thing civilians would want strange/radioactive materials for themselves. The companies might but the average citizen would probably not. And civilian mines are already a thing, if you don't buy the material from them the materials already go to the civilian sector.
I'm pretty sure Newtonian materials is used in consumer products or in the production lines themselves just as military equipment. Commercial ships are a pretty strong indication in how Newtonian materials are used in everything after the invention of Newtonian technology. So it stands to reason that civilian industry would consume some Newtonian materials alongside the government.
But commercial ships are designed to not cost anything after being built. That is why everyone isn't using top-of-the-line military gear. Commercial equipment is designed to last more than performance (that's the reason commercial engines start at .5 power). They still cost a bit (fuel requirements) already.
That is why I only said we should pay a small Wealth fee for servicing them. This would represent wages and minor maintenance that needs to be done on these ships, simple solution which don't require the ships to care about a maintenance clock... anything that is free is by definition not realistic. Fuel is also not the issue here.
They cost maintenance supplies already.
Yes, the Hangars themselves cost maintenance, not the stuff inside the hangar. Ground based hangars are also maintenance free as well. Hangars is also quite cheap while most stuff inside a hangar can be many times more expensive and complex. Adding a small MSP drain for keeping stuff inside a Hangar would be a small and simple solution.
This is already done. If you set up contracts for civilian shipping to move mines, factories, research labs, etc. the government pays for those services and it is reflected in the economics tab.
Not exactly the same thing. Using Civilian companies to transport equipment and facilities has nothing directly to do with civilian manufacturing at all. I was talking about Civilian Manufacturing consuming Newtonian Natural resources... where else are they going to get them from?
Civilian Mining Complexes can provide some of it but not nearly enough. You rarely have that many Civilian Mining Complexes in an empire.
What would be interesting would be the ability to place civilian shipping under government control during times of emergency. Of course this should also be charged against the Imperial coffers.
Interesting idea...
Something else that would be useful, and going along with utilization of civilian shipping, would be the use of colony ship and freighter pairs to transport troops during war emergencies. It makes sense that this is something that would really happen, and happens today. Ship the equipment in the freighters and the personnel in the colony ships. There would have to be rules to make sure the units were not combat ready if just the freighter or colony ship showed up. Maybe make them both be in the same TF.
Might be hard to implement but the idea is sound. I view transport ship more as specialized ship more equivalent to Amphibious ships today. I don't think that colony ships is really in much need since military units have such low count of personnel. Freighters could probably be able to be converted into crude troop transport ships, say 50% reduction in carrying capacity and some penalties to combat ability for a while after being deployed.
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Not exactly the same thing. Using Civilian companies to transport equipment and facilities has nothing directly to do with civilian manufacturing at all. I was talking about Civilian Manufacturing consuming Newtonian Natural resources... where else are they going to get them from?
Civilian Mining Complexes can provide some of it but not nearly enough. You rarely have that many Civilian Mining Complexes in an empire.
Ah... I see the confusion. I quoted the wrong part of the post... If you match this:
There are probably other things that could be considered such as Commercial ships used by the government costing you some Wealth each year.
with this:
This is already done. If you set up contracts for civilian shipping to move mines, factories, research labs, etc. the government pays for those services and it is reflected in the economics tab.
it makes more sense :)
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Are we forgetting that a significant part of your population is tied up in commercial activities? We coukd also assume that this also includes privately owned mining and manufacturing, while civilian companies doing this would add to the games complexity I'm not sure it would have much benefit.
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The cost of maintaining your military personnel should be added. People in militaries cost a lot of money in reality. It is why through most of human history professional militaries have also been small. It is also worth noting that a Lt. Cmdr is the equivelent of a captain in the army so they aren't recruits but seasoned officers. The academy is more of a "command school" then it is a military academy like Royal Roads or Annapolis.
The price of civillian fuel should be significantly increased, it is extremely valuable and at the moment it is essentially free (the cost is so small as to be negligable).
The NCC is currently spending ~50% of its income on civillian mines, so it does add up. But realistically you simply cannot afford to not do it. Each CMC is 10 automated mines which is 1200 duranium and 1200 corundium and 2400 wealth; that is a massive investment and more so when you include the construction factory capacity cost. I'm not really sure divirting TN minerals to the civillian economy in some form of tax would be a great idea, game wise. Logically they should be used by both government and civillian industry but due to the limited nature of them I must admit I don't like the idea. It is hard to balance your needs and resources now.
Fundamentally if the drain to the civillian side is big enough to notice then likely there would be complaints, if it is small enough to not notice then why have it?
You can always consider that the reserves found are those that are allocated to the government (80%) and that a fraction (20%) is divirted to the civillian side automatically. I've always had issues with games that include explicit mineral use that they rarely model it sensibly. In reality governments purchase the minerals from someone (heck they don't even do that they buy the products made from them), they don't as a rule own the mines themselves unless you are a totalitarian/communist regime. Aurora's economy is fragile and frankly the civillian mines are a necessary patch to keep it working. Because once the mineral crisis strikes in the game your only way out is via buying the minerals from the civillians, because the mines that are extracting the resources don't come out of the pool of resources. It is nearly impossible to build yourself out of a mineral shortage.
I would also add in something that reduces your surplus wealth. Basically governments can't run positive balances. Either the money is siphoned off into someone bank account or else it is used up providing government services but there should be a hard limit of no more than a years worth of income as a rainy day surplus allowed, if your current wealth exceeds that then it is reduced. Otherwise when doing conventional starts you quickly build up a huge nest egg. If your expense exceeds your income then that should be an economic modifier, representing forced cut backs and loans and their repayments.
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Ah... I see the confusion. I quoted the wrong part of the post... If you match this:
with this:
it makes more sense :)
You are referring to civilian ships not Commercial rated ships run by the government... ;)
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The cost of maintaining your military personnel should be added. People in militaries cost a lot of money in reality. It is why through most of human history professional militaries have also been small. It is also worth noting that a Lt. Cmdr is the equivelent of a captain in the army so they aren't recruits but seasoned officers. The academy is more of a "command school" then it is a military academy like Royal Roads or Annapolis.
The price of civillian fuel should be significantly increased, it is extremely valuable and at the moment it is essentially free (the cost is so small as to be negligable).
The NCC is currently spending ~50% of its income on civillian mines, so it does add up. But realistically you simply cannot afford to not do it. Each CMC is 10 automated mines which is 1200 duranium and 1200 corundium and 2400 wealth; that is a massive investment and more so when you include the construction factory capacity cost. I'm not really sure divirting TN minerals to the civillian economy in some form of tax would be a great idea, game wise. Logically they should be used by both government and civillian industry but due to the limited nature of them I must admit I don't like the idea. It is hard to balance your needs and resources now.
Fundamentally if the drain to the civillian side is big enough to notice then likely there would be complaints, if it is small enough to not notice then why have it?
You can always consider that the reserves found are those that are allocated to the government (80%) and that a fraction (20%) is divirted to the civillian side automatically. I've always had issues with games that include explicit mineral use that they rarely model it sensibly. In reality governments purchase the minerals from someone (heck they don't even do that they buy the products made from them), they don't as a rule own the mines themselves unless you are a totalitarian/communist regime. Aurora's economy is fragile and frankly the civillian mines are a necessary patch to keep it working. Because once the mineral crisis strikes in the game your only way out is via buying the minerals from the civillians, because the mines that are extracting the resources don't come out of the pool of resources. It is nearly impossible to build yourself out of a mineral shortage.
I would also add in something that reduces your surplus wealth. Basically governments can't run positive balances. Either the money is siphoned off into someone bank account or else it is used up providing government services but there should be a hard limit of no more than a years worth of income as a rainy day surplus allowed, if your current wealth exceeds that then it is reduced. Otherwise when doing conventional starts you quickly build up a huge nest egg. If your expense exceeds your income then that should be an economic modifier, representing forced cut backs and loans and their repayments.
Some very good points... my idea was that if you don't expand the mining infrastructure both government and civilian should start to suffer. There are very few ways that the civilian part of the economy actually can suffer aside from polluting a planet or not having enough troops or ships.
I also think it should be an option like if you want to use maintenance. Those that want a more advanced civilian economy could enable that option, those that don't want to deal with it does not have to.
I certainly agree with storing Wealth. I assume wealth is an intangible commodity such as energy and services and not just money. You should have an erosion of stored wealth each year... say 10%. That is what I do in my games. So eventually a large stored wealth will erode once an economy stabilizes around zero. It could also be nice if wealth could be used to speed up certain projects, be them construction or research... that way you would not store so much and can use it.
Terraforming should also cost quite allot of wealth in addition to building the facilities and/or ships.
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I care about this a great deal because I have a great interest in political science. My aurora universe is mostly about the politics, not the warships: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,200.0.html
Here are some considerations for any given aurora universe:
- The civilian market obviously consumes transnewtonians, because their ships must be made out of TN materials. Also, they tend to grow at a much faster rate than my military, which is where about 90% of the drama in my own internal storyline comes from. My own personal workaround for this is that civilian shipping gets almost all its minerals and fuel from my alien allies, who are lucrative trade partners. Most universes are probably okay imagining that imaginary civilian mines grow up in tandem with military ones, but this doesn't work in my own universe, where transnewtonian elements are scarce and the military is relatively week compared to titanic corporations on the planetary surface that own all the mines and stuff. Another possibility is that civilian ships DON'T need TNs for the shortages you tend to worry about. I kinda doubt anyone has ever experienced, say, a boronide crunch or whatever. In my experience duranium and sorium, followed by vendarite, are my biggest concerns. Maybe civilians can build their starships out of iron or whatever and don't need duranium...they take a little sorium, and you can abstract the missing supplies of all other transnewtonians.
- Excepting shipping, it's not implausible to assume that "Most" transnewtonians would be in military hands. I can imagine my citizens carrying corundium-lined transistor radios around or whatever, but I bet if you took the corundium out of each one and piled it together, you'd only get a few tons.
Basically governments can't run positive balances.
Yeah this one has always bothered me, but I imagine around it in aurora. To be more exact I'd say large institutions never run positive balances because it's dumb and in daily life we almost never dispute this. Were I to win the lottery, you'd probably think me a fool if I hid it under a mattress or even put it in a bank. A clever man would invest the money in something fun or that improves his life (infrastructure), invest it so as to reliably generate more money over a long time period (infrastructure again) or give it away to help people (tax cuts, social welfare). A government or big corporation running a positive balance will almost always invest in infrastructure (or advertising or laser cutters or research or whatever) or diversify an existing portfolio...or raise salaries/cut taxes/give their investors more money.
But I usually envision "wealth" not as an actual dollars and cents value, which doesn't frankly make a lot of sense in a post-scarcity economy like most auroran economies implicitly are (for civilians anyway, and that's not necessarily true in many campaigns like mine for example). Instead I visualize it as a measure of Capital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_%28economics%29) and rents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent). Rather than get into the weeds about what exactly that means here's a system:
- civilian people who aren't you want things very much. You don't want these things.
- Shipping lines help people get things
- Orders and events from military people who are you can make shipping lines not do this ("deliver a mine to here" or "got shot by a missile")
- "Wealth" in aurora abstractly measures how effortlessly people can get things. A relatively high wealth means people can easily get things. A relatively low wealth means they can't.
- Orders from people who are you decrease wealth, because they occupy a shipping line's time that would otherwise be invested in helping people who aren't you
- when wealth drops below zero, the work involved in people getting things they want is so high that shipping lines would rather help the people that aren't you (for $$$?) than do what you say.
Conveniently this works regardless of whatever your economic system is in aurora.
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some of this is addressed here, also occasionally by me: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7373.0.html
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It is probably worth pointing out that when you talk about building things with TN materials they don't make up the totality of the object. My civillian engines take 25 units (tonnes) of Gallicite, and are 25 HS (7500 m3/7500 tonne) objects, and at the same time my 5 HS (250 m3/250 tonne) military engines take the same amount of gallicite. Clearly there is a lot of more standard material in the engine then TN. The same is true for any other infrastructure system or component or installation.
The TN materials are used as part of alloys, for specific tasks, or in specific components. The use of duranium...assuming it like every other -ium in the known universe is a metal...is the same as the current use of titanium by civilians. My bike has a titanium alloy frame. Admittedly most of the titanium in the world is probably used for military construction but apparently sufficient exists that bike frames are now made of it. The fact is that once you have something like a room temperature superconductor (assume for the sake of argument that is what galicite is) then first you get that used in big government projects (mag lev rail lines) but sooner or later someone makes a toaster using it. Transisitors were all but unknown devices till NASA went to the moon, and a spin off of that was transistor radios in every car.
I'm not an economist but I have played a fair number of games where you try and do this sort of thing and I've never found one where I got the real life feel from it. My claim to fame is that I managed to destroy the german economy in Victoria, and the US economy in the Victoria 2 demo. Except by doing what were clearly absurd gamey exploits it was hard to figure out how to do things in that game. As Aurora is a management game (as all "strategy" games are) the usual way is to leave the economy as something to explicitly manage while in reality governments haven't got the control most games give the player.
It is just not at all clear to me (and there is no reason it should be as I'm not a theoretical economist) how to produce a game system that more closely approximates a real world government economic model. If you look at EVE online you see that making a game economy work is very complex. Most MMOs fail baddly with any attempt they make at this task. Single player games have the advantage of a defined total wealth and do better, but anything open ended/open world tend to do death spirals at some point.
Starfire where I have considerable experience is simply compound interest scaling. Every investment you make puts more money in your pocket the next turn. The result is that the only brake to the economy is military maintenance, and under a standard game even that fails to stop the economy at somepoint since money becomes so plentiful that you can't spend it fast enough. Starslayer and I had to take draconian steps to bring the economy down to the level where you keep the game in check. Aurora's economy on the other hand is driven by scarcity, basically you have to keep finding the minerals you need to feed your growth. But since the objects you need to expand your production come from your resource pool at some stage you get locked into a death spiral that only a CMC can free you from as those mines are free (in terms of resources). You don't have to pay them back in some way. The NC has over 80 CMCs (800+ automatic mines) working compared to 135 automatic mines that are government owned. But thos 135 automatic mines represent 12 years of production from the Corundium mines on Calisto, and the 100 regular mines there is 5 years of internal production.
I feel like a locust swarm at times.
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. Aurora's economy on the other hand is driven by scarcity, basically you have to keep finding the minerals you need to feed your growth. But since the objects you need to expand your production come from your resource pool at some stage you get locked into a death spiral that only a CMC can free you from as those mines are free (in terms of resources). You don't have to pay them back in some way. The NC has over 80 CMCs (800+ automatic mines) working compared to 135 automatic mines that are government owned. But thos 135 automatic mines represent 12 years of production from the Corundium mines on Calisto, and the 100 regular mines there is 5 years of internal production.
I feel like a locust swarm at times.
....which is funny because the setting Aurora generally invokes is actually one that's typically post scarcity. As I've observed on other threads (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7373.0.html), a state that can alter whole planetary atmospheres and hurl hundred-thousand-ton spacecraft along at 10,000 kps is not easy to describe using "normal" economic models. It's unclear how things like "debt" and "taxes" would work in such a society.
In general, I like how the game has kept the system abstract, which is something I've always tried to remind the forum in general when proposals that are social-science specific are mentioned, even my own: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7348.0.html
All proposed changes to Aurora should remember that some players play "nation X in space" campaigns, others play "star trek ripoff #588" campaigns and still others do something really unique like "zen nomads in space" or "evil kthork brainmunching empire" or my own "unsteady peace preserved by a military protectorate" scenario. All require vastly different economic models, which is sorta why I like that steve kept things vague.
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I think that is why it would be nice with an "option" to use an advanced economic model or not in the same spirit that you can choose to use realistic Maintenance of military ship or politically inclined officers taking charge over more competent ones.
Both the civilian economy and trading system could need a small enhancement.
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Well I'm not sure why you expect some utopia. Even if we manage to get through the technical hurdles that remain and fusion power becomes commercial why do you imagine the price of electricity will drop to 0? The fusion reactor costs money, the operation of it costs money, etc. It is unlikely that a banana republic will be getting one soon so there will be no free power to everyone....just like now there is no push to give every village in africa its own wind turbine (personally I think that is a better use of wind turbines then what I see when I look out the train window) or water source.
The fact that in aurora you can move 10,000 tonne ships, jump to other stars and reprogram your genetic code doesn't mean that a communist (not a marxist-leninsit type) situation exists where everyones needs are looked after, any more than our progress since the 1800's has resulted in the betterment of more than small fraction of the populations lives. My feeling based on my military leadership training is that communism won't work since it seems to be based on the absrud assumption that leaders will not form.
I don't expect a disatopia but "Star Trek" I doubt ever will form...Gene Roddenberry had some rather odd ideas. Though I must admit I had a lot of fun with the Klingon suplement for Star Trek The Role Playing Game (by FASA)...the Klingon's view of the Federation was priceless. It was the "Earth Empire." What I saw on the second abomination was just too much to take. But then replicators in the orginal series were far from the things you saw there...and they apparently didn't realize they had the font of youth (save the transporter buffer). But my mind boggles on any economic system that could provide for the wants of everyone. The needs yes, the wants no. And largely it is the wants that drive our economy.
Auroras races eat themselves out of house and home, constantly searching for new minerals to feed their need for them. The NCC has 3 minearls on the watch list now: Venderite, Boronide, and Gallicite. All three are low though the Gallicite production is now so ramped up that the stock pile grows. Boronide being low has meant no new terraformers, or refiners in the last several years. Vernerite has been historically low but the demand is low so the production-use has been balanced. But it is a constant balancing act to keep minerals flowing in, not in Sol production is also ramping up (slowly admittely) yet the minerals flowing in from Alpha C are a good part of the total production now...Biforst sent in load of 5x1000 units of various minerals and the posibility of inter colony trade is there now between Arboria and Forge. Still the source of all of this is the CMC. Just like the growth of the colonies in Sol was due to the civillian freighters moving people and goods. When the NCC finds out jump gates are possible I forsee at least a few being built to open up Alpha C to the civillian trade...it has industries producing goods in high demand in Sol.
Ultimately taxes will remain taxes. Governments need money to work, that is something that has been true since governments were formed and I don't see how that can change. Even discussions about the new energy market, more or less can't avoid the fact that "someone" has to pay for the new power distribution system. And power companies barely want to invest in the current system (understandably so)...not to mention the other costs associated with renewable energies. Then there is the social net...the cost of that is a major part of government spending. I don't see that going away. And someone has to maintain all the infrastructure, plus regulate it (remember Adam Smith said more than "let the market alone" he also said "but watch the people who play in it"). All this costs money.
Inevitably I think in Aurora you will end up with the weathy wandering around in smart suits, eating off duranium plates, being chaufered around in grav cars while the masses live somewhat less splenditly. But probably much better off than we are now. The crimson world books may be of interest to people as they deal with the disporia situation...unfortunately with a Earth government that sets my teeth on edge. I am starting to despise the whole "government is evil" schlock. In the case of the crimson worlds I am finding it hard to believe the intellegence service can wield so much power--but that is a matter of taste.
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I could not agree more... I also understand why there is such fear of Federal state control in the US and conspiracy theories keep overshadowing each other at every turn. In Europe there are much less of that even if the EU to some extent invoke similar feelings in some countries. Luckily I live in a country where people in general feel their government is part of society and not someone to compete against... ;)
When it comes to the state you just need to reduce corruption and increase transparency and eventually people will come to rely and think positive on it, it is after all run by people who are as dependent on it as anyone else in society.
Aurora are definitely about managing resources and scarcity is part of it. If you are running huge surpluses of resources you have just mismanaged your economy and not taken advantage of the opportunity. For me it is rare not to have problems someplace in some way.
Expanding some on the civilian as well as governmental side of economics could be a good thing even if it increase micromanagement to some extent, just make some of it an option to use.
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I should point out that I believe the overall the standard of living of a large fraction of the plantary population has increased since 1800, but there is still a non-tiny fraction of the population that lives below the poverty line.
I would be rather skeptical of defining a priori Aurora as a post-scarcity economy. My feeling is that there will be the standard spectrum of obscenely wealth to wretchedly poor. If you are talking Firefly or Babylon 5 I think is up to the player.
I also agree that more economic details should be optional if that is possible. The problem is that sometimes it isn't possible (for programming reasons) to make them so. I'm also not really sure how to go about changing things in a way that doesn't make an already fragile economic balancing act tip into an unmanagable mess.
One idea might be to allow the player to subsidize the formation of CMC on specific locations. A calculation would then be made and compared to a random roll and you get "we will set up" or "we will not set up." If not set up then the player could increase the subsidy and another check would be made. Or maybe make mining companies more like freighter companies in that there is specific existing companies with money to invest and they are modeled more like the shipping firms. The player could then invest in companies the way you can invest in shipping firms.
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when it comes to Wealth I would like if we could never store it. Instead you set a level at each planet what they will keep and how much go towards the imperial or inter galactic state treasury.
Wealth that is dedicated to the planet that is positive will have a positive effect on population growth, industrial production and trade.
Wealth on the positive side in state coffers could increase efficiency of research, academy recruits and other more centralized functions.
Deficits on a planet would turn into negative effects.
Obviously Wealth would need to tie into civilian economy and unemployed people should become a liability. This would not need too much micromanagement and you could eventually tie the whole mineral system into all facets of the economy and not just into the state economy.
There should also be more ways to subsidize specific areas.
Planets that don't get enough ships to trade their goods should do something about it or at least it should effect them negatively and ultimately increase political unrest. This means there is a price to pay for a government that highjack the civilian fleet with governmental contracts if there is not enough ships to manage civilian trade, other than the price for the contract.
This way you would need think about the imperial as well as planetary economy... part of it should be optional for people that don't like to bother about economics and mainly focusing on building ships.
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I like the suggestions on using wealth as modifier.
Just to point out that the real benifit that I saw from +20% wealth increase technology was not in wealth production but in the fact that infrastructure and trade goods increased by 20% as well. That had a more substantial impact then the increase in wealth that isn't really being used. The increase in infrastructure is a significant boost to Sol colonization, but the increase in trade good production is a very noticable income increase for the civillian lines (good or bad that).
At the moment the only real value to wealth is that it facilitates the formation of CMCs, assuming you can afford your empire (at least for me that seems to be easily managable). Having freighters, and the like cost wealth rather than require maintenance makes sense to me. Increasing the cost to use the civillians would also make sense, I deal with government contracts to private industry all the time and I can assure you they don't give us "deals."
The real questions for me on this sort of change are how do set the management level for the player? What degree of management is fun? At what point does it become un-fun fiddle-faddle? I would prefer a more complex system that is "under the hood" where I have different inputs rather than one that is constantly nagging at me to adjust the slider by 0.0001 or something. But I would also not like to see something like Victoria's market economic model, which to me is quite often counter-intuitive and outright gamey or poorly balanced.
I would also like to see financial buildings have a more profound effect, right now they seem to be trivial.
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Another thing that often bothered me is how technology seem to inflate resource cost in a way I think seem unrealistic and also how wealth is tied with usage of resources.
I rather think that production lines be them in industry or ships should increase efficiency with time. That way new stuff is more expensive time wise than things you have great experience producing. Then you would decouple wealth expenditure with resource expenditure and make wealth a combination of refining and time. We all heard the phrase "time is money"...
Retooling of shipyards is many times not enough to symbolize this aspect of productivity.
When you for example build a ship it has a cost in resources which should be roughly the same in resources despite technology level but you also spend some resources on the time spent building. Wealth is the same, the difference is that 80% of the resource spending is in the actual item and about 20% on time while 80% of the Wealth is on time and 20% on the actual item. I don't see a huge problem that you need increasing amount of Newtonian material as technology advances, I just don't see the need to tie resources into production capacity in general.
I don't see any particular problem with increasing the industrial production cost of more complex and technologically advanced equipment. It is logical that we need more advanced and efficient industry to produce more advanced equipment. But I see no direct immediate connection of resource use in relation to industrial construction capacity, these could easily be separated numbers. I also don't see why different levels of technology could not require different resources or rather different ratio of those resources. For example different engine technology could each have its own requirement of resources, some could differ vastly in what they need. I do understand that balancing the resources will be more difficult this way so it might not be worth investing time into.
If we take technology enhancement today and compare with historical similarities and the cost of building them you can easily see how the total cost will roughly be equal in relative terms today as in history. The cost is research and development and building up the infrastructure to build stuff and quantity also means things become cheap over time. There are very few mechanics in the game that really reflects this properly.
Taker a modern US infantry soldier and compare that with a medieval heavy infantry soldier. They mostly wear the same amount of equipment and probably cost about the same for society to train and maintain. The difference is in the technology of their respective equipment and the industry required to refine the minerals and materials as well as constructing the equipment. It might be roughly the same man hours in total but very different in quality and lethality in those two soldiers. The amount of resources needed to equip these two are roughly the same, just very different.
I know that Newtonian resources are not the only resources that is used in the production of stuff but the inflationary cost in resources are not really that necessary. Production capacity to build more advanced stuff on the other hand is necessary as is wealth cost since it is tied into time. The most efficient way to reduce cost in Wealth would be to increase production capacity and/or increase efficiency through large quantities of equipment.
The next point would then be no automatic spread of new technology. There could perhaps be a difference between theoretical and practical technology. Each building on a planet has a tech level, or rather you measure it as one value per building type and colony. You can for example have Industry level 1.14. Level one give you 100BP per factory and level 2 give you 120BP and thus level 1.14 give you 103BP per factory. When you move a factory from one planet to the next you recalculate the level based on the level of the factory you just moved, it would be quite simple.
Once you develop new technology you can either give the player the ability to add a project to upgrade or it is done automatically. This will initially cost some wealth, resources and capacity.
There should perhaps also be slightly less linear effects of things and most things should work more like population growths on worlds. We all know that smaller organizations always work more efficient than large ones. It might not be hugely popular to over encourage spreading out industry and research, but it would make sense from a realistic point of view and leaders with bonuses will still make centralization effective in many ways.
This would give smaller empires some advantages over larger ones since they are more efficient and can integrate technology faster into their societies.
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Just a point about your spread of technology, this hits a computing issue. The way it is now you can have the following:
construction_capacity_planetA = tech_level_multiplier*govenor_effect*call_find_number_of(planetA,construction_factories)
For your suggestion:
Production_capacity_planetA = govenor_effect*(do N=1,number_of_factories (Temp_prod_cap++ = get_tech_level_mulitplier (tech_level_effect (N,list_of_factories))))
For every race in the game, I need to track what the tech level of the factory is indvidually. I need to do this for 3 types of factories, and two types of mines, plus refineries, construction ships, asteroid miners, terraformers and refinery ships.
I have substantially increased the database size. I have substantially increased the complexity of the calculation. I'm not sure if I have slowed the program down substantially or not. But I'm making far more calls to the database.
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Just a point about your spread of technology, this hits a computing issue. The way it is now you can have the following:
construction_capacity_planetA = tech_level_multiplier*govenor_effect*call_find_number_of(planetA,construction_factories)
For your suggestion:
Production_capacity_planetA = govenor_effect*(do N=1,number_of_factories (Temp_prod_cap++ = get_tech_level_mulitplier (tech_level_effect (N,list_of_factories))))
For every race in the game, I need to track what the tech level of the factory is indvidually. I need to do this for 3 types of factories, and two types of mines, plus refineries, construction ships, asteroid miners, terraformers and refinery ships.
I have substantially increased the database size. I have substantially increased the complexity of the calculation. I'm not sure if I have slowed the program down substantially or not. But I'm making far more calls to the database.
I work with database oriented programing pretty much every day. You only need to add the values for tech level in the same colony table you get number of factories. For ships and components it is just another value in the table. It would not be a substantial increase of the database.
For example... in the DB there is a table called Population which holds all relevant values such as number of facilities, one is ConstructionFactories. The only thing you need is a new value called ConstructioFactoriesTL or some such that tracks its tech level for that population. Then you have tables for ship components and ships which all could add the relevant values you need to keep track on.
It would certainly not make the game run slower in any way. Its the same SQL call just with one extra parameter.
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Ah ok, I thought you wanted each factory to possibly have its own tech level. If it is a constant that is body specific it doesn't add the same level of overhead. When you said each building on a planet I thought you meant each individual factory not individual type of factory.
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No that would not be very useful or user friendly and the player would never see individual buildings anyway.
One value for each building type on each colony or ship component. It would even work the same on a freighter. If you loaded up two mines from two different worlds on a freighter they would combine their tech level, this work equally well for partial load of facilities. This would be for simplicity sake.
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I should point out that I believe the overall the standard of living of a large fraction of the plantary population has increased since 1800, but there is still a non-tiny fraction of the population that lives below the poverty line.
I would be rather skeptical of defining a priori Aurora as a post-scarcity economy. My feeling is that there will be the standard spectrum of obscenely wealth to wretchedly poor. If you are talking Firefly or Babylon 5 I think is up to the player.
exactly how much inequality an open democracy can tolerate is an area of academic concern at the present, the short answer is "a lot, apparently" provided certain basic needs are met. Wretched poverty has a hard time existing unless you engage in a heck of a lot of imagining, a good example/thought experiment involves apples. If you have some magic way to grow apples in an otherwise barren environment, eventually you need to either give apples away or hire people to protect them...the trouble is, the more barren the environment, the more you need to incentivize guards and disincentivize apple thieves. Eventually, you're paying so much to protect your apples that it's not worth keeping them. When you consider the titanic energy costs inherent in say, creating an atmosphere on an otherwise barren planet, "Feeding and housing three billion people" becomes almost trivial by comparison. One can imagine a scenario where it would occur, but it's unlikely to match what a typical aurora world looks like.
I would appreciate a more robust economic system precisely because my setting is very much like firefly, with a small number of highly developed worlds and a large number of marginal worlds that are minimally developed, and I think the trade inherent in that would be very interesting.
Frankly though, I sometimes want to blow up every civilian spaceship in orbit cause they clog up the game so much.
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I would agree that if we had more or less unlimited access to extremely cheap energy then poverty as we know it today would most likely be wiped out. But it does not mean there will be economical equality in any way... it might just be the opposite. Even if we could raise the standard of the majority of the worlds poor population to a healthy standard does not mean the gap between those on the bottom and those on top can not widen. You could end up with a sizable part of the population living like billionaires do to day and billionaires of today would have the universe as their playground.
The way I see it Aurora is about resource scarcity and there are not unlimited amount of energy although I would imagine much cheaper than in todays world
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Yeah, not user friendly...but I was a bit rushed and misunderstood what you meant. I thought you wanted to track the objects individually and have upgrade costs and times.
"unlimited access to cheap energy" is not possible. To produce the devices that produce the energy plus to distribute it and regulate it all costs money. It might reduce the cost of electricity but that does not instantly translate into nearly free steel or diamonds for everyone. So long as you have to do "something" to produce the energy there is an associated cost to it. Fusion reactors have construction, operation, and decommissioning/radioactive storage costs. Solar power sats have construction, and operation costs, plus the cost of the reciever station associated conversion equipment and so on. Renewable energy has the costs of the plant (whatever it is), a complex power distribution grid, storage facilities, auxiallary power plants, and operation of plant (maintenance or what-have-you).
And all of this must run at a profit or no one will invest in it, and the parts which no one wants to invest in since they don't run at a profit the government will have to provide. All this creates a situation which is much like what we have today. Where the technology is present life is good, but even within those places there is a spectrum of wealth. Currently the "middle class" in most developed countries is considered to be in decline. Wealth is concentrated more and more in the hands of a small number of individuals. Those that get in early to the TN boom are likely to be in the same situation as steel barons in the 18th century. And with wealth comes political power either directly or indirectly. Democracies can tolerate extremes because people only care about things like voting and political issues when they have their basic needs covered (and their families). So you can have a large part of the population that is scrabbling to make ends meet, who are not going to be significantly involved in the political process but still a part of the society. There is also manipulation via advertising and so on that can influence this.
I'm sure there is more to it than that mind you, but the basic level of this stuff is covered in military leadership training. "Armies march on their stomach" is something they have understood for thousands of years. And that statement impacts on a lot more than just ensuring you have fed soldiers to keep them falling over from hunger on a route march. I don't follow your thought experiment at all...I am fairly sure there is some basic assumption that is clear to you that I am not seeing.
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When it comes to energy it all depends. If all you need is a single more or less maintenance free house hold power cell that runs on Sorium fuel and last for ten years for the average household, most of the cost associated with energy cost would vanish including the distribution net (more or less). When the powercell is spent you just drive down to Walmart and buy a new one for $1000 which now last for twelve years since it is a more efficient model.
Even industry would run their own power grid for a very low cost.
If you imagine such a world you might get very close to almost limitless cheap energy with very little cost associated with it.
Otherwise I agree, maintaining a large power grid and power plant facilities are very expensive and is a major part of the energy cost even today.
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Yeah, in an ideal world all things are possible. But still the powercell isn't going to be made for free. The sorium has a cost. The device has a cost. The reseller must make a profit. There must be certifications and inspections (on a yearly or more often basis). Then you have to dispose of the old one. You need back up power in the advent the thing fails. Also how big is this thing? Can you go down to wallmart and get it or does it have to be delievered by truck? All of this costs money, even if the power is relatively cheap on a per kWh basis.
Basically entropy always increases, there is no free lunch and perpetual motion machines aren't possible.
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Yeah, in an ideal world all things are possible. But still the powercell isn't going to be made for free. The sorium has a cost. The device has a cost. The reseller must make a profit. There must be certifications and inspections (on a yearly or more often basis). Then you have to dispose of the old one. You need back up power in the advent the thing fails. Also how big is this thing? Can you go down to wallmart and get it or does it have to be delievered by truck? All of this costs money, even if the power is relatively cheap on a per kWh basis.
Basically entropy always increases, there is no free lunch and perpetual motion machines aren't possible.
I don't see any of those things that can't be made cheaper or more efficient by technology or other products/materials with "magic-like" properties though.
The raw materials in use will be refined and transported cheaper and more effectively.
The device will be able to be built cheaper by more efficient factories.
The faster car/hover-car/plane/truck/trains making the delivery chain will get it further for less meaning less logistics and distribution costs in the lifecyckle per unit.
The size of it will very likely be smaller with more advanced technology (same as above less costs for logistics & handling), very clear real-world example is the minimum cost of a flat-screen compared to a older thicker screen TV/PC-monitor.
If it's to big for fetching with car you likely buy an installation for your house and refill it with fuel, if it's to big for truck you likely buy electricity per kWh from bigger installations like today, whatever is most efficient (whatever is most efficient = cheapest).
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whatever is most efficient (whatever is most efficient = cheapest).
Just a quick thing. Efficiency doesn't always equal cheapness. Sometimes efficiency actually increases costs. But yah, as he said new technology usually shrinks its predecessor while being more available (thus reducing cost while increasing use). Also wouldn't the already a thing called Infrastructure already be a part of the power production (and farming, water, sewage, ect ect) so more things to take these places already be moot (since you need an amount of infrastructure to keep a pop alive it already takes into account for food/power/water). That is all I have to say. I honestly don't want to participate in this discussion anymore as I already made my stance (that being its already fine the way it is, maybe a few minor changes).
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While were on the subject, does anyone ever wish there were more trade goods? I kinda wish there were, and more variety.
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While were on the subject, does anyone ever wish there were more trade goods? I kinda wish there were, and more variety.
Oddly enough I always thought that the trade system is too detailed, considering that civilian economy are so simplified. I think that it would have been enough with civilian trade goods as a single commodity which planets may trade with each other. The more civilian trade a planet generate and the more destinations and further away the more they would benefit from it. Trade are usually about being able to purchase stuff you can't otherwise get, rarity is often the key. Civilian trade goods could be anything from services to actual things...
The more a planet would consume its own trade goods the less wealth it would generate and eventually stagnate its economy versus more active planets.
I don't mind how the current system work, but it is somewhat artificial and not particular realistic.
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Oddly enough I always thought that the trade system is too detailed, considering that civilian economy are so simplified. I think that it would have been enough with civilian trade goods as a single commodity which planets may trade with each other. The more civilian trade a planet generate and the more destinations and further away the more they would benefit from it. Trade are usually about being able to purchase stuff you can't otherwise get, rarity is often the key. Civilian trade goods could be anything from services to actual things...
The more a planet would consume its own trade goods the less wealth it would generate and eventually stagnate its economy versus more active planets.
I don't mind how the current system work, but it is somewhat artificial and not particular realistic.
Agreed. Unless there is more actual game mechanics impacts on the trade goods type, I don't think we need more of them, rather less.
Id much rather have 5 trade goods that are better integrated/involved into the game like for example:
- Agricultural trade goods production depending on available space (pop/surface area) and climate of planet, may cause growth penalty if x% of demand not delivered?
- Different shipping lines specialize in different goods gaining bonuses
- Ability to subsidize/ban goods and have it impact flow of trade & traffic
- Dynamic Trade goods consumption depending on type of workers/population are present ( lots of economic center "workers" demand luxury trade goods )