Author Topic: C# Aurora Changes Discussion  (Read 439471 times)

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Iranon

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1440 on: January 30, 2018, 05:48:59 AM »
Tax vs. happiness is an old standby of strategy games that doesn't really make much sense in Aurora. We currently have no way of increasing our citizens' happiness with civil projects and happiness isn't a prominent gameplay mechanic.

I'd be interested in having the economic model expanded with more attention given to the private sector, but doing that properly would interlock with other parts of the game in rather tricky ways.
 

Offline Person012345

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1441 on: January 30, 2018, 05:56:38 AM »
Just as a note -

In most capitalistic or mixed economies (AKA current economies of most of the world) are lowered, it allows more money to be kept for consumption or reinvestment.  When taxes are raised, it lowers the amount of money that is available to spend or reinvest.   It is just one factor among many that impact the economy overall (are regulations too light or too strict, how healthy is the credit markets, what are the cost of energy and other basic inputs, income inequality, and so on).   You can lower rates and actually get more income, both by the increase in the economic base, and also less tax avoidance by citizens. 

Since this is a game, it might be just more simple to have some sort of happiness feature, in which lower taxes means happier citizens, but less revenue, even if in real life that is not completely true.
The problem is this is just theory and isn't borne out by reality. Again, there are circumstances where this can be true, but again, taxes aren't just draining money from the economy. Nor is lower taxes keeping the money in the economy, in fact the opposite is generally more true depending on how the money is used (and this can be observed in reality). Lower taxes don't even inherently make people happier.

This is sort of the problem with trying to hamfist such a system into aurora. Especially since I don't see much gameplay benefit here.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1442 on: January 30, 2018, 06:04:16 AM »
None of which is really in scope for a space naval warfare game.

I disagree entirely with your idea that Aurora is a game only about Space Naval warfare!


Maybe the parts I enjoy about Aurora have about as much to do with Warfare as the Star Trek episodes that inspired my interest in Space? Perhaps my Aurora is a Story based game about Leadership/Character development, Terraforming, Research, Colony development, Exploration, Roleplaying/Diplomacy mainly.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2018, 06:13:15 AM by alex_brunius »
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1443 on: January 30, 2018, 08:23:14 AM »
Just as a note -

In most capitalistic or mixed economies (AKA current economies of most of the world) are lowered, it allows more money to be kept for consumption or reinvestment.  When taxes are raised, it lowers the amount of money that is available to spend or reinvest.   It is just one factor among many that impact the economy overall (are regulations too light or too strict, how healthy is the credit markets, what are the cost of energy and other basic inputs, income inequality, and so on).   You can lower rates and actually get more income, both by the increase in the economic base, and also less tax avoidance by citizens. 

Since this is a game, it might be just more simple to have some sort of happiness feature, in which lower taxes means happier citizens, but less revenue, even if in real life that is not completely true.

Actually, taxes don't disappear out of an economy, at least if we're not talking about a kleptocratic government. Quite the opposite; taxes are reinvested in the economy, often as a part of various government services (most of the world's educational efforts, law enforcement organisations, health care efforts, infrastructure construction and maintenance as well as environmental and safety regulations are funded from taxes, along with a slew of other things), the knock on effects of which massively impact the overall productivity and efficiency of an economy.

I mean, people often accuse the government of being slow and inefficient, and there's something to that, but there's nothing that makes for profit organisations sit down and play nice when the consumers band their efforts together and tell big businesses 'we will pay this much and nothing more.' And a properly run government can and will do exactly that, for things with an inelastic demand like medicine you need or die, and for the remainder it will levy its power to ensure that neither the producer nor the consumer can abuse things like information inequality.
 

Offline Drgong

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1444 on: January 30, 2018, 03:24:06 PM »
Yes it s not as simple as anyone makes it out to be.    Government spending (In the EU at least) has been shown to cause economic increases in the quarter it is spent, then a small negative growth factor over the next two years.   This is due to public sector spending being not very efficient, for various factors (including citizens do not want their government to be tight with money when they are spending it on services they use!).   In addition, the TYPE of taxes has a lot of impact on economic growth (Kneller, Bleaney and Gemmell are the main researchers in this area) with for example, property taxes having much less of a economic impact then income taxes.

But the other thing to recall is that the impact of taxes is normally overstated by EVERYONE.   For example, interest rates and maintaining 1-2% inflation is a much bigger driver for long term growth  (and tax revenue) then the actual tax rates.  Economies get killed when inflation gets too high, or deflation, or if you have high interest rates.  (of course, too low interest rates results in inflation.) 

Also, most of the time tax reform also changes the underlying nature of the base, for example, Both JFK and Reagan cut US tax rates and saw huge economic growth, but much of that is attributed by eliminating tons of tax loopholes and thus made the economy less distorted.

But I really do not want Aurora to become a economy simulator....
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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1445 on: January 30, 2018, 09:28:37 PM »
I am reading everybody's comment and...wow @waresky you have opened the pandora's vase, I almost feel sorry to have second your thoughts!!!  :D :D :D

Anyway, I believe that Aurora's economy works beautifully and I still like that most of my Martian economy is run by selling illegal drugs; also, generally, altogether there is nothing wrong with it but (I know everything before the word ’but’ is bs usually) I still would like to recover or balance my debt when you are fighting expensive wars with your shipyards pissing 20 1000t FACs at the time or those 5 dreadnaughts you commissioned during a delusions of grandeur moment are just about to be completed with your expenses skyrocket by 30% or 40% in one go.

I think we should find a solution that can integrate with the 20% increase economy research and the financial centres build. What about an administration building that decrease expenses? Could work by levels same as the naval academy, deep space sensor, spaceport, etc and that could also be a trait in civilian administrators able to enhance that. So this will give me the opportunity of using the administrator with 40% fewer expenses or fleet maintenance, giving even more control over our economy working not only in expanding it.

So you have your level 2 Administration building which gives you a 3% fewer maintenance costs (Level 1 1%, Level 2 3%, Level 3 5.5% etc. the formula is 1+1.5 per level with a max of 10% maybe? so 5 levels I don't know) then you have your Administrator ability which boost that up too, something like 1% extra for each 10% ability? Obviously, I leave the balance up to Steve based on what he does already with terraforming etc.

I think the above will work well because the goal of an economy it is not only to grow but also saving where and when possible, some people does it well some other poorly.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1446 on: January 31, 2018, 02:49:56 AM »
While we are on to the subject I would like NOTHING to be free of charge in the game for the player. Commercial ships might not cost you maintenance but please at least have them cost a small sum of wealth per month to run. Make it about 1/3 - 1/5 of what such a normal ship should cost in regular maintenance on average.

This way they are at least not free once built and you will have to consider at least some cost for crew and the maintenance the private industry or crew will perform on them once in a while. It will not make it a problem for you to consider maintenance since it is abstracted, you just have to consider them at least having a small cost.

This should go for commercial stations and every structure in space too, everything should need at least some measure of support and cost to operate.
 

Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1447 on: January 31, 2018, 07:30:51 AM »
Probably a controversial suggestion, but I think all factory types (including finance centres) should just be removed from the game and rolled into one thing. A colony's industrial capacity is then expanded the same way shipyard capacity is. You'd set  the ratios for how much of the world's manufacturing output goes to what sectors (including capacity expansion, and maybe even commercial goods production), and then you'd modify those ratios through a retooling process (with one free and instant retooling, same with shipyards)
To stop this from messing with the acceleration of colonisation, you could have every however many arbitrary units of industrial infrastructure count as a facility that can be moved by freighters.
Aside from how a planet's industry expands, the process of actually building other things shouldn't really change at all.

The idea mostly comes from my general love of conventional infrastructure. I think this would achieve the goal of simplifying colony development without actually removing any depth from the game. You'd still have separate installation, ordnance, fighter and money printing ratios, so nothing is lost depth-wise.

Edit: Oh and also can the portrait/flag for all of the spoilers please be set to default integers so that they're the same every game and I don't have to worry about getting Serbian Ewok Star Swarm. I'm aware that you can at least change their portraits if you do an SM custom race start, but if you do a standard Earth start I don't believe that's possible. And you still can't change their flags without moving files around.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2018, 07:55:21 AM by ChildServices »
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Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1448 on: January 31, 2018, 08:01:18 AM »
Quote
This should go for commercial stations and every structure in space too, everything should need at least some measure of support and cost to operate.

I agree with this - i increasingly don't like how once you have built fuel harvesters the fuel is free, not even costing you workers.

Quote
To stop this from messing with the acceleration of colonisation, you could have every however many arbitrary units of industrial infrastructure count as a facility that can be moved by freighters.
wouldn't you be able to avoid retooling costs by shuffling items around?  Not much of a cost when you're talking Earth-Luna.
 

Offline waresky

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1449 on: January 31, 2018, 09:50:38 AM »
Economics is complicated :)

It is isn't as simple as more tax = more money, because high tax can limit growth, increase tax avoidance or remove incentives for investment. I am fortunate to live in a low tax economy (some might say tax haven), with maximum 20% personal tax, no capital gains tax, no inheritance tax, 0% corporation tax (except banks - 10%), yet there is no state debt and we have the same public services as most European countries. Good quality free Health Care, Education, etc.

There are some differences, such as you anyone moving here require a work permit and has to work for five years before qualifying for welfare, yet crime is almost non-existent (local paper front-page headline when 20 pints of milk was stolen) and I have never seen any homelessness. Unemployment rate is 0.8% (not a typo). Raising tax here might damage all the above, if people and businesses relocate.

Aurora 'economics' is about balancing various industrial capacities, availability of workforce, mineral supplies, fuel, maintenance and wealth. Each of those can be affected by the player in some way to maintain the balance. Wealth for example is helped by building financial centres, investing in civilian shipping, creating lots of small colonies to boost trade, pop growth (which is wealth growth) and civilian mining (which requires pop of 10m in system). Tax rates are assumed to be generating optimum revenue as per the Laffer Curve).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

"..It is isn't as simple as more tax = more money, because high tax can limit growth,
You can easily check ITALIAN situation : "Official" tax level : 47% (puah..fake) REAL (Commercialist groups and big financial groups research) speack another language : 68% (68% !!!!!)REAl Tax level. The Italy situation r controvertial : +2000 € Billion national LOAN...BUT..ppl money (bank) reserve are MORE than Nat.Loan debt. ..so, European Central Bank let in peace Italian governmt about loan AND tax level.

Its a really absurd situation.

Italian PIL : more than 1000 € Billions / Years revenue..but we spend : 70% PIL in Social expenditure and others.

So TAX rules are ridicolous.

Lucky..AURORA isnt Italy...lucky.

Otherwise Italian lifestyle,automotive,luxury products,meat and Wine are absolutely State-Of-The-Art...lucky for us.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1450 on: January 31, 2018, 09:56:22 AM »
Not much of a cost when you're talking Earth-Luna.
Earth-Luna is kinda special since the distance is so short. Luna grows insanely fast compared to anything else. If Luna is used as the yardstick to determine rules for economic/population/infrastructure growth, then every other colony will be stunted. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.

 

Offline Hazard

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1451 on: January 31, 2018, 10:31:54 AM »
Earth-Luna is kinda special since the distance is so short. Luna grows insanely fast compared to anything else. If Luna is used as the yardstick to determine rules for economic/population/infrastructure growth, then every other colony will be stunted. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.

It's also true of every other planet/moon system so long as both places are sufficiently habitable.
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1452 on: January 31, 2018, 02:50:47 PM »
A suggestion for "auto assigning people to positions". In VB6 Aurora some positions are not auto assigned - but it would be nice if they would (like planetary governors). However I think there is no automation because the game can't choose as to what special abilities should be taken into account for an auto assignment because colonies can vary much in preference. So maybe in C# Aurora we could assign preferences to planetary positions and the game then auto chooses according to the preference (which can be defined per planetary position).
 
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Offline ChildServices

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1453 on: January 31, 2018, 07:13:40 PM »
you be able to avoid retooling costs by shuffling items around?  Not much of a cost when you're talking Earth-Luna.
I actually didn't think about this. It's been so long since I've even played a Sol game. My current run definitely isn't one.

I guess you'd completely remove the ability to transport pieces of an existing industrial complex. Planets with no industrial complex present by default should have "conventional industry" that's ever-present and totally free, but it's extremely inefficient (1/10th your racial rates, like it is now) and has an output based on pop-size and colony cost. Leftover manufacturing pops when you finally do actually build the correct TN facilities, would work in the conventional sector.
To still let you jumpstart colonies, you could build industrial equipment that can be moved and consumed at new holdings. Building and consuming it at the place it was constructed should be less efficient than just expanding capacity normally though, to emphasise the fact it's prefab equipment packaged specifically for interplanetary transport.
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Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora Changes Discussion
« Reply #1454 on: February 01, 2018, 04:48:22 AM »
Another suggestion in regards to "ranks". In my last VB6 Aurora games I always had to create a bunch of 1st level rank positions so that the higher ranks get filled because if I don't do this too many people are deemed surplus but some of the higher rank ships were not filled because there were no higher rank people (all in auto assign mode). This is due to the fixed rules how many higher ranks get filled through promotions (1/3rd on lower ranks, 1/2 on higher ranks).

I would suggest a promotion system which promotes on "demand". If all my ships would need
120 Leutenant
25 Lt. Commander
18 Commander
24 Captains
5 Fleet Captains
3 Admirals
2 Grand Admirals
then the game should promote people according to these demands so all necessary positions can be filled.
 
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