2062-Jan-01
The excavation of the abandoned city on Abacus-A3 has propped up the empire's economy for nearly two decades.
For the ten years from 2052 through 2061, our average annual operational deficit (non-ruins income minus all expenditures) was 25% of operational income.
That is to say, we were spending each year 25% more wealth than we were generating with sustainable sources.
The wealth from the ruins allowed this pattern of overspending; on average, excavated wealth made up 21.5% of the 25% gap annually.
Nevertheless, our saved wealth balance has decreased by 24k over 10 years, to the present level of 69k.
In the year just ended, we spent a total of 101.6k wealth while generating 83.3k excluding excavations, for an operational deficit of 18.3k.
Abacus City will be fully excavated in another year and a half.
If the rate of wealth excavation meets the ten-year average, and our expenditures and sustainable income both rise at the anticipated 2.5% annual rate, we can expect, in a year and a half, to have a remaining wealth balance of ~63k and an annual operational deficit of about 19k.
In other words, with average excavation luck, our present wealth will last ~4.3 years from today.
So, today we begin taking drastic measures to rectify our budget deficit.
We have already established Babbit-A2, a colony focused on wealth generation, only 6.1bkm from Prime.
BabA2 has a present population of 33m operating 110 financial centers.
We need to add 420 fincens over the next 4 years.
The new centers will be built on Prime.
This effort will require 42.8% of Prime's industrial output.
The required 50kt of Corbomite is already on hand.
The new centers will require 21m new workers on BabA2.
To add that many workers to BabA2, we need to increase the population from 33m to 165m.
At present pop levels, BabA2 creates 2.5m pop per year, Prime creates 22.8m, and Cabbage-B1 (9.6bkm from BabA2) creates another 9.9.
That gives a combined total of 35.2m per year, which is more than enough to reach the 132m growth target over 4 years.
(As we move new pop from Prime and CabB1 to BabA2, the growth rate on the feeders will remain constant, while the growth rate on BabA2 will drop in percentage terms, but will rise in absolute terms. Therefore we can be certain that we will have enough new population in time.)
This population requires infrastructure.
At col cost 2.0, we will need 26.4k infra.
Building this infra on Prime over 4 years will require 44.7% of Prime's industrial output.
The needed Duranium is already on hand. We will need 10k Mercassium brought in, which is easy enough to source--we have that much on the ground already on AbaA3, and also among the asteroids in Cadbury, which are due for a mule run anyway.
We will need to move 105 fincens and 6.6k infra from Prime to BabA2 each year.
That's 765 standard holds making a 12.2bkm round trip, for a net 9333bkmholds.
Unfortunately, the freight capacity of our entire navy amounts to just over 6300, which means we will need to supplement with commercial shipping contracts.
The total tonnage of the commercial shipping lines is slightly higher than the total tonnage of empire-owned commercial ships, so we expect that they should be able to keep up with the demand.
Unfortunately, we probably do not have enough colonist shipping capacity.
Our total capacity is ~170bkmMpop, but we will need more than that just to handle Prime (278bkmMpop per year). The pop from CabB1 will require another 190bkmMpop.
Doubling our pop moving capacity would require at least 7 years without using industry to produce the components.
Using industry could reduce the time needed to 2 years, at a cost of 24.6k industrial capacity per year.
That's 83.3% of Prime's output. We simply don't have enough factories to do that while also building the fincens and the infrastructure.
Okay, I've reached the point where analysis fatigue is setting in.
Make this an eight year plan.
Cut production rate of fincens and infra by half.
Use the difference on ship components for colony ships.
That should roughly double colonist carrying capacity over 4 years, which will allow me to move all necessary pop by the end of year 8.
As a side benefit, I will be able to handle all freight shipping with owned ships, which saves me the cost of civilian contracts and keeps the shipping lines busy doing things that generate tax income.
In the meantime, I will keep an eye on the budget deficit after the ruins run dry. If I am headed for negative wealth territory, I will shift production on Prime back to FinCens, and just leave them on Prime to operate. They will make almost as much money there as on BabA2 (the only difference being the 15% Wealth Creation governor on BabA2).