Tom Hughes Strategy Series: Economy 101

(from Atari forums)

I am going to start writing a series of posts on economics and solar system/ planet creation. I have decided to do this for two reasons. First, several reviewers and beta testers have had a problem fully understanding the economic system because of its depth and the UI not giving enough information/ control yet. And, second, because this is a rather complex economic system, many of you are going analyze it. I know its going to happen and by giving out a lot of information I hope that this analysis will tell me something I don't know/ didn't think of, instead of just telling me something I already know.

I also wanted to talk about micro vs macro management in MOO3. When it was decided to move MOO3 in the direction of macro management early on in the design process, I knew that any player that micro manages( and that's me) would hate to be forced to macro manage. For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/ economic system so vast. so intricate. that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I've tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.

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OK, now for some meat. Below I have created a table that interconnects the relationship between food, minerals, industry, test tubes, production points( PPs), research points( RPs), and, of course, AUs. Briefly:

Food and Minerals - are the basic commodity needed to nourish the population and fuel the economy.

Industry and Test tubes - are used as governors for the final price (in AUs) of production points and research points respectively.

Production Points and Research Points - are used as the cost for any construction and research respectively (I. e. a ship that costs 1000 means it costs 1000 PPs - the number of AUs needed depends on the Industry base of the planet and your Industry overdriving efficiency).

And AUs make the worlds go around (pun intended).

COMMODITY
Bioharvest (food)

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Bioharvest DEA 2 regional blds (Hydroponic Farms and Subterranean Farms)

WHAT USES IT............ WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (except Geodic).......=>..... life, Industry, and AUs
Industrial DEA (/ w bio blds)....=>...... Industry, and AUs
excess food sold off......=>...... AUs

COMMODITY
Minerals

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Mining DEA

WHAT USES IT........................... WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (only Geodic & Cybernetiks).=>. life, Industry and AUs
Industrial DEA...................=>. Industry and AU's
excess minerals sold off............=>. AU's

COMMODITY
Industry

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population Industrial DEA

WHAT USES IT................. WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Industry determines cost of PPs).=>... Production Points( PPs), Pollution

COMMODITY
Test Tubes

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population Research DEA

WHAT USES IT...................... WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Test Tubes determines cost of RPs).=>... Research Points( RPs)

COMMODITY
Production Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Industry + AUs

WHAT USES IT............... WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Building anything( the cost is in PPs)..=>. construction of building, troop, or ship

COMMODITY
Research Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Test Tubes + AUs

WHAT USES IT............ WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
R& D of tech.( the cost is in RPs)..=>. any tech discoveries

COMMODITY
AUs

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Bioharvest DEA
Mining DEA
Industrial DEA
Spaceport DEA
Recreation DEA (with game patch)

WHAT USES IT
Maintenance
Pollution cleanup
Production Points
Research Points terraforming

In the table above there is no connection horizontally between "what produces it" and "what consumes it" (other than dealing with the same commodity). How a commodity is produced has no effect on what can consume it. BUT there is a direct connection between "what consumes it" and "what is created by that consumption" (hence, the use of "=>"). So "life, industry and AUs" is only created by "population" consuming food, not by "excess food sold off" (which only produces AUs).

Part 2

Mining DEAs

Mining DEA’s produce minerals (and the AU’s from using those minerals) and AU’s from rare byproducts.
All DEAs require pop to run. There are three levels of pop requirements, high, med, and low.
There are also three cost basis for DEAs, high med, and low.
Mining DEAs have a LOW pop requirement and a LOW cost basis. Therefore, they are an attractive DEA to build on young colonies.

1) MINERAL OUTPUT

The formula for determining the mineral output of a mining DEA is as follows:
(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity

BASE EFFICIENCY – This is the basic mineral output of the mining DEA before any mods affect it. You can think of this as the starting productivity of the DEA. The base efficiency of a mining DEA depends on which region it is placed (only mining and bioharvest DEAs are so effected) and is as follows:

Displayed as mineral richness by terrain type

A mining DEA placed in a region with mountain terrain on a planet with a mineral richness of abundant would have a base efficiency of 5. That mining DEA would produce 5 minerals if no other mods affected it.

BASE EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that directly affect the base efficiency of the DEA and are added to the base efficiency before any other mods take effect. They consist of:
(species mods + race picks + mining DEA buildings + mining DEA planetary builds + mining achievements)

species mods

race picks (Mining)

Below is a table for the rest of the mods organized by increasing techs. The numbers in () represent the mod to base mining efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the small numbers. These mods can have a MUCH greater impact on the final output of the mine because they are factored in FIRST before any other mods. A +1 could give a net boost of 25 to mining output late in the game.

* the cost is multiplied by the square root of the number of regions on the planet. Therefore the multiplier has a range of 1-3.46. Weigh the benefit/cost before building one of these planetary buildings because the cost is the same regardless of the number of mining DEA present on the planet (I.e. don’t build one if there are no mining DEAs on the planet).

EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that usually affect all DEAs on the planet and are
(Infrastructure*Gravity*Leaders*Government type*Morale*Pollution*Specials*Moon mod*
DEA productivity from population)
I will cover this later since it pertains to all DEAs on the planet.

DEA CAPACITY is from the DEA (always one) and any capacity buildings present. All Capacity buildings require additional population to run and represent the “extensiveness” of the DEA facilities. These buildings generally give a greater boost to mineral production than efficiency buildings but cost more and require population to run.

If you have all 4 capacity buildings present in a mining DEA the total capacity would be 6 and the pop requirements to run at 100% would be 1.65 pop

2) AU’s FROM MINERALS PRODUCED
The amount of money earned from the usage of minerals depends on how they are used.

Consumed as food – 30 AUs/mineral
Consumed by Industrial DEAs to create Industry – 15 AUs/mineral
Any excess sold off – 7.5 AUs/mineral – this is multiplied by (100% - the unemployment rate) to simulate supply and demand for the excess minerals.

Below is the money earned by a mining DEA producing only the minerals from its base efficiency (all other mods having no effect in this example) and having ALL of the minerals produced consumed by Industrial DEAs on the same or shipped any other planet.

DOUBLE these numbers if all the minerals are consumed as food and HALF them if all are sold off as excess.

3) AU’s FROM RARE BYPRODUCTS
This represents any exotic/rare minerals (like gold, gems, etc) found during the mining process and gives a bonus to AU’s produced by the mine without affecting its normal output.

The formula is: AUs = minerals produced * mineral richness factor * 4 * race pick

This formula is illustrated below assuming a mining DEA with only it’s base efficiency:

times

times
tuning variable of 4 * race pick
gives a result of

The ratio of (AUs produced from using minerals : AUs from rare byproducts) is determined by the mineral richness of the planet. As you can see the bonus from rare minerals is trivial for Very Poor planets but is very significant for planets that are Very Rich (being equal to the AU’s earned from consuming all the minerals as food – the max price for minerals).

The main purpose of the rare mineral bonus(and a similar bonus to bioharvesting) is to give an incentive to place mining or bioharvesting DEAs on planets with very good regions for these DEAs regardless of the need for the minerals or bioharvest they produce. As the game progresses the need for mineral and bioharvest DEAs will diminish and I don’t want these DEAs to become rather useless like farmers did late game in MOO2. This rare bonus will allow mining DEAs to be viable choices for planets with good mineral richness even late in the game and especially desirable when the need for minerals is significant.

Bioharvest DEAs

Bioharvest DEAs produce bioharvest(food) (and the AU’s from using that food) and AUs from rare byproducts.
All DEAs require pop to run. There are three levels of pop requirements, high, med, and low.
There are also three cost basis for DEAs, high, med, and low.
Bioharvest DEAs have a MED pop requirement and a LOW cost basis. Therefore, they are not quite as attractive as mining DEAs (but could be more necessary to avoid starvation) to build on young colonies because of the higher population requirements.

1) BIOHARVEST OUTPUT

The formula for determining the bioharvest output of a bioharvest DEA is as follows:
(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity

BASE EFFICIENCY – This is the basic bioharvest output of the bioharvest DEA before any mods affect it. You can think of this as the starting productivity of the DEA. The base efficiency of a bioharvest DEA depends on which region it is placed (only mining and bioharvest DEAs are so effected) and is as follows:

First, bioharvest base efficiency is affected by the fertility and terrain of the region it is placed in. To get a better picture of just what exactly determines the fertility of a region I have included a table below.

Displayed as ecosystem density on top by habitability ring along the side

Fertility is a measure of how favorable the region is for supporting life compatible to a particular species. Fertility affects the base efficiency of a bioharvest DEA placed in and the maximum population growth rate of that region.
Ecosystem Density is the measure of the biomass of the region. It has a range from very dense (dense tropical forest) to very sparse (desert). And is shown by the color of the maple leaf on each region of the planetary infrastructure display. The ecosystem density of a region doesn’t change with respect to species(I.e. it is the same no matter who is looking at the planet). The region with the best ecosystem density has the best fertility. Also, if a region has a grass-green maple leaf (very dense ecosystem density) it has the best fertility allowed for a planet of that habitability ring.
A quick rational for regions having the same fertility but different habitability/ecosystem density levels. A Green 2 planet with Very sparse region is able to support about the same amount of compatible life as a Red 2 planet with very dense region hence they both have the same fertility (hostile). The second planet region can support more total biomass but only a small percentage of that biomass would be compatible.

The habitability ring is determined by the location of the planet on the habitability display (temperature and atmospheric density) and the distance of that planet to the ideal habitability of a particular species.
Each horizontal row represents a planet habitability ring with the full range of fertility allowed for that habitability ring. Ecosystem density is the only factor that gives a variance to the fertility of the regions on a planet in a particular habitability ring.

If a planet is terraformed one level, all regions will improve one fertility level (except some toxic regions – I don’t distinguish between toxic levels of a region; if exposure to a region that is toxic harms in 5 minutes or 60 minutes, it matters very little as in either case you’re hurt )

If a region is regionally terraformed one level (one ecological infrastructure building added improving the ecosystem density of that region one level) its fertility will also improve one level (again, except some toxic regions).

Now, lets talk about biodiversity. Biodiversity is kind of the bioharvest counterpart of mineral richness. But you tend to find higher biodiversity with older solar systems (the opposite of mineral richness) Biodiversity has two effects in the game. 1) Affects starting ecosystem density of the planet. Each region has the same chance of starting with any ecosystem density on a planet with a biodiversity of Heterogeneous. Higher biodiversity increases the chance of each region starting with a higher ecosystem density. 2) Affects the amount of AUs generated by rare byproducts from bioharvest DEAs on that planet.

OK, now that I have given you a glimmer of how planet development works (I’ll explain more when I cover solar system creation), here’s bioharvest base efficiency:

Geodic Species Table

Cybernetik Species Table

All Other Species Table

Note: Remember, this is base bioharvest efficiency. Having a "0" only means that building a bioharvest DEA on that region needs a building or achievement to raise the bioharvest efficiency above zero.

A bioharvest DEA placed in a region with plains terrain and alluvial fertility (the first region on all homeworld planets) would have a base efficiency of 10 for most species except for cybernetik (8) or geodic (6). That bioharvest DEA would produce 10,8,or 6 bioharvest (depending on which species occupies that region) if no other mods affected it.

BASE EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that directly affect the base efficiency of the DEA and are added to the base efficiency before any other mods take effect. They consist of:
(species mods + race picks + bioharvest DEA buildings + bioharvest DEA planetary builds + bioharvest achievements)

species mods

race picks (Bioharvest)

Below is a table for the rest of the mods organized by increasing techs. The numbers in () represent the mod to base bioharvest efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the small numbers. These mods can have a MUCH greater impact on the final output of the farm because they are factored in FIRST before any other mods. A +1 could give a net boost of 25 to bioharvest output late in the game.

Any secondary tech requirement is shown as “(+tech lvl)”. That secondary tech lvl, if present, must also be satisfied before you can develop that tech.

* the cost is multiplied by the square root of the number of regions on the planet. Therefore the multiplier has a range of 1-3.46. Weigh the benefit/cost before building one of these planetary buildings because the cost is the same regardless of the number of bioharvest DEAs present on the planet (I.e. don’t build one if there are no bioharvest DEAs on the planet).

Note: both bioharvest achievements (Biomorphic Fungi and Mineralmorphic Bacteria) do more than just add to the base efficiency of bioharvest DEAs. They also expand the range of habitability rings that will allow bioharvest DEAs to be built. Normally, you can’t build a bioharvest DEA on a planet with a Yellow 2, Red 1or Red 2 habitability ring. But one or both achievements will reduce or eliminate this restriction.

EFFICIENCY MODS are mods that usually affect all DEAs on the planet and are
(Infrastructure*Gravity*Leaders*Government type*Morale*Pollution*Specials*Moon mod*
DEA productivity from population)
I will cover this later since it pertains to all DEAs on the planet.
I will partially explain two of these mods now because of player requests and the fact that they influence the output of DEAs on your homeworld from the beginning of the game.
DEA productivity from population – that number is shown on the planet screen and represents the multiplier used to increase the efficiency of all DEAs on the planet.

Government type –

There are additional areas that Gov mods affect but because of format restrictions I will post the rest later.

DEA CAPACITY is from the DEA (always one) and any capacity buildings present AND any FLUs present( I forgot to include FLUs in mining capacity – it is the same as presented here). All Capacity buildings require additional population to run and represent the “extensiveness” of the DEA facilities. These buildings generally give a greater boost to bioharvest production than efficiency buildings but cost more to build/maintain and require population to run.

If you have all 4 capacity buildings present in a bioharvest DEA the total capacity would be 6 and the pop requirements to run at 100% would be 3.35 pop. Up to 6 organtic FLUs could also employed.

Organic FLUs – the capacity of DEAs can also be increased by employing organic FLUs. For each full integer capacity a DEA has one FLU can be employed (I.e. a DEA with a capacity of 6 could employ a maximum of 6 organic FLUs). The benefit to the DEA employing FLUs depends on the number employed and the FLU Oppressometer setting. Each organtic FLU employed at a DEA increases the capacity of said DEA by 0.1 times the Oppressometer setting (0-10) giving a net benefit of 0.0 – 1.0 capacity increase for each FLU employed. Theoretically, assuming maximum FLUs employed and maximum oppressometerare setting, organic FLUs could double the capacity (and hence the production) of most DEAs.

Robotic FLUs – I will talk about this later.

2) AU’s FROM BIOHARVEST PRODUCED
The amount of money earned from the usage of bioharvest depends on how they are used.

Consumed as food – 20 AUs/bioharvest
Consumed by Industrial DEAs to create Industry – 10 AUs/bioharvest
Any excess sold off – 5 AUs/bioharvest – this is multiplied by (100% - the unemployment rate) to simulate supply and demand for the excess minerals.

Note that the prices for bioharvest are lower than minerals. I did this for two reasons. 1) Most species consume bioharvset as food (getting the better price). 2) Regional fertility can be improved by techs, allowing the eventual possibility for all regions to be terraformed to the best fertility (lush). Mining has no such benefit.

Below is the money earned by a bioharvest DEA producing only the bioharvest from its base efficiency (all other mods having no effect in this example) and having ALL of the bioharvest produced consumed by Industrial DEAs on the same or shipped any other planet.

Regional Dominant
Terrain Type Ordered
By Species Preference

DOUBLE these numbers if all the minerals are consumed as food and HALF them if all are sold off as excess.

3) AU’s FROM RARE BIOHARVEST BYPRODUCTS
This represents any exotic/rare compounds from life forms found during the bioharvesting process and gives a bonus to AU’s produced by the farm without affecting its normal output.

The formula is: AUs = Bioharvest produced * biodiversity factor * 2.5 * race pick

This formula is illustrated below assuming a bioharvest DEA with only it’s base efficiency:

Times biodivestity factor

times
tuning variable of 2.5* race pick
gives a result of

Note: the table above lists the AUs from rare bioharvest for each biodiversity level and each terrain preference (favorable, neutral, unfavorable) of the species.

The ratio of (AUs produced from using bioharvest : AUs from rare byproducts) is determined by the biodiversity of the planet. As you can see the bonus from rare bioharvest is trivial for Very Sparse planets but is very significant for planets that are Very Dense (being equal to the AU’s earned from consuming all the bioharvest as food – the max price for bioharvest).

The main purpose of the rare bioharvest bonus (and a similar bonus to mining) is to give an incentive to place bioharvesting or mining DEAs on planets with very good regions for these DEAs regardless of the need for the bioharvest or minerals they produce. As the game progresses the need for bioharvest and mineral DEAs will diminish and I don’t want these DEAs to become rather useless like farmers did late game in MOO2. This rare bonus will allow bioharvest DEAs to be viable choices for planets with good biodiversity even late in the game and especially desirable when the need for bioharvest is significant.

Regional bioharvest buildings.

There two buildings that produce bioharvest (but no rare bioharvest) at the regional level without the need for a bioharvest DEA in that region. They are:

These buildings allow planets to produce a nominal amount of bioharvest without needing to devote a DEA slot to bioharvesting. This benefit is significant on planets that are unable to place bioharvest DEAs because of poor habitability. A little food is a LOT better than no food when it comes to starvation.

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3