Buildup, tech notes

............ I was thinking a MOO2 type modeling, but without graphical interfaces; you have to guess or ask the leaders, except that in MOO2 you manually move people between farming, production and research, for each planet; whereas we have more like ‘dedicated’ planets. At each planet or base, all people do basically the same thing. And we have more categories: Farming, mining, refining, research, industrial, medical, shipyard, commerce, fighter base (producing ‘protection/enforcement’), and, last but not least, university planets, which gradually multiply scores across all planets. We also have a new category: ‘Space Elevator Station’, which have dual function: commerce and fighter base; but also lessen the need and cost of transports. 99%+ of the investment and operational costs of transports are due to having to land on a planet and take off. One exception to the rule of specialization of planets and stations is our first planet, –Destinas, Irrulan; which is a planet that is rich in all types of resources, and will eventually be officially our “university planet”. Before we can have a research station, we need to build one, but we don’t know how, yet. So, one of the first research items should be “space station” so that we can start building some, –while researching “research space station” so we can eventually convert a generic space station into a proper research station. At that point, our research production should jump up by like 200%. Also, perhaps we could set up a tiny research lab in our first space elevator station, which should be ideal for all space-related research items.

Note that anything we start producing for our colony probably has a market value. Our first SES is stolen from the ES, but once we start producing our own, you could sell one to New Detroit easily. That’s another difference between our buildup and MOO2’s: Here you get your hands dirtier: First you decide on a case by case basis what to research and what to produce, and later you act as a travelling salesman, carrying with you a list of products, and individual brochures. An SES sale to New Det should be an easy sell, but probably they’ll ask for a small model first, and once it begins operation and they like it they might place an order for one more small one, and two large ones... Large ones you could sell for like 80 million a piece.

At the beginning Monte suggests we find refugees, but we don’t know exactly where to find them. Meanwhile, the prices for slaves has been steadily decreasing, and now, in some pirate bases in Sol, you can buy slaves in bulk, by the ship-load, for really low prices. So we end up buying first 200, then 500, then 1000... But as we bring them to our agricultural first planet and buy prefabs and games and luxuries, their happiness goes up. At some point, Monte suggests we free them, as their happiness has reached over 90% and they have nowhere to go, so they’ll most likely stay. As we free them, their happiness goes through the roof, to like 130%, and they all choose to stay. Then one of them requests an interview and explains they were refugees with no place to go and ended up taken by pirates, and explains where other refugees are still hiding, and where the pirates keep the others prisoner. We take him along to the planets where refugees are hiding from pirates, and he convinces them to join and move to our colony. We’ll have to charter transports, and protect the transports during the trip. Then we can attack the places where pirates are keeping refugees, at various gray zone planets. This will probably end our friendship with the pirates. Or else we can buy all their slaves, if we can afford it, free them, have this guy talk to them and hopefully most of them will choos to come with us. Once we have a sizable population, Masterson offers to build a New Oxford university. The planet now becomes a “university planet” officially, but its agricultural, mining and other production remain undisturbed (in fact, enhanced by the rising level of education). Once we set up an economic system (see Economy below), many Pilgrims from Hom will come over for a new life and new opportunities, increasing our population further.

We’ll have to come up with a ‘research tree’. Unlike most other strategy games, we’d have distinct abstract and concrete items. Concrete research could also be just called ‘Development’ and might require sub-Developments and theoretical items. Most reverse-engineering projects would come under the Development category. I’m also brainstorming here, research items could be hierarchical, rather than modelled as a tree. So say, for instance, you order a project: Reverse-engineer the Space Elevator Station. This could transparently set in motion many research sub-items, such as carbon nano-tubes, structural architecture, stock control, fusion power, coriolis forces, relativistic orbital mechanics, gyroscopic stabilizers, star occultation telemetry, and whatnot. All these sub-items might themselves be research composites themselves, like carbon nano-tubes might include (require) advanced physical chemistry, which in turn is composed of physical chemistry and bio-chemistry. After all pure research is done for the SES, a final project would be added to make it a real “Development” project: The “product development” stage, which would result in a concrete production plan, like a PERT chart and critical path analysis, costing, material and human resource analysis. At the end of it, you can order production of an SES, and get a time/cost estimate. But the last stage needs research in mathematics leading to PERT and CP, so it will happen faster if you’ve already done such research. It will happen faster yet if you already produce computers and PERT software. Production would also have its tree of dependencies on specific industries and equipments. You could buy or steal specific kinds of equipment, such as when we tow away a shipyard from a system near Rygannon. But producing our own equipment might be best, the sooner the better, as we can’t go on stealing shipyards; and the more broad our research and production become, the more synergy benefits we get. Optimal way to play would be to buy or steal one of each of many things and reverse-engineer ‘em at one research station, while having another research station working full time on theoretical research items of your choice, and setting up periodic personnel rotations between your university planet, the two research stations, and some industrial base, so as to keep many informal channels of communication open between them, and have your researchers gain at least some practical experience, as well as sharing their expertise with university planet students, accelerating the education speed. Now, although research/development items are hierarchical rather than a tree; –that is, you don’t have to follow a rigid order but simply selecting any item results in the implementation of the needed prerequisites–, it would be best to follow some rational order: –ordering reverse engineering of the simplest items at the beginning–; as such projects will take far shorter lead times to complete, and yield possible items we can start production of sooner, with all their inherent benefits. And there’s also the forward vision angle: Ecology, Recycling, Climatology, etceteras aren’t prerequisites to many other venues of research, but once you start getting pollution and green house effect, you might find that the solutions require long lead time research you could have started much earlier... Sustainable development is an item of research the earlier done the better. Applying it to your agri planet early on will make wood production last forever. The size of your forests will continuously shrink until the moment you instate a sustainable policy.

When you talk to Masterson, the leader of your University planet, he asks you what’s your choice of how to structure degree requirements. If you choose a totally free, 100% elective courses, you’ll have fewer well trained people, but you’ll maximize the production of “geniuses”. With a rigid structure, you’ll maximize well trained people, but will get few geniuses. There’s also a “recommended elective courses” category. The optimal balance should be about 25% electives, 33% recommended electives, and 42% required courses; but the player doesn’t know it; will have to educe it. When a genius emerges, Masterson tells you so and offers to setup an interview. When you talk to the genius, he or she has a subject of interest and a plan. You can support him or her. Usually they will begin a research or development project that addresses missing research and development items in your current tree, which will open new possibilities. Having said all that, it might be a good idea to start with a 42-33-25 breakdown, at the beginning, in order to get geniuses sooner, as their pet projects will result in great benefits, and will accelerate the production of meritous leaders. See the politics section below...

Lynch will be your foreign trade advisor at the beginning, and later he’ll come up with the idea of building a commerce space station, about half way to Gemini, which he will administer. But first let’s consider economics at a more fundamental level: At the beginning, your population is made of loyal fans and grateful refugees, but as the population grows you’ll need to set up an economics system. You’ll have some broad choices, like socialism or capitalism, but also can fine-tune them. You can design a tax system, like take 10% or 20% of income; or set up a tax table based on income. There should also be another way to have proportional taxation: A fixed tax, together with either a minimum income or a base income. A minimum income is like a welfare you get if your income is zero or below a poverty level. A base income is a minimum income everybody gets, whether they make nothing or a million a year. The optimal choice of all, which is not known to the player, is a fixed 50% tax across the board, but with people’s net income supplemented with a base income that is equal to 25% of the average gross income for the entire population. This ensures that a) government gets a whopping 25% tax on the over-all income, b) nobody gets less than 25% of the average income, and c) as an individual, you have an even incentive to produce and earn more, no matter what your income bracket. Productivity is almost as good as if you had a more capitalistic system, because people on low income don’t get “trapped” there, and can maneuver more easily into getting more education and turning around, and you avoid poverty and its effects on crime and unhappiness. Plus, the system is much simpler than any minimum income welfare or tax table based on income brackets, which reduces the cost of tax collection and welfare administration bureaucracy. This being the optimal system, any other system the player sets up will have productivity, happiness and crime consequences that are simply obtained by comparing its resulting income distribution against the ideal one. Lower net income at the low end results in immediate unhappiness and long-term unhappiness related to increasing crime, and lower income at the high end lowers productivity, but with like a square-root function of the ratio. Most people aren’t as greedy as Adam Smith would think. And from collected tax you subtract the bureaucratic costs of tax collection, which should be huge for table-based taxes; and the bureaucratic cost of welfare administration, if welfare is conditional on gross income, rather than automatic base income. Also, higher net income, at the low end, than the ideal system produces, should negatively affect productivity in a big way. If you ever get a “genius” in economics, his/her pet project will be to set up the ideal system above, and will explain the theory behind it to the player.

People prefer democracy, of course; but if all other elements are in place to maximize happiness, democracy has little to add to people’s happiness. Crime is the worst thing for happiness, not only because they get robbed often, but because crime control turns society into a police state. Therefore, ensuring base income has huge benefits. Let’s assume happiness is otherwise maximized: We have now perhaps better choices than democracy. We could have a meritocracy, whereby planet leaders with the most experience and good records automatically rise to system government, freeing the player from having to administer every detail. Probably the best system to choose, once you get the opportunity to step down as administrator, is a “democratic meritocracy”, whereby the best of the leaders occasionally are given to choose from, to the population. This is how it would work: When you get a genius in agriculture, for instance, you have an interview, and can choose to support his/her plan. Once the plan is carried out, and if it results in a huge improvement, you can promote that genius to agricultural planet manager. Now, what do you do with your current leader in that position? Best idea is to move him or her to a new planet or base that’s currently lacking a leader. Eventually, this will result in a set of leaders who aren’t geniuses at anything in particular, but have had experience leading many different types of planets. These are the most meritous leaders to assume government of the system. Once you have a system leader in place, and after verifying he/she is doing a good job, that’s the best time to start building your fleet, as now you’re able to devote your whole attention to it. Monte or Cross will tell you so.

The biggest downfall of MOO2, as many players pointed out, was the tedium of micromanagement once your empire grows. Note that micromanagement was a lot of fun at the beginning of the game, though. That’s why I decided to have the appearance of geniuses, and the formation of leaders, that, as your empire grows, take over micromanagement so that the game gradually changes from economy to ship design and fleet management. I think it’s a kickass idea.