And here is some more words about game economy.
Take a look at Sol star system in the 2200.0 (start of our game). You can see that there is very interesting asteroid belt, which also have 3 moons in it's orbit (moons or rather dwarf planets ) . Hydrogue 2A (Let's change it's name to Ceres) also is big dwarf planet (size 4) with nice mineral abundance (3). Other planets, dwarf planet and moons except our homeworld have 0 or 1 mineral richness so it'll be nice mining colony and first target of our expansion. But first - we have to build Freighters so we will be able to transport food. I'll also use some cheats for inventions and money, so I won't have to skip some turns to get all needed technology and resources to build all things.
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Here is Earth. As you can see it's max populated (12/12) Due to this people growth is 0.000. In the first row, you can see that 4 farmers are producing 22 units of food. As we have 12 hungry people it allows Earth to export +10 units of food.
Also we have 2 miners producing 4 minerals units. (import/export of minerals is 0).
And 4 workers which are using 4 minerals to produce goods.
Morale is 111. We have 1 command point thanks to this colony, and we are producing here 2 research points from 2 scientists.
Miners and workers are producing 10 GCU.
And here is our colony on Ceres.
It's 5/8 population, we are importing 5 units of food from Earth so our population growth is 1.044 (it's so high now, because we are testing this game and we don't want now to have slow population growth). Also our 5 miners is generating 13 minerals per turn. As we don't have production here, all minerals are exported. Miners are producing 5 GCU.
Now take a look at system economy. Overall income is 15GCU, morale 113.5, 2 command points, we still have 5 additional units of food produced in this star system, and 13 minerals (from Ceres). 4 production and 2 RP from Earth total.
But take a look at top menu. You'll see there that there is total number of 10 freighters and 5 (marked green) are still free to use in the future. 5 others are transporting food from Earth to Ceres. Then we have info that we still have 5 units of food (also from Earth) which we can use somewhere. And then we have interesting mining part. The top value "3" is our current number of magazined minerals. Below we have +13 as our mining colony on Ceres will be mining and exporting +13 minerals. Earth mining is +4 and production is also 4, so Earth doesn't export any minerals. The last value is overall mining strength of empire and it's 17. (13 on Ceres, and 4 on Earth)
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In the next turn, you can see that we have only 4 freighters free, as another colonist was born on Ceres and now it has population of 6, and need import 6 units of food. (That's why we have only +4 food production). Also total minerals magazine is 16 (3 previously magazined and 13 from last turn from Ceres). As new miner was born there in the next turn we will have increase of mineals of +15, and total mining strength of our empire is 19.
I see that I have Black Hole system near, so I'll fly there with colony ship and make there another colony. As you can see our Ceres colony is now on max population (8) so we have only 2 free freighters left and 2 units of food. Our minerals magazine is +168, and Ceres is mining well
But I'll have to take a look there because probably not all colonists are mining if we have only +14 increase of minerals per turn. As you can see Tance Gemini 2 planet is not so nice to colonize for humans. It's Silicon based, cold, solid world with heavy G. Also "low light" from black hole and toxic made this huge planet (max 26 population) not so nice to produce anything. No farming. 0.25 per miners to produce 1 unit of minerals (so, when we will have 4 miners, we will produce only 1 mineral!! and 0.33 production. Also due to hard surroundings our scientist will have trouble with new inventions there... with only generating 0.69 RP per one scientist. But.. let's make colony there!
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Ok. now I'll increase food production on Earth and make it food colony, move all colonist on Ceres to mining (Yes, I forgot to mark that new colonist should be miners, not farmers.. as on Ceres farmers don't produce any food... I'm so bad player
) , and move all colonist on Trance Gemini 2 to production and make this colony production only, so new colonist will be born as production workers. Also I've increased our freighters number to 40 and skip some turns. But.. Trance Gemini 2 is so bad in production that I have to switch Ceres from mining to production and create another colony on Hydrogue 6 to show you how our economy works. Let's skip some more turn, change (thanks to cheat) 8 terran workers on Ceres to 4 Brutas and 4 Zientzielari, and now I'll show you how our empire looks.
We have 40 freighters in empire.
EARTH - 55 food produced by 10 farmers. It's +43 food as we have 12 colonists here. 2 Scientists are generating 2RP.
CERES - We don't import food here, as we don't have (Fe)food eaten by Brutas, and (S)food eaten by Zientzielari. That's why those colonist will starve to death soon, but for now they could be producing 6 production units (that's why we miss 6 minerals here). They are producing only 3 units of goods, instead of 6. Why? I'll explain it later.
HYDROGUE 6.
Population 5/18 so far. We are importing 5 (C)food (35 free freighters left). And the same with production as on Ceres. We could produce 5 production units, but we are producing only 3.
TRANCE GEMINI 2
Population 26/26. 26 units of food importing (9 freighters left). And again.. we can produce 8 production, but only 3 is created here.
OK now to numbers.
First we transport foos as it's the most important to empire. From 40 freighters, 31 are transporting food. 5 to Hydrogue 6 and 26 to Trance Gemini 2. Brutas and Zientzielari are starving, and soon they will be gone and also colony on Ceres
But for now we have 9 freighters left. They are transporting 9 minerals. That's why on Hydrogue6, Ceres and Trance Gemini 2 production is only 3 everywhere, as every of those colonies gets 3 minerals from 3 freighters. We could produce more production, but we don't have enough number of freighters to transport minerals from magazines to factories on colonies. We need 2 more to transport minerals on Hydrogue6, 3 more on Ceres and 5 more on Trance Gemini 2. So we miss 10 freighters total.
Now take a look at our empire economy and Sol economy screen.
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As you can see on top, we have 40 freighters but our empire can use 10 more to transport minerals. That's why we have -10 on red with current free freighters.
We have +12 Carbon Food (+43 from Earth, and 31 transported and eaten on Hydrogue6 and Trance Gemini2.) Also we miss 4(S) and 4(Fe) food, for 4 Brutas and 4 Zientzielari on Ceres.
We have plenty minerals in magazine (459), but every turn we are reducing this by -9 (as our 9 freighters which were left are transporting those minerals to 3 production colonies). Also our total mining power of empire is 0, as we don't have any miners currently mining minerals.
Also our production is 9, but it could be 19, if we have more free freighters to satisfy the requirements of minerals delivery in the factories.
In the end you can take a look below at SOL system economy.
It have 25 total population (12 Earth, 5 Hydrogue6, 8 Ceres)
It generates +24 money (-1 Earth, +11 Hydrogue6, +14 Ceres)
Average morale is 112. (110 on Earth and Ceres, and 116 on Hydrogue6)
3 Command Points (1 from each colony)
+38 food (+43 from Earth, -5 on Hydrogue6)
-11 minerals (it's value of MAX import, not the current one. We could use 6 minerals on Ceres and 5 on Hydrougue6)
6 production (it's the current production value in this system. 3 production from Ceres and 3 from Hydrogue6)
and of course 2RP from Earth.
And finally take a look at Hydrogue6 planet economy in the right bottom corner.
5/18 population (there is place for some new colonists. But with increase of population on this colony if we don't produce new freighters, our production will get smaller, as we will use even more freighters to transport food than minerals.
We need here 5 food, 5 minerals, and we are currently producing 3 units of goods per turn, but we can make here 5 units of goods max.
Uh... it's some part of our economy. There is even more things which have influence on it. Blocades, slaves, morale.. it's all connected and you as a emperor will have to take care of all this so your empire will work as good machine.
Now it's time for me to work on some small bugs still present here. For example Capital building shoud add some command points.... also unexplored system should have morale at 0.0 marked in blue color not red... etc. I hope you enjoyed some explanation about how our current economy works.