A Yardstick - Comparative Value in Stellaris

[Todie]

Well, a district and a building ought to produce more than just a district, of course.

While true, this gives the illusion that a rural district contributes comparable amounts of housing+jobs as a city district, when in fact it contributes far less... a rural planet with no or few city districts will need other sources of housing - often building slots. Otherwise their growth stagnates from lack of housing.

 

[strangebloke]

Well, a district and a building ought to produce more than just a district, of course.

You need housing to create/fill buildings. Farming and Mining districts only contain housing for their own pops unless you're communal or took up agrarian idyll.

So ultimately, you're either alternating between building housing buildings like luxury apartments and other buildings, or you're building city districts. So really, the city/zone combo uses at most half of a building slot more than an ag district.

And after flat bonuses (+2 housing from cities, +1 clerk job) but before trade bonuses, a city and zone produce double the number of basic resources.

 

[AlanC9]

I'm just not impressed enough with clerks. Except maybe in the very late game when all my minerals are committed, I'd use the building for something useful.

 

[Badesumofu]

I think what some people are forgetting about farms is that the farm eats 1/6 of his product. Those farm jobs are only producing +5 food net, a +1 increase over miners and technicians. Throw in Nutritional Plenitude and habitability and you'll see the farmer generate even less returns.

Why would you subtract that 1 food from the output of a farmer but not from every other job? Do you subtract the energy cost of a robot? Maybe only if that robot is a technician? This is just a nonsensical way to asses things.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

One pop produces 2.35 net food, or 1.543 net energy/minerals or 0.75 consumer goods when assigned to basic districts or artisan building.
This accounts for baseline food, housing, consumer goods, ammenities, and building/ district power needs.

For example:
238 farmers produce a net of 1000 food when supported by 42 miners, 77 technicians, 28 artisans, 43 entertainers, 119 farm districts, 22 mine districts, 39 power districts 14 artisan buildings, 22 holo-theaters, and 14 city districts.

This assumes no bonuses of any sort, and decent living conditions.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

Why would you subtract that 1 food from the output of a farmer but not from every other job? Do you subtract the energy cost of a robot? Maybe only if that robot is a technician? This is just a nonsensical way to asses things.

I forgot energy districts had an upkeep of 1 energy, I was thinking of tile system where the power plants didn’t have energy upkeep. The miner also doesn’t have a simple upkeep in minerals. And if that’s not good enough for you, how about the fact that every pop no matter strata will eat 1 food, the food required goes up based on habitability, and there’s no space based food deposits. Farms have to produce more food base I think.

Either way, I took full upkeep both district and pop when I compared them down below.

 

[Badesumofu]

I forgot energy districts had an upkeep of 1 energy, I was thinking of tile system where the power plants didn’t have energy upkeep. The miner also doesn’t have a simple upkeep in minerals. And if that’s not good enough for you, how about the fact that every pop no matter strata will eat 1 food, the food required goes up based on habitability, and there’s no space based food deposits. Farms have to produce more food base I think.

Either way, I took full upkeep both district and pop when I compared them down below.

I'm not talking about district upkeep, I'm asking why you're subtracting the food that a farmer eats from the farmer's output but not subtracting the food a miner eats from the miner's output. It makes absolutely no sense to factor that in for the farmer but not the miner.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

I'm not talking about district upkeep, I'm asking why you're subtracting the food that a farmer eats from the farmer's output but not subtracting the food a miner eats from the miner's output. It makes absolutely no sense to factor that in for the farmer but not the miner.

People complain(or ask why) that a farmer produces +6 food compared to technicians +4 energy and a miners +4 minerals. Well the farmer eats 1 yield of his output and the technicians and miners don’t. A miner makes 4 minerals regardless of how much food he eats. The farmer doesn’t. And you can’t subtract food from minerals. The point is farmers need to create more food base, technicians and miners don’t need a base yield increase because farmers make +6 food and they only make 4.

 

[Blurb]

People complain(or ask why) that a farmer produces +6 food compared to technicians +4 energy and a miners +4 minerals. Well the farmer eats 1 yield of his output and the technicians and miners don’t. A miner makes 4 minerals regardless of how much food he eats. The farmer doesn’t. And you can’t subtract food from minerals. The point is farmers need to create more food base, technicians and miners don’t need a base yield increase because farmers make +6 food and they only make 4.

You don't need to subtract food from minerals, what a ridiculous position.
A farmer produces 6 food, then has the upkeep of 1 worker (food, CG, housing, amenities).
A miner produces 4 minerals, then has the upkeep of 1 worker - note that the pops have identical upkeep.
There. You've now properly accounted for pop production and upkeep without distorting numbers.

By your logic, robots should never be technicians as they only produce 3 energy instead of 4, whereas they make excellent farmers (producing 6 food instead of 5).

 

[Typee]

This thread is fascinating. It's like watching XVIth century mercantilist economists trying to come up with a theory of value without taking supply and demand into account.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

This thread is fascinating. It's like watching XVIth century mercantilist economists trying to come up with a theory of value without taking supply and demand into account.

In that framing, what this thread has attempted is to calculate the supply curve.

 

[AmpsterMan]

I find this kind of optimization, while profitable in the short run, to be difficult to maintain in the long run. Thus, I try to focus on more stable variables. Your most precious resources are pops, building slots, and districts. Why these?

Pops are your most liquid assets. They are the common "input good" to every resource in game. More pops means more resources of any type you need.

Building slots and districts are limited, given any empire size. I disagree strongly when people say more advanced buildings are useless. Advanced buildings use up 2 slots to every for basic building (1 for the building itself, the other for the mining/synthetic facility). Using advanced buildings allowes my empire to keep growing even after my planets are full.

 

[AlanC9]

This thread is fascinating. It's like watching XVIth century mercantilist economists trying to come up with a theory of value without taking supply and demand into account.

It's not a crazy approach, actually. The Stellaris market isn't exactly real -- there's a built-in bias towards the default prices instead of just letting them go to wherever the market takes them.

 

[strangebloke]

I'm just not impressed enough with clerks. Except maybe in the very late game when all my minerals are committed, I'd use the building for something useful.

Clerks are pretty bad in the early game. They use up nearly as much as they make.

However, there are a few factors that can make them better.

• Way higher production per building slot and district
• many more empire-wide bonuses to production (no repeatable researches though)
• One of the only ways to have 7 pops employed without advanced buildings.
• Can be used to produce tier 2 goods (CG) or even tier 3 goods (unity) that's incredible.
• scaling reductions to housing and amenity cost mean that their production efficiency increases significantly as the game goes on.

Basically, whenever you've completed diplomacy and prosperity is when they start being worth it. More if you're a xenophile and/or a slaver.

Building slots and districts are limited, given any empire size. I disagree strongly when people say more advanced buildings are useless. Advanced buildings use up 2 slots to every for basic building (1 for the building itself, the other for the mining/synthetic facility). Using advanced buildings allowes my empire to keep growing even after my planets are full.

Right. They're not very efficient per-pop, but they're incredibly efficient per-building.

In any case, you can't just continually sell rares or else you'll tank the market; nobody else is buying those things. But there's probably a ~30-year period where selling them is good business.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

You don't need to subtract food from minerals, what a ridiculous position.
A farmer produces 6 food, then has the upkeep of 1 worker (food, CG, housing, amenities).
A miner produces 4 minerals, then has the upkeep of 1 worker - note that the pops have identical upkeep.
There. You've now properly accounted for pop production and upkeep without distorting numbers.

By your logic, robots should never be technicians as they only produce 3 energy instead of 4, whereas they make excellent farmers (producing 6 food instead of 5).

You're right, it is a ridiculous notion. Which is exactly why I didn't do that. The person I was responding to claims it was nonsensical to subtract the food the farmer eats from his output and not subtract the food from the miners output. Yes every worker has the same upkeep, so what? Nothing I said was about pop efficiency, or who should work what jobs so I dont know where you get your notion that I am saying robots shouldn't work technician jobs. Farmers eat 1 food and produce 6. They create 5 food net. That's a fact. Farmers need to create more food than the base 4 the other jobs do. If you want to extend my logic to anything, it's that technician jobs in robot empires should produce 6 energy and not 4.

 

[AlanC9]

It's OK to say farmers produce 5 food as long as we're saying that miners produce 4 minerals and -1 food.

 

[AlanC9]

Clerks are pretty bad in the early game. They use up nearly as much as they make.

However, there are a few factors that can make them better.

• Way higher production per building slot and district
• many more empire-wide bonuses to production (no repeatable researches though)
• One of the only ways to have 7 pops employed without advanced buildings.
• Can be used to produce tier 2 goods (CG) or even tier 3 goods (unity) that's incredible.
• scaling reductions to housing and amenity cost mean that their production efficiency increases significantly as the game goes on.

Basically, whenever you've completed diplomacy and prosperity is when they start being worth it. More if you're a xenophile and/or a slaver..

Why xenophile? I get slaver -- I'm getting way too many slaves in my current game.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

It's OK to say farmers produce 5 food as long as we're saying that miners produce 4 minerals and -1 food.

Farmers produce:
5 food
-1 amenity
-1 housing
-.25 consumer goods (assuming decent conditions)
-1 farmer job slot

 

[AlanC9]

Good point. Everyone keeps trying to make this simple by ignoring stuff, but garbage in, garbage out.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

Good point. Everyone keeps trying to make this simple by ignoring stuff, but garbage in, garbage out.

We are trying to build simplified models of a complex situation. As the saying goes:

“All models are wrong but some are useful"