A Yardstick - Comparative Value in Stellaris

[James_K]

This is a very complicated question - basically what you would need to do is work out the production functions for different jobs, basically what it costs to make various resources in terms of resources per job, including housing and amenities and then solve the various functions simultaneously to get the cost of each resource per pop-month.

It’s the sort of thing I could see myself doing if I had a spare weeeknd, but I’m not sure if I have that sort of free time right now.

 

[DeadEyeTucker]

My entire post was taking all upkeep for the basic jobs into account. The first paragraph was nothing more than an argument on why farms should produce more than the other districts. Though I didn’t factor in amenities. I ignored housing because it’s a capital cost and the basic districts are self sufficient in housing.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Actually, it is a lot worse then that.

Food trades for the same base price as minerals.

The miner's base upkeep is 2U so he is making +2 a turn of "profit". The farmer has the same upkeep (2U) so he is making +4 a turn of "profit". If we are looking at it per worker it is important to observe that if we factor in % bonuses to production the gap between 4 per miner and 6 per farmer gets bigger - because upkeep stays the same yet you are adding % bonuses.

If both get +50% bonuses, miner is making 6 per turn (so 4 after upkeep) and the farmer is making 9 per turn (so 7 after upkeep) and it doesn't get better for the miner as we get deeper in the game.

With either Agrarian as a trait or the Galactic Trading Hub, making food and selling it is just as efficient as making energy and you can do things with it you can't do with energy. If you have both, you can pretty much make food, sell it, and buy minerals and be as efficient as mining, or very close. On the other hand, selling minerals to buy food is silly. It also usually bribes AI's better then minerals and energy in early game. There is also no Dyson Sphere or Matter Compressor for food or way to "trade" it into existence.

If we just go by production per worker, your right. If we go by "what can I trade it for or make it into" it is very unclear.

You can also directly trade food for population, which is rare with energy and impossible with minerals.

How about I put .5 - 1.5 in for food and put a * next to it and leave a note that it is a bit messy?

I think this is because Food can only be grown by pops on planets. There is no way to grow food from any mega-structures, and you can't get food from mining stations like you can get energy and minerals. In a galaxy with a high planet to system ratio, this makes food OP, but with a low planet to system ratio, it's absolutely necessary.

 

[Blurb]

I think this is because Food can only be grown by pops on planets. There is no way to grow food from any mega-structures, and you can't get food from mining stations like you can get energy and minerals. In a galaxy with a high planet to system ratio, this makes food OP, but with a low planet to system ratio, it's absolutely necessary.

Aside from hive mind campaigns and machine empire bioreactors, pops are the only consumers of food, and as you well know pops are strictly found on planets (habitats and ringworlds being considered planets).
The system to planet ratio is completely irrelevant, as systems simply do not factor into the food equation. They do not produce and they do not have significant consumption.

 

[strangebloke]

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

Xenophile gives a bonus to trade production. Up to 20% if you're a fanatic.

One of my favorite builds right now is a xenophile authortarian run with syncretic evolution to make an ideal clerk species. Since the syncretics can't take other jobs, they always fill the worker-level jobs first, and even when you have 2-4 races per planet the syncretics are still filling the majority of those jobs. If you're willing to piss off your factions a bit, you can enslave the syncretics and make them hyper-efificient.

Even if you don't do that, since you have stratified living conditions and forced labor, the clerks are very cheap indeed.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Aside from hive mind campaigns and machine empire bioreactors, pops are the only consumers of food, and as you well know pops are strictly found on planets (habitats and ringworlds being considered planets).
The system to planet ratio is completely irrelevant, as systems simply do not factor into the food equation. They do not produce and they do not have significant consumption.

Did you even read my post? The reason farmers produce 12 food, while miners produce 8 minerals, and technicians produce 8 energy, is because there are other ways to produce minerals and energy than through planets. Planets are the only way to grow food, while minerals and energy can be produced via systems and mega-structures like the dyson sphere and the matter decompressor. I wasn't comparing food production to food consumption, I was comparing food production to energy and mineral production, which was my entire point, that in a galaxy with a high planet ratio, food production is more abundant than energy or mineral production far more so than in a galaxy with a low planet ratio, and since the market tends to return to the base price which does not change with planet ratio, food production becomes more OP in a galaxy with a high planet ratio, because you can exchange food for energy with the same ratio that you can exchange minerals for energy.

 

[AlanC9]

Some of us don't have access to dyson spheres and matter decompressors.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Some of us don't have access to dyson spheres and matter decompressors.

I assume this is a response to my post, because I'm the only who mentions dyson spheres and matter decompressors.

Also, that's not really important to my point, because mega-structures are late game things. Minerals and energy can be produced by stations in systems. The same is not true of food. Consider two different galaxies. Both have 1000 stars, but one has 200 planets and one has 100 planets. In the galaxy with only 100 planets, the minerals and energy produced by stations in systems will be a more significant proportion of an empire's total mineral and energy production than in the galaxy with 200 planets.

Farmers produce 12 food, while miners produce 8 minerals and technicians produce 8 energy. The 4 food differential is supposed to make up for the fact that food can only be produced on planets and not in systems or in mega-structures, but it's also supposed to make up for the fact that food can consumed more to increase the species growth rate, both via nutritional plenitude and the encourage growth decision.