Farmers shouldn't be more productive than miners and technicians

[LeonOfOddecca]

So I find it odd that the base production of a single farmer is 6, but the base production of a miner and technician is only 4. The main problem with this is *not* that food becomes easier to get (it doesn't because food only exists on colonized planets). The problem with this is that food buys and sells for the same default price on the market. Furthermore, all the resource buffs you can get from species traits and technology are more powerful in the case of food. For example, Agrarian, Industrious and Ingenious may *seem* to give the same level of bonus, namely 15% to the worker's output, as a matter of fact Agrarian gives a larger bonus: 0.9 per pop, compared to 0.6 with the other two. The same applies to all the tech that buffs the productivity of your workers in one of these industries. This means that if you're the kind of player who likes to specialize in one basic resource and trade for deficits on the market, you're better off specialising in food.

Now, I think I understand *why* the devs decided to do this, and I already alluded to this above. There is no food to harvest outside of colonized planets. However, it seems to me that food is also typically less in demand compared to energy and minerals, so it's not obvious that food needs a buff due to its scarcity relative to the other two. If I'm not mistaken farms in 2.1 were not more productive than power plants and mines and there was no issue with that. However, even if there is a need to make up for the fact that food can't be harvested outside of colonized planets, I believe there is a more elegant way of doing that.

Proposal: Farms provide 3 jobs and 3 housing. Base production of 4 food per job.

The reason I prefer this kind of buff to farms over mines and power plants, compared to the current buff, is that any percentage bonus that workers get from traits and tech will apply to the base production of 4 rather than 6. So there is no advantage to taking Agrarian over Industrious or Ingenious, and there is no perverse incentive to specialise in food production rather than minerals or energy. Farms are still better compared to mines and power plants, but farmers are not better than miners or technicians. Note that the extra housing is there to make up for the extra demand on population that farms will create.

I am not at all sure that food needs any kind of buff compared to minerals and energy, but if it does, this buff makes much more sense to me than the way it currently works.

 

[tobias.mb]

It's also one of the reasons, why machines are so bad atm. You can support 6 pops with a farmer but only 4 robots with a technician.

 

[the glory of plain]

miner and technician should be more productive
4 energy per job are too low

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

It's also one of the reasons, why machines are so bad atm. You can support 6 pops with a farmer but only 4 robots with a technician.

Good point. I haven't played with robots yet so hadn't thought of it.

 

[tobias.mb]

Good point. I haven't played with robots yet so hadn't thought of it.

And it gets even worse: you need a lot more energy, but you don't get more energy deposits. Of course you can grow food and convert it into energy with the bio-reactor (hilariously more effective than producing energy in the first place); but that costs you a building slot.

 

[Tahujoe]

How much food does the farmer themselves consume? Yes, I know it's less than the 2 difference between food gained per farmer and minerals gained per miner. I think it's 1, at most. The market-flipping... my first reaction is to want food to be cheaper than minerals and energy at its base price.

So, taken all together, farms are 1.5* as efficient at producing their one resource over mines and generators, both of which can be produced off-planet, which food cannot be. Price difference between a production district, max 8, and a mining station, usually around 1 to 3 without requiring a population is (300-100)=200 minerals.

I don't think it's too far out of balance, but definitely food could take a hit to how much energy you get from it.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

So I find it odd that the base production of a single farmer is 6, but the base production of a miner and technician is only 4.

I don't find it odd. The easiest answer is probably close to the truth: Due to biological POPs all requiring food to live, and due to our choice of 1 food per POP as the base upkeep cost (easy for people to remember, easy to balance stuff against), and due to our focus on materials being produced by workers (i.e. per worker POP) rather than a fixed bonus for having a building or district, the base production of the farmer was chosen with this one question in mind: "How many POPs (including itself) must a farmer POP be able to sustain in the default 100% habitability environment".

Take the hypothetical case of wanting 4 food per farmer rather than 6 to have it "equal" with the others - that would immediately and irrevocably as a consequence result in 50% more farmers needed to sustain any given population under the given design choice of 1 food per pop upkeep.

(Of course - that fixed "any given population" would consist of fewer nonfarmers, so while the 50% increase is one way to look at it, it isn't necessarily the best one. Another way would be to look at the issue from the perspective of how many farmers were needed to sustain the same number of nonfarmers, which gives us an increase of ~67% (5/3 - 1). E.g. say you need to support 15 nonfarmers (chosen as that's the least common multiple of 3 and 5); With 6 food per farmer that requires 3 farmers to support 18 men (themselves and the 15), with 4 food per farmer it requires 5 to support the 20 men.)

The way it is now is very simple: assuming no bonuses and perfect habitability, one out of every 6 POPs needs to be a farmer to sustain an empire, and he can be a farmer in a farming district or a hydroponics farm: the food is produced by the work of the POP rather than some default values connected to the buildings.

This, by the way, is also one of the reasons that machine empires are in such an interesting state between overwhelming (DS) and puny (everybody else) unless played in very amusing ways, because while they have had some changes made for their own sake the fundamentals of the 2.2 economy is designed for organic POPs.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

as a matter of fact Agrarian gives a larger bonus: 0.9 per pop, compared to 0.6 with the other two. The same applies to all the tech that buffs the productivity of your workers in one of these industries.

[...]

Proposal: Farms provide 3 jobs and 3 housing. Base production of 4 food per job.

Uhh okay well this would mean farms drain 50% more resources, but it wouldn't do anything about your first complaint re: the efficiency of tech and trait buffs. Do you not understand that 15% of 12 food is the same 1.8 food regardless of whether that food is being produced by 2 pops or 3? Your proposal is that farms should continue to produce 50% more resources than mining or generator districts. In what way do you think that solves the "problem" you've identified?

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

I don't find it odd. The easiest answer is probably close to the truth: Due to biological POPs all requiring food to live, and due to our choice of 1 food per POP as the base upkeep cost (easy for people to remember, easy to balance stuff against), and due to our focus on materials being produced by workers (i.e. per worker POP) rather than a fixed bonus for having a building or district, the base production of the farmer was chosen with this one question in mind: "How many POPs (including itself) must a farmer POP be able to sustain in the default 100% habitability environment".

Take the hypothetical case of wanting 4 food per farmer rather than 6 to have it "equal" with the others - that would immediately and irrevocably as a consequence result in 50% more farmers needed to sustain any given population under the given design choice of 1 food per pop upkeep.

The way it is now is very simple: assuming no bonuses and perfect habitality, one out of every 6 POPs needs to be a farmer to sustain an empire, and he can be a farmer in a farming district or a hydroponics farm: the food is produced by the work of the POP rather than some default values connected to the buildings.

This, by the way, is also one of the reasons that machine empires are in such an interesting state between overwhelming (DS) and puny (everybody else) unless played in very amusing ways, because while they have had some changes made for their own sake the fundamentals of the 2.2 economy is designed for organic POPs.

Interesting points. To extrapolate, the reason farmers are more productive than miners / technicians, compared to 2.1, is that we have much larger populations in 2.2, and many new types of jobs. Keeping the workers of those jobs fed would kinda suck if a quarter of all pops had to be farmers. So yeah, I can definitely agree with the reasoning.

I still don't like the fact that food costs the same on the market, but is easier to produce, and easier to buff, but this might be a better cost to bear than having to devote a quarter of the population to food production.

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

Uhh okay well this would mean farms drain 50% more resources, but it wouldn't do anything about your first complaint re: the efficiency of tech and trait buffs. Do you not understand that 15% of 12 food is the same 1.8 food regardless of whether that food is being produced by 2 pops or 3? Your proposal is that farms should continue to produce 50% more resources than mining or generator districts. In what way do you think that solves the "problem" you've identified?

Because the buffs that apply to farmers are no longer more effective than the same-costing buffs that apply to miners and technicians.

 

[Riftwalker]

It's also one of the reasons, why machines are so bad atm. You can support 6 pops with a farmer but only 4 robots with a technician.

wasn't robot empires supposed to have higher base production on districts or am i remembering that wrong. i know they don't but what's even the point of robot empires compared to hives who have pop numbers, i thought machine empires were going to be slower but more efficient per pop.

 

[Xeorm]

What makes robots smoother is not caring about habitability. A good percentage of your population lives on the home world initially, but that habitability modifier starts mattering much more once the expansion really kicks in. Biologicals are only doing comparatively well if they keep their average habitability above 50%. Doable but does require skipping almost 2/3 of the available planets.

 

[Delthor]

Do you not understand that 15% of 12 food is the same 1.8 food regardless of whether that food is being produced by 2 pops or 3?

It's exactly the same if you look at food per district. However, it's not the same looking at food per pop. Deceasing the pop efficiency is a nerf, especially since pop growth is often super important. However, it's also kind of a buff to agriculture worlds in a way, since worlds that are strictly agricultural will get more buildings that they used to, which isn't ideal.

I honestly think the answer is to buff machine generator output. They consume energy as much as organics consume food, plus they also don't get trade.

 

[Riftwalker]

What makes robots smoother is not caring about habitability. A good percentage of your population lives on the home world initially, but that habitability modifier starts mattering much more once the expansion really kicks in. Biologicals are only doing comparatively well if they keep their average habitability above 50%. Doable but does require skipping almost 2/3 of the available planets.

this is irrelevant since robots start with low pop growth... like this is cool and all, but they're slow on all their planets, so ignoring pop habitability isn't that great still. (or do gestalts just get more food and housing upkeep from hab problems?) either way, okay you have all the planets? the organics will still end up with more pops than you. :/

 

[Badesumofu]

I honestly think the answer is to buff machine generator output. They consume energy as much as organics consume food, plus they also don't get trade.

Probably this plus nerfing the default value of food on the market such that it's not generally better to grow loads of food and have a monthly trade on the market rather than simply build generators.

 

[Riftwalker]

Probably this plus nerfing the default value of food on the market such that it's not generally better to grow loads of food and have a monthly trade on the market rather than simply build generators.

I think giving them a +1 production (like the edict) for all of the main job types would make them competitive. they would still have bad pop growth, but more resource collection and more efficient resource conversion (into alloys). MAYBE, also change them to need consumer goods but rebranded to spare parts. hives should still do without them though, making ME and Hives that much different. make this not apply to that ME type that has growing pops.

 

[tobias.mb]

I think giving them a +1 production (like the edict) for all of the main job types would make them competitive. they would still have bad pop growth, but more resource collection and more efficient resource conversion (into alloys). MAYBE, also change them to need consumer goods but rebranded to spare parts. hives should still do without them though, making ME and Hives that much different. make this not apply to that ME type that has growing pops.

I don't think going the "good at basic resources" route is a good idea. That's already what Hives are good at.
I would much prefer to see a "good at manufactoring" route.

If machine (but not robots obv.) Metallurgists could convert 6 minerals -> 4 alloys (instead of 6->3 like the others), then Machine empires could stay competitive. You would still have fewer pops and basic resources than other empires, but since you get the same alloys you won't lack behind on expansion & fleet.
It would also put Machines in an interesting place: They struggle a bit in the early game, but once they do have filled up planets (somewhere 100 years into the game) this extra efficiency would make them extremely strong in the late game.

 

[wtface]

Edit: It does sortof devalue the cost of the "food -> growth" policies to make foot so cheap. Pop growth is so central and paying a larger cost in production might give a better tradeoff between efficiency and cranking out more pops.

Plant meat that grows on trees and is made of air and dirt shouldn't sell for as much as its equivalent in minerals or energy. Thats the real issue - selling something you can produce in such vast quantity for energy.

 

[C.N.]

I see no reason to turn Stellaris into pre-industrialization in space. Reduce the amount of energy you can buy with food rather than reducing production. That would be way more realistic, since nowadays it's not really cost-effective to grown food and farmers are struggling economically.

 

[James_K]

I see no reason to turn Stellaris into pre-industrialization in space. Reduce the amount of energy you can buy with food rather than reducing production. That would be way more realistic, since nowadays it's not really cost-effective to grown food and farmers are struggling economically.

Indeed, modern developed countries have no more than 2% of their population as farmers. Even if the farming job is supposed to cover everyone who works with food (including logistics, retail and preparation), each farmer job should be supplying more like 15-20 food, not 6. And that's before we start adding sci-fi farming tech.

It would probably make more sense to just drop food as a resource - assume that the food people need to eat is coming out of consumer goods, and that mining includes all primary industries, including farming.