Idle thought on machine empire upkeep

[Von Consul]

Machine empires struggle with upkeep. If it's too high they're energy starved. Too low and it's irrelevant.

Normal pops have 4 upkeep resources:

1. Food
2. Consumer goods
3. Amenities
4. Housing

Drones have 3:

1. Energy
2. Amenities
3. Housing

A simple idea: let machine empires use consumer goods as 'maintenance parts' or some such. Dividing the upkeep of drones between the two might make it easier to tweak.

Technically maintenance is amenities, so some overlap here. But it's an idle thought not an exhausted thesis. XD

Follow up question: I thought the old dev diary said machines were supposed to be good at basic resources. I tooktthat to mean they'd buy and sell but can they not take part in the galactic market?

Edit: follow up thought (yay showers) being able to use agriculture districts as generator districts would be a useful option. Though I guess that's why machines start with a bioreactor. Bit inefficient though.