If the POPs live on planets, who/what are running the starbases, stations, and fleets?

[Geodynamis]

This thought first comes up every time I see starbases and habitats, only one of which has POP units despite generally being of comparable design and size. It especially came to mind again with some arguments over pop growth, as I realized that no matter the rate of growth, all those little space stations we build for energy/minerals/space alloys never have staff shortages as we gobble up territory.

I'm sure its mostly a gameplay compromise, but I can't help but wonder just how many people/drones are actually flying the ships and staffing the stations out of the total population.

 

[NXAwesome1]

I agree with you, and it does bother me.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

the same number of people that run driverless trains

 

[Quinzal]

I've heard that Pops actually represent large groups of people, somewhere between hundreds of individuals per pop to billions, depending on the empire.

There are most likely people manning those stations--the Science Nexus in particular has multiple events stating that it has scientists inhabiting it--but not enough to warrant a full Pop being taken into account.

 

[GnoSIS]

A pop unit is an abstract number of pops far greater than 100 million.

mining bases, starbases and emty habitats & megastructures are run by people too, but their numbers are too little to be of any consequence.

 

[MK1980]

starbases, mines or ships aren't anywhere near the size of habitats. you don't need billions of people to run such things. we have military bases, warships and oil rigs in real life. they are manned by personnel measuring in the hundreds or maybe thousands. civilian populations are measured in millions.

 

[Louella]

If you are playing humans, Earth starts with what ? 20 pops ? Say that's 10Bn people, then that's 500million people per pop.

Ships do have crews, as events show, for science ships, and the occasional promotion of a ship captain following a battle.

It's not uncommon to have a navy of 2000 fleetcap. Say it was 250 battleships, and that each battleship has a crew of 10,000. That's 2.5m people in the Fleet. And say that's only the part that serves aboard ship, maintainance and logistics would add more, say 3x as many, and so the entire Navy is 10m people.

And that's still only 2% of a pop.

 

[aroddo]

One pop is an abstract number that is best not being thought about too closely.
If you take the starting population of earth for example, you get about 24 pops that represent the whole of humanity.
Let's be generous and assume that this means we can sustain 24 billion people by year 2200 (currently we have nearly 8 billion).

Then let's ignore all those numbers when it comes to resetttling whole planets for a modest amount of energy.

These numbers won't ever make sense, so just suspend your disbelief.

 

[Dr. B]

It is the clerks and administrators.
They have to be doing something!!

 

[Louella]

Though, let's say you could choose the crew species, like how you can choose what species your armies are recruited from.

Would that add anything meaningful to gameplay ? Should a science outpost staffed by a species of "natural researchers" have a higher output than one staffed by proles ?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

It is the clerks and administrators.
They have to be doing something!!

filling out census forms

 

[Archael90]

This thought first comes up every time I see starbases and habitats, only one of which has POP units despite generally being of comparable design and size. It especially came to mind again with some arguments over pop growth, as I realized that no matter the rate of growth, all those little space stations we build for energy/minerals/space alloys never have staff shortages as we gobble up territory.

I'm sure its mostly a gameplay compromise, but I can't help but wonder just how many people/drones are actually flying the ships and staffing the stations out of the total population.

Okay... how huge is staf for starbase? 100 poeple? 1 000 people?
and how much individuals are in 1 pop? 100 000? 1 000 000? 1 000 000 000?
Yeah i know we dont know exact number. My point is that crew of starbase/ship etc is overhwelmingly less than 1 pop provide and thus its not shown anywhere.

 

[evilcat]

ALLIENS!
We can just assume that pops is many millions of citizens, but scilled starfleet personal and starbase operators are represented by naval cap and starbase cap.
Bigger empires even have bigger limit on starbase and fleet. But some are specialized in that so they have numbers above their size.
Also do not take game mechanic literally, it is a game, not simulation.

 

[The Founder]

This thought first comes up every time I see starbases and habitats, only one of which has POP units despite generally being of comparable design and size. It especially came to mind again with some arguments over pop growth, as I realized that no matter the rate of growth, all those little space stations we build for energy/minerals/space alloys never have staff shortages as we gobble up territory.

The same thing that is running ships:
Crews that are so miniscule compared to a pop, they are not worth simulating as a thing in the game.

 

[Archael90]

The same thing that is running ships:
Crews that are so miniscule compared to a pop, they are not worth simulating as a thing in the game.

Only enough large number of individuals is traveling in colonization ship, and it is shown as a pop.

 

[Ridixo]

Imagine this you are traveling on a ship full of people, you are going to another planet, to a better life. Your ships reach the space station, last stop before you arrive to your new home. You grab you luggage, the one you need on your day-to-day, excited for the travel to come to end. You go to the airlocks of the ship, soon, after the sanitary inspection and the paper work is done, you will get to a shuttle to your new planet. You notice the small hints. Too much questions among the passengers, the doubt in the eyes of the ships attendants. "No risk", "Strange", something about station workers is all you manage to catch. They come and go as the tension increases. One female tells the people around you to calm down, they will open the ship soon. You wait and true to their word they open the ship so that people may go to the station. Each step on the stairs is like a realization. The realization of an omission. Where are the security guards? The families? The business contacts? The workers? The hangar is empty as people go down to it. The hallways are empty as people tries to find the bureaucratic offices. The hallways are empty as people tries to find the guards. The rooms are empty as people tries to find anyone. You check with the attendants. Where there any problem? Is there any problem? Are things safe? They got no answers. Even less as they try to contact the people that did go to search for anyone. Radio silence breaks the noise in a deafening way. Each time more silence as less people can be contacted, each time less people as they can't be find. The ones that are left return to the hangar. Walking, fast, faster, running as the deafening silence of the void approaches. They reach the ship, you reach the ship. All of you go to the bridge, the captain must know what to do. The captain can ask for help. Silence is the only officer left on the bridge. Silence has boarded the ship you realize. Silence break as the only remaining security guard closes the bridge doors, keeping away what is there. Trapping all of you inside... on overwhelming silence... on a empty space station waiting for another ship to come...

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Only enough large number of individuals is traveling in colonization ship, and it is shown as a pop.

it might just be Anne Hathaway, a robot, and lots of freezers

 

[Archael90]

it might just be Anne Hathaway, a robot, and lots of freezers

Yes, but this does not matter. What matter is that ship, and starbase crew are not numerous enugh to be shown as POP.

 

[xking]

If you are playing humans, Earth starts with what ? 20 pops ? Say that's 10Bn people, then that's 500million people per pop.

Ships do have crews, as events show, for science ships, and the occasional promotion of a ship captain following a battle.

It's not uncommon to have a navy of 2000 fleetcap. Say it was 250 battleships, and that each battleship has a crew of 10,000. That's 2.5m people in the Fleet. And say that's only the part that serves aboard ship, maintainance and logistics would add more, say 3x as many, and so the entire Navy is 10m people.

And that's still only 2% of a pop.

I kind of wish there was something in the game that indicated how much population is actually a pop.

 

[Archael90]

I kind of wish there was something in the game that indicated how much population is actually a pop.

It cant be. A POP is a quantity of individuals needed to maintain a portion of empire (what porion, what maintain etc?) And we may guess how many this is
for example:
- Early space age, and atomic age primitives that is somewhere near rl earth in XXI which is around 7,5 billion people, has 26 pops, which translates to 1 pop being around 250 - 300 million humans.
Of course different species are different - some are larger, some has more hands to work, some eats much more, some are more fertile, and thus quantity of one POP is different for each species, but overall output from one POP remain the same, and this is a reason why we have not specific number but rather enigmatic "POP".
One can say that 1 billion ants could be as much efficient as 1 human. So if one pop would be 300 milion humans, then it would be 300 x billion x million ants, but its way easier to say for both "ONE POP".
And if crew of one starbase is around 1000 humans (i believe its much less), with one pop being 300 millions, then one should have 300k starbases to generate additional pop from them.