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

[xking]

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.

Yeah, but I would find it more immersive. I just wish there was something.

 

[The Founder]

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

So people could then start arguments about "Emigration of Y people over X time is too fast/too slow"? Or how "earths carry capacity is all wrong with those numbers"?

They are not stupid enough to define the exact size of a pop.

 

[xking]

So people could then start arguments about "Emigration of Y people over X time is too fast/too slow"? Or how "earths carry capacity is all wrong with those numbers"?

They are not stupid enough to define the exact size of a pop.

I don't care about any of that, I would just find it more immersive.

 

[Peko?]

I don't care about any of that, I would just find it more immersive.

I would find it less immersive.

 

[xking]

I would find it less immersive.

Ok?

 

[Mastikator]

Everyone in this thread is wrong. A pop is a single person. Mining stations, ships, starbases, etc are just remote controlled and/or automated.

And leaders? Just a pop with two jobs, you're not making new pops you're just picking one of the existing pops in your empire and giving them a second job. That's why a pop eats 1 food per month but a leader is paid 2 energy per month. 2 energy is their salary for the extra job.

So how can an admiral go across the galaxy when you reassign them to a new fleet? I just told you they're remote controlled, the pop never actually leaves their physical position.

It's the only logical answer. Also explains why a pop can only have one ethic, because having an ethic is being a member of a political party. And these are mutually exclusive.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Everyone in this thread is wrong. A pop is a single person. Mining stations, ships, starbases, etc are just remote controlled and/or automated.

And leaders? Just a pop with two jobs, you're not making new pops you're just picking one of the existing pops in your empire and giving them a second job. That's why a pop eats 1 food per month but a leader is paid 2 energy per month. 2 energy is their salary for the extra job.

So how can an admiral go across the galaxy when you reassign them to a new fleet? I just told you they're remote controlled, the pop never actually leaves their physical position.

It's the only logical answer. Also explains why a pop can only have one ethic, because having an ethic is being a member of a political party. And these are mutually exclusive.

i've often thought that if a stellaris fleet attacked earth they might well be swallowed by a small dog.

 

[rubert]

Pops commute to their assigned stations using space taxis, of course. Rush hour in Alpha Centauri is just terrible.

 

[Peko?]

Ok?

Just providing the counterpoint, no need to get snarky.

 

[Me_]

All automated. Planets are also fully automated. The pops are only for maintenance and control.

One pop cannot be very much as a single colony ship can carry up to 3, so a pop is probably a dozen people top.

 

[Zagreb 887]

All automated. Planets are also fully automated. The pops are only for maintenance and control.

One pop cannot be very much as a single colony ship can carry up to 3, so a pop is probably a dozen people top.

It make sense, because a post scarcity space faring civilization wouldn't need billions of people working to death in mines or factory in XIXth century fashion. Even research would requiere a few individual using complex advanced computers to do the calculation/simulation.

What is left to do for people is hard to imagine in our perspective, art, leisure, family carring? The fact that individuals get disconnected from the "productive" part of the society should drastically change the way they define and practice art, culture and even family.

IG, they would probably be bio trophies eating ice cream until heat death of the Universe

 

[methegrate]

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.

I'd kind of like to be able to assign leaders to stations.

Admittedly, for this to matter then leaders themselves would also have to matter. But if we assume that they eventually fix leaders so that they're relevant to the game, it would be cool to have a Sisko-like figure leading the defense of a critical starbase, a tyrannical admiral who runs the empire's largest shipyard, a corrupt merchant in charge of a major trade port, etc. I mean, if these are supposed to be some of the empire's largest hubs of construction and commerce, leaders feel like they'd be relevant.

I feel like there could be some real potential there.

 

[stern]

the same number of people that run driverless trains

View attachment 772723

So you have a powerstation the size of a star, the dysons sphere, and it's ran remotely, but the generator districts on a planet, that almost don't produce energy in comparison, are ran by countless and countless of people who need housing and consuming goods?
It doesn't make sense, the starbases and megastructures are supposed to be massive and colossal, they should have bigger populations than habitats.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

So you have a powerstation the size of a star, the dysons sphere, and it's ran remotely, but the generator districts on a planet, that almost don't produce energy in comparison, are ran by countless and countless of people who need housing and consuming goods?
It doesn't make sense, the starbases and megastructures are supposed to be massive and colossal, they should have bigger populations than habitats.

but people don't live there. they use the transporter to commute to and from work.

 

[Zagreb 887]

but people don't live there. they use the transporter to commute to and from work.

That's sounds terribly inefficient, when you can just automate the whole system.

 

[Me_]

So you have a powerstation the size of a star, the dysons sphere, and it's ran remotely, but the generator districts on a planet, that almost don't produce energy in comparison, are ran by countless and countless of people who need housing and consuming goods?
It doesn't make sense, the starbases and megastructures are supposed to be massive and colossal, they should have bigger populations than habitats.

Maybe it's a scam. These people on planets don't really do anything useful. They are corporate office workers maintaining the corporate bureaucracy of generators etc. They are kept around because the governments need voters (in case of democracies and oligarchies) and cannon fodder for wars (in case of everyone).