10-01-2013, 05:07 PM
So when we set the food ration rates, we are really setting the food PAY rates. The people actually EAT 1/4 of their stockpile (with .25 and .0625 as ceiling and floor). This raises questions:
- My people must be consuming less food, right? If I have 200m people and they have 100m food in the stockpile, than even if I "pay" them a full ration (which would add up to 50m food), they will only actually EAT (100m + 50m) / 4 = 37.5m food? Since that is below full normal rations, are they building rebels now?
- What happens if I "pay" them food when their stockpile is already full? Or does that never happen because they only take .25 food per turn max? Can I pay them more than .25 food per turn, in order to pad their stockpile?
I have to suggest, at this point, that maybe the concept of a "food stockpile" and "consumer good stockpile" ought to go away like the "market" did. It's a shadow economy, those items are now "off the radar" so they don't take up space on a ship or anything, though perhaps they should. I remember one of the main problems with the market function was that players were selling inventory items to the market in order to protect them from bombardment, since the computer no longer considered those items part of a ship/colony. As such it was an exploit.
This food/consumer good thing isn't an exploit, but it is perhaps an unnecessary complication. Since we are managing our own production supply chains, we players could just as easily handle food/consumer good supply chains without this abstraction. If you have a ship with no food, everybody dies, period. If you have no consumer goods, your rebel numbers shoot up accordingly. If you ration stuff, fine, accept the consequences. This would remove the problem where your food production goes into the stockpiles BEFORE you can allocate it elsewhere.
- My people must be consuming less food, right? If I have 200m people and they have 100m food in the stockpile, than even if I "pay" them a full ration (which would add up to 50m food), they will only actually EAT (100m + 50m) / 4 = 37.5m food? Since that is below full normal rations, are they building rebels now?
- What happens if I "pay" them food when their stockpile is already full? Or does that never happen because they only take .25 food per turn max? Can I pay them more than .25 food per turn, in order to pad their stockpile?
I have to suggest, at this point, that maybe the concept of a "food stockpile" and "consumer good stockpile" ought to go away like the "market" did. It's a shadow economy, those items are now "off the radar" so they don't take up space on a ship or anything, though perhaps they should. I remember one of the main problems with the market function was that players were selling inventory items to the market in order to protect them from bombardment, since the computer no longer considered those items part of a ship/colony. As such it was an exploit.
This food/consumer good thing isn't an exploit, but it is perhaps an unnecessary complication. Since we are managing our own production supply chains, we players could just as easily handle food/consumer good supply chains without this abstraction. If you have a ship with no food, everybody dies, period. If you have no consumer goods, your rebel numbers shoot up accordingly. If you ration stuff, fine, accept the consequences. This would remove the problem where your food production goes into the stockpiles BEFORE you can allocate it elsewhere.