Ok Erik here is one - 1.04

[Lanconic]

What is the point of 'empty' planets? Of which there are many in the latest patch?
We could argue that w/o heavy metals (ie metals above lithium) it is unlikely to have
a technological ANYTHING, but set that aside for this.

In game terms at least an empty planet could be used to draft troops?
Is that then their only use? Because now you have a big map with a few valuable planets.
Not unlike fighting in the USSR in WW2.

In game terms you can tax the masses sure, but its a fiction. What are they producing? NOTHING.
Taxing them produces nothing.

BTW I have no problem at all w/o with what you call a huge empire with lots of cash.
Why not? It is realistic.

[taltamir]

draft troops, provide research income, provide credit income (they can import stuff and then produce stuff... and give taxes)

[JosEPhII]

What do you mean "empty planets", do you mean empty star systems with no planets? I real dislike those.

JosEPh

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II

What do you mean "empty planets", do you mean empty star systems with no planets? I real dislike those.

JosEPh

I think he means a planet with no resources. Planets have each a random set of resources that you can mine with mining station. If you colonize it you don't need a mining station, they mine it automatically.
I think he means to ask what the point of planets with no mineable resources

[Igard]

They may also have strategic value, a good place to build a large space port, proximity to a valuable resource like a nebula/gas giant/asteroid field. There are probably many more reasons to colonise dead worlds. You could also leave them alone. It's the choices that make this game great.[;)]

[lordxorn]

I for one agree about your point with the nerfing of the economy. I did not think it needed one, however DW is a complex game.

With that said this is a new patch, give the community time to figure this one and someone soon enough will post that it is too easy to make money.

[kafka]

well, instead of spamming the map with empty objects, be it systems without planets or planets without resources, the better design approach, in my eyes, would be to have a wider scope of resources distributed more evenly among the existing objects (for planets) and to simply radically remove empty systems from the game since they have no gameplay purpose at all other than frustrating the player (otherwise to SEV you cannot acquire in DW the technology to create new worlds)

[Sliverine]

What is the point of empty planets? Lets assume said empty planet is continental and hence, fit for colonization. As we all know, the sole method of producing any sort of high-volume income is via colony taxes and/or trade (assuming no external empires involved). It is quite safe to say that at least 90% of your annual income is going to come from colony taxes with the remainder coming from trade and tourism. Now if im not wrong, goods trading between planetary populations are reflected as earnings in your private sector, which means the buying and selling of goods by your population from your population (on a different world of course) does have a profit but is restricted to the private sector i.e. u cant use it. The only good thing as a result from all that trade would be your trade taxes that your stations bring in since every time goods change hands at a spaceport with a commerce center, a tax is imposed (better commerce center = higher taxes). However, that tax is still pretty minimal and definitely not sustainable (same as tourism). Therefore, colony taxes will give you most of your spendable cash and therefore, having more colonies is akin to having more income.

[kafka]

well, 'empty' objects, at least resource empty planets may have some gameplay purpose, but, in my eyes, they are a) logical inconsistency (a planet without any usable resource is not a real thing) and they simply are a fun diminuitive factor to the exploration aspect, which, at least to me, is the most important in the game.

[Sliverine]

From kafka's standpoint, i have to agree. I mean, finding a barren rock planet which is actually barren is prefectly logical and fine. But finding a lush continental world with not even a speck of steel that can be utilized is pretty dumb. Even if we disregard any related gameplay mechanics (like planets being randomly loaded with resources etc...) and any associated fun-factors or whatsoever, it just doesnt make sense how a world filled with lush forests, deep oceans and teeming with organic life can have not a single scrap of say...polymer (which is basically an organic compound). Does it make sense to you?

[SiempreCiego]

every planet/moon/asteroid should have some minimal amount of resources.
using our moon as an example of a 'barren' moon it consists of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium and aluminium.
Also a totally empty star system should not exist in the game. they should all at least have a few rocks floating around the star

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: SiempreCiego

every planet/moon/asteroid should have some minimal amount of resources.
using our moon as an example of a 'barren' moon it consists of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium and aluminium.
Also a totally empty star system should not exist in the game. they should all at least have a few rocks floating around the star

true on both counts.
Even earth has all the above mentioned resources...

the way I think of it, those are MASSIVE quantities of said resource

although, in practicality you should be mining asteroids in space rather then planets... also FTL should be impossible... but then there is no game

[Lanconic]

ORIGINAL: Sliverine

What is the point of empty planets? Lets assume said empty planet is continental and hence, fit for colonization. As we all know, the sole method of producing any sort of high-volume income is via colony taxes and/or trade (assuming no external empires involved). It is quite safe to say that at least 90% of your annual income is going to come from colony taxes with the remainder coming from trade and tourism. Now if im not wrong, goods trading between planetary populations are reflected as earnings in your private sector, which means the buying and selling of goods by your population from your population (on a different world of course) does have a profit but is restricted to the private sector i.e. u cant use it. The only good thing as a result from all that trade would be your trade taxes that your stations bring in since every time goods change hands at a spaceport with a commerce center, a tax is imposed (better commerce center = higher taxes). However, that tax is still pretty minimal and definitely not sustainable (same as tourism). Therefore, colony taxes will give you most of your spendable cash and therefore, having more colonies is akin to having more income.

And what exactly does the populous of the resource poor world use to buy ANYTHING?
It produces nothing, except people. Unless your selling those you have a problem.
The currency of such worlds would be valueless, to be traded for what exactly?

It is a logical inconsistency, which is why I directed the question to Erik.

[Sliverine]

People are themselves a resource arent they? Manufacturing industries, research and development, these are all part and parcel of a countries' economy when it moves from subsistence to industrialization and finally, to a hi-tech industry where the service/commerce sector overtakes the industrial/manufacturing sector. Such as can be applied on a planetary basis. Raw materials brought in from other planets can then be processed and products manufactured from said raw materials, which can then be resold. All the world needs is people with which to do it with.

In transforming a raw material into a finished product, value is added. Therefore, said country/planet can sell the finished product off at a profit even after the cost offset.

[Lanconic]

ORIGINAL: Sliverine

People are themselves a resource arent they? Manufacturing industries, research and development, these are all part and parcel of a countries' economy when it moves from subsistence to industrialization and finally, to a hi-tech industry where the service/commerce sector overtakes the industrial/manufacturing sector. Such as can be applied on a planetary basis. Raw materials brought in from other planets can then be processed and products manufactured from said raw materials, which can then be resold. All the world needs is people with which to do it with.

In transforming a raw material into a finished product, value is added. Therefore, said country/planet can sell the finished product off at a profit even after the cost offset.

People are a resource ONLY, if they are scarce. Why bring materials 'to' anywhere? Simply bring the people
to the source. Much cheaper. In fact with the way the game mass moves people, its the only logical choice.
Resource poor worlds would become economic backwaters, eventually inhabited by impoverished life.
A net drain on the economic strength of the other worlds.

Only by exporting FOOD, would such worlds produce anything useful. Something not modeled in the game.

[Sliverine]

It all depends on your outlook. Bringing people to the source also means having the people to bring to the source to start with. At the very least, worlds with no resources can also serve to generate populace.

[Lanconic]

ORIGINAL: Sliverine

It all depends on your outlook. Bringing people to the source also means having the people to bring to the source to start with. At the very least, worlds with no resources can also serve to generate populace.

Indeed, not unlike moties in the book 'A Mote in God's Eye'
Not at all an enviable position

[Alex Gilbert]

An interesting discussion.  I don't know the designer's mind, but I have no problem with a planet "without resources" because the only resources modeled in the game are those used to make ships or bases and a few luxuries.  So I do not look at these planets as totally devoid of resources, just lacking the few that are modeled in the game. 

This would also be the explanation for the economic base of a planet- exports of these non-shipbuilding resources as well as exports of food (which were already mentioned) as well as things like art, or plants, or livestock, or tourism might be part of the economy.

I also agree with Taltamir who suggested that lack of resources in the game might simply reflect scarce rather than totally absent resources-- so that there is steel enough to build some infrastructure, but it is too rare to export to other planets.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Lanconic

ORIGINAL: Sliverine

What is the point of empty planets? Lets assume said empty planet is continental and hence, fit for colonization. As we all know, the sole method of producing any sort of high-volume income is via colony taxes and/or trade (assuming no external empires involved). It is quite safe to say that at least 90% of your annual income is going to come from colony taxes with the remainder coming from trade and tourism. Now if im not wrong, goods trading between planetary populations are reflected as earnings in your private sector, which means the buying and selling of goods by your population from your population (on a different world of course) does have a profit but is restricted to the private sector i.e. u cant use it. The only good thing as a result from all that trade would be your trade taxes that your stations bring in since every time goods change hands at a spaceport with a commerce center, a tax is imposed (better commerce center = higher taxes). However, that tax is still pretty minimal and definitely not sustainable (same as tourism). Therefore, colony taxes will give you most of your spendable cash and therefore, having more colonies is akin to having more income.

And what exactly does the populous of the resource poor world use to buy ANYTHING?
It produces nothing, except people. Unless your selling those you have a problem.
The currency of such worlds would be valueless, to be traded for what exactly?

It is a logical inconsistency, which is why I directed the question to Erik.

Japan manages to produce electronics, cars, and other things in factories located in japan using materials imported from other countries.
Israel's greatest export is technology and patents (higher per capita number of college degrees in the world). Windows is programmed mostly in israel... intels development of CPUs is as follows:
Oregon Team: Pentium 3
Israel Team: Pentium 3 mobile (merom, means sky in hebrew)
Oregon Team: Pentium 4
Israel Team: Core Architecture (based on "pentium 3 mobile"... P4 branch, aka netburst, was abandoned)
Oregon Team: Nehalem.
Israel Team: Sandy Bridge (originally Gesher Hol... which is hebrew for "sand bridge").
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2008 ... gai412.htm

Interestingly enough, the second largest export of israel is food... such as oranges and green peppers.

So, a country doesn't need to have natural resources to be "useful"... it certainly HELPS though... In Alaska, Alaskan citizens don't pay state taxes... instead every year they get a check in the mail for their share of alaskan oil drilling revenue. (in united arab emirates its more extreme since only a small fraction of the people are actually "citizens"... your citizenship is determined by if your parents are citizens or residents... you don't become a citizen simply by being born there... and their citizens have the highest per capita income in the world by far... mostly thanks to oil).

So yes... resources are awesome and all that... but you can import resources and make products, or produce things that require no resources (technology, foods, etc)

[Cindar]

From the standpoint of an empire trying to get materials economically, planets may have certain materials but they may not be abundant enough or available enough to be worthwhile. If you had faster then light travel and could reach other systems in a matter of days or weeks, would you bother trying to mine miles beneath a planet like earth for a rather rare resource that you could simply scoop off the surface of another planet?

Keep in mind also that a colony has to support itself. How much gold would the Earth be exporting if we were part of a galactic empire? Most likely not enough to be counted as a real 'source' of gold, even though some gold obviously exists here.