Planetary Economies

Greetings,

One thing that I've noticed in my time here is that many products on many worlds are in chronic shortage. To the point that the GM has to step in the create them to temporarily alleviate these shortfalls, usually causing the markets to go haywire for a few days as they short themselves out again.

From what I've gathered, White Giant and Fearless Blue have these issues the least, but I'm based in Kebir Blue. If the underlying issue is that there's not enough corps on these worlds to meet the product demands, then one way we could address the issue is to build more corps.

Currently, the Back-To-School and Rehabilitation Hospitals don't do anything if there's no CEO corp in the nation. And if there is a CEO corp present, these facilities can return 40% of the CEO workforce to the labor pool, up to a limit of 50% of the total Stay-At-Home/Disabled population. I believe this results in some wicked labor seesaws for both specific nations and the planetary economy as a whole when an Enterprise closes corps or shuts down entirely.

Instead, what if the system was changed to allow a certain percentage (10-20%?) of the Stay-At-Home/Disabled population to be run through these facilities regardless of the presence of a CEO corp? If there is a CEO corp in the nation, it will provide the regular bonus, but a CEO is no longer a requirement to even begin. I'm presuming it would be easy to script the AI to build one Rehab Hospital and one Back-To-School College. Since these facilities by design only gradually add small numbers of people to the labor pool, it would naturally allow for the results to be carefully monitored and the percentages tweaked as necessary.

Have a nice day,

Banedon

The cause of certain shortages are twofold.

There is a mismatch between population demands goods and services and what they can produce. Try to make your country self-sufficient. You won't succeed.

On top of that there are max prices and manual immediate order systems.
Def. Weapon Maintainence for instance is always in massive shortages, but I try to avoid building them because their supplies are always in shortage too, which are not converted to immediate orders early, ruining profitability. Because of max prices there is no incentive to build them, or to build their supply corporations like Light Artillery. Why build them, if I can build an alternatieve, with the same max price (aka profitability), which is less volatile?
And contracting your own corporations with supplies also is troublesome. First of all it requires massive micromanagement, second some corporations require fractional monthly usages and you can only supply whole units per month. For example the monthly use of Cargo Shuttles for Assets Maintenance is less than 1. The monthly productions of Cargo Shuttles also btw, which complicates it even further. Common markets is too complicated as well and have requirements of min. Share 25% plus affects the whole entity. Besides, Cargo shuttles are not profitable, not even at max price, making the whole construction not attractive.

I suggested auto convert options of supplies in shortage to immediate but it hasnt been implemented yet. https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/1/29058.html

Hello NeutralSC,

I understand what you're saying and I agree, that's why I'm proposing another option that would gradually expand the total labor force of all nations, C3 and player alike.
Hopefully it would reduce the need for Immediate orders for corps and nations alike.

I think it would also help cushion the blow to a nation, player or C3, when a CEO corp closes and the Disabled/Stay-At-Home labor force that corp allowed is longer available.

There would still be a benefit to having CEO corps in your nation, so we're not weakening that part of the game.
There is still an investment required in Health and Education to get that benefit, so no one is getting anything for free.

The exact percentages can be modified until the desired market stability is reached.
Since I'm not adding new mechanics, just tweaking existing ones, hopefully it should make the change easier to implement.
And since the mechanic I'm proposing to tweak is gradual by design, it should be easy to monitor and/or modify to prevent the markets getting huge shocks as lots of factories open simultaneously.
That would cause products to surge from scarcity, to surplus, and then back again as profitability tanks and then they close.

Increase low water marks and order quantities for corps and countries. No more shortages.

Or, rather than using game mechanics to occasionally side-step flaws in the game engine, we could try to fix the game…

If game mechanics solve the problem, then there is no flaw.

On WG you would have to set the low water mark for some products at 10 years.
Def weapons maintenance orders from corps at best price almost never fill until they convert into immediate on their 10th year. It's the same for shuttles.

neutralsc hit on what I consider the weakest part of this game, playing as an econ empire. By that I don't mean building all the mining corps you can and raising taxes to 70%.

As far as immediate orders go you're hit with the 50% price penalty. When I'm forced to make them I use Q120 to cut the cost. If all my other supplies are at good quality the output effect is minimal.

I believe Mndz made a post about being able to supply from the strategic reserve when corps had shortages.

It is a complicated process and changes can deliver unexpected results.

If supply of some product is increased, it may result in an increased production of products that depend on it and consequently, cascading follow up results.

One of our problems is that when more products are in over supply, we are swamped in complaints about falling prices and diminishing profits.
The number of complaints when the market is short, remains small.

In short, you all, prefer markets to be short.
may be a bit short but certainly short.

We can raise the price ceiling. we once had an error an one type of missile did not have a price ceiling. The price shot up, and up and nobody reacted. No new corporations.

then the price crossed some thresh hold that indicated an error and we found out.
Even natural resources remain in the ground in many countries.

We are making very small updates in corporations that produce products that are in an outrageous short supply. don't want to flip the market over.
balance will improve.

Automatic conversion of orders into immediate orders could happen earlier.

C3 countries do react to shortages and build corporations that are in severe shortage.

C3 countries population is increasing. we should allow them to build more corporations.

Hi Andy

I can't seem to upload a picture, so I'll have to do this the hard way...
For one of my nations, here's a what the Back-To-School tab tells me:

Number of Employees in CEO Controlled Corporations: 214,325
40% of Workers in in CEO Controlled Corporations: 85,730 *b
Number of Housewives: 2,309,914 *a
50% of the number of Housewives: 1,154,971 *c

Number of Housewives that can return to the Labor Market: 85,730
Number of Housewives currently at work: 85,730

As I understand the game mechanics:
When the CEO corporation closes, the Housewives will no longer be in the nation's labor pool. Over 85,000 workers (because this affects the Disabled as well) will simply cease to exist. Therefore, I must maintain enough unemployed to be available to replace all of them when the CEO Corp closes. Even if instead of instant removal, the Housewives and Disabled are allowed to "age out" of the labor pool, I still have the same problem, I have to come up with another 85,000+ workers.

THE PROBLEM
As a President, I must intentionally degrade my nation's potential economic productivity by having sufficient unemployed available to cover a labor shortage due to a CEO Corp closing. An event completely outside of my control.
That's a lot of inefficiency and disruption to the economic productivity of not only individual nations, but the entire planet. When a large Enterprise closes its doors, the economic effects can be literally world shaking.

And a player can't just have another CEO build another corporation in their nation. Adding a new CEO corp will cause a labor shortage by poaching workers from other existing corps until the Back-To-Work and Rehabilitation facilities train up a new workforce.

PROPOSED SOLUTION
Have all nations allow a percentage (10-15%?) of *a, regardless if a CEO corp is present or not. The CEO corp would allow their current boost *b, up to the current limit of *c.

What you are not looking at is the other workers that are laid off when the CEO corp closes. In your example you say your removing 85K wives and maybe somewhere around 45K disabled. That's 130K removed of 215K employed, so you are adding 85K to your unemployed.

When an enterprise is closing, the corporations are not closed.
The corporations ownership is moved to a default game master enterprise and continue to function. eventually they are bought by a different CEO.

there are only a small number of enterprise corporations closing.

We have chosen for this structure to encourage presidents to invite enterprises to build corporations in their country.

Other than that, the feature does not make much sense.

we could have reduced the numbers of house wives and disabled a bit and stay away from this feature.
Some here want to do that anyway because many players, mainly new players do not understand how to use it.

@JohnV

Yes, I'm adding 85k to the unemployed.

If I want to lure another CEO to open another corp, 85k isn't enough to staff one.
I'll be asking a CEO to open a corp that can't be fully staffed at the start, or I'll be intentionally shorting my other existing corps.

Neither is efficient, so I'm trying to find a way to smooth that out.