Economy, Resources, and Colonization The underpinning of the economic system in From the Ashes 2 is Income. Income is defined, very generally, as the amount of money your government collects annually to spend on stuff. You start with a base value that can increase or decrease annually based on changing circumstances around you (Piracy can decrease income, for example, while expanding infrastructure generally increases it). Once you have your annual income number, it can then be further modified by ethos or advantages/disadvantages selected in Faction Creation. Having acquired your final income number, you can then spend it on things. Some of these are mandatory expenditures, while others are discretionary. The first mandatory expenditure is social spending. This represents everything from pensions to unemployment insurance to internal security goon squads to nerve stapling. Whatever the methods by which your government provides for its population, this is it. The base number is 20% of your income. This may be modified by ethos, resources, or advantages. Some ethos have a social spending replacement specified; you cannot combine two distinct social spending replacements to make up your total social spending; if you have two ethos that give you social spending replacements, you have to use it. -For example, Randomia’s income is $10000. The base requirement for social spending is then $2000. However, they have a source of Lotus, which reduces their social spending by 5%; that makes their required social spending $1500 instead. Another mandatory expenditure is military upkeep. Upkeep consists of all the expenditures required to keep your military forces operational-training, repair, routine upkeep, costs to operate patrols, etc. Upkeep is 10% of your total $$$ amount of military force, again, subject to modification by advantages, ethos, resources, etc. -Continuing the example, Randomia has $20,000 in standing military force. Nominally, this means that military upkeep costs $2000. However, Randomia has a disadvantage that increases military upkeep 3%, and access to Hepatizon, which decreases military upkeep costs 2%. As a result, the net cost for Randomia’s military upkeep increases to 11%, so the cost is $2200. The remainder of your income can be spent on a number of other things, as detailed below. -New military procurement: This is pretty obvious. -Expanding DI. Additional DI can be purchased at the rate of $40 per 1 point of DI. -Infrastructure. This is significant, as detailed below. -Foreign Trade Deals -Exploration -Researching and developing new technologies. -A myriad of other things that I can’t think of right now Beyond these base mechanics, there are some modifiers for growth and costs based on the total size of your income. These are as follows: These numbers reflect total income of previous year, both base & bonus income combined. It does not include stock market revenue or surplus cash or anything gained as the result trades with foreign powers (arms sales, war payments, etc), Bonus/Penalty Tiers for Economic Growth: Below 60K: +8% to growth 60K-90K: +5% to growth 90k-120K: No modifier 120-140K: -1% to growth 140k-180K: -3% to growth 180K+: -6% to growth These ranges are subject to change as the median income grows. As a note, you can’t have negative growth from just a negative growth rate; If with resources and base rate and this balance pass, you have a negative, then you have 0% growth. If, however, you do something that actively causes your growth to go negative (like purchasing Eidolons) then you go negative. Beginning at 130K total income, a number of things become more expensive for your state to accomplish, due to labor costs, sprawling infrastructure, old fashioned graft, etc. For every 15K total income you have over 130K, the following items increase in cost 20%, except for Social Spending which increases by 2% instead. -Civilian Infrastructure -Military Infrastructure Defense Industry Defense Industry, or DI, is the catch-all term for everything from slipways to munitions factories to naval academies and boot camps. It is the forge in which your war machine is made. All military expenditures have a DI cost in addition to a $ cost. The DI cost, like the $ cost, must be paid in full, and can be pro-rated over the period of construction. The amount of DI you begin with is sharply limited, and further DI can only be produced so quickly. DI can expand no more than 10% annually (modified potentially by ethos/circumstances/etc), and it costs $40 to produce 1 point of DI. DI can be attacked/sabotaged by foreign powers, and while is not directly attached to any territory, generally losing any of your starting territory is going to see you also lose a portion of your DI. In the case of significant military losses, these normal restrictions are lifted. A state that has lost DI in war lifts the cap on additional DI construction until the point that state gets back to its pre-war level. DI in this situation also costs $30 per point, as it is assumed that some of the trained staff/equipment remains. One-use-only DI is not affected by DI increasing effect such as Militarism Ethos or effect of various other investments. Genejack DI is considered local DI and is affected by the DI Increasing effect. DI Overruns: Starting at 6000 raw DI and for each 500 above $2000, new DI costs +$5 per point. This means that at 7000 DI, DI costs +$100, etc. The cost increase % applies as a penalty to income gained from selling DI to DDI or the Black Market. This does not apply to single-use DI acquired through scrapping or purchase (or other means). Excess DI may be mothballed effectively reducing this total, and re-activated later at a cost of $10 per point. Stock Market Income Every year’s budget thread will have a value listed for the stock market. Stock market income is additional income much like the proceeds from a sale, and it does not increase social spending or count as bonus income. Stock market income is the percentage from the budget thread multiplied by your base GDP income. (Yes, this means investments do not give stock market income.) Infrastructure Infrastructure plays a key role in From the Ashes. It isn’t enough to discover a source of a rare or valuable material, you also have to extract it. There are also infrastructure projects to promote growth and extract helium-3 from suitable gas giants. Construction costs can be pro-rated over the period of construction. Extractors for resources and other infrastructure may be constructed as per the 2.1 colonization and exploration rules. There are a number of resources that may be discovered over the course of exploration and colonization, and to start with there are twelve available to select as materials your faction has access to, five on terrestrial bodies and seven found in asteroid belts. These resources are: Common Asteroid Based Resources: Red Mercury: 10% Firepower bonus to missile weapons Yttrium: 10% Firepower bonus to ballistic weapons Sakuradite: 10% Firepower bonus to energy weapons Hepatizon: 2% savings on military upkeep. Durasteel: 10% bonus HP stats Condensates: 10% to ship sublight speed Fenreerium: 2% to Regen Dilithium: -25% FTL drive cost (Cannot reduce fold drive cost to below +50%) Rare Asteroid Based Resources: Terbium: +2 Tracking Insidium: +2 Elusive Beta Indisium: +4 Stealth B-Titanium: -25% Gate/Beacon costs Weberfoam: -10% Colonization costs Trilithium: Increase Crit range by 1 (So from 20 to 19, etc). (Cannot benefit from Combines) Common Terrestrial Based Resources: (Found on planets, not necessarily Earth like, but not barren rocks.) Hyper-Glions: Gives fighters a re-roll in dogfights & adds a D4 to Special Forces effects. Protoplasma: All stats of infantry increased 20%. Lotus: Decreases cost of social spending spending by 5% Neo-Telomerase: 1% income growth per year Stable Newtonium: 10% discount on the purchase of non-income infrastructure. Rare Terrestrial Based Resources: Crystallium: -10% DI cost Cortex Stim: +1 Tactics in Space Combat Monomolecular Ceramics: -25% chance of taking Critical Hits Adrenal Pollen: +1 Tactics in Ground Combat Delta Dust: -25% Research and Development Cost (Cannot benefit from Combines) Numenorium: All stats of mechanized increased 20% When creating your faction, you can select one common resource of the appropriate type to be produced in your major (you get a free resource extractor there), and can purchase additional common resources and extractors. Rare resources can be found through exploration or other ingame methods, and requires Utilization Research, costing $1000 and taking one year, to permit the construction of extractors for. Once a state has this Utilization Research, they can freely trade it to other states, which waives the need to spend $$ or time researching it. Duplicate resources may be traded, or they may be retained and provide half of their base value; ie, having two Lotus would reduce social spending 7.5%. Each additional source further reduces its benefit by 50%, so a third Lotus would only decrease a further 1.25%, etc. Helium Infrastructure: See Exploration 2.1 Income Infrastructure: Income infrastructure itself is fairly straightforward. It can take whatever form you wish it to-a space elevator, a road network, new schools, whatever. There is a cap of investment per territory, however, that represents the point at which further investment will bring no additional income-you’ve saturated the territory with ‘stuff’. For each $1000 invested in a territory, your income is increased by 1%, after growth/loss is calculated. This represents tolls and fees, more or less. (Yes, you could spend $500 and get .5%, etc.) This is not growth; it is calculated after your annual growth or decline is calculated, as with income derived from ethos. A major territory can handle $5000 in such investments, a minor territory $2000. Colonial territories can handle a much smaller amount, as generally newly settled territories don’t have a large enough population to require significant investment. Any new territories settled during the course of the game can support $1000 in infrastructure investment. You are limited to 30% of your income invested in this type of infrastructure per year-there's only so many roads and schools you can build at a time. It is the responsibility of the player to track the amount of infrastructure investment that takes place in each of their territories. Infrastructure can be damaged in combat, sabotaged, etc. It also transfers if ownership of the territory transfers. Income infrastructure cannot be purchased prior to the game’s start Colonization: See Exploration 2.1 QEC Beacon: A QEC Beacon is a major component of interstellar travel. A system with a QEC Beacon is much easier to calculate fuel-efficient, fast jumps to, which is important for both commerce and defense. It is also essential in order to construct a jump gate. A QEC Beacon requires one year and $1000 to construct. It is required in order to build a jumpgate connecting to a system (which costs an additional $1000). It also significantly reduces fuel expenditures and decreases response time in regards to the system. Gates may be built with additional structural reinforcement, redundant systems, and armor plating. This makes the gate extremely difficult to destroy or sabotage, but doubles the base cost. A nation must have some form overtech research implemented in order to construct hardened gates. Existing gates may be retrofit by paying this cost. All systems connected to the Jump Gate network, as well as any inhabited off-gate systems possess QEC Beacons at the start of the game (or when players join the game).