Population and Production

Population and Production window

The Population and Production screen is also known as the Economics screen. This is by far the most complex and detailed screen in Aurora and is key to the strategic portion of the game.

Overview

An Empire is a collection of colonies, all of which have resources and population, which fuel your economy. So maintaining the Empire is accomplished through managing your colonies.

The Empire dropdown shows the currently selected Empire for which information is shown, and allows you to select other empires to view, although you will need to be in SM mode if you wish to view multiple empires. The Populated Systems list discovered and populated systems, the races that inhabit those planets, and their populations. The current capital planet is designated by (Capital). The checkboxes bellow, allows you to switch between two views of your colony list. The default view has more detail while the basic view requires less space.

The Time Control buttons, can be used to advance game time by the specified amount. There is a more detailed Time Control section on the System Map.

Tabs

Summary

The Summary tab shows the Planetary and Sector Governors as well as a summary of the currently selected colony, broken into several categories. The Planetary Governor applies his bonuses to all aspects of the selected colony. The Sector Governor applies one quarter of his bonus to all colonies within his sector. Both these positions can be assigned on the Officers Window (F4). The various lines on the summary view are as follows:

Left column: Colony Status, Population Information, Manufacturing Sector Breakdown and other

Colony Status
Political Status: The status of the colony in relation to the Empire as a whole. An Imperial Population is a fully fledged member of the Empire and follows all normal rules. A status such as Client State or Occupied will have different effects. See Political Status for more details.

Species: The species of which the population is composed. Each empire may have populations from several different species, each with their own environmental tolerances and racial characteristics. Each population can only consist of one species so if there are two species from the same empire on the same planet, there will be two populations.

Planetary Suitability: The Colony cost of the planet. If a planet has zero colony cost, the population is not restricted in any way other than the maximum growth rate. Otherwise, the maximum population is equal to (Infrastructure * 10,000)/Colony Cost. For more details on colony cost, see the System View window (F9)

Administration Level Required: The minimum Administration Rating of the planetary governor. In other words, no Administrator can be assigned to the role of planetary governor unless he has the specified rating or higher. If an Administrator is already assigned when the required rating changes he may remain within the role but any newly appointed governor must be at the new required rating level. Larger populations will require higher ratings.

Annual Wealth Creation: The total amount of wealth that this population will generate in one year. This is gradually added to the Empire’s current wealth every few days.

Population Information
Population: Total population of the colony. This is separated into Agriculture and Environmental, Service Industries, and Manufacturing sectors and is denoted in millions.

Agriculture and Environmental (A&E): The percentage and actual amount of population working to feed the rest of the population and maintain any environmental infrastructure. The required percentage is based on the colony cost and is assigned automatically by Aurora. A colony cost zero world will only have 5% assigned to this sector.

Service Industries (SI): This is the percentage and amount of population working in service industries, which includes everything that is not related to A&E or Manufacturing. The percentage required for SI is based on the total size of the population and is assigned automatically by Aurora. As a population grows, the relative size of the SI sector increases.

Manufacturing: The available population after the size of the A&E and SI Sectors has been determined. All factories, mines, shipyards, etc must be manned by this sector of the population.

Annual Growth Rate: The rate at which populations increase in size. The rate of increase is based on the size of the population and small populations have a higher rate of increase than large ones (what else is there to do on a new colony?). Population growth is fairly realistic and will be around 2% or less per year for a large population. The rate is also modified by any Population Growth bonus provided by the planetary and sector governors.

Current Infrastructure: The amount of infrastructure on this colony. If the colony cost is zero, infrastructure is not required. Otherwise, the maximum population is equal to (Infrastructure * 10,000)/Colony Cost. For more details on colony cost, see the System View window

Supported Population: The maximum population allowed by the current level of infrastructure. For colony cost zero, there is no maximum population.

Manufacturing Sector Breakdown
This section lists all manufacturing workers that are available and assigned to each type of manufacturing installation, and is denoted in millions.

Other
Requested Protection Level: This value shows how much protection this population demands from the Empire’s military forces. This is based on several factors including population size, political status and species militancy.

Actual Protection Level: This value shows how much protection this population is receiving from the Empire’s military forces and is based on the total PPV value of Empire forces within the same star system. If insufficient protection is being provided, it will cause unrest within the colony population

Radiation Level: The amount of background radiation present on the planet’s surface. If this is zero, there will be no radiation line on the summary. Each point of radiation decreases industrial production by 0.01%. The most likely cause of radiation is recent bombardment of the planet.

Atmospheric Dust Level: The amount of dust in the planetary atmosphere. The normal surface temperature of a planet is decreased by the Dust Level / 100

Right column: Installations, Factories and Resource Information

Planetary Facilities
This section (at the top of the right column of information) lists the planetary installations and the number and type of all manufacturing facilities contained on a planet. (Additional parts of each type of facility may be on the planet but unlisted if, for example, one is in construction or has been partially shipped off-planet)
The types of facilities listed here are Military Academy, Deep Space Tracking Station, Shipyards/Slipways, Maintenance Facilities, Construction Factories, Ordnance Factories, Fighter Factories, Fuel Refineries, Mines, Automated Mines, Research Labs, and Ground Force Training Facilities

Supplies Available Fuel and Maintenance Supplies are listed here.
Fuel Available: The total amount of fuel available at the colony. This stockpile is used to refuel orbiting spacecraft.

Maintenance Supplies Available: The total amount of maintenance supplies at the colony. This stockpile is used to resupply ships running low on maintenance supplies

Signatures
The Thermal Signature and EM Signature of the body are listed here.

Thermal Signature of Colony: This has the same function as the thermal signature of a spacecraft and determines the range at which the colony can be detected by thermal sensors. Industry such as shipyards, factories and mines has far more of an impact on the colony thermal signature than the size of the population

EM Signature of Colony: This has the same function as the EM signature of a spacecraft and determines the range at which the colony can be detected by EM sensors. The population size has a major impact on the colony EM signature.

Modifiers
Economic Production Modifier (EPM): If a race is using deficit spending (i.e. its wealth is lower than zero), then any installations that use resources operate at a lower output, based on the size of the deficit compared to an Empire’s annual wealth production. The EPM shows the percentage of normal output.

Manufacturing Efficiency: This figure represents the efficiency of the manufacturing sector. If sufficient workers are available to support all industrial installations, the efficiency will be 100%. If insufficient workers are available, this figure represents the percentage of required workers that are available. The production of all facilities such as shipyards, mines, factories, research labs, etc is reduced to this amount. The radiation level of the planet can also reduce this figure by 0.01% per point of radiation. If the radiation level is 10,000 the Manufacturing Efficiency will be 0%, regardless of worker availability, and nothing can be built on the planet.

Political Status Production/Wealth/Trade Modifiers: Some political statuses have an effect on the colony’s production. These modifiers show the effect as a percentage of normal output.

Political Stability Modifier: If a colony is suffering from unrest, its production will suffer.

Industry

Displays current Industrial Allocation and allows the creation/queuing of new Industrial Projects. Also shows current stockpiles.

Interaction (Construction Options, Create Industrial Project, Fuel Production)

Construction Options
A type of construction is selected with the drop-down from Installations, Missiles, Fighters, Ship Components, Build PDC / Orbital Habitat, Prefab PDC, Assemble PDC, Refit PDC, Maintenance Supplies. Then, a specific construction may be chosen, depending on the construction type, from the list below.

Create Industrial Project
Allows queuing of the selected construction in a specifiedNumber of Items using a specified Percentage of the capacity of the related production facility (Construction, Ordnance, or Fighter Production).

Fuel Production
Lists the current number of fuel refineries, the annual production of fuel, and the fuel in reserve. Start and stop buttons allow fuel production to be halted or started (it is started by default).

Information (Cost, Industrial Allocation)

Cost
Displays the cost of the currently selected construction (per item).

Industrial Allocation
Displays currently active/queued construction projects and data relevant to that project such as the percentage of capacity being used and the estimated completion date. Queued projects will show "Queue-" followed by the place in line in the last column

Stockpiles
Clicking the Stockpiles button changes the window to display the current stockpiles of Ship Components and Planetary Missiles, Prefabricated PDC Components, and Fighters currently in orbit. Clicking Stockpiles again will return to the previous screen.

Mining/Maintenance

Displays basic mineral/mining information for selected body.

Mining/Maintenance (Mining Report, Mineral Requirements)

Mining Report
Shows the state of mining for each mineral type on the selected body including mineral quantity, Accessibility, annual production, the number of years until depletion, current mineral stockpiles, Recent SP(Stockpile), recent related Mass Driver activity, projected mineral usage, and reserve level.

Estimated Annual Requirements for Maintenance Facilities
Below the mineral report, the estimated requirement of each mineral type for Maintenance Facilities is listed.

Resource Transport (Mass Driver Destination)

Mass Driver Destination
If the body has at least one, complete Mass Driver, the destination of that Driver can be set here. By setting that destination, this planet will automatically send mineral packets to that body.
WARNING: If the designated body does not have a completed mass driver, mineral packets may cause damage and loss of life.

Manage Shipyards

For more detailed information, and information about the Shipyard Complexes area, see Shipyards.

Shipyard Modification (Shipyard Complex Activity)

Shipyard Complex Activity
Allows the production of more slipways, the expansion of the capacity of slipways, and retooling of the shipyard itself. Note: A brand new shipyard (one without a class assigned) may be retooled for free and no time.

Ship Production (Create Task)

Create Task
Allows the Construction, Repair, Refitting and Scrapping of ships currently present at the body.

Shipyard Tasks

Displays and allows management of shipyard Tasks.

Information (Shipyard Activity)

Shipyard Activity

Displays the current activity of each shipyard, including the projected completion date and priority.

Management (Delivery Schedule for All Shipyards)

Schedule

Clicking the schedule button changes the display to show the Delivery Schedule for All Shipyards pane. (?)

Management Buttons

Buttons along the bottom of the window allow editing of tasks, including deletion, pausing, and changing the priority of tasks.

Research

When research project(s) are underway, the top of the screen will list the technologies being researched, the project leads, their progress and expected completion date. Players can: cancel projects, retaining all the progress invested into the technology; or increase or decrease the amount of research labs(RL) assigned to each project, which will increase or decrease the amount of time it will take for the research to finish.

From the Create New Research Project middle section, you can select the technology you want to research on the left, and the researcher you want to head the project on the right. The drop-down, allows to filter the list of technologies according to fields of research, which you can match with only matching scientists with speciality in the field.

Research Queue: It is possible to set up a series of tasks for scientists, so that they begin a new research project immediately upon completion of an existing task. Simply select the task in question from 'Create New Research Project', highlight it, highlight a scientist from 'Current Research Project' and click on 'Queue'.