Alpha Centauri 2

Other Games => Racing the Darkness Megagame => Topic started by: Trenacker on August 10, 2025, 06:42:56 pm

Title: Discussion - Base Economics
Post by: Trenacker on August 10, 2025, 06:42:56 pm

Base Economics
In Racing the Darkness, as in the original computer game, a faction's wealth is largely in its bases.

What is a Base?
Bases are permanent settlements where the survivors live, work, and play. A base always has at least one point of population, representing approximately 1,000 subjects, humans or robots. Bases are home to the production lines that produce military units, goods, and base facilities. Bases also naturally contribute research and cultural output to their faction as a whole, advancing progress toward new discoveries and expanding borders. Bases can be garrisoned by military units. Even the most rudimentary bases incorporate berms, fences, bunkers, and checkpoints to control access and support defensive operations.

Bases grow when there are enough surplus resources, but they can also shrink in size due to combat attrition, starvation, disease, defection, or intentional migration.

Natural Resource Production
Bases produce natural resources from worked hexes within their productive radius and store resources transported from worked tiles outside of that radius. Up to four types of natural resources may be harvested depending upon their availability: water, nutrients, minerals, and energy. Different combinations of these resources are required for base upkeep, to supply dependent units or tile improvements, and advance production.

To be harvested, a resource-yielding tile must be: (1) within a base's productive radius, (2) worked by a free unit of population, and (3) within the faction's territory.

Calculating Natural Resource Production and Surplus
Natural resources usually accumulate every turn through production, gifts, and Social Engineering outcomes. Natural resource yields are automatically spent first on base upkeep, then on unit upkeep, and finally on production. Excess resources become surplus if there is enough storage capacity.

Gross Production
The equations for gross resource yield are as follows:

• Worked Tile Nutrient Yield + Transported Nutrients + Social Engineering contributions = New Nutrients
• Worked Tile Mineral Yield + Transported Minerals + Social Engineering contributions = New Minerals
• Water Yield + Transported Water + Social Engineering contributions = New Water
• Energy Yield + Transported Energy + Social Engineering contributions = New Energy

Efficiency Modifiers
Energy and water production is subject to efficiency adjustments that represent the quality of base administration. Inefficiency is calculated using the following equations:

• Energy Inefficiency = (Energy x Distance / (64 – (4 – Efficiency) x 8))
• Water Inefficiency = (Water x Distance / (64 – (4 – Efficiency) x 8))

Faction headquarters do not suffer from inefficiency. Nutrient and mineral yields are not subject to efficiency modifiers.

The equations for these modified resource yields are as follows:

• New Water – Water Inefficiency = Modified Water
• New Energy – Energy Inefficiency = Modified Energy

Base Upkeep
Base Upkeep is calculated using the following formulas:

• (Stored Nutrients + New Nutrients) - (# of human populations x 2) = Available Nutrients
• (Stored Water + Modified Water) - (# of human populations x 2) = Available Water
• (Stored Energy + Modified Energy) - (# of robot populations x 2) = Available Energy

Available resources are then spent on unit and facility upkeep, in that order. Units that do not receive upkeep are considered Out of Supply (OOS) and may not take an action until they are supplied. They also suffer significant penalties to defensive combat. Facilities that do not receive upkeep go offline until they are supplied.

After base upkeep, surplus water, minerals, or energy contribute to production, starting with the first production line.

After production, any surplus resources accumulate in a faction's holding tanks. The initial storage capacity is 10 units for each natural resource type, but this can be altered with the construction of new facilities. Once the surplus amount of nutrients in storage at a given base reaches 10, a new population is created immediately. Mineral and water accumulations in excess of storage capacity are lost to spoilage. Excess energy is converted to credits.

Sources:
To help me, I leaned heavily on the Alpha Centauri Wiki's (https://alphacentauri.miraheze.org/wiki/Base) page on bases.