The total wealth of your empire (production - consumption) is equal to your total industry. Remember that we are saying money == production, so all wealth must come from industry. The net for wealth is not zero. The net for food and minerals is zero. This just means that the food and minerals have to go somewhere (either consumed, or into storage or ?).skdiw wrote:Okay, resources ledges to a net balance of zero. In that case why just do + 20 food produce and then - 20 food consumption <edit> and other ppl pay for surplus? We are back to my original question: why do you need money to accompany the production of food? How do you do food focus if you don't have a net money surplus to reinvest in? How do your planets grow in the first place if the net always = 0? That is really strange.
I wonder if you are being thrown off by the way we are calculating net wealth on a planet? We convert all resources to money, and then subtract consumption.
Of course, this is not what I envision actually happening. The mental picture is freighters stuffed with food or minerals travelling to the industry worlds that need them, while freighters with equipment, machinery and consumer goods travel to the resource worlds that need them. Production - consumption is just an easy way to calculate the outcome of all that.
As far as I can tell, the only difference between your first and second example is the price. Since in your example the planet is self-sufficient, I don't see how raising the price of food makes the whole planet richer.In my first example, the net = 0; in the second, the net = +10. In both example, the money consumption is already taken account. We just balance with a positive income and not worry about any background calculations.
If we are using the unmodified Omega plan, all of B's wealth comes from the factories on planet A. If those factories disappear, then B's wealth can only come from the imperial reserves. B can still ship its excess food to A, but without factories, where will B get the spare parts for maintenance, the consumer goods, etc?Now in your example, planet B would have a surplus of wealth so B can now pay for A to get food over to A. Planet A isn't just a trading partner; A is part of your empire; kinda like if your friend is in trouble, you go help him.
Food production is a source of money only if someone pays for it. In my scenario, the people on planet A can no longer pay anything, because they can't make anything. So the government starts to pay. But who pays for the government? Not the people on planet A, they can't. The only people with money are the people on planet B, and they only have what the government just paid them. If the government takes all that back , they will have nothing too. But at least everyone gets to eat until the farm equipment starts to break down. This is why this empire desperately needs to get factories built.<edit>I don't see why B will run into debt if each food produce is accompany a positive money.
Now, I can see if producing food is just producing food and ppl have to pay for surplus, then I can see this interplanetary trade and dependence that you are talking about.
Producing food is just producing food. If there's money coming in, it has to come from somewhere.
If we do that, then farming, mining and research worlds don't get any benefit from their main efforts.But in that case, I would suggest forget about the (+) and just worry about the (-) of the eqaution.