The Orion Sector: Featured Games : Master of Orion 3

This is an adaptation of the compiled posts made by Tom Hughes, a MoO3 game designer, explaining the logic and functioning of the MoO3 economic and DEA system. The mining, bioharvest, and industrial DEA discussions have been completed, but the remaining DEAs are yet to be fleshed out.

DEAs:

DEAs, or Dominant Economic Activities, let you determine the economic zoning of the planet. Each region of the planet can support 2 DEAs and one spaceport DEA. Your planetary viceroy will automatically create new DEAs, as needed, based on the development policies that you have established. But you can also set up your own, if you want. Several factors apply to all DEAs:

Commodities

There are two basic resources from which everything else comes, they are minerals and food.

COMMODITY Minerals WHAT PRODUCES IT Mining DEAs
WHAT USES IT	WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (only Geodic & Cybernetiks)	Life, Industry, and AUs
Industrial DEA	Industry, and AUs
Excess minerals sold off	AUs
COMMODITY Food (Bioharvest) WHAT PRODUCES IT Bioharvest DEAs 2 regional blds (Hydroponic Farms and Subterranean Farms)
WHAT USES IT	WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (except Geodic)	Life, Industry, and AUs
Industrial DEA (/w bio blds)	Industry, and AUs
Excess food sold off	AUs

Production Capability

The ability to produce is defined by the Industry and the Test Tube ratings. Both measure the operating capability of the planet - actual production requires the investment of cash (AUs), supply of resources (Commodities) and availability of manpower (Population) to fuel this capability.

Industry Output of factories and population. WHAT PRODUCES IT Population Industry DEAs
WHAT USES IT	WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Industry determines cost of PPs)	Production Points(PPs), Pollution
Test Tubes Output of research labs and population. WHAT PRODUCES IT Population Research DEA
WHAT USES IT	WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Test Tubes determines cost of RPs)	Research Points (RPs)

Antaran Units (AUs)

WHAT PRODUCES AUs
Population
Bioharvest DEAs
Mining DEAs
Industry DEAs
Spaceport DEA
Recreation DEA

WHAT USES AUs
Maintenance
Pollution cleanup
Production Points
Research Points
Terraforming

Actual Production

Actual Research Points or Production Points produced has nothing to do with the planet's infrastructure - instead, it relies on how much money you put into funding that infrastructure (factories won't produce anything if they don't have the funding to supply commodities and labor). Production Points (PPs) and Research Points (RPs) are used as the cost of any construction or research project. The number of AUs needed to create one PP or one RP depends on the industry and test tube base of the planet and your industry and test tube efficiency.

PRODUCTION Production Points WHAT PRODUCES IT Industry + AUs
WHAT USES IT	WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Building anything(the cost is in PPs)	construction of building, troop, or ship

The final cost of creating Production Points (PPs) equals the base cost up to the colony's industry and doubles each time that base multiplier is reached. The industry is being overdriven and is therefore less efficient

Example 1:
Industry: 100
100 PP: 100 AUs(1:1)
200 PP: 300 AUs(2:1)
300 PP: 700 AUs(4:1)

Example 2:
Industry: 200
100 PP: 100 AUs(1:1)
200 PP: 200 AUs(1:1)
300 PP: 400 AUs(2:1)

This is all complicated by the effects of pollution and the fact that pollution cleanup is calculated into the cost of producing PP - you can actually spend more and produce less thanks to the increased pollution cleanup costs.

The final cost of creating Production Points (RPs) equals the base cost up to the colony's test tubes and doubles each time that base multiplier is reached. The research facilities are being overdriven and is therefore less efficient.

Terminology Recap:

DEA: Dominant Economic Activity
TT: Test Tubes
RP: Research Points
PP: Production Points
AU: Antaran Units
HFofGov: Heavy Foot of Government