Detailed references and scope

Section titled “Detailed references and scope”

This page joins environmental support, residents, workforce, civilian administration, industrial capacity, actual output and the race treasury into one ordered cycle. It describes the update steps the game actually runs, each at its own point, rather than treating a colony summary as a continuously balanced economic model.

The central distinction is between people and installations, stored rates, physical output and treasury transactions. Adding people does not immediately recalculate efficiency. Completing a factory does not enlarge the construction budget already calculated for that cycle. Recording taxes does not immediately remove a debt penalty already calculated for the cycle.

The examples below are deduced from the order of the cycle. They are not records of played games. Annual rates use the fixed year of 31,536,000 seconds. Installation coefficients, political modifiers and species properties are game data loaded from the database.

Page Detailed rules kept there
Colony and population lifecycle Creation, infrastructure rounding, surface and orbital population, growth, workforce, unrest and integration.
Civilian governance and sectors Appointments, administration requirements, membership, range and the activities that use governor bonuses.
Player race production mechanics Capacity equations, recipes, allocation, mineral and fuel limits, completion and queues.
Wealth income and treasury Tax bases, financial centres, civilian receipts, spending categories and accounting.
Game time and state refresh Increment and sub-pulse timing, the construction cycle gate, the complete strategic order and the points where stored values refresh.
Terraforming mechanics Colony cost ingredients, atmosphere changes and installation and orbital terraforming output.

This page concentrates on ordinary economic processing for standard races (FCT_Race.SpecialNPRID 0), which covers player races and ordinary NPRs. NPR industry draws on the mineral stockpile of the NPR’s capital population. NPR AI processing is always on and no window turns it off. An NPR with no capital does no industry. The NPR AI also makes changes between growth and production. Only standard races collect worker taxes and financial income in the construction cycle. These differences mean the player examples are not universal faction behaviour.

Joined state flow

Section titled “Joined state flow”
Input or state Next derived state First important consumer
Species, body atmosphere, gravity and temperature, infrastructure Current and worst-case colony cost, supported population, radiation and growth rate Workforce and unrest in the colony environment update. The surface population changes later.
Surface residents and associated ark residents Required environmental and service workers and the manufacturing population Efficiency, compared with installation and shipyard worker demand.
Efficiency, stability, political status, race and species factors, commanders Several distinct output modifiers Annual capacity preparation at the start of population production.
Weighted installations and those modifiers Stored annual construction, ordnance, fighter, refinery and MSP capacity Industrial work, or later refinery and MSP work.
Capacity x elapsed years, project allocation, live minerals and fuel Fractional progress, completed items and stock changes Later steps in the same population’s production.
Taxable installation and shipyard workers and financial capacity Annual population wealth, then race annual wealth Tax credit, treasury ceiling and debt modifier.
Actual work and other receipts Expense and income records and the race balance End-of-cycle wealth history and the next debt calculation.

The rows are separate update steps with different timing, not one simultaneous equilibrium. The colony environment update establishes the first three stages. Population production prepares the capacities and carries out the work. The race’s annual wealth calculation sets income and the debt modifier.

Strategic phase table

Section titled “Strategic phase table”

The construction cycle runs when the current game time minus the time of the last cycle (FCT_Game.LastGrowthTime) is strictly greater than the Construction Cycle Time of the Game Information window (FCT_Game.MinConstructionPeriod), in seconds. An interval exactly equal to it is not enough. One cycle receives the whole elapsed interval. It is not a series of fixed factory turns. After the cycle the game sets the last cycle time to the current game time.

Phase Ordered work relevant to colonies Consequence for availability
1 System disasters, radiation and dust decay, orbital movement, Sorium harvesting, and water vapour changes. These changes precede the colony environment calculation. Harvesting receipts precede the treasury ceiling.
2 Ark passenger growth, removal of empty ground formations, then the surface totals of populated bodies. Ark growth can enter the orbital workforce in this cycle. Body surface totals precede surface growth.
3 Every population refreshes environment, support, growth rate, workforce, efficiency, unrest and stability, political progress and the colonist pool. Surface inhabitants have not yet grown. Integration follows the workforce, efficiency and unrest calculation.
4 Commander health, retirement and service medals, then bonus experience. Income and production can see commander changes made after the colony growth rates were prepared.
5 Standard races prepare research field bonuses and naval administration commands, calculate annual wealth and the debt modifier, credit worker and financial income, then cap the treasury. Taxes and debt use the efficiency from phase 3. Debt uses the balance before these two credits.
6 Ship maintenance and ground unit maintenance expenses while the No Maintenance Required option (FCT_Game.NoOverhauls) is off, surveys, civilian shipping and mining, crew and fleet training, and player ground unit replacements. The treasury and live assets can change before population production starts.
7 Each population runs its production, taken from a list of all populations made when this phase starts. Population order is not an ordering by economic dependency.
8 NPR mineral transfers and AI, automatic commander assignment, removal of sector commands without an active installation, and later strategic recovery and diplomacy. Assignment and sector cleanup come after the output just produced.
9 Each race adds a wealth balance snapshot at the current time. History records the resulting balance, not a sum of tax records alone.

The rows keep the order of the relevant steps and group unrelated ones together. The strategic construction cycle order lists every step of the cycle.

The environment phase works through the populations directly. The later production phase works through a list taken when it starts, so a population created during that production phase does not join it. No explicit sort makes a supplier colony run before its consumer.

Support people and workforce

Section titled “Support people and workforce”

Infrastructure support and body carrying capacity are separate limits. An infrastructure shortfall can produce negative growth and overcrowding unrest. The required infrastructure is whole-number(surface millions x 100 x current colony cost x gravity multiplier / species population density modifier). The gravity multiplier is 2 when the species minimum gravity is above the body’s gravity, otherwise 1, and the density modifier is FCT_Species.PopulationDensityModifier. When the current colony cost is above zero and this requirement exceeds the colony’s infrastructure, the missing fraction f is (required - infrastructure) / required, or 1 when the colony has no infrastructure. Growth then becomes -25 x colony cost x f percent per year, multiplied by the species growth modifier (FCT_Species.PopulationGrowthModifier), with the radiation penalty subtracted afterwards. The governors’ Population Growth bonuses do not apply here. The construction cycle also adds 50 x f x elapsed years unrest points. Adding infrastructure does not increase the surface-area carrying capacity, which is (4 x 3.1416 x radius² / 511,187,128) x 12,000 x species density modifier, with the body radius in km. A body whose current colony cost is -1 has capacity 0. A hydrosphere above 75% multiplies capacity by max(.01, (100 - hydrosphere) / 25), where hydrosphere is FCT_SystemBody.HydroExt. A tidally locked body that is not a moon has its capacity divided by 5. The minimum is .05 million. Radiation separately reduces production through the modifier max(0, 1 - radiation / 10,000) and subtracts radiation x .0025 percentage points from growth, rounded to 2 decimal places (an exact half goes to the even neighbour). Detailed thresholds and rounding belong to the lifecycle support rules.

The workforce calculation reserves environmental workers from surface residents. The required set of figures uses the current colony cost. A second set uses the worst-case cost. The agriculture and environment share is min(1, .05 x (colony cost + 1)) x surface population. Service demand derives from total population. It is min(.7, fourth root(total population x 100,000) / 100), with total population in millions, reduced so that agriculture plus service does not exceed 1. Manufacturing workers are the total population minus those reservations. Orbital residents can therefore contribute workers without adding to the surface environmental-worker requirement.

Efficiency compares the required manufacturing population with the worker requirement of all installations (installed amount x DIM_PlanetaryInstallation.Workers) plus the workers of the population’s own shipyards. It is 1 without demand. When demand exceeds the manufacturing population, it is manufacturing population / demand, with a lower clamp of zero. Efficiency always uses the required-set manufacturing population, never the worst-case figure.

Taxes likewise do not levy a fixed amount per citizen. Their workforce base is the population’s shipyard workers plus the workers of installations flagged TaxableWorkers, multiplied by efficiency and the wealth modifier. Workforce income is taxable workforce x efficiency x wealth modifier, and financial income is financial capacity x efficiency x wealth modifier. An extra citizen can improve taxes indirectly by relieving a worker shortage. With efficiency already 1, population growth alone does not enlarge an unchanged installation tax base. Population tax and financial-centre income gives the full rules.

Changing a population’s size updates its surface and total population only. Total population is surface plus orbital, and a negative surface result becomes zero. Production applies the already calculated annual surface rate after it prepares the capacities, setting the surface population to surface x (1 + annual rate x elapsed years). It does not rerun workforce or efficiency at that point. Growth or mortality in this cycle therefore does not retroactively change the earlier taxes or the stored industrial budgets.

Governors sectors and distinct output factors

Section titled “Governors sectors and distinct output factors”

The colony governor’s bonus contributes its full multiplier. The sector governor contributes at quarter strength, 1 + (bonus - 1) / 4, and contributes 1 when he lacks that bonus. Matching +20% bonuses therefore compound as 1.20 x 1.05 = 1.26. Each output calculation uses the colony’s assigned governor and the commander of the sector that holds the system, as they are assigned at that moment. It does not recheck geographic range or required administration at each output calculation. See bonus propagation.

The general production output modifier P is governor Production bonus x sector governor quarter Production bonus x species production rate x race economic production modifier x efficiency x radiation production modifier x stability x political status ProductionMod. The species production rate is FCT_Species.ProductionRateModifier, the race economic production modifier is FCT_Race.EconomicProdModifier, and ProductionMod comes from the political status. An absent governor or sector governor contributes 1. The category formulas are in production capacity and modifiers.

Output family Material distinction in the combined cycle
Construction, ordnance, fighters, refineries and MSP P enters the stored capacities. It carries the Production bonuses, the species production rate, the debt-based economic modifier, efficiency, radiation, stability and the political ProductionMod.
Shipbuilding and ground construction Their own commander bonuses and capacity paths apply. Shipbuilding uses full Shipbuilding bonus x quarter-strength Shipbuilding bonus x species production rate x race ShipBuilding x economic modifier x efficiency x radiation x stability x ProductionMod. Ground construction is race GroundFormationConstructionRate x ground force construction complex count x full Ground Construction bonus x quarter-strength Ground Construction bonus, multiplied by the same species, economic, radiation, efficiency, stability and political factors.
Manned mining full Mining bonus x quarter-strength Mining bonus x efficiency x radiation x stability x ProductionMod. There is no general Production factor, species production rate or economic modifier.
Automated and civilian mining full Mining bonus x quarter-strength Mining bonus x radiation. It omits the manned efficiency, stability and political factors.
Terraforming full Terraforming bonus x quarter-strength Terraforming bonus x efficiency x radiation x stability x ProductionMod, applied to race TerraformingRate x terraforming installation count. Orbital terraforming module output is added by a separate calculation, and the sum is multiplied by Terraforming Speed option / 100, with the option in FCT_Game.TerraformingSpeed.
Research species research rate x race research rate x economic modifier x efficiency x radiation x stability x ProductionMod x Research Speed option / 100. The species rate is FCT_Species.ResearchRateModifier, the race rate is FCT_Race.Research and the option is FCT_Game.ResearchSpeed. There is no governor or sector Production multiplier.
Annual wealth full Wealth Creation bonus x quarter-strength Wealth Creation bonus x status WealthMod x race wealth creation rate x radiation, times stability when unrest is above 0. The race rate is FCT_Race.WealthCreationRate. It excludes the species production rate and the race economic modifier.

The table explains why debt or a change of Production governor cannot be applied as one universal percentage to every colony activity.

The political progress step runs after the workforce and unrest work of the environment update. Later, annual wealth reads the resulting status through WealthMod and production reads it through ProductionMod. A new political multiplier can therefore combine with workforce and service values calculated before that status change. See the runtime progression rules.

Capacity before work and live stock during work

Section titled “Capacity before work and live stock during work”

When population production starts, the game recalculates the production, shipbuilding, mining and terraforming modifiers, the ground engineering construction rating with fortification engineers excluded, the annual capacities, the mining totals, the terraforming capacity, the ground formation construction capacity, research output per facility, the genetic modification rate and the mass-driver capacity, which is zero when no destination is set. It then copies the mineral stockpile as the last-minerals snapshot and applies surface growth.

The order that follows is:

  1. NPR population AI, when it applies.
  2. Mining, industrial projects, ground training and replacements, terraforming, mass-driver launch and academy graduation.
  3. With positive total population, shipyard modifications and tasks, refining, research, genetic modification, MSP production, trade balances and, from 1 million total population, eligible prisoner interrogation.

Empty colonies can still reach the early automated and mineral activities. The positive-population requirement covers the later group only, not the whole production step.

Construction, ordnance and fighter projects allocate from the stored annual capacity. Each active project receives capacity x elapsed years x its percentage / 100 in BP, which pays for BP / cost per unit items, capped at the remaining amount. Mineral availability, fuel and the count of source installations for a conversion then reduce achievable progress. Fractional progress consumes minerals, fuel and wealth before a whole installation or item is delivered. The active projects, those neither queued nor paused, are listed when industry starts, so a project that becomes active later does not join that cycle’s list. Shared industrial progress and resource accounting gives the limiters in full.

A new ordinary installation is added to the colony’s installation count. Adding it does not recalculate the workforce or the annual construction, refinery or MSP capacity. A refinery completed in industry therefore does not increase the fuel production capacity already prepared for that cycle, even though refining runs later. Refining produces fuel production capacity x elapsed years, and that capacity was set at the start as race FuelProduction x P x refinery capacity. The new refinery contributes at the next capacity refresh, ordinarily the next production start.

This is a selective delay. Research checks the colony’s whole-number research facility count live after industry and runs only while it is above zero. Player research then counts the facilities again. A newly completed lab can therefore become visible to later research in the same cycle, subject to Assign New allocation and each scientist’s Research Admin limit, while research output per facility still comes from the start-of-production calculation. Not every newly completed installation waits until the next cycle.

Mining changes the live mineral stockpile before industry, and industry can consume those minerals before shipyards, refineries and MSP production. The last-minerals snapshot is the copy made before production, not a reserve available separately to each later step. Later steps see the stock as the earlier steps left it. Industry debits each recipe mineral x units built. Refining debits 1 unit of Sorium per 2000 litres from the live stock and is limited by that stock, with the exact shortage arithmetic given in fuel refinery output. MSP production is limited by live Duranium at .1, Uridium at .05 and Gallicite at .1 per MSP.

Tax collection spending and debt chronology

Section titled “Tax collection spending and debt chronology”

Annual wealth is recalculated for every owned population and summed race-wide. In that same calculation, debt sets the economic production modifier (FCT_Race.EconomicProdModifier) from the existing treasury. A treasury of 0 or more gives 1. Debt with an annual wealth of 0 gives .01. Otherwise the modifier is max(.01, 1 - |treasury| / annual wealth). Wealth creation omits this modifier, so reduced industrial output does not directly reduce the tax formula through debt itself.

The cycle then records elapsed years x annual workforce wealth under Worker Taxes and elapsed years x annual financial wealth under Financial Centres. It directly sets a treasury above 2 x annual wealth to exactly 2 x annual wealth, as the treasury ceiling explains. Maintenance and population production expenses follow. Industry, shipyards, research and MSP production record their own expenses when they work, rather than paying a single colony operating bill at the start. Industry charges units built x cost per unit under the project’s wealth category. Research charges output per facility x labs x elapsed years x (100 / Research Speed) x (1 / species research rate), as laboratories output and wealth describes. A cycle that completes a project charges only remaining RP x (amount / RP generated), where the amount is that full charge. NPR races are not charged. MSP production charges MSP produced / 4 under Maintenance Supplies.

Ordinary industrial processing limits work by physical inputs, not by a nonnegative race balance. Its expense can deepen debt. A later credit does not automatically recalculate the cycle’s economic modifier. Each recorded expense subtracts the amount from the treasury and adds a transaction record (FCT_WealthData) with the amount, the category and the game time. The distinction between transaction records, direct balance adjustments and the final history is detailed in treasury accounting.

Civilian mining taxes and purchases happen during mining, after the cap. On a body with mineral deposits, when its civilian mining output is above 0, a player colony set to purchase civilian minerals pays 250 wealth per Civilian Mining Complex per year under Purchase of Civilian Minerals. A player colony not set to purchase them instead earns its race 125 per complex per year under Tax on Civilian Mining. Ruin recovery is later still. These can change the end balance beyond the earlier cap or income total. Trade goods balance generation itself supplies goods and infrastructure rather than a direct tax credit. Shipping receipts arise from deliveries, as civilian shipping describes.

Shared bodies species and environment feedback

Section titled “Shared bodies species and environment feedback”

A population is identified by race, species and body together, so one world can hold several population records. When a colony is requested for a race, species and body that already have one, the game uses the existing record. Each record has its own installations, surface and orbital population and workforce, but all share the same body environment and capacity values.

Before the colony environment update, the game sums the surface residents of all races and species on every body with at least one population above zero surface residents. Orbital residents do not enter this body total. During the update each population calculates the maximum capacity for its own species before its growth calculation, so the final shared capacity value can reflect a different record’s species. The growth rates themselves are already stored per population. Capacity is (4 x 3.1416 x radius² / 511,187,128) x 12,000 x species density modifier, using that species’ modifier, with the same colony cost, hydrosphere, tidal lock and .05 million minimum rules as in the support section.

Later surface growth does not refresh that body total during production. Two colonies on one world therefore do not reserve the last free capacity in turn from a live running total during ordinary growth. A body crossing the limit in this cycle is assessed from the next body total unless another explicit refresh intervenes. The body-total refresh also skips a body whose last surface population has already become zero, so a stale total can remain there.

Terraforming runs after growth and changes the shared body atmosphere, then recalculates the colony cost for its own species with orbital extremes. It does not replay the earlier workforce, annual growth or tax calculation. Better conditions produced here enter those dependent calculations at a later explicit refresh. Species tolerances mean the same atmospheric change need not benefit all population records equally. The colony environment update itself calculates colony cost without orbital extremes.

Summary refresh is an active writer

Section titled “Summary refresh is an active writer”

Opening or refreshing the population summary of the Economics window is not a read-only view of the previous construction cycle. The refresh recomputes the surface total of the body from every population on it and the ark associations, calculates colony cost with orbital extremes, recalculates support, radiation and growth, then wealth, workforce, efficiency and several capacities.

Three differences matter when reconciling a displayed number with a cycle’s output:

  • The construction cycle calculates the growth rate with the elapsed years and with overcrowding unrest enabled. The summary calculates growth for 1 year with overcrowding unrest disabled, and it neither advances surface population nor collects taxes.
  • The summary calculates wealth before it refreshes workforce and efficiency. Its wealth preview can therefore use an earlier efficiency even while the capacity displays that follow use the newer efficiency.
  • The summary’s ground engineering calculation includes fortification engineers, while production excludes them. The summary does not explicitly refresh the body’s maximum capacity before growth. The only exception is the growth calculation itself, which recalculates capacity for the colony’s species when the stored capacity is zero and the rate is positive.

These refreshes overwrite selected stored values. They are not a universal recalculation point and they award no production.

Worked cycles and stalled paths

Section titled “Worked cycles and stalled paths”

Growth does not immediately staff the extra industry

Section titled “Growth does not immediately staff the extra industry”

Assume no player or AI changes in between, a fixed installation worker requirement and sufficient physical inputs. At the environment update of cycle A, manufacturing availability is 8 million against a demand of 10 million, so efficiency is .8. Let all other production factors be 1 and the unmodified construction rate be 100 BP/year.

Point State or result
A environment and tax calculation Efficiency .8. The taxable-worker and financial bases also receive .8.
A production preparation Annual construction budget is 80 BP.
A surface growth Residents increase. Suppose this supplies 9 million manufacturing workers when next recalculated.
A industrial work over .1 year Up to 8 BP, before recipe and project limits. The newly added people do not rebuild this budget.
B environment update With unchanged demand and the stated availability, efficiency becomes .9.
B production preparation Annual construction budget becomes 90 BP.

The 9 million is an assumed input that shows the order. It does not claim that total population turns one-for-one into manufacturing workers. The service and environment reservations still apply, and efficiency is manufacturing population / demand when demand is larger.

Debt can survive a tax-funded recovery in this cycle’s output factor

Section titled “Debt can survive a tax-funded recovery in this cycle’s output factor”

Assume annual tax and finance income is 100, the treasury entering the cycle is -50, elapsed time is .1 year, and the otherwise available industrial budget is 100 BP/year.

Phase Treasury and production consequence
A annual-income calculation Debt factor is 1 - 50/100 = .5.
A collection Credit 10. The treasury becomes -40. The factor remains .5.
A industry Budget is 5 BP for .1 year. Assuming 5 BP of actual work, the expense takes the balance to -45.
B income calculation, unchanged annual income Debt factor becomes .55 from the entering -45 balance.

No other expenses, receipts or cap interventions are assumed. If cycle A had entered at -5 instead, its factor of 1 - 5/100 = .95 would remain for this production step even after the credit of 10 made the treasury positive. The installation part of the construction budget is race ConstructionProduction x P x installation construction capacity, with P carrying the debt factor. Ground engineers add race ConstructionProduction x economic production modifier x radiation production modifier x ground engineering construction rating. The industrial expense is units built x cost per unit.

A completed refinery and a completed lab have different availability

Section titled “A completed refinery and a completed lab have different availability”

At the start of cycle A, the stored refinery capacity and the research output per facility are calculated from the existing colony. Industry then finishes an additional refinery and lab. Later refining still uses the old stored refinery capacity of cycle A. Later research can see the new lab through its live facility count. At the start of cycle B, the refinery enters the capacity calculation, and its workers enter demand (installed amount x Workers + shipyard workers) through the workforce refresh of the preceding environment update. Added installations can consequently enlarge potential output while lowering efficiency if staffing is short.

Stalled output and overcapacity

Section titled “Stalled output and overcapacity”
Condition Supported path through the cycle
Positive industrial capacity but missing recipe minerals or fuel Work is reduced, possibly to zero, before progress and debits. Unused nominal BP does not mean delivered items.
No manufacturing workers with positive demand Efficiency clamps to zero. General industrial capacity and tax and finance output can be zero even with many installations.
Debt at or above annual income The economic modifier bottoms out at .01. This is not a universal shutdown of wealth or automated mining.
Surface total above physical carrying capacity Otherwise positive growth is set to zero and overcrowding can add 50 x (surface total - capacity) / capacity x elapsed years unrest. This rule does not forcibly remove the excess residents.
Infrastructure shortfall Negative growth and unrest are calculated before later installation completion and trade infrastructure. The new support does not reverse growth already applied.

Trade goods add Infrastructure later in production when the colony has less than its maximum required infrastructure, or less than 1.25 times that requirement for a colonist destination. Industry reduces work by minerals and fuel, the debt floor is .01, and efficiency clamps at zero. Infrastructure mortality and the body-limit rule are distinct mechanisms. The body-limit rule is reached only while the computed rate is positive.

Persistence and interpretation limits

Section titled “Persistence and interpretation limits”

The game saves each population’s surface population (FCT_Population.Population), its race, species and body identity (RaceID, SpeciesID, SystemBodyID), efficiency (Efficiency), political status and progress (PoliticalStatus, StatusPoints), unrest (UnrestPoints), colonist state (ColonistDestination, AvailableColonists), stockpiles and the last-mineral values (LastDuranium and the other last-mineral columns). Installations are saved separately in FCT_PopulationInstallations. The race treasury (FCT_Race.WealthPoints) and the wealth transactions and history have separate storage. The game saves the balance itself and does not rebuild it from income records. Treasury persistence and history displays gives the details.

These records do not form a saved, consistent snapshot of one economic phase. Annual capacities, growth rates and body totals have their own refresh paths, and a saved efficiency alone does not prove that it agrees with all current installations and residents. Interpret a loaded or displayed value by the next calculation that uses it. Capacities are rebuilt at the next production start and summary values at the next summary refresh.

The examples deliberately hold game data, commander assignments, projects and resource access constant except where stated. They establish order and availability, not a guarantee of output under every recipe, NPR AI behaviour or change on a shared body. Full formulas, queue policies, orbital component bonuses and transfer billing remain on the linked pages.

Concept map

Section titled “Concept map”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”

Related community documentation and developer posts. These may describe a different game version.