Fwurg

[Brend]

SItuation: The racial characteristic Telepathic states:

For every full billion of inhabitants in a system, a single fleet with its home port in that system gains a +● bonus to a single defensive rating. Every fleet can only gain a single bonus point in this way, but having multiple billions allows you to improve more fleets.

The Population page states:

Some Racial Characteristics offer production bonuses or other benefits per 1 billion population of the same race on a world. The exact details are given on each racial characteristics page.

The Population rules further state:

Overpopulated worlds can get economic benefits only for the population supported by developed zones

Question: How does overpopulation interact with system-wide bonusses? Can you can get the fleet-bonus from Telepathic from a block of 1.0 if that block is not supported by a developed zone, and is therefore an overpopulation block?

We have had an earlier discussion on population segments (see Population bonus calculation), and there we concluded there that you can only get economic bonuses from population if the Population Growth Cost is paid. The PGC still has to be paid for overpopulated planets, so this seems to imply that you can get system-wide economic bonuses from blocks of population that do not give planet-wide bonuses due to overpopulation.

Now, I recently constructed my third fleet (the First Dewa Fleet), and I have a world (Mirda) where there's a group of telepathic population that does not give a planet-wide bonus due to overpopulation, but that appears to give a system-wide bonus to military fleets (since the bonus is not on the overpopulated world itself...)

I am unsure how this works.

[Dragonmaster352]

The +1 dot bonus from Telepathy is its economic bonus. This is clearly stated in the datablock (note: may be using that term incorrectly).

It's true this isn't really an "Economic" bonus in the real definition of the word. However when talking about the "Economic benefits" of a racial characteristic, the rules mean (or at least should mean) the "economic" bonus listed for that characteristic.

So under that reasoning, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say no. You can't have that bonus dot on your third fleet as long as that third billion population is not supported by a zone.

Sorry.

[Brend]

I understand the gist of your reasoning. However, my point was not whether it was an economic bonus or not. I completely agree that it is counted as an economic bonus.

You only explain that the +1 defense is an economic bonus. It is not clear to me from your explanation how this works with the statement "Overpopulated worlds can get economic benefits only for the population supported by developed zones" (emphasis added by me). What I read there is that overpopulated worlds do not get per world benefits from population over the zone limit; not statement is made about system-wide bonuses.

My point is that the restriction from zones seems to apply only to bonuses that apply to planets, and that this bonus is in no way related to the planet. Overpopulation is a planet-specific thing, and PGC is still paid for any overpopulation, so there would be no free lunch if the bonus were available.

That being said, I'll wait and see what other people think. Otherwise I'll have to start cracking on some population techs ^_^

[Gerben]

Seeing the problem you have with the 'telepathic' I can't help but compare these to some other racial characteristics we have that offer no real zone benefits, like aquatic, coordinated, huge, cyborg and the like...

As such im inclined to say that the bonus should therefore apply normally, regardless of the zone resistriction, thus offer the benefit to multiple fleets if the population is large enough

[Dragonmaster352]

My bad, I misunderstood what caused your confusion.

Under your explanation I don't particularly have a problem with you receiving the bonus.

I do think the larger implication should be considered for future reference though. There are more racial characteristics that have bonuses that don't apply directly on a world. For example the -10 upkeep for holonet relays from the analytical characteristic or the army bonus of the combat ability characteristic. All such bonuses should be treated the same. Arguably these racial characteristics would become "better" then others. Which may or may not create problems in the long run.

Considering all that I am hesitant to make a decision at this point.

[Elmer]

When we take a look at the racial characteristics that give a system wide economic bonus, we have:

• Analytical
• Combat ability
• Coordinated
• Huge
• Mercantile
• Nomadic
• Telepatic

Lets assume that we can have near infinity population in a system, partly due to overpopulation. Lets see which characteristics will become overpowered:

Analytical

: will have free holonet relays

Combat ability

: will have no change (infinite armies which are stronger)

Coordinated

: Will have halve the costs on fleets

Huge

: Will have infinite defence forces

Mercantile

: Will have infinite and

Nomadic

: Will have free hyperspace lanes?

Telepatic

: Nothing changes really (infinite fleets which are a stronger)

I think some of these characteristics might require a second thought on their power (Analytical, Huge, Nomadic). I think we should approach all system wide bonuses equal, so whatever we decide here will be for all of these characteristics.

That being said I think that the bonus of population from overpopulated worlds still apply on system level.

[Dragonmaster352]

Lets assume that we can have near infinity population in a system, partly due to overpopulation. Lets see which characteristics will become overpowered:

Analytical
: will have free holonet relays
Combat ability
: will have no change (infinite armies which are stronger)
Coordinated
: Will have halve the costs on fleets
Huge
: Will have infinite defence forces
Mercantile
: Will have infinite and
Nomadic
: Will have free hyperspace lanes?
Telepatic
: Nothing changes really (infinite fleets which are a stronger)

I think some of these characteristics might require a second thought on their power (Analytical, Huge, Nomadic). I think we should approach all system wide bonuses equal, so whatever we decide here will be for all of these characteristics.

That being said I think that the bonus of population from overpopulated worlds still apply on system level.

First: Mercantile does not belong in this row. Both and are only applied on the world the population is on.

Second: Analytical still needs to pay to build holonet relays and holonet relay upkeep reduction is limited to half the total upkeep.

So Huge and Nomadic might be overpowered, yes. Huge is an easy fix, just let the defence forces be counted towards the maximum total of defence forces. Nomadic is a bit more problematic.

But even without overpoweredness these characteristics would still be better then the other characteristics.

[Mercury]

Question: How does overpopulation interact with system-wide bonusses? Can you can get the fleet-bonus from Telepathic from a block of 1.0 if that block is not supported by a developed zone, and is therefore an overpopulation block?

Based on the rules-as-written, I would interpret the rules as follows:

Every full 1 gives a bonus, if and only if it is supported by a developed zone (as per the population rules). Since population is located on a planet, the developed zone supporting it must be on that planet. This means that, for example, a small planet which has 7 zones with 10 only provides a bonus for 7 of that , the other 3 being unsupported.

The fact that Telepathic (or any other racial ability) provides a bonus to the entire system is irrelevant to that equation. Thus, such a small planet could only provide bonuses to 7 fleets, not 10.

Telepathic allows the bonus provided to fleets which are housed anywhere in the same system as the population. So it is not necessary for the 7 fleets to have their home port on the small planet - it could be housed on individual Small Moons, for example. However, those are benefits inherent to the bonus itself - they hold no bearing on whether the bonus is provided or not, which is instead governed by the population rules discussed above.

Under this interpretation, there is no interaction between overpopulation and system-wide bonuses: since overpopulation (by virtue of not having a supporting developed zone) provides no bonus, the bonus does not exist in the first place, and therefore whether it is applied system wide or planet narrow is irrelevant.

One caveat is that since the bonus is system wide, and therefore it doesn't matter where the population is located, you could move your overpopulation to another planet in the system and effectively get the bonus wherever you want - this would not be possible with planet narrow bonuses.

Since these are the rules as written, I don't need to get into whether or not this is balanced economically, because that is irrelevant as to the discussion of how to interpret the currently existing rules.

Note that this is how I interpret the rules-as-written. Now, on the subject of "rules-as-intended":

Back when these were written, and when the limits of overpopulation was considered originally, I had a vision of the ecumenopolan world of Coruscant, which had a population of 1 trillion, by Star Wars lore (disclaimer: 1 trillion is a very big number)

One of the options I envisioned was to have a zone devoted to housing population - such a zone would not produce resources, but would instead support the ever growing population. Each point of production on the zone would provide support for 0.1 in exchange for certain goods ( perhaps? ), which'd mean such a zone - producing 150 labour on a Type I world - could support 16 : 150 * 0.1 + 1 for being a developed zone, provided resources were generated for it.

Many other options are possible too! Factors to take into account when developing these kinds of things would be game balance (already covered in part by PGC, btw), realism (a planet with 1 trillion people doesn't grow enough food to support itself but needs to import it from Elsweyr or Somoder'Plaisce), exponential growth and the extreme production boost which may be problematic for very large populations in the grand scheme of things.

I'd be open to options that tend to these matters!

[Brend]

Question: How does overpopulation interact with system-wide bonusses? Can you can get the fleet-bonus from Telepathic from a block of 1.0 if that block is not supported by a developed zone, and is therefore an overpopulation block?

Based on the rules-as-written, I would interpret the rules as follows:

Every full 1 gives a bonus, if and only if it is supported by a developed zone (as per the population rules). Since population is located on a planet, the developed zone supporting it must be on that planet. This means that, for example, a small planet which has 7 zones with 10 only provides a bonus for 7 of that , the other 3 being unsupported.

I can get behind this reasoning. I will clarify the Population this evening or tomorrow.

[Brend]

I have updated the Population page to reflect this clarfication.

[Mercury]

Looks good to me!