The Research Based Economy Cheat Bug

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Eric Larsen
Colonel
Posts: 350
Joined: Oct 25 2005
Location: Salinas, CA

The Research Based Economy Cheat Bug

Post by Eric Larsen »

I've been having fun figuring out how SR2010 works. In reading posts by other players I've discovered that there is a cheat bug that relates to research centers. Yesterday when I read one player preferred a research-based economy over a production-based one I became rather intrigued how this could be so.

It appears that research centers allow for increased GDP/c because fallaciously scientists seem to be very well paid. By building more research centers rather than production ones players are able to "create" more high-paying jobs. While scientists make a good salary they by no means are the top of the food chain. It's the production side that makes the big bucks. Just look at big oil here in the US. Just how much do you think those lying oil execs are raking in with their massive salaries, bonuses, and dividends? One heck of a lot more than any scientists ever will. Granted one "scientist" recently went into space but he made his money as an industrialist not as a scientist.

The other fallacy here is that research centers only employ highly paid scientists. They would employ far more lower paid clerical and support staff plus even lower paid security. Research centers should provide an employment boost, but not as good as production.

The highest paid jobs should be in manufacturing, that's where the big money is. Agriculture is also very profitable and a very high-paying industry here in Salinas, CA - the Lettuce Capital of the World and the Salinas Valley which is the Salad Bowl of the World. Wages in ag are far higher than any other industry in town, except for the poor folks that do that back-breaking field work but even they do better than they could at any other low-end job.

In real life science is not the best paid industry. Please fix this research based economy bug so that science is given it's proper economic weight that is not as high as production. While research centers should provide employment they should be second to production. Heck the best paying jobs are in Hollywood and in sports in real life. Those who toil the least importantly reap the biggest benefits (a sad reality for sure) and SR2010 should also give more weight to those nebulous "service" sector jobs as far as big bucks. In every industry you will have a few making out great, a bigger bunch doing okay and the biggest majority just getting by.

Hopefully BG will help make SR2010 more realistic and cut out unrealistic player cheats like this research-based economy cheat bug.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
Seydlitz
Major
Posts: 194
Joined: Oct 09 2005
Location: UConn
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Post by Seydlitz »

I agree with most of what you're saying in here (except that research probably pays higher per capita than production, since the bourgeoisie fat cats make up such a tiny percentage of the total workforce). But, I've become addicted to a research-economy in the game, because it's more useful than a production-only. Furthermore, it provides a second economic option if your exports are not going to be sellable at a decent profit. Overall, I think it's an issue of balance between realism and playability. Besides, the whole economic model falls apart, realism-wise, when you get into the upper inflation tiers.
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tkobo
Supreme Ruler
Posts: 12397
Joined: Jun 04 2002
Location: In a vast zionist plot ...RIGHT BEHIND YOU ! Oh Noes !

Post by tkobo »

Buy the game and update it.

You will find that the research driven economy has been "nerfed"/fixed/balanced/ etc..

It was fun while it lasted though. :lol:
This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM
Eric Larsen
Colonel
Posts: 350
Joined: Oct 25 2005
Location: Salinas, CA

What people make

Post by Eric Larsen »

Seydlitz wrote:I agree with most of what you're saying in here (except that research probably pays higher per capita than production, since the bourgeoisie fat cats make up such a tiny percentage of the total workforce). But, I've become addicted to a research-economy in the game, because it's more useful than a production-only. Furthermore, it provides a second economic option if your exports are not going to be sellable at a decent profit. Overall, I think it's an issue of balance between realism and playability. Besides, the whole economic model falls apart, realism-wise, when you get into the upper inflation tiers.
Seydlitz,
In real life I'm an accountant and over the past 25 years I've done taxes for people from all walks of life at almost every payscale. Actually I didn't say that research pays better than production, that was the inference I got from reading posts that seem to indicate the game seems to consider research workers as being higher paid than production.

One thing I've seen in real life is that there are plenty of scientists working the production side. The reason is they make more money working for the production corps (big, medium or small) than for research centers or academia.

Your being "addicted" to a research-based economy just doesn't make sense to this old self-employed capitalist pig. :wink: The money is in production, at all levels. Those are high paying jobs, especially compared to the newfangled mallrat economy we seem to be devolving into in real life. A production worker makes a lot more money than a sales associate or burger flipper or academic support worker. A production management type far outclasses a professor in payscale and I know that for a fact. Why do you think the government had to jack up it's payscale so it could compete with the production side for quality workers?

I do seem to see where in the game it seems to make sense that jacking up your tech level to jack up your education to jack up your GDP/c. But that means the game incorrectly assumes that the big money jobs are in academia rather than in production and that just isn't reality. Production makes you big money, academia just makes your head hurt trying to keep abreast of the leatest and greatest in scientific advancement. :P Actually I enjoy making my head hurt keeping abreast of the latest in science. :D
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
Richmonder
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Posts: 23
Joined: Dec 12 2005
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Post by Richmonder »

I was under the impression that research included the production consultant side of research. From my experience, unless you are at the plant manager level, trying to get more than $25 an hour out of production means that you got hired in the 70s and have the benefit of a union.

Even in production, most of the people who make money are on the research side, new product design and efficiency or the guys who take the research and apply it to the floor. A lot of these people are from the academic houses, most Research I schools essentially require you to have some sort of grant load (which often include salary supplements) for tenure.

I had assumed that research not only included the state spending on direct research but also includes the spiraling salaries of the specialists who make those research accomplishments accessible to the production side. For example, anything you have a major breakthrough in rocket technology at say MIT or Cal Tech, you can bet the aerospace industry is going to be bidding to get the graduate students (or even the primary researcher) into product development, and this is going to create a small salary bubble in that market. The more money into a fund like the NSF, teh more breakthroughs you get, the more IBM/Lockheed-Martin has to pay to get the latest and most up to date scientists. A bunch of these small adjustments in a product and you have to give that product a slight nudge in price (think cars and how much you would pay for the amenities in my first car - a '76 Toyota wagon - today, no anti-lock brakes, cd player, airbags, crumple zones, all wheel drive, fuel injection, heated seats, padding on top of the springs in seats, break away bumpers, my 16 year old sister has never had the joy of parallel parking a car without power steering).

Even if you want to seperate public from private research, a lot of public research is done through the private sector. When I research submarine technology in the game, chances are that the game is simulating the grants the military gives to General Dynamics (who in turn gives it to Cal Tech or MIT or uses a facility like JPL) so the money may still be going to "production side" research.

My own experience has been that the real money is in services, accounting and legal (yes, I know family accountants and lawyers get paid crap). An MBA/CPA at Capital One is going to make all but the most successful production or research people shy away from talking about their income- oh and vice. Then again I grew up in Richmond, VA and that economy is based on giving people high-risk credit so they can buy their cigarettes.
Eric Larsen
Colonel
Posts: 350
Joined: Oct 25 2005
Location: Salinas, CA

The Pyramid of Labor

Post by Eric Larsen »

Richmonder wrote:My own experience has been that the real money is in services, accounting and legal (yes, I know family accountants and lawyers get paid crap). An MBA/CPA at Capital One is going to make all but the most successful production or research people shy away from talking about their income- oh and vice. Then again I grew up in Richmond, VA and that economy is based on giving people high-risk credit so they can buy their cigarettes.
Richmonder,
Yeah that's why I'm in the service industry so I can be my own boss and make the big bucks for myself, not someone else who then gives me a mere pittance of the income I generate.

Still you are forgetting the pyramid of labor because only a few are well-paid top flight researchers, then you get a lot more assistants who are a lot lower paid and then there's the big support staff and security that gets paid even less. The unrealistic thing the game is portraying is that with research it's like everyone is feeding at the same high money trough and that's just not the case.

As far as the big money goes there's also a lot, in fact a preponderance, of low paying jobs. The service sector has all the mallrat sales associates and burger flippers too. production jobs pay much better on average than do these fine new jobs that have replaced so much of our once-great manufacturing sector.

Hey Virginia isn't the only place where the New Deal means buying everything on credit. Our new consumer economy has to fool people into thinking instant gratification and sell your future down the drain to live better today. The new neo-con song for this is :"You owe, you owe; it's off to work you go"! :D
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
The_Blind_One
Colonel
Posts: 388
Joined: May 28 2005

Post by The_Blind_One »

My take on the research slider is that it counts for ALL research done in the region.

Currently businesses make profits, with those profits they invest into new research, research & development. Increasing your research and development could mean that they invent new more efficient ways to produce, hence increasing gdp/c and increasing demand wich correspondingly grows with it. Basictly I see research and development as DEPTH investments from businesses (because alot of money u make as supreme ruler comes from domestic sales and normally that gets back in either dividents or investments (and since the efficiency slider really doesn't act properly as REAL investments) I take it that the research slider is an investment slider.

I seperate goverment income from business income.

With goverment income I pay social services, the military and a certain % of goverment spending in R&D.
With business income (domestic sales and the like, NOT business tax) I pay efficiency investments and the business investments in R&D aswell as the maintenance cost for the facilities.

I've found that keeping a tight fiscal policy stabilises your economy. Then you still have NET profits left if you fill all your demand and are NOT exporting it or importing. The money u have left (mostly from business if you do your job well) gets reinvested into R&D with me. I've succesfully been able to grow ANY economy this way. I've increased economies with up to 50% in 4 years without increasing costs to much. It's all just about monitoring demand and supply, keep a constant steady growth and your set.

Don't mix goverment with business is my motto now :D
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