Solving the Halted Economy While Keeping Everything Fully Simulated without Cheats

[CaptainSim]

More and more threads are discussing the dead economy about 50 hours into a game. Obviously there is something wrong happening, since so many reports have occurred. Here is how the developers can quickly solve this issue:

There is no need for AI to cheat to keep the economy moving, and there is no need to falsify any aspect of the economy.

First, consumer PEACETIME goods can be depleted and this is realistic and no problem. Consumers will CONSUME the goods they purchase. The higher the population in a sector, the higher the consumption rate should be. Sector population should GROW overtime if there has been peace, which will increase the peacetime consumer economy.

As far as war goods, they should NOT be artificially depleted. Here is how to solve the problem with WAR goods: create EXTREMELY powerful defensive towers in the CORE home sectors of each system. Only the most disciplined AI or player invasion would be able to defeat them. These defensive towers should be placed in the CORE home sectors, not all the home sectors. Also, the AI should be taught to build every type of production station in its core home sectors so that the production economy can function in a single sector if it becomes necessary,. In this way, a nearly fallen faction can rise back up again. Also, the developers should change the strength of the AI for each faction over time, going up and down, based upon new leaders being elected to the particular faction. One leader could be more competent than the next leader, etc... This would allow some factions to grow more powerful for awhile, followed by other factions taking their place for a time. This would get the war economy moving again and also make it so the game map doesn't become static. Of course, you want a faction to fall on a RARE occasion in a long term game, as this is realistic. It would then be up to the player to revivify that rare defeated faction if it so chooses through its own in game operations and strategy.

One thing I'm sure about- we don't want to revert back to X3 when it comes to realistic economy! Great strides have been made to make this economy REAL from bottom to top, and we don't want to stop that progress.