Limits of HOP economy

[zakaluka]

I'm certain this isn't a new discovery, but I'm interested in revisiting it for 8.0 with the addition of void of opportunity

I set certain parameters on my current playthrough. custom start, started nearly broke, I am Rusiris 3, Rusiris 11's clutch sibling. I inherited absolutely nothing, just my fighter and a few crew. Liberas sent me a message stating I'd been written out of the will because my "morals pose a risk to the clutch" whatever that means.

I went looking for a roundabout way to aid my clutch siblings, to mend this bridge. Doors will re-open if I bring them profits, certainly. I am pretty confident I can do it.

So I discovered the holy order, at war with everybody. And the beginnings of a plan. If I exile myself to holy order territory, they share a hostile border with the teladi now via void of opportunity! If I grow a business here, I'll be increasing the fortunes of my clutch siblings. Surely they'll see what I've done for them. Liberas, even you couldn't come up with such a foolproof plan.

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A side restriction I put on myself is I can only have activities going on in the same sectors and with the same trade partners that the HOP do.
My HOP quickly took over void of opportunity. OK, this is useful.

I discovered something interesting. I believe Helium is the main bottleneck on the HOP economy. This won't change from save to save, I think. Helium.

As the player I eventually went for my usual first construction supplies factory: plasma conductors. 3 superfluid coolant, so far just 6 plasma conductors. Miners have activities whitelisted to HOP and HAT sectors. HOP have 4 coolant production modules in their whole economy. Total of 7, together we're demanding: 7x4800 = 34,000 helium per hour.

resource fields? qsna ranks them incredibly high (I still think these resource scores on that site don't fairly compare total replenishment from one system to another)
void of opportunity: 9 helium nodes, all fully depleted
holy vision: 3 helium nodes, fully depleted
pontifex's claim: 1? fully depleted
and that's it. These 3 sectors replenish at less than a rate of 34,000 units/hr.

I don't think there's anything wrong here, necessarily, with the game. There's some surplus of coolant on the region's market but it's not growing, even with control of void of opportunity. stock levels are going down. NPC Claytronics and plasma conductor factories are struggling. It seems like this could be their built in limitation. Possibly the main realy why they HAVE to trade with the HAT station up north.