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The Great GDPocalypse
Starting with v0.75.0, a massive realignment of colonial GDP will be taking place, and some of you with massive GDP figures numbering in the quadrillions or more may not like it (or may not care), but on the whole, it will be a lot better.
Before v0.75.0, GDP has been just a lazy calculation, adding up the market value of all resources in a colony, along with all of the money that colonists had in their wallets. This was an easy way to set it up at the beginning, and it sort of worked, and not too many people cares, so I left it as is.
The problem, is that anybody who knows about economics will know that this calculation has nothing to do with GDP, making the number totally meaningless as a measure of economic output. The result was that a colony could have a massive GDP just by getting gifts, making an epic trade, or simply existing for a long time and building up massive resource stockpiles. Again, all of this is fine, but it really gives no valuable information about the health of your colony's economy.
With this update, I decided to just totally scrap the old GDP figures, and implement a real GDP calculation, in the economic sense. Going forward, GDP is now a rolling calculation of the gross industrial output of your colony over the span of one "year." This makes it a far more accurate and meaningful measure of the industrial strength of your colony.
So, in order to be able to make the calculation, I first had to definitively determine what one "year" is in My Colony. After reviewing some of the existing game mechanics, I came out with one year being 120,000 "tick" cycles in the game, or roughly one hour of play time. So going forward, the GDP of your colony will be the sum of all industrial output over the last hour of play time.
The part that will sting at first, is that since it is a rolling calculation, that means the GDP figure will be incomplete in your colony until you have played for an hour. I could probably just check the current output and extrapolate it out to fill in the gaps, and I might at some point, but since the issue is irrelevant after an hour of play, I haven't bothered to do it yet.
Now the other part that might sting, it that this represent a complete and total realignment of the various GDP's across the galaxy, especially among older more established colonies that are hoarding epic amounts of resources. Just now that the intention is not to punish those colonies in any way, but to create a more accurate measure of the industrial output of the colony. And really the fact that you just have millions and millions of resources stockpiled, doesn't really say much about the health of your colony's economy.
Because of the change, most people (probably everyone) will be seeing a massive reduction in their GDP. I mean massive. On the flip side, it is happening to everybody across the board, and you will now now for sure what the economic strength is of your colony.
Honestly, the old way of computing it was dumb. A brand new colony with 2 people could get an epic gift from their commonwealth and suddenly have a GDP rivaling colonies that have build up millions of population over the years.
And speaking of gifts, they are not computed in the new GDP calculation. It is solely based on the industrial output of the colony. Although taxes you collect from your charter colonies DO factor in.
Anyway, this actually gives way to new game mechanics that will be able to take advantage of a new GDP calculation. The GDP now gives you a real measure of the strength of your economy, and you will be able to monitor and respond to the boom/bust cycles of the colony. It's not in there as of this writing, but I will be soon adding the GDP Growth % statistic so you can monitor if your colony is growing or in a recession. A growing economy will boost your approval, while a recession will harm it. If your colony enters a great depression, you will get protesting.
Finally the GDP growth rate stat will also be added to the online database, so there will be a ranking coming soon of which economies are growing the fastest. Sort of like in real life!
Anyway, that is the change that is coming. I hope not too many people are upset about their massive GDP numbers being cut down to size, but I think in order to move things forward, it had to happen eventually.
Before v0.75.0, GDP has been just a lazy calculation, adding up the market value of all resources in a colony, along with all of the money that colonists had in their wallets. This was an easy way to set it up at the beginning, and it sort of worked, and not too many people cares, so I left it as is.
The problem, is that anybody who knows about economics will know that this calculation has nothing to do with GDP, making the number totally meaningless as a measure of economic output. The result was that a colony could have a massive GDP just by getting gifts, making an epic trade, or simply existing for a long time and building up massive resource stockpiles. Again, all of this is fine, but it really gives no valuable information about the health of your colony's economy.
With this update, I decided to just totally scrap the old GDP figures, and implement a real GDP calculation, in the economic sense. Going forward, GDP is now a rolling calculation of the gross industrial output of your colony over the span of one "year." This makes it a far more accurate and meaningful measure of the industrial strength of your colony.
So, in order to be able to make the calculation, I first had to definitively determine what one "year" is in My Colony. After reviewing some of the existing game mechanics, I came out with one year being 120,000 "tick" cycles in the game, or roughly one hour of play time. So going forward, the GDP of your colony will be the sum of all industrial output over the last hour of play time.
The part that will sting at first, is that since it is a rolling calculation, that means the GDP figure will be incomplete in your colony until you have played for an hour. I could probably just check the current output and extrapolate it out to fill in the gaps, and I might at some point, but since the issue is irrelevant after an hour of play, I haven't bothered to do it yet.
Now the other part that might sting, it that this represent a complete and total realignment of the various GDP's across the galaxy, especially among older more established colonies that are hoarding epic amounts of resources. Just now that the intention is not to punish those colonies in any way, but to create a more accurate measure of the industrial output of the colony. And really the fact that you just have millions and millions of resources stockpiled, doesn't really say much about the health of your colony's economy.
Because of the change, most people (probably everyone) will be seeing a massive reduction in their GDP. I mean massive. On the flip side, it is happening to everybody across the board, and you will now now for sure what the economic strength is of your colony.
Honestly, the old way of computing it was dumb. A brand new colony with 2 people could get an epic gift from their commonwealth and suddenly have a GDP rivaling colonies that have build up millions of population over the years.
And speaking of gifts, they are not computed in the new GDP calculation. It is solely based on the industrial output of the colony. Although taxes you collect from your charter colonies DO factor in.
Anyway, this actually gives way to new game mechanics that will be able to take advantage of a new GDP calculation. The GDP now gives you a real measure of the strength of your economy, and you will be able to monitor and respond to the boom/bust cycles of the colony. It's not in there as of this writing, but I will be soon adding the GDP Growth % statistic so you can monitor if your colony is growing or in a recession. A growing economy will boost your approval, while a recession will harm it. If your colony enters a great depression, you will get protesting.
Finally the GDP growth rate stat will also be added to the online database, so there will be a ranking coming soon of which economies are growing the fastest. Sort of like in real life!
Anyway, that is the change that is coming. I hope not too many people are upset about their massive GDP numbers being cut down to size, but I think in order to move things forward, it had to happen eventually.
Owner of Ape Apps, LLC
I am so glad that GDP finally has a true meaning in My Colony. It is so nice to see the game evolving into something more than just an idle collector, to something that has some real life meaning. I do hope that the year calculation will turn into a full fledged in-game calendar.
On that note, keep going!
On that note, keep going!
Dylan Carter
Conjurer in NOZ
Join the Nations of OZ!
https://discord.gg/sEpTt8E
https://www.nationstates.net/region=noz
Conjurer in NOZ
Join the Nations of OZ!
https://discord.gg/sEpTt8E
https://www.nationstates.net/region=noz
Honestly, this is something that has slightly bothered me for over a year. Thank you for making this number meaningful.
Retired Archmage of NOZ.
Join us for trade, tips and more: https://discord.gg/tsBg6Ec
Join us for trade, tips and more: https://discord.gg/tsBg6Ec
That's very good! I never understood ppl's obsession with GDP as it was meaningless. At least now it will say something about your colony production. I expected a year to be longer than an hour.
The battle raged on and on Fueled by the venom of hatred for man Consistently without the eyes to see For those who revel in sewer equally
