Overview
This guide investigates the relative values of the different jobs available in 3.0
Introduction
The aim of this guide is to answer questions such as “I need more amenities, should I use clerks or entertainers”, or, in general, determine the best decisions from an economical point of view.
To achieve this, the method will be simple :
- Assign to each ressource in the game a value
- Compute for each job the net value (output – input)
- Summarize a few takeaway principles
Tradable Ressources
Most of the ressources already have a value assigned to them : the default value on the galactic market. Thus, for those, we’ll consider that they are worth their default value
- energy credits 1
- food 1
- minerals 1
- consumer goods 2
- alloy 4
- gas/crystal/motes 10
Non-Tradable Ressources (you can skip this section and come back later)
Other ressources do not have any obvious value. To determine the value, we will use different arbitrages one can do in-game. For example, research doesn’t have an assigned value, but researchers and metallurgists seem to be pretty similar jobs in game (same stratus, available from start, very common etc…). It therefore makes sense to set the value of a research point so that the net value of a researcher is similar to the net value of a metallurgist. That’s how each of the following ressource is assigned a value.
- trade value 1 (because of trade)
- unity 2 (because of trade)
- administrative capacity 1 (because of bureaucrats)
- amenity 0.5 (because of entertainer)
- science 1 (because of researcher)
Value of jobs
To compute the value of a job, we substract the output from the input. For example, a metallurgist produces 3 alloys, which are worth 12, but consumes 6 minerals, which are worth 6. Therefore, the net value of a metallurgist is 12-6 = 6
Here’s the list of value of the main jobs in the game, by stratus
Workers :
- miner 4
- farmer 6
- technician 6
- clerk 5
- gas/crystal/motes (from planetary features) 20
Specialists :
- artisan 6
- metallurgist 6
- researcher 8
- bureaucrat 6
- gas/crystal/motes 10
- entertainer 7
- culture worker 5
- colonist 3.5
Rulers :
- Administrator 10
- Executive 12.5
- High priest 14.5
- Merchant 14.5
- Science director 17.5
Takeaways
- Most of the jobs produce have a net value of about 6.
- Workers produce less than Specialists, and Specialists produce less than Rulers.
- Miners are surprisingly inefficient. This means that it is way cheaper to produce credits, and use the automatic construction to build on planets (even though the AI is far from perfect), or even simply to buy minerals, than to mine them.
- Culture workers are bad at producing unity. If you want unity, use entertainers, or turn trade value into unity.
- Clerks are also pretty bad, especially if you use them to produce amenities.