4th Economics 101

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

That second PDF was really helpful. But my bovine research, to get a reference point, says the numbers in the chart for milk are no where near real world. Even if I were to assume 1 cow per hectare (real world is in the 2-4 range), we get 50Kg feed per cow per day and get annual milk yields of 1500-2300 Kg. That's ONE COW! Granted, we are assuming decent feed, but we are growing corn for them, so...

Ok, Goat can graze at a rate of about 6:1 compared to cows.
Goats eat about 2Kg/day
Goat give about 3Kg milk per day for 300 days, for about 900Kg/year
Goat are more prone to parasitic disease, so would require more care.
Bovine are under rated for yield in the book by about 10:1.
Bovine density in the book is 0.5 vs. about 3 rl.

For dairy goats, how does yield/hectare of 90Kg with 0.6 Kg corn to help account for the extra care they take to avoid disease?

Good news...... Tobacco, more specifically nicotine, is a natural dewormer and kills or drives out those intestinal parasites. Goats will eat it right up.

A goat farmer might need to grow tobacco to have a healthy herd.

[mmartin798]

The manufacturing sector is proving troublesome to represent easily. You end up with things like, "Need the coal mining to feed the gasifier, the gasifier feeds the chemical plant, the chemical plant feed the workshop and the farms, the workshop feed the mine, the all need power." On top of this, the products from the factories/refineries/smelters all generate thing in either barrels, tons or just man-hours. Let's try a "simple" example.

There is a community with a coal mining operation to supply fuel and feedstocks. A portion of the coal goes to the power plant. The rest goes to the coal gasification plant (actually treated as a refinery space) and the outputs are barrels of fuels, tons of coke and coal tar and presumably syngas in cubic meters. The fuel can be used for vehicles directly, the coke used to generate additional power at the plant or used in the smelter and the coal tar and syngas can be supplied to a chemical plant to make fertilizer (ammonia), methanol, acetaminophen, and other chemicals in various units. Some of these are use by the workshop to make explosives and such to supply inputs to the mine, presumably only in labor units thankfully.

Any ideas on how this combination of intermixed inputs and output might be best represented for use?

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

The manufacturing sector is proving troublesome to represent easily. You end up with things like, "Need the coal mining to feed the gasifier, the gasifier feeds the chemical plant, the chemical plant feed the workshop and the farms, the workshop feed the mine, the all need power." On top of this, the products from the factories/refineries/smelters all generate thing in either barrels, tons or just man-hours. Let's try a "simple" example.

There is a community with a coal mining operation to supply fuel and feedstocks. A portion of the coal goes to the power plant. The rest goes to the coal gasification plant (actually treated as a refinery space) and the outputs are barrels of fuels, tons of coke and coal tar and presumably syngas in cubic meters. The fuel can be used for vehicles directly, the coke used to generate additional power at the plant or used in the smelter and the coal tar and syngas can be supplied to a chemical plant to make fertilizer (ammonia), methanol, acetaminophen, and other chemicals in various units. Some of these are use by the workshop to make explosives and such to supply inputs to the mine, presumably only in labor units thankfully.

Any ideas on how this combination of intermixed inputs and output might be best represented for use?

Reading this again and again... First off ...... how can this work if you don't have enough workers (all farmers growing corn!) and extraction (coal typically)........

Maybe it is indicative of the setting? Post apocalyptic... things don't work because it is all broke down?

[mmartin798]

Clearly, if you don't have the workers, you fall back to more agricultural work. You have a small oil press for your excess crops to make vegetable oil than can be used directly, or you can make some methanol via wood gasification and convert some of that vegetable oil into biodiesel. Yields would be low though.

As a family or settlement, you have more kids. Nothing says more production than more hands, even if they start out little. Once you have three generation going with the help of marrying friendly neighbors or "acquiring" a spouse by some means, you have a workforce that will start to have excess time.

Again we need to balance this out with some reason. If we need a settlement, then we make one with the required number of people or have had a massive die out by aggression, disease or some other method that has now makes for run down infrastructure, but a reason they might have saved the gasification plant and biodiesel production capacity even if they cannot really make a new one or repair the one they have once something major gives out.

My problem was if we assume one or more TL C or TL B communities that are either self sufficient or working together, how can I represent the data in the tool I am building. I think I have that worked out, I just need to implement my idea and see if it fixes my problem.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Clearly, if you don't have the workers, you fall back to more agricultural work. You have a small oil press for your excess crops to make vegetable oil than can be used directly, or you can make some methanol via wood gasification and convert some of that vegetable oil into biodiesel. Yields would be low though.

As a family or settlement, you have more kids. Nothing says more production than more hands, even if they start out little. Once you have three generation going with the help of marrying friendly neighbors or "acquiring" a spouse by some means, you have a workforce that will start to have excess time.

Again we need to balance this out with some reason. If we need a settlement, then we make one with the required number of people or have had a massive die out by aggression, disease or some other method that has now makes for run down infrastructure, but a reason they might have saved the gasification plant and biodiesel production capacity even if they cannot really make a new one or repair the one they have once something major gives out.

My problem was if we assume one or more TL C or TL B communities that are either self sufficient or working together, how can I represent the data in the tool I am building. I think I have that worked out, I just need to implement my idea and see if it fixes my problem.

So are thinking a tree sided trade route? Farmers produce excess food (edibles) and wheat for alcohol or canola for biodiesel. Extractors, free from raising crops produce ethanol and biodiesel for drinking and running engines, manufactures, using the biodiesel, make tools and repair parts for the farmers and extractors; while consuming food and biodiesel.

[mmartin798]

I think I have found the most broken part of the economics section. It is energy. Trying to duplicate the examples finds that the table has ranges for things like fuel requirements and the area taken up by the power plant of that type. The Hope example just pull a couple numbers arbitrarily from the ranges. The Grinder example does so as well, plus it adds a factor for burning wood that is not mentioned anywhere. Makes building a spreadsheet for the calculations harder when there are numbers that just get made up as they go along.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Any ideas on how this combination of intermixed inputs and output might be best represented for use?

First I note.... Your dependent on the surplus from agriculture to start anything.

This can only be reconciled as man hours or as kilograms of material.... Typically kilograms, to be converted, as feed stock for another process. Typically ethanol or biodiesel for fuel... to run tractors or generators.

Also, as Kilos for conversion as lumber or firewood to build shoring for mines or burn to generate steam.

The conversions, and all the different units is making this difficult.

Flow charts! Writers make flow charts..... practice your equations before doing this to people.

The other thing ......... You need to add up the man hours from labor NOT farming to do this work anyway..... it is one of your inputs for manufacture.......

This is sooooooo frustrating.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Clearly, if you don't have the workers, you fall back to more agricultural work. You have a small oil press for your excess crops to make vegetable oil than can be used directly, or you can make some methanol via wood gasification and convert some of that vegetable oil into biodiesel. Yields would be low though.

As a family or settlement, you have more kids. Nothing says more production than more hands, even if they start out little. Once you have three generation going with the help of marrying friendly neighbors or "acquiring" a spouse by some means, you have a workforce that will start to have excess time.

Again we need to balance this out with some reason. If we need a settlement, then we make one with the required number of people or have had a massive die out by aggression, disease or some other method that has now makes for run down infrastructure, but a reason they might have saved the gasification plant and biodiesel production capacity even if they cannot really make a new one or repair the one they have once something major gives out.

My problem was if we assume one or more TL C or TL B communities that are either self sufficient or working together, how can I represent the data in the tool I am building. I think I have that worked out, I just need to implement my idea and see if it fixes my problem.

I think I may have to spend some time crunching numbers...... what is the minimum size for the lower tech levels to get out of pure agriculture.....

I feel that low tech levels and small populations is the general rule for a setting like the Morrow Project... A broken dystopian future needing a spark, mentors from the past that can make the minor repairs and get it all working again.

To many C, B, or A level cultures and it feels like the recovery is happening with the Project and their meddling would even be setting back progress. Their efforts would breakdown or disrupt events and stop progress as they unbalance cultures and alliances.

So I have to know what is the population minimums to have recovery.. to have extraction, manufacturing, energy production, to get civil services going again.

Is that 100 at Tech D? 500 at tech D?
I will have to school myself on Excel formulas again and get that automated then get some rendered.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I think I may have to spend some time crunching numbers...... what is the minimum size for the lower tech levels to get out of pure agriculture.....

I feel that low tech levels and small populations is the general rule for a setting like the Morrow Project... A broken dystopian future needing a spark, mentors from the past that can make the minor repairs and get it all working again.

To many C, B, or A level cultures and it feels like the recovery is happening with the Project and their meddling would even be setting back progress. Their efforts would breakdown or disrupt events and stop progress as they unbalance cultures and alliances.

So I have to know what is the population minimums to have recovery.. to have extraction, manufacturing, energy production, to get civil services going again.

Is that 100 at Tech D? 500 at tech D?
I will have to school myself on Excel formulas again and get that automated then get some rendered.

Is the assumption that they have the technical knowledge to advance and just need the resources in this calculation? It is perfectly possible to have a tech level G community of a thousand or more using simple plows and animal power to feed them all well and just not having the knowledge to advance their metallurgy to advance to steam power.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Is the assumption that they have the technical knowledge to advance and just need the resources in this calculation? It is perfectly possible to have a tech level G community of a thousand or more using simple plows and animal power to feed them all well and just not having the knowledge to advance their metallurgy to advance to steam power.

I think it plays a major part in these formulas...... You can't get some industries going because you don't have enough labor. So there has to be a population factor involved.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I think it plays a major part in these formulas...... You can't get some industries going because you don't have enough labor. So there has to be a population factor involved.

Using the spreadsheet I still have under development, I did some runs on a TL E community of 100 souls. If all the traits are at 50%, they are just subsistance farmers with little labor left over beyond what is needed to get fuel for the fires and move things around.

But if we have TL E community of 100 souls with all traits at 50% except for Discipline and Curiosity, which both are at 75%. This community is more productive in agriculture that, with the same food list as the first one, we go from needing 50% of the workforce busy farming down to 38%. This is in part due to the increase in worker productivity from 2000 hours per year to 2300 hours per year and the increase in workers in workforce from 34 people to 39 people.

This all makes sense and is very germane to the current discussion. If a community is just plodding along with no real desire to explore, complacent in their ways, it won't really innovate. They will stay put tech level wise. But if they are curious and well disciplined, they will be looking for ways to improve and be more productive and be more likely to move up in tech level as they build surplus.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by robj3

5,000kg meat at Tech Levels A-C:
eggs - ~33 hectares for egg-laying chickens which need 15,000kg of feed
*poultry - ~43.5 hectares for broilers which need 12,500kg of feed
*pork/mutton - 100 hectares for pigs/sheep which need 30,000kg of feed

Does this equations take into account the free-ranging of chickens and pigs? Poultry (and therefore, egg production) have historically benefited from eating multitudes of insects as supplements to their cultivated feed diets. Incidentally, humans have simultaneously benefited from the side-effect of reduced insect pest populations.
Swine have historically benefited from the leftover organic wastes from human foodstuffs.

Originally Posted by robj3

Raising livestock needs a lot of land and food at any tech level.
Labor requirement falls away quickly with higher tech levels.
<SNIP>
Each worker has a base and input cost "expressed in labor years per worker at that tech level" (p.237).

In older times the "too old" and "too young" were allotted duties suited to their capabilities--knitting, poultry herding, sewing, other craftwork. The fact that they were not necessarily directly involved with food productions didn't mean that they weren't doing work that would have necessitated time and effort from a food-producing adult.

[mmartin798]

A far way back in this thread, RandyT0001 suggested a community named Sommerset be defined using the economics rule from the 4th edition. The attached PDF goes through that process and is the best I have been able to do from my work trying to understand the rules.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

A far way back in this thread, RandyT0001 suggested a community named Sommerset be defined using the economics rule from the 4th edition. The attached PDF goes through that process and is the best I have been able to do from my work trying to understand the rules.

Well done!

[kalos72]

I LOVE what you guys are trying to do here but...and this is a question on their numbers not your efforts.

Am I reading that between cows and chickens you will need almost 40000 hectares of land? Thats like 150 square miles...thats not possible. Is it?

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by kalos72

I LOVE what you guys are trying to do here but...and this is a question on their numbers not your efforts.

Am I reading that between cows and chickens you will need almost 40000 hectares of land? Thats like 150 square miles...thats not possible. Is it?

That is grazing land..... there are ranches it takes a whole day to drive across out here in the West.

[kalos72]

I get that, but it seem feasible for 36 LE/Military personnel to be able to secure 155 square miles alone?

Just seems like an awful lot of land to feed 5000 people. I wonder how that same community would fair with a more advance tech level...

[mmartin798]

The economics rules do not change the amount of land needed based on tech level. Only the number of workers needed to tend them. Plus you have to remember the purpose of the exercise was to build according to the rules, and some of them are broken.

To give an idea, the number of cattle Sommerset has can be calculated. The beef operation generates 50,000 kg of beef for the population. That is only 10% of the total herd. So multiply by 10 and you get 500,000 kg if you slaughtered the entire herd. An average 454 kg steer will yield about 340 kg of meat. Dividing 500,000 by 340 gives around 1465 head of cattle. The USDA recommendations for land per animal is about 0.8 Ha per head. So in the real world you should be able to get away with 1200 Ha. The rules say 2-10 Ha per head, so 3000 Ha on the low end and 15000 Ha on the high end. The rules are a little broken if we try to bend real world absolutes into it. This section of the rules could use an edit to make it better. But for now, it is what we have.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by kalos72

I get that, but it seem feasible for 36 LE/Military personnel to be able to secure 155 square miles alone?

Just seems like an awful lot of land to feed 5000 people. I wonder how that same community would fair with a more advance tech level...

One Riot, One Ranger.

The Texas Rangers comes to mind.

Actually, you only have to secure key points of land. The water, water crossings, the herd itself.

You don't have to be on every part of it all the time.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

The economics rules do not change the amount of land needed based on tech level. Only the number of workers needed to tend them. Plus you have to remember the purpose of the exercise was to build according to the rules, and some of them are broken.

To give an idea, the number of cattle Sommerset has can be calculated. The beef operation generates 50,000 kg of beef for the population. That is only 10% of the total herd. So multiply by 10 and you get 500,000 kg if you slaughtered the entire herd. An average 454 kg steer will yield about 340 kg of meat. Dividing 500,000 by 340 gives around 1465 head of cattle. The USDA recommendations for land per animal is about 0.8 Ha per head. So in the real world you should be able to get away with 1200 Ha. The rules say 2-10 Ha per head, so 3000 Ha on the low end and 15000 Ha on the high end. The rules are a little broken if we try to bend real world absolutes into it. This section of the rules could use an edit to make it better. But for now, it is what we have.

Thinking on this........ Maybe the authors data accounts for rather dry low country like Texas or Australia. If so that raises the land necessary for graze substantially higher.... In a temperate environment or a wetter one like coastal low lands were the foliage is thick and returns faster alot less territory is necessary.

So the hectares section really should have a geographical or environmental modifier associated with it.

Given the wide variable of 2-10 hectares, it is probably meant too.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Thinking on this........ Maybe the authors data accounts for rather dry low country like Texas or Australia. If so that raises the land necessary for graze substantially higher.... In a temperate environment or a wetter one like coastal low lands were the foliage is thick and returns faster alot less territory is necessary.

So the hectares section really should have a geographical or environmental modifier associated with it.

Given the wide variable of 2-10 hectares, it is probably meant too.

That would also explain in part the need for additional feed with the low quality foraging available that climate too.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

That would also explain in part the need for additional feed with the low quality foraging available that climate too.

Feed lots are a staple in wet or dry climates.... so I take it that the feed lot.... the last effort to fatten up livestock before slaughter is why corn is prevalent for animals that graze for most of their fodder.

[kalos72]

I completely acknowledge the "gaps" are in the rules not you two and the way you are trying to play those rules out. I LOVE what your doing and was super excited to see it when the new rules came out.

But to your point, the data they use seems to be very outdated or they just tried to simplify it too much. Plus, they used some really poor practices when coming up with their numbers I think.

Have you guys figured out a number of people working a piece of land versus the number of people that land feeds or anything?

In the T2K forums there have been numbers like you can feed 3-5 people per acre I think...

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by kalos72

I completely acknowledge the "gaps" are in the rules not you two and the way you are trying to play those rules out. I LOVE what your doing and was super excited to see it when the new rules came out.

But to your point, the data they use seems to be very outdated or they just tried to simplify it too much. Plus, they used some really poor practices when coming up with their numbers I think.

Have you guys figured out a number of people working a piece of land versus the number of people that land feeds or anything?

In the T2K forums there have been numbers like you can feed 3-5 people per acre I think...

Those kind of numbers can be directly read from the table at the bottom p237. The Yield column has 2 numbers separated by a slash. The right hand number is the number of people per hectare that can be fed. It varies greatly by tech level from just a little more than 1 to just over 7 people per hectare. In the Time her Hectare column, there are again 2 numbers. The number in parenthesis is the number of hectares a single worker can manage in a year.

In my workup of Sommerset I did not reference those numbers because it is just easier with an arbitrary population to work from the actual time and yield numbers.

[Giorgio]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I asked Chris Garland through the MP facebook page if an economics tutorial could be made and posted to Youtube. He wrote back that he will speak with the author of that section.

Could everyone else like or comment on that so it shows some interest from the fan base?

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Giorgio

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

Don't bother. The author of that section has replied to this thread. Whole charts and sections are missing. The economics section is broken and unusable.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Don't bother. The author of that section has replied to this thread. Whole charts and sections are missing. The economics section is broken and unusable.

Is there any way the author could rebuild and post the missing material?

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Is there any way the author could rebuild and post the missing material?

Robert hasn't been on this site for over 2 years, haven't see a post on the mailing lists for a long time now.

Anything that needs to be updated or corrected, we will have to do that ourselves for the time being.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by Giorgio

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

I personally spent a great deal of time working through the process for one town and the best I can say for the rule as they stand are that they may give you an idea of the scale needed to support a given population engaged in a specific set of tasks. But they are woefully recursive and the end result is ultimately incomplete.

As far as what it takes to advance tech levels, there is even less information, but you could use the construction hours for the next higher tech and add some factor of time to cover the research. What this factor might be is no where to be seen and is something that you, again, get to make an educated guess about.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I personally spent a great deal of time working through the process for one town and the best I can say for the rule as they stand are that they may give you an idea of the scale needed to support a given population engaged in a specific set of tasks. But they are woefully recursive and the end result is ultimately incomplete.

As far as what it takes to advance tech levels, there is even less information, but you could use the construction hours for the next higher tech and add some factor of time to cover the research. What this factor might be is no where to be seen and is something that you, again, get to make an educated guess about.

A table with modifiers and a possible bonus if a device or two is available to study/ disassemble.