Economy structures without population?

I'm pretty sure it is independant of population. I've colonized Mars and dropped 3 economy boosters into the tiles. The revenue doubled then tripled even though the population never did go over 2.5b out of a max 5 billion. It may be more complicated than this, but I think it just adds a percentage boost to your revenue from that planet irregardless of population.

The way I understand it, economy buildings multiply your tax values on that one planet. Since tax values are derived directly from population, they're more effective on a high population planet. That's why I always turn my highest PQ world into my econ capital.

And here's a few fixes for a crappy economy:

1) More people: More people = more tax money
2) More Trade Routes: Trade routes provide a constant and maintenence-less source of money, and are the easiest way to get more cash
3) Econ Starbases Along Trade Routes: Econ starbases don't directly change the revenue of a planet, they only boost the revenue of trade routes.
4) Mine Econ Resources: Fairly obvious one, but added here for completeness.
5) Change to a Better Government: The oft overlooked solution to this problem, better goverments offer better econ bonuses. My last game went a whole lot smoother once someone mentioned this in IRC.

-Dewar

Well, your income is based on the population, and economy structures boost that income. The default population is pretty significant, so economy structures have a decent effect even without farms.

Personally, I save farms for worlds with good farm and/or happiness squares, and just make these dedicated, massive economy planets (specialise social, and after a couple of factories just build farms, happiness and economy - about one economy per farm, and probably a happiness per two farms, depending on how approval is going). One of these worlds becomes my economic capital. Everything else gets zero farms, which lets me minimise happiness structures, and just one economy structure on each.

Another one:

- More Morale = more people = more taxes. Mine Yellow Resources.

Thanks for the info ... I will try these ideas out!

Dano

I'm a little confused on how the Trade bonuses on Economic Starbases work. I'm not sure which of the three possibilities below actually apply, and any help would be appreciated.

1. If the path of a trade route (at any point) falls into the influence sphere of the Economic Starbase, the bonus applies to all freighters using that specific trade route, or...

2. If the home planet of the trade route falls into the influence sphere of the Economic Starbase, the bonus applies to all trade routes that originate from that planet, or...

3. The influence sphere of an Economic Starbase has no bearing. Once you add a Trade bonus to an Economic Starbase, ALL trade routes receive the bonus.

I'm hoping it's #3.

Thanks!