Refactoring (was: Refactor preview)

[[violet]]

Is a government size of 865 huge?

I would think not, since my new government size would be 3,921.

865 will be far above the median, for sure. You have to answer a lot of issues to reach that.

[Zunkwentania]

Finally, I'm not 100% public sector! Great job [violet]!

[New Mushroom Kingdom]

How easy would it be to remove Spirituality entirely?

and if 865 is far above the median, I can only imagine what 3.9k would be like.

[[violet]]

This seemed to have quite contradictory effect on my nation, the government size increased by 749 but the income tax got slashed from 51% to nothing...

Indeed. Your government is still small compared to the size of your industry, though. I think the current model that has you with 62 government, 5,580 industry, and 51% income tax is plainly wrong, because that would generate enormous amounts of government revenue that aren't being spent on anything.

It is a little surprising to me that refactoring takes you all the way down to 0% income tax, because that's not easy, but your tax rate should definitely be very low.

[[violet]]

Right now, no nation gains numerical benefits from another's International Aid spending, no.

That's disappointing but not surprising. Is changing that on your to-do list?

Not in the short-term, although the concept makes sense. I need to talk to the Issues guys and see what they think. That's where "International Aid" came from: they decided to break it out as an independent area of spending, since it comes up a lot. It's actually not part of refactoring at all, except that refactoring makes it more visible in some nations.

[Zunkwentania]

When will this change be expected to take effect?

[New Kvenland]

So, this was designed to make our nations a tad more realistic? If so, I like it

[[violet]]

So, this was designed to make our nations a tad more realistic?

I prefer "less insane."

[Nova Anglicana]

Well, it cuts my income tax rate from 68% to 35%, which is much more realistic. I do lose my 0.8% defense spending and 1.2% international aid spending, which are only mildly concerning b/c that's about what I spend ICly on those two sections there.

Couple of questions: 1. How is publicly-owned industry determined with relation to the size of the public sector? Connected or does this have to do with individual issues? I know that the public sector % is determined by government size vs. industry, but I feel I may have skewed this by choosing private-friendly answers on issues because I didn't want my tax rates to get any higher than they were.

2. I avoid spending on defense b/c ICly the military gets about 1% of the budget, and I feel like when I choose to fund the military, it always shoots up beyond what I want. Will the refactoring make it easier to keep defense spending to manageable levels based on the other choices I make/have made?

[Northwest Slobovia]

That's disappointing but not surprising. Is changing that on your to-do list?

Not in the short-term, although the concept makes sense. I need to talk to the Issues guys and see what they think. That's where "International Aid" came from: they decided to break it out as an independent area of spending, since it comes up a lot. It's actually not part of refactoring at all, except that refactoring makes it more visible in some nations.

Oh, OK; I wasn't sure if it was a new feature of the refactoring or not.

As a quick and dirty hack -- yes, I know: just a small matter of programming -- transfering international aid spending to the nations with the lowest HDI seems like it should work. Perhaps a simple weighting scheme so that the lower a national's HDI, the more money it gets. The details don't matter to me so much so long as the aid goes somewhere plausible.

[Bari]

I don't understand. How does this work? How does this calculate our new values? Also, my industry size went up from 24 to 220, and my public sector size shrunk from 93.1% to 55.6%; those are quite significant changes. What caused them to happen?

I'm sorry if this has already been answered.

[[violet]]

1. How is publicly-owned industry determined with relation to the size of the public sector? Connected or does this have to do with individual issues?

It's determined by issues. Two nations can have identical numbers for government size and industry but different rates of public ownership.

2. I avoid spending on defense b/c ICly the military gets about 1% of the budget, and I feel like when I choose to fund the military, it always shoots up beyond what I want. Will the refactoring make it easier to keep defense spending to manageable levels based on the other choices I make/have made?

Yes it will, since it eliminates a couple of problem areas that can cause unexpected effects there. Having said that, "<anything> shoots up beyond what I want" is a very NationStates kind of thing, so while this should help a little, it won't eliminate it entirely.

[Nova Anglicana]

1. How is publicly-owned industry determined with relation to the size of the public sector? Connected or does this have to do with individual issues?

It's determined by issues. Two nations can have identical numbers for government size and industry but different rates of public ownership.

2. I avoid spending on defense b/c ICly the military gets about 1% of the budget, and I feel like when I choose to fund the military, it always shoots up beyond what I want. Will the refactoring make it easier to keep defense spending to manageable levels based on the other choices I make/have made?

Yes it will, since it eliminates a couple of problem areas that can cause unexpected effects there. Having said that, "<anything> shoots up beyond what I want" is a very NationStates kind of thing, so while this should help a little, it won't eliminate it entirely.

Thank you.

[[violet]]

I don't understand. How does this work? How does this calculate our new values? Also, my industry size went up from 24 to 220, and my public sector size shrunk from 93.1% to 55.6%; those are quite significant changes. What caused them to happen?

It's mostly this:

Firstly, the biggest changes are in nations that have made a lot of decisions favoring some industries and/or government departments while disfavoring others. Under the current model, in some places those decisions cancel each other out in nonsenical ways, allowing a nation that's extremely anti-Defense and pro-Welfare, for example, to "pay" for its Welfare department by continually cutting a non-existent Defense Dept.

In your case, your industrial size is currently being underrated because your opposition to industries like auto manufacturing and tourism are having an unduly large canceling effect.

[Tessen]

There's a change coming to the NationStates economic model! This aims to correct a few insanities that can occur in some nation types.

....Some nations may not notice much difference. Others may change a lot, especially if they have strongly opposed some types of government spending and/or industries.

You mentioned that some changes may be significant for some nations. There was also talk in another thread of some adjustments and improvements to industries themselves -- perhaps even fleshing out currently vague or unlisted industries. Are these industry changes or adjustments part of this overall economic model change in NationStates? In other words, will there be new/adjusted/added industrial data with this economic model change as well?

[Economa Incorporated]

My friend Susria's industry would go from -156 to 1,320. I presume this has something to do with strange, socialist choices that have caused a lot of cancellation?

[[violet]]

In other words, will there be new/adjusted/added industrial data with this economic model change as well?

Refactoring can make a big difference to the overall size of a nation's industrial base, but doesn't affect the size of individual industries, and won't really impact the project on introducing new industries.

[[violet]]

My friend Susria's industry would go from -156 to 1,320. I presume this has something to do with strange, socialist choices that have caused a lot of cancellation?

Yes, Susria favors a few industries (Arms Manufacturing, Mining, Woodchip Exports) while strongly opposing quite a lot of others. Under the current model, this causes overall industrial size to be a lot less than it should be.

[Unibot III]

As a suggestion, [violet] - people might accept a 0% tax rate more if it were shown to like the third decimal or something, so they can see that their tax rate isn't actually zero.

[Esternial]

Anything that doubles my industry is a good thing :p

[[violet]]

As a suggestion, [violet] - people might accept a 0% tax rate more if it were shown to like the third decimal or something, so they can see that their tax rate isn't actually zero.

It is actually zero, though. Those nations have no income tax.

[Unibot III]

As a suggestion, [violet] - people might accept a 0% tax rate more if it were shown to like the third decimal or something, so they can see that their tax rate isn't actually zero.

It is actually zero, though. Those nations have no income tax.

If there is a public sector and NS doesn't have anything else other than an income tax - how again are these national governments funding their public sector? Massive corruption? Oil Rich?

[Northwest Slobovia]

It is actually zero, though. Those nations have no income tax.

If there is a public sector and NS doesn't have anything else other than an income tax - how again are these national governments funding their public sector? Massive corruption? Oil Rich?

Bake sales and selling advertising on public projects. /nods

[Susria]

Upon looking over my statistics (mainly by being alerted by Economa, a friend of mine as you saw earlier,) I seem to have quite a few odd changes. Sure, my nation is incredibly left wing and strictly socialist, but I'm getting a lot of money being redirected from my Defense Forces and Law Enforcement to places such as Healthcare and Welfare.

Education, for example, took a cut. The three things I have been focusing on are suffering and I can't quit understand.

Also, with Spirituality existing at a rather large median of spending, I'm alarmed. My nation has no religion. I've made it atheist unless worship of the Glorious Leader is available, as I'm going for a pseudo 1984-esque type thing.

Can I get some clarification?

[[violet]]

If there is a public sector and NS doesn't have anything else other than an income tax

We don't say that no taxes exist in nations other than income tax, we just don't track the other taxes* very well.

* Edit: I should say "other forms of government revenue," since there are more of those than just taxes.