Beta 010: Agriculture-based industry & environment

[[violet]]

Beta 010: Agricultural industries: Decrease effect of Environment

Proposed Change: Reduce the multiplicative effect of environment on industry size in Cheese Exports, Trout Fishing, and Beef/Agriculture. This has flow-on effects to the broader economy, affecting all industries, government departments, and tax rates.

[VoVoDoCo]

I support

[He Qixin]

Guess I will support this.


Just to clarify, this beta prevents the environment of nations from "helping" to boost their agricultural industries?

Also, if a beta gains the necessary support, when will the beta be implemented? Like after how long?

[[violet]]

Just to clarify, this beta prevents the environment of nations from "helping" to boost their agricultural industries?

There is still an environmental bonus/penalty to those industries; it's just less than before.

Also, if a beta gains the necessary support, when will the beta be implemented? Like after how long?

There's no timeline as it depends on a range of factors.

[Aclion]

What is the reason for reducing the effect? This seems like a reasonable thing to have... even though i'm not sure what the connection with cheese exports is.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

...Well this fixes something that I'd been exploiting with Aqualagoon, but I don't drop too much so I can't complain

[He Qixin]

-snip-

There is still an environmental bonus/penalty to those industries; it's just less than before.

-snip-

There's no timeline as it depends on a range of factors.

Thanks!

[Fauxia]

Probably a good change, though I don’t really like that I lose output from it.

[Merconitonitopia]

really this calculation is kind of upside down. environment shouldn't boost agriculture, agriculture should eat away at environment.
that said, this would make a lot of people angry (though it wouldn't be the first time.)

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

really this calculation is kind of upside down. environment shouldn't boost agriculture, agriculture should eat away at environment.
that said, this would make a lot of people angry (though it wouldn't be the first time.)

I guess it depends what the agriculture is there instead of. A field of wheat might not be as beautiful as a nature reserve, but it's more beautiful than a factory.

[Trotterdam]

environment shouldn't boost agriculture,

It's hard to grow crops in polluted soil.

[The New California Republic]

For me, the changes in the beta would lead to a 31.7% increase in cheese exports, a 97.6% increase in trout fishing, a 48.2% increase in agriculture, and a 1.2% increase in economic output, all while causing taxes to drop 2.7%. I support the change wholeheartedly.

[The Glorious Third Reign of Templedom]

environment shouldn't boost agriculture,

It's hard to grow crops in polluted soil.

Why not have both? It should be possible, albeit more hassle. Something like:

Pos.env(quality) = pos.agri(size) = pos.health
Pos.env(size) = neg.agri(size) = pos.health

Pos.agri(size) = neg.env(quality) = pos.health
Pos.agri(size) = neg.env(size) = pos.health

[Azurius]

Okay I have another question: With enough environment my current agriculture industry lies around 21-22k for example. Does my raw output of 22k still stay the same or do I receive a drop?

Because from what I saw nations with high environments often receive drops in their industries. Why? It shouldn´t affect their industries at all in that case, since all we are doing here is decrease the bonuses/penalties, so nations high in environment who already have enough environment to make use of 100%(tickling out 100% of their netto agriculture that way thanks to enough environment) of their raw agriculture see no increase if you push the environment any higher. And yet nations with 1900 or more points of environment suddenly receive drops in their agriculture, trout fishing and cheese exports... Why? This shouldn´t happen. If this is not on purpose(which I doubt after Violet said it would merely lower the drops of increases that are directly tied to environment) then it seems there is a bug going on here.

Also if we do that for all industries tied to environment why not do the same for tourism as well? Especially tourism seems to need ridicilously high amounts of environment to tickle out the 100% netto output... No matter how high I pushed my environment up until now(something I struggle with) it was never feasible to tickle out my maxmimum output from tourism(whilst all my other industries where maxed out at 800 points or less environment already), and I would still receive boosts to my income when I push my environment higher. I know that the higher you push your raw size of these industries, the more environment you also need to tickle out that output in netto income, I also know my tourism sector is very high too, however still it seems just ridilously high... Why not fix that too while we´re at it?

Lastly: Why not add another industry that shows the actual income from tourism as an industry? It kinda bothers me that this is the only hidden industry where I cannot directly see my income I get out of it. In the old system it may haven´t showed you the income from it, but it at least showed you points and each point meant so and so much income, it at least gave you a good guess, this is now totally impossible. So why not add another tourism sector marked as an industry? We could still keep the current tourism that shows net tourists per hour.

Once these issues are fixed I see no reason to object to this change and support it.

really this calculation is kind of upside down. environment shouldn't boost agriculture, agriculture should eat away at environment.
that said, this would make a lot of people angry (though it wouldn't be the first time.)

Actually many issues do so. Not all but there are quite a few issues that boost agriculture whilst at the same time impacting environment negatively. Same goes for the other 2 sectors, aka cheese exports and especially trout fishing too.

[Merconitonitopia]

environment shouldn't boost agriculture,

It's hard to grow crops in polluted soil.

well, sure, but rarely does industry actually get in the way of agriculture in reality, and agriculture is one of the biggest environmentally destructive and polluting forces in this world.

[Old Garcy]

Nowadays, it's possible to have productive agriculture and a terrible environment, as one can always use chemical fertilizers to enrich their fields. However, in the past, your agricultural productivity was based on the natural fertility of your soils. Having a strong relationship between agriculture and the environment allows primitive economies with good environments to have a few strong industries, and gives the sense that the nation's wealth comes from the wealth of its land, not advanced technology.

[Azurius]

Okay since this has gone a bit too silent for my taste, and to undermine my earlier point:

Problem first of all is: I cannot copy and paste a nation in beta, do it yourself and you will notice that the website adress does not allow specific links of nations for NS Beta.

So here is the link for NS Beta, and here you can copy and paste to check any of the nations I list and sample:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta

Nation: St Stephen n Critters

Loss of cheese exports despite a top 10 environmental ranking. Check for yourselves.

Nation: Kyupaa

Another top 10 environment ranker, despite his utopian environment he loses output in trout fishing and cheese exports.

Nation: Wilkshire

Another top 10 environment nation(10th place), losses in cheese exports again.

Nation: Pax Aurea

Another top ranker in environment, 20th place currently, with considerably higher trout fishing and cheese export sectors. Look at the sheer size of his environment, and look at his losses! WTF? Sorry that´s what I ask myself when I see that.

Counter examples: This time we will choose nations highest in agriculture, which still rank in the top 1% for enviroment, and see the losses and the lack of proper balance I spoke of before(no nation should lose raw output through this change! The aim was to merely lower the tie of agricultural industries to the environment in "ln raw vs. netto losses vs. gains", once again only lowering that tie only... not punishing nations with high environment for their rightfully gained ouput and having them lose raw economic output via this change, yet that is what it does, so let´s examine more data to make sure):

Nation: Taurian Concordat

10th place in agriculture, 630th in environment, and now see the losses the beta would give that nation...

Nation: Pullenstein

8th place for agriculture and 15th for trout fishing, 928th place for environment. See the losses once more. Here another interesting note from my side: From all 3 industrial areas, trout fishing is caped the quickest in terms of "how much environment you need to max out your 100% brutto industrial output" of that industry, so the losses are smaller too, since this is trout fishing, aka the sector least affected by that corrupted math.

In my conclusion: It uses the same and corrupted mathematical code that is already in use, but since trout fishing is less affected by that corrupted math the netto losses are a lot lower too. The flaw itself in the coding however remains, painfuly obviously so too by now.

Nation: Colonino

4th for agriculture and 198th for best environment. Compare the losses once more...

Nation: Whims

3rd for agriculture, also as i´ve seen has a lot of trout fishing and cheese exports too, 231st for environment... Big losses again...



Sorry but the conclusion is: This really can´t be it! Any nation, also like mine while maybe less impressive in these stats, knows what a hard ordeal it is to balance environment and also the industries of agriculture, cheese exports and trout fishing. We all put a lot of effort into these industries and they are part of our overall income to more or less degree. And especially those nations who fought hard to balance environment with these industries are punished the most, mine included.

I at least will not be taking that, and I bet a lot of other nations who fought hard to balance environment and agriculture also agree. Especially when the mathematical coding seems obviously corrupted... I did prepare to reply earlier however as said, the NS beta page doesn´t create links and hence is not saved, at least not for long : / Which cost me quite a workload of preparation. Am quite busy right now too so i´m quitting here. Wanted to get that out though as it is important.

Latest by now you should see that there are obvious flaws with how this beta is mathematicaly calculated... It is an absolute disgrace that nations who fought to balance environment and agriculture get punished for no reason. While overall I am in support for this change, it needs an serious overhaul. Since my nation is also strongly affected by this proposed change i´ll gladly keep monotoring it in my free time until the flaws are fixed. Until then I sadly coontinue to disapprove of this change... Though as said I approve the idea itself.

P.S. As said please extend that to tourism too once the flaws are fixed, and as mentioned give an income based tourism rating please... I am really tired of not being able to see how much EXACTLY of my income stems from tourism... I can guess and even math it up if I really want too... but even then since some other factors like income from administration, spirituality, social policy etc. miss you never really get a 100% acurate result, plus its really tedious to type that all in and math it up without making any small mistakes yourself. NS really needs a tourism income based rating.

[Phydios]

Problem first of all is: I cannot copy and paste a nation in beta, do it yourself and you will notice that the website adress does not allow specific links of nations for NS Beta.

Actually, you can link to the beta effects on a certain nation. Examples:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/nation=phydios
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/nation=kyupaa
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/nation=azurius
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/nation=wilkshire

[Trotterdam]

Problem first of all is: I cannot copy and paste a nation in beta, do it yourself and you will notice that the website adress does not allow specific links of nations for NS Beta.

Check the "Beta Link" right under the buttons.

[Triangle And Square]

For me, the changes in the beta would lead to a 31.7% increase in cheese exports, a 97.6% increase in trout fishing, a 48.2% increase in agriculture, and a 1.2% increase in economic output, all while causing taxes to drop 2.7%. I support the change wholeheartedly.

Same here!

Edit: Shouldn't Freedom of Taxation be affected too, since this beta affects Taxation?

[Aclion]

For me, the changes in the beta would lead to a 31.7% increase in cheese exports, a 97.6% increase in trout fishing, a 48.2% increase in agriculture, and a 1.2% increase in economic output, all while causing taxes to drop 2.7%. I support the change wholeheartedly.

Same here!

Edit: Shouldn't Freedom of Taxation be affected too, since this beta affects Taxation?

It is if you look at all your stats.

[He Qixin]

Okay I have another question: With enough environment my current agriculture industry lies around 21-22k for example. Does my raw output of 22k still stay the same or do I receive a drop?

Because from what I saw nations with high environments often receive drops in their industries. Why? It shouldn´t affect their industries at all in that case, since all we are doing here is decrease the bonuses/penalties, so nations high in environment who already have enough environment to make use of 100%(tickling out 100% of their netto agriculture that way thanks to enough environment) of their raw agriculture see no increase if you push the environment any higher. And yet nations with 1900 or more points of environment suddenly receive drops in their agriculture, trout fishing and cheese exports... Why? This shouldn´t happen. If this is not on purpose(which I doubt after Violet said it would merely lower the drops of increases that are directly tied to environment) then it seems there is a bug going on here.

Also if we do that for all industries tied to environment why not do the same for tourism as well? Especially tourism seems to need ridicilously high amounts of environment to tickle out the 100% netto output... No matter how high I pushed my environment up until now(something I struggle with) it was never feasible to tickle out my maxmimum output from tourism(whilst all my other industries where maxed out at 800 points or less environment already), and I would still receive boosts to my income when I push my environment higher. I know that the higher you push your raw size of these industries, the more environment you also need to tickle out that output in netto income, I also know my tourism sector is very high too, however still it seems just ridilously high... Why not fix that too while we´re at it?

Lastly: Why not add another industry that shows the actual income from tourism as an industry? It kinda bothers me that this is the only hidden industry where I cannot directly see my income I get out of it. In the old system it may haven´t showed you the income from it, but it at least showed you points and each point meant so and so much income, it at least gave you a good guess, this is now totally impossible. So why not add another tourism sector marked as an industry? We could still keep the current tourism that shows net tourists per hour.

Once these issues are fixed I see no reason to object to this change and support it.

really this calculation is kind of upside down. environment shouldn't boost agriculture, agriculture should eat away at environment.
that said, this would make a lot of people angry (though it wouldn't be the first time.)

Actually many issues do so. Not all but there are quite a few issues that boost agriculture whilst at the same time impacting environment negatively. Same goes for the other 2 sectors, aka cheese exports and especially trout fishing too.

Agreed

[United Christian]

I don't particularly agree with the math here. Some of the smallest industries in my nation, while rightfully going down with the change, someone would take several Billion from my economy. However, my largest industries, namely the IT sector, would increase under the change. I would imagine my GDP would actually grow if the IT Sector in my nation is growing. And the same thing is happening on the Black Market rescaling. I decrease in the Black Market should increase GDP because people are purchasing more stuff in the normal market.

[Matofali]

It seems strange to essentially reward nations that have incredibly horrible environments like mine with such large boosts to all their agricultural industries. I've repeatedly turned Matofali's country side into a barren dust bowl style hellscape with flaming radioactive "water" and these changes would make it so that wouldn't seem to matter at all.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

A few people seem to be misunderstanding this. It does not get rid of the effect that environment has on these industries, but merely reduces it because it is too heavy-handed right now.