Workforce : What are we talking about?

[hargn]

So, it has been introduced in last stream, but nobody here seems to talk about it so I raise this topic.

Workforce :
Stations in X4 will require workers to be able to produce goods.
As it is shown in the stream at 36m45s, a station has a current, limit and an optimum amount of workers.
To store (house) the workforce, it seems that we'll need habitation modules on our stations (that are pretty stylized for each factions).
It has also been told that the workforce will be similar to the specialists that we can enrole in XR, but nothing was told about true mecanics.
Would we expect that a factory with no workers is able to produce?
And, for the moment, no explication has been given on the way the workforce will pe produced. Just the fact that it will be easier to find in densely populated systems (that is logical that Xenon sectors don't house many population).


So, in my opinion, it's such a good thing that I wanted for the X series.
An empire rules not only over assets, but also over souls!

That I would expect, it that there is recruitment center stations, formation centers to train workers, flight school for pilots etc...
Then, the TP would have a real function in the universe to transport workers from formation/recruitment centers to factories.
And let imagine what a pirat could do when capturing a TP : enslave the captured people (it also seems that there is much more people on ships that in XR), and sell them to stations that accept slaves as workforce (pirate or split stations?).

[Juggernaut93]

I guess they will work as a production bonus, i.e. the station will work without workforce but it will be less efficient.

[mr.WHO]

The one thing that bothers me much:
With confirmed shipyards we we'll be more independent from NPC factions.
However the "workforce" will artificially chain you back to NPC factions.


Question:
If I'm hostile to everyone, will I still be able to "obtain" workforce for my stations? E.g. hire them from "neutral pool" or capture slaves?

[hargn]

Good question!

For the moment, nothing has been told how the workforce is created and how it fills your housing modules.
We can reserve this question for the next Q/A stream.

But I would suggest, contrary than Juggernaut93 told, that the workforce must be present in your station in order to it produces wares.
In this way, passenger transport becomes mandatory in order to make the economy reliable.

[spankahontis]

And do you need a passenger transport ship to go too and from a station that has a high recruitment pool in order to keep them on your stations? They need time off and vacation time?

Maybe Stations that's only purpose is to House, feed the People in the system like a Habitation station that you see in DeVries that keeps the population pool in that sector steady, so you recruit closer to home rather than recruit from outside the system?

Again this makes me think about teleporting to planets.
If you could colonize a Moon or Planet with a special construction contractor for a massive sum of money. Build your own Station on a Planet that houses People, builds a population in the sector to increase your recruitment pool and make money off the population via rent and selling them food and water, etc.

[RAVEN.myst]

People farms! *cough* Ahem... I mean, cloning facilities or the like...

[birdtable]

Replicants... my god we are talking replicants, we could have a Tyrrell Corporation,, ........ with Blade Runners... Hunt down escaped replicants, we could have a replicant start,,,
That would solve the workforce problem,, We have to build a Tyrell Corp.

[RAVEN.myst]

Replicants... my god we are talking replicants, we could have a Tyrrell Corporation,, ........ with Blade Runners... Hunt down escaped replicants, we could have a replicant start,,,
That would solve the workforce problem,, We have to build a Tyrell Corp.

Just please, no expiry dates! Sure, from a consumeristic perspective it sounds profitable, but as we've seen, it ultimately only leads to trouble...

[Cabrelbeuk]

Well that's important to know this as it will define if being a pirate will be viable or not.

That's actually could be an accurate use of slaves.

Could be a new gameplay part when you abord ship or attack station, can do a raid on these to steal goods and people to chain them to your own factory.

And for the next occurence or DLC we can even imagine to add to it some x4 mechanics as people happiness and associated production.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Cabrelbeuk

I started a thread here about a pirate life.

One of the main "tenets" is that the economy is based on slavery.

The pirates need their own economy and stations.
If you play as a proper pirate, you should be able to build these stations
and then populate them with slaves.

[gbjbaanb]

Replicants... my god we are talking replicants, we could have a Tyrrell Corporation,, ........ with Blade Runners... Hunt down escaped replicants, we could have a replicant start,,,
That would solve the workforce problem,, We have to build a Tyrell Corp.

Considering Pris was a "basic pleasure model", I'd like an advanced pleasure model thanks

This comes back to AI again, why would you need a workforce at all, if you could get robots to do the work instead - and even if we don;t have sufficiently advanced AI to work as independent robots, why can't the factory be heavily automated as they are today, with only a relatively minor workforce of supervisors and technicians to keep the robotic factory chugging along and regularly oiled.

Maybe this gives you options for stations:

slave workers: poor productivity, cheap costs, moderate to low initial outlay.
robot workers: decent productivity, moderately cheap costs, high initial outlay.
skilled workers: decent to good productivity, average to expensive costs, moderately cheap initial outlay.

[rulerofallcheese]

I guess they will work as a production bonus, i.e. the station will work without workforce but it will be less efficient.

Mass traffic spawns should deplete this resource so they aren't "faked" spawns.

[Vandragorax]

As far as I can gather, "Workforce" or "People" will simply act like any other commodity. They can obviously only be transported using a TP class ship, whereas other wares are not. But essentially it's just the same as transporting a bunch of food, or some computer chips.

Following this logic, there is then no reason why "stealing" those people/workforce wouldn't be viable. As long as you can eject them in cargo pods and collect the pods via your own TP, or dock the TP with the captured larger ship to transfer the people over.

I'm not sure there will be any distinction between Workforce and Slaves though, how would you know when one became the other? If ejected into space do they become Slaves? Could Slaves be used in place of Workforce in any station but if they do then the station becomes illegal? How do the Slaves get "freed" and turned back into regular Workforce?

That whole process sounds too complicated and probably wouldn't add much to the gameplay in all honesty. It's probably more likely that Workforce can simply be stolen and used elsewhere by transporting them with your own TP. So for a pirate playthrough, you would be stealing them from NPC faction TP's and transporting them to your own stations when needed, but they would still be known as Workforce and not Slaves.

The simpler this is the better. It will be interesting to hear some more about the proposed system

[Sandalpocalypse]

my interpretation is that stations will gain population over time based on how close they are to population sources

population sources means governments though, and it means higher costs to rent a plot to build a station...