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< 6 Weather | Index | 8 Growth > 7 Production
Production is a blanket term for creating new materials and items with the resources available to you locally. This includes mining, refining, and manufacturing. Each of these corresponds to a tier in the hierarchy of object categories. It also covers farming which produces food. Apart from mining, all these processes require a powered production building. Although there are many ways of procuring needed objects, working through the production process on the city screen will prove the most basic and reliable. The act of collecting produced objects is called harvesting.
Vital to all production is your production modifier. This single rating, composed of many factors, determines how easy it is to produce resources in your territory. If it is too low your workers will go on strike until conditions improve. Note that all production, apart from mining, follows a similar process: An idle building is activated by paying the start cost, then a timer ticks down, finally the output can be harvested. After the cost to activate the building is paid the invested materials can never be retrieved. If the building is scrapped before being harvested, the investment is lost. If the building is destroyed after it had finished producing, any unharvested objects will be left in the rubble. (Hull upgrades and palantirs are lost.) 7.1 MiningMining is the process of using a mine building in your city to extract base materials from the land. You can only mine your base resource, for example coal will never be mined out of a sand territory.Mining usually takes six hours, for uranium miners it instead takes twenty hours. The process is initiated by clicking a mine, simultaneously harvesting any materials already mined. The timer restarts automatically. The yield of mining is determined by the type of resource being mined. It is also directly affected by production modifier, not just in vulnerability to strikes, but also in extra mining output for a positive production modifier. See the Production Modifier section for more details.
The borehole powersink functions identically to a mine, but produces five times as many materials. New mines are constructed with their timer complete, except mines on uranium tiles which come in with a 2 hours wait. Your battle mine automatically produces base materials in a process very similar to mining, but this does not fall under production because you do not directly control it. See the Perma-Mines section for more details. 7.2 RefiningRefining is the process of creating refined materials out of base materials. It is achieved with the refinery building, which requires power to operate. You can only refine base materials of the type mined from your land, for example it is impossible for an iron miner to refine diamonds.
Refining always takes six hours. Unlike mines, which are always active, refineries require an extra click to complete their cycle. If the refinery is in an idle state, one click will pay the refining and power costs (if possible), at which point the timer will begin counting down. When it is finished, a single click will complete the harvest, returning the refinery to an idle state. Note that enabling autoharvest changes this functionality, see Autoharvest for more details. Refining enriched uranium has an additional effect: When harvested, there is a 25% chance that one fallout will be created. Also, uranium refining can be restricted by the senate. If they vote for limited refining, only one refinery can be operational at a time. If they vote to prohibit uranium refining, refineries cannot be started at all. By closing the border, the senate's ruling can be safely ignored. Like mining, refining is affected by the strikes associated with low production modifier. It also benefits from a high production modifier, though not as strongly as mining. New refineries are constructed with their timer complete. Like perma-mining, your battle mine can perform perma-refining, which has similar results as regular refining. 7.3 ManufacturingManufacturing is the process of creating most items (3rd object category) from materials (2nd and 1st categories). It takes place in the factory building, which requires power. Every player can manufacture items, regardless of their base resource. Food, although an item, cannot be manufactured. It must be farmed or grown from trees and crops.Manufacturing is similar to refining. It requires one click to start and another click to harvest, and is affected by production modifier in the same way. It also takes six hours to complete. The costs to manufacture items follow.
New factories are constructed with their timer complete. They will have one of three items available for harvest:
7.4 FarmingFarming is a reliable way to produce food. It takes place in a greenhouse, which requires power. Anybody can farm regardless of land type. Although vegetation can be grown outside the greenhouse, this is not considered farming, which will never produce trees. See the section on Growth for more details.Like refining and manufacturing, farming is a two-click process. One to start, one to harvest. It takes twenty hours for a greenhouse to finish farming once the timer is started, and each greenhouse produces two food. Farming costs no special material investment to start, only power for the greenhouse. Farming is affected by strikes in the same way as other production processes. It does not gain any bonuses from production modifier, but rather from a positive growth modifier, which applies to each of the two food produced. Like PM on mining, each unit of GM gives a +10% chance of producing an extra food. For example, given a GM of 10, one greenhouse load of 2 food would become 4 food on harvest. New greenhouses are constructed with their timer partially complete, just 6 hours remaining until harvest time. Desolation does not affect farming. See the Growth Modifier section for more information. 7.5 RushingAlmost all production buildings can be rushed by handing out food to the people. For one feed (reducing hunger by one) the target building's production timer is brought down by two hours. This effect is doubled for fascist governments, which rush for four hours.A building with a timer at less than two minutes cannot be rushed, nor can one that is not actively producing. Rushing will reduce the timer to a minimum time of two minutes. Boreholes and factories producing palantirs cannot be rushed. 
7.6 Production ModifierProduction modifier or PM is an indicator of working conditions in your empire, taking many factors into account. These include external factors, such as pollution and weather, and internal factors, such as government and hunger. A list follows.
A positive production modifier is desirable, especially for mining and refining operations. Every unit of positive PM gives a 10% chance that for each base material harvested, an extra base material will be produced. For example, a PM of 10 guarantees that for every object mined, one additional object is produced, essentially doubling mining output. PM bonuses also affect the perma-mining done by your battle mine. Refining and perma-refining output is boosted the same way, but only by 5% / PM. Production modifier can be positive or negative, but it has an upper and lower bound known as a cap. Your PM cap is determined by your industry.
Because green industry caps at 10, the best they can do is double their mining output, whereas laissez-faire industry with a cap of 30 can potentially quadruple their output producing four base materials for every single one mined. Note that PM cap is halved by the super technoshield, see Technocracy for more details. Negative PM does not affect mining yield, mines will still produce their normal output even if PM is negative. That is, until a strike occurs. 
7.6.1 StrikesA strike occurs when production modifier gets so low that it hits the lower PM cap determined by your industry. The people throw down their tools and declare that they cannot work under these conditions any longer; they are too sick and weary.While a strike is in progress, production buildings cannot be harvested, nor can new production be started. Even your battle mine will stop perma-mining new materials. To end a strike, the afflicted player must attempt to raise their PM, lower their PM cap by changing industries, or wait until PM naturally increases through pollution drain and other positive influences. Note that even after a strike begins, buildings in the middle of producing will continue to count down their timer. Work on objects will be finished, but they cannot be harvested until the strike is lifted. 
7.6.2 RiotsRiots happen when the workers go on strike, and desolation is happening at the same time. This situation means that both production modifier and growth modifier have hit their lower industry caps.Furious and starving, the people start tearing down production buildings in their rage. They will destroy one building per hour, starting with the highest tech and working their way down to the lowest. The siege will be lifted as soon as either PM or GM recovers, all will be forgiven and normal work/strikes will resume as appropriate. 
7.7 PowerPower (not to be confused with firepower) is a measure of the energy required to maintain and operate certain buildings in your city. It impacts two major things: The resources needed to start a powered building's production cycle, and the amount of pollution released into your environment.A list of powered buildings follows.
Power levels may be affected by government and industry settings. With the proper technology, windmills and solar panels can be constructed to reduce the power added by individual buildings. During the initial click which takes a non-mine production building to its working state, you must provide it with power as well as other material costs. Power comes from two things: Coal, and reactor fuel. Read about reactors in Appendix B. Essentially, the more powered buildings you have, the greater the power needed to activate each of them. Additionally, whether buildings are producing or not, power adds to your pollution. See the Pollution section for more details. 7.8 AutoharvestAutoharvesting allows players to start and harvest their production buildings automatically. This can be useful if you need to work, sleep, or perform other inconsequential sundries of the non-Battle Mines world.
The main autoharvest toggle is located on the city screen. When it is enabled, production buildings will have an additional piece of information in their timer overlay.
This building-specific setting can be toggled by clicking the building while autoharvest is enabled. Note that autoharvest significantly alters functionality on the city screen. Manual harvesting cannot be performed while autoharvest is enabled, but this can be changed at any time by toggling the main switch. When you enable autoharvest for a factory, you will be prompted to select the next item this factory should manufacture. Simply, any building for which autoharvest is enabled will immediately unload its products into your inventory, and if possible begin producing a new object, consuming any needed power and objects. Be warned, when you enable autoharvest either with the main toggle or for an individual building, it will immediately start to harvest/produce if possible. Also, as soon your inventory changes, any autoharvest-enabled buildings will start up if they can. For example, be careful taking a coal trade if you have autoharvest buildings awaiting power and some other use in mind for the coal. In choosing which building to start first where there is a scarcity of materials, autoharvest will try to start the building that requires more materials (factories) over those that consume less (refineries, greenhouses). Toggling autoharvest will not effect any existing building timers. If changing autoharvest settings results in an immediate harvest or production start, you will be notified in a popup, not an event. By default, all buildings have autoharvest disabled. Going idle or land exchanging will automatically disable autoharvesting. There are two additional settings that can be toggled to put restraints on wanton autoharvesting. 7.8.1 Overfill SpaceIf overfill space is disabled, autoharvesting will never harvest an object that would cause your space limits to be violated. This includes situations where a harvested object would immediately be used up in a successive procedure, such as harvesting a mine and feeding it into a refinery. Overfill space assumes that a harvest would result in the maximum possible gains, taking PM and GM into account.Be warned, overfill space cannot see into the future, such as where your trees are soon to stop providing space due to upcoming stormy weather. The overfill space limitation has no impact on perma-mines or perma-refinery. Overfill space is disabled by default. 7.8.2 Deplete FirepowerWith deplete firepower disabled, autoharvesting will never start a powered production building that would consume enough coal to put you below your current firepower. It places no restrictions on the consumption of reactor fuel.Deplete firepower is disabled by default. 7.8.3 Reset AutoharvestAs well as the general settings, there is a reset button which turns off autoharvest for every building as well as the main switch. This allows for safe reconfiguration. Note that your previous autoharvest settings are lost.< 6 Weather | Index | 8 Growth > |
