====== Economics ======
<data !guide>
Description [wiki]: explains the basics of economics in Fwurg
Group: Advanced
</data>

In Fwurg, you can control your own system of planets and participate in an intergalactic economy, trading goods over millions of lightyears. To make a meaningful game at such a scale by necessity we have had to make certain abstractions to keep things manageable. Each week((On Fwurg, we start the week on Monday and end it on Sunday.)), known as a turn (symbol: (:turn)), your system produces a limited number of goods, which you can trade with other players for different goods. Each turn, the goods you produce that turn are converted into tax (symbol (:tax)). The more products and the more different types of products, the more tax you get. Tax is effectively money which you can spend to purchase improvements on your system, so it is to your advantage to maximize the amount of tax you gain.

It is important to note that both goods you produce and taxes you get based on those goods are transient. This means you cannot save up or stockpile the resources. Anything you do not use within that week is lost, though new ones are generated in the next week.

===== Producing Goods =====

Each system has a limited amount of real-estate in which an economy can produce goods and services. This real-estate is known as zones. Each zone represents an economic area in which something specific is produced.

Naturally a zone does not just contain factories producing one good - a zone represents a large area and contains housing, supporting industries, transportation and infrastructure, and all things you'd expect from a normal area the size of a small continent. However, for the purposes of the economic game, a zone produces only one thing.

There are two primary types of zones: raw material zones and product zones.

==== Raw Material Zones ====

Raw material zones produce raw materials, which is one of [[rules:crystals]] (Symbol: (:crystals)), [[rules:gasses]] (Symbol: (:gasses)), [[rules:information]] (Symbol: (:information)), [[rules:metals]] (Symbol: (:metals)), [[rules:organics]] (Symbol (:organics)) and [[rules:rare elements]] (Symbol: (:rare-elements)). Raw materials are goods that are extracted from nature, for example by pumping up gasses from gas fields or by digging up metal from mines.

As you can tell, raw materials are pretty generic categories. This is because of the high level scale at which the economic system operates. If you click the links above, you can get an explanation on what the different groups represent.

Each raw material zone produces only one raw material in a number depending on the conditions of the planet. As a base, each such zone produces 100 of the raw material. For example, a metals zone produces 100 metals. This number can be increased (or decreased) by certain favourable or unfavourable conditions, but once it is determined, this is the number it produces each turn until the end of time, so long as the conditions do not change. A zone never gets depleted.

==== Product Zones ====

Raw materials cannot be used to generate taxes. To make taxes you have to turn those raw materials into products using a products zone. There are 12 different types of product zones, one for each of the 12 possible products.

Like raw materials, a product zone has a certain production capacity. However, unlike raw material zones that produce their amount each turn, product zones only produce if they get the raw materials they require, which means you must have them in your system - you do not need to arrange transportation, this has been abstracted away for you. So long as the raw materials are in the system, your product zones will convert them into products, up to a maximum of the production capacity of the zone.

Making a product requires two raw materials of a specific type (for example 1 (:crystals) crystals + 1 (:information) information -> 1 (:ict-technology) ICT Technology), depending on the product. Thus, 200 raw materials can be converted to at most 100 products.

==== Taxes ====

Products can be used to generate taxes. By default all products you have will be converted into taxes each turn. Products are converted into taxes in sets of 3, 6, 9 or 12 different products. The bigger the set (and thus the more different products it contains) the more tax you generate per product. For your convenience, the tax tool already makes an almost perfect effort to convert your raw materials into products and products into taxes. 

You can spend taxes by posting a turn report. The [[guides:turn reports]] explains how this works.

==== Trading ====

To increase the number of different products you have - and thus to increase your tax income - you can trade with other players. First you have to find a player who is willing to trade and arrange a deal with them.

Once a deal has been agreed upon, you can add an entry on your factions bookkeeping page to transfer the goods you are selling to them. You do not enter the goods they transfer back to you - this is their job instead.

To trade you make an entry in your factions bookkeeping page. Simply fill out the template below and list what goods you are giving to them. In the example below we are transferring 25 (:information) information and 5 (:ict-technology) ICT Technology, but you can enter any good you wish to transfer. You list both your own system in the from field and the system to which you are transferring the goods in the to field. If you did it right, the transfer will become visible in the tax tool!

<code>
<data !trade #NAME_OF_TRADE>
From [ref]: NAME OF YOUR SYSTEM
To [ref]: NAME OF TRADE PARTNERS SYSTEM

Information: 25
ICT Technology: 5
</data>
</code>
 

Keep in mind that in order to trade with someone, you need to actually transport the goods to them. This requires you either use a [[rules:trade fleets]] to transfer the goods to them or if you are transporting information or information based products, that you use the [[rules:trade#Trading through the Holonet|holonet]].