Question on Officer Abilities

[andstrauss]

Infrastructure Specialist (lvl2)
Temporarily increases a system's Utilized Productivity by 1.

Does this means that a Officer with this ability in a typical homeworld (Census 10, Raw 6, Production 10), simply generates 6 more EPs per turn? Or does it mean the officer rises the Production to 11, but it still needs a Census 11 to operate that "phantom" productivity?

What makes me question is the "utilized" part. Or maybe it just means the planet has more basing capacity/ production to be considered a supply point.

Cheers,

[mwaschak]

That is the effective Productivity of a system when you take all limiting factors in to account. Basically if you have Productivity above Census, the most you can ever get out of it is the Census value.

So if you have a Census 2, RAW 2, Productivity 2 system, it is pretty straightforward, Output is 4 and the "utilized" Productivity is 2 because that is the most the Census can utilize. If the player adds another Productivity for 30 EP, now a Census 2, RAW 2, Productivity 3 system. The most it can utilize is Productivity 2 because of the Census limitation.

-Jay

[Charles Lewis]

But Jay, wouldn't the planet become a supply source in your example since it now has 3 Utilized Productivity? The officer ability says it boosts "utilized productivity". I agree that economic output wouldn't increase, because that's tied to Census, but I would agree with Andy's interpretation that other things (shipyard capacity, basing, supply, etc.) that key off of Utilized Productivity would get boosted.

[Tyrel Lohr]

But Jay, wouldn't the planet become a supply source in your example since it now has 3 Utilized Productivity? The officer ability says it boosts "utilized productivity". I agree that economic output wouldn't increase, because that's tied to Census, but I would agree with Andy's interpretation that other things (shipyard capacity, basing, supply, etc.) that key off of Utilized Productivity would get boosted.

Charlie is partially right; the officer would increase the Utilized Productivity statistic to 3 (the officer trait increases Utilized Productivity, not just Productivity), which would make the system into a supply point.

This bonus also applies to everything that Utilized Productivity is used for, from calculating system output to planetary basing. It is a powerful trait, and one that probably should be gotten rid of or else limited in the extreme in order to curtail abuse.

[nimrodd]

The way we used it in Emiricol's B5 campaign was that it increased the Productivity. So the officer was great for sending along with Colonies, as they would be immediately productive, or in cases where you have had a population growth on a mid to high census world, and the cost of the Productivity is prohibitive at the time.

Of course it only worked when you had the census greater than the population. Basically the skill allowed overclocking of the productivity.

[andstrauss]

Of course it only worked when you had the census greater than the population. Basically the skill allowed overclocking of the productivity.

Yeah. But in a robotic race, it becomes dangerous. Very dangerous.

Cheers,

[nimrodd]

Of course it only worked when you had the census greater than the population. Basically the skill allowed overclocking of the productivity.

Yeah. But in a robotic race, it becomes dangerous. Very dangerous.

Not as dangerous as it is written, where you just assign the officer to a world, and get a new Utilized Productivity, whether you have the census or not.