POPI is a very interesting concept. It’s very interesting to watch planetary populations grow, however the concept comes across feeling like a punishment for teching up, as evidenced by the lack of population infrastructure built. People are only going to build it because they have to, and in later tiers of infrastructure costs are going to run in the millions and is going feel like a drag.
The is a shame as there are a lot of cool new products which help flesh the tech tree that will only get used in the smallest of quantities.
I feel like there should be some sort of % bonus for having POPI infrastructure built and maintained, increasing as you go up in tiers, which would represent well-developed planets.
For instance you could have a 1% overall bonus to production for a Safety Station or a 5% specialized bonus to a single category. A Security Drone Post could provide a 2% bonus or a 10% bonus to a single category. A Infirmary(second tier) would do a 2%/10% bonus like a security drone Post.
This bonus would be balanced because:
a) Maintenance costs providing for the maintenance of the infrastructure would outweigh the bonus provided by the structure, for instance even maintaining a lowly Safety Station runs quite high.
b) None of the goods have market makers so they would have to be actually produced-you’ve got to have the population and the production capacity to maintain these structures.
This would give planets some character and make the choices that governments make reflect in the bonuses on the planet.
Alternatively if the bonus seems too good, the specialize bonus could be applied to a single product per tier(pioneer, settler, tech etc) to give a planet its “specialty”.