Having more ways for your colonies to make money would be nice. If you're playing as a sponsor that doesn't have an alternative means of getting additional funding or a huge reserve to start with, you're quickly forced into mining rare metals to get vital resources and prefabs for production buildings you need to survive. Here is my main idea for that so far, and this thread would be a good place to put others or discuss options.
Exporting research time:
Essentially outsourcing research in reverse, but limited only to your own research labs. This replaces the repeatable technologies that grant flat amounts of money (Mars Patents and Mars Copyrights). Lots of universities and companies on Earth would gladly pay for research time on Mars based labs, this is providing that service. The amount of money gained per point of tech lost should probably be less than what you pay for outsourcing, with the removed social technologies now being about improving tech selling and outsourcing instead. This is available from the start and can be enabled or disabled on a lab/institute by lab/institute basis. Collaboration loses still apply, the more supply available the lower the cost for fulfilling it.
Exporting research time:
Essentially outsourcing research in reverse, but limited only to your own research labs. This replaces the repeatable technologies that grant flat amounts of money (Mars Patents and Mars Copyrights). Lots of universities and companies on Earth would gladly pay for research time on Mars based labs, this is providing that service. The amount of money gained per point of tech lost should probably be less than what you pay for outsourcing, with the removed social technologies now being about improving tech selling and outsourcing instead. This is available from the start and can be enabled or disabled on a lab/institute by lab/institute basis. Collaboration loses still apply, the more supply available the lower the cost for fulfilling it.
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