settled-reach/docs/sprints/sprint-32/workshop-796-round2.md

Workshop #796 — Economics Layer Design

Round 2 Proposals + Lead Feedback Summary

Date: 2026-04-05 Sprint: 32 (planning branch) Status: Round 2 complete. Round 3 (convergence) pending.

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Round 2 Proposals Summary

Gestalt (Mechanics):

• EconomicEvent interface: affected_nodes, commodities, supply/demand multipliers, duration, information_state: Public|Private. Private events propagate at trade speed; Public events propagate instantly. This protects the inspect verb.
• Corporation taxonomy: 3 behavioral tiers — Syndic (price anchors, slow response), Mid-tier (regional competitors, can fail), Sub-Syndic local (price-takers, not individually simulated).
• 6 signal types per node: price_current, price_trend, trade_flow_volume, corporate_presence, stockpile_weeks, production_vs_baseline. Visibility layered from Public to Private.
• Production chain principles: geographic anchor, 3-tier max depth, substitutable inputs at intermediate level, cultural identity encoded in final goods.
• Political pressure is structural: currency zone, bloc affiliation, preferred currency baked into corporation profiles — not applied as external modifiers.

Tyre (Technical):

• Schema additions: gate_links table (335 edges from star-map.json), commodities table (22 types), production_chains + chain_inputs, currency_zone column on star_systems, corporation extensions + corp_presence table.
• Transport graph: gate edges (5-12%/hop) + orbital edges (1-3%), Floyd-Warshall for ~760 active nodes at startup (~0.5s).
• Market node tiering: ~760 active (full markets), ~240 passive producers (feed nearest station), ~2,700 inert (no economic footprint).
• economy_sim CLI: --seed, --years, --watch, --stability-check modes.
• generate_corporations binary with coverage rules: 3+ corps per major commodity, 1+ per inhabited system >100K pop.
• Phased implementation: 2a (data) → 2b (simulation) → 2c (integration design, D-records only).

Paula (Political Drama):

• 4 per-body structural flags: currency_zone, trade_bloc, commission_presence, assembly_assessment_compliance.
• 4 per-commodity structural flags: commission_certification, syndic_supply_chain, gate_corp_floor, cultural_corridor_id.
• Currency geography proposed (now corrected by lead — see below): Sol (hops 0-2), Mark (hops 2-5), Tractus (hop 6+ and Compact).
• Corporation texture plan: 25 tier-1 textured (13 upgraded + 12 new), ~175 tier-2 skeletons. Gaps: financial services, re-embodiment, Sova Logistics, Compact distributor, east reach anchors, information brokerage.
• 6 sharp events + 5 slow accumulation drifts (wage compression, market consolidation, currency zone drift, infrastructure neglect, reputation decay).

Nigel (Replayability):

• Productivity seed: 4 dimensions — extraction_rate, processing_throughput, transit_capacity, service_throughput. Log-normal distribution, 0.4-1.8× for standard, 0.7-1.4× for monopolies, corridor correlation ~0.6.
• Exchange rates emerge from aggregate productivity differentials, not seeded directly. Volatility per currency: Sol lowest, Mark mid, Tractus highest.
• Observable signals for investor screen: price gradient map, trade flow visualization, currency ticker with volatility trail.
• Event input port: EconEvent { target, effect, visibility }. Visibility: Global | Proximate(hops) | Disclosed(nodes) | Hidden. Hidden events create real effects with no actor knowing the cause.

Burnelli-Sheldon (Economics):

• Formal model: ~760 nodes, Leontief production with seeded capacity, damped tâtonnement (α=0.03, β=0.4).
• 22 commodity types: 7 raw, 8 intermediate, 7 final. Full input/output recipes.
• Exchange rates: Sol/Mark managed peg (political), Mark/Tractus managed float (trade-balance driven, γ=0.02, δ=0.4), Sol/Tractus derived. 3% conversion friction on cross-zone trade. (Note: peg direction needs re-examination under corrected political framing — Tractus/Mark peg, Assembly→Compact, is more politically coherent than Sol/Mark. Sol has no issuer to manage a peg.)
• 6 corporate archetypes: Monopolist, Distributor, Producer, Specialist, Cooperative, Intermediary.
• 4 stability criteria: cold-start convergence (±5% in 100 days), long-run stability (±2% over 1,000 days), shock response, cross-zone trade balance.
• Standalone econ-sim binary in tooling/, reads systems.db + commodities.toml + production_profiles.toml, outputs CSV timeseries.

Miri (Lore):

• Currency lore: Sol (Earth legacy, finite pool, no issuer, appreciating), Mark (described as Concord institutional — since corrected: Mark is Compact of Westphalia), Tractus (daily commercial, what people are paid in — since corrected: Tractus is the Concord Assembly/establishment currency, not a frontier coin).
• Van Maanen's Star economic profile: Station Sova as freight hub, 4 tycoon business types, economic pressures. (Out of Phase 2 scope per lead — noted below.)
• 28 corporation archetypes across extraction (5), agriculture (6), manufacturing (6), trade/logistics (4), services (6), intelligence (1).
• East reach: 5 new archetypes — deep ocean fishery, precision instruments, fermentation cooperative, maritime salvage, textile/craft guild.
• Productivity constraint table: aging pipelines (Calloway 12-20y, VGV 5y+), hard ceilings (Kvitfjell 800t/y), capital goods lead times (Stalownia 1-3y, Cygni B 2-5y).

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Lead Corrections (Jeroen — verbatim → interpreted)

(a) Currency framing — corrected

The political mapping was inverted. Correct framing:

Currency	Issuer	Role	Notes
Tractus	Concord Assembly (Sirius / Groombridge)	Main Reach currency — the establishment currency	Poor exchange rates in Compact, but accepted everywhere else
Mark	Compact of Westphalia	Breakaway currency — created to disconnect from Tractus	Mostly not accepted outside the Compact
Sol	Sol system (no active issuer, finite pool)	Niche, untraceable — crime and premium Earth goods	Appreciating due to finite supply; used where anonymity matters

Currency correction applied 2026-04-05: Mark is Compact of Westphalia currency, not Concord. "Concord" in Jeroen's original directive referred to the Compact. Political framing: Assembly = Tractus (establishment), Compact = Mark (breakaway).

(b) Services and luxury services needed

The commodity model must include:

• Professional services: legal, banking/credit, insurance, logistics management
• Luxury services: tourism, music, holo-content, experiences, cultural exports

These were hinted by Paula but not formally included in the 22-commodity list. Required for the commodity table to be complete.

(c) Crime and smuggling required

A shadow economy layer is required. Geographic variance: nearly absent in Commission-heavy systems, rampant in Compact frontier, continuous spectrum between. D-037 (Sova contraband: lattice components) is a canonical example. The economics layer needs to model shadow activity without a formal system — likely implemented as per-body flags (commission_presence, unbound_density) that influence effective market access.

(d) Productivity seeding — endorsed

Nigel and Miri's productivity seeding proposals are solid. No correction. Log-normal seeding of extraction_rate, processing_throughput, transit_capacity, service_throughput proceeds.

(e) Tycoon profile — out of Phase 2 scope

Van Maanen's Star economic profile (OQ-7 from Round 1 report) is not a Phase 2 deliverable. Miri's detailed tycoon business profile is deferred. The simulation doesn't need a specific system profiled for Phase 2 — it needs coverage rules, not narrative anchors.

(f) Corporations as prerequisite — confirmed

Corporation/brand population comes FIRST. Simulation runs on real corporate data, not placeholders. This is Phase 1 content work (D-166 applies). The generate_corporations binary should target real archetypes from Miri's 28-archetype catalog, not procedurally generated shells. How many corporations is "enough" remains an open question (see below).

(g) Database architecture — hybrid confirmed

TOML/YAML as source of truth (diffable, in git). make economy-db builds the dev .db. The .db is a queryable artifact, always on disk, rebuilt when source changes. For production: same build step, copy into save directory on new game, sim mutates live. Rollback = rebuild from source files.

Source files location: content/economics/ (TOML files for corporations, commodities, production chains, etc.)

(h) Iterative development cycle — confirmed

skeleton → data → test → skeleton tweaks → data tweaks → test → repeat. Not waterfall phases. Sim binary and data population happen in tandem.

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Open Questions Entering Round 3

#	Question	Status	Notes
OQ-1	Currency names — final canonical names for Tractus, Mark, Sol	Partially resolved — names confirmed by lead; lore detailing TBD by Miri
OQ-2	Corporation density threshold — how many to make simulation credible?	Open	Coverage rules proposed (3+ per commodity, 1+ per inhabited system) but total count not confirmed
OQ-3	East Reach economic identity	Partially resolved — Miri provided 5 archetypes; full profile still thin
OQ-4	Exchange rate model — fixed peg, managed float, or derived?	Partially resolved — Burnelli-Sheldon's model (managed peg Sol/Mark, managed float Mark/Tractus) subject to confirmation given currency framing correction
OQ-5	Corp creation sequencing vs. simulation start	Confirmed — corps come first (directive f)
OQ-6	Compact economics — Compact accepts Tractus at bad rates? Uses Mark? Uses Sol?	New open question from currency correction
OQ-7	Van Maanen's Star profile	Deferred — out of Phase 2 scope
OQ-8	Services/luxury commodity types — formal list	New — must be defined before commodity table is complete
OQ-9	Shadow economy mechanics — per-body flags or separate system?	New
OQ-10	Active/passive/inert threshold — what makes a node "active"?	Tyre's proposal — 760 active / 240 passive / 2,700 inert — needs confirmation

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What Round 3 Must Lock

For D-records to be written, Round 3 must produce confirmed answers on:

1. Three currency canonical definitions — names, issuer, acceptance geography, role
2. Commodity type list — final count (22 + services + luxury = ~30?), full categorization
3. Corporate coverage rules — density threshold per commodity, per system, per corridor
4. Per-body data flags — confirm Paula's 8 flags + shadow economy flag
5. Market node tiering — confirm 760/240/2,700 split or revise
6. Database source file location — content/economics/ TOML confirmed?
7. Productivity seed dimensions — confirm Nigel's 4 dimensions + log-normal distribution
8. Development sequence — confirm skeleton → data → test cycle as the process D-record

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Record implications (Qatux)

• Round 1 report correction: The currency bloc table in workshop-796-round1.md listed "Earth / Concord / Assembly" as bloc labels — this was based on agents' Round 1 proposals and is now superseded. The corrected framing is Tractus (Assembly/Sirius main), Mark (Concord rebellious), Sol (Sol system niche/crime).
• D-037 cross-reference: Shadow economy in the simulation will need to cite D-037 (Sova contraband) as the canonical example of shadow market mechanics.
• R-NNN pending: Burnelli-Sheldon's single-currency recommendation is confirmed rejected. Rejection rationale: three currencies create structural economic bloc tension without event generation. Will be filed as R-NNN in Round 3.
• Architecture D-record: TOML + built .db hybrid needs a D-record. Closest existing decision is D-010 (deterministic simulation) and the general architecture — economics DB is new territory. Will file in decisions/architecture.md.
• Process D-record: Iterative skeleton→data→test cycle for economics may belong in decisions/process.md rather than decisions/economics.md.

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Compiled by Qatux. Round 3 convergence pending.