EDIT 09 June 2019:
It appears that latest hotfix might have "fixed" gammas as removing the demand boosts the "% of demand met". If so, the whole thread is void. With which I'm more than fine with if that's the case but I haven't yet tested that. Following edit: Actually it appears that what's below does still hold true mostly. Albeit player doesn't influence the global market anymore as Histidine pointed out. I'll be doing a new round of testing and update accordingly.
==================
So, before 0.9.1, gamma cores were only kinda useful if our colonies begun experiencing "global shortages". However by this point most of us would either invest into Industry Planner perk (which had changed and no longer provides -1 bonus to commodity demand) and more than likely had a few beta and alpha cores lying around ready to use instead of gammas. Thus to some - including myself - gamma cores were useless in all intents and purposes in regards to their colony applications. They were (and still are) useful diplomatic chits - this however ain't subject of this post.
Though overall economy haven't changed in 0.9.1, as it still does adhere to what I do call a "cookie principle" (our colonies eat the cookie
(goods) and export the very same cookie
(goods) at the same time - taxing them twice), there are now ways of using gamma cores to reduce demand and actually earn a few credits. I'll explain below with a few screenshots how to do it - but first I want to make it clear that this is clearly only an early game solution. As our colonies will grew and we'll produce more and more - effectively filling the in-faction demand - it will nullify the effect of gamma cores and will make you loose money if we keep them on industries and won't remove them/replace them with better AI cores. This is sadly because of the "cookie principle" economy where consumption doesn't affect our possible exports.
With that said, I'll explain the rules on how to actually make gamma's useful early game.
For an example, I'll take my colony of Telcontar - a 50% hazard Terran World in system with another colony - an 100% Jungle world that provides the foodstuffs. At the time I had only 4 gamma cores to use - so keep that in mind.
Non-tampered with Telcontar.
As we're importing food in, and have crew demand met - it translates to 25% of demand fulfilled (and 0.88 modifier
- why it is so - I have no idea - (edit: I have idea, annendum at the end of the post) it does however get slashed by planetary conditions [so 50% in this case] and applied across all structures and industries afterwards - so the modifier is 0.44 in the end). We can however push it further, but the thing that does matter for us are not individual industries but the overall market demand. That is why I had marked the Commodities tab on the right - instead of any particular industry.
So, my first move was to drop gamma onto Ground Defenses:
Reasoning: GD consumes 2 "commodities" that I'm not yet producing in-faction and my faction is forced to import. By doing so I had completely removed the need for heavy armaments and limited the need for marines - effectively removing 2 units of commodities from overall pool of resources needed & counted towards the ratio of demand met through in-faction imports and production. As we can see, the % had risen from 25% to 28% - and we've earned 105 credits. This is nothing of course, but still a welcome change from loosing income as before.
Next I had applied gamma to Patrol HQ:
Reasoning: PHQ is the only structure that consumes 2 units of starship hulls (Ship Hulls & Weapons), as spaceport does demand only 1 unit of those. Thus by applying gamma onto PHQ, I had effectively removed another 1 unit of demand from the overall equation. The reduced demand for supplies and fuel (from 2 units down to 1 respectively) is irrelevant here - as there are other structures that do demand two or more units of those. We've pushed overall % of demand met from 28=>29%.
Next I had took a look at fuel situation:
Reasoning: Waystation had been the sole reason why demand for fuel was on 3 units at my colony (3 for WS, 2 for PHQ, 1 for Spaceport), and since I've already applied gamma onto PHQ, the difference was even greater (3 WS, 1 for PHQ & SP each). WS does of course demand supplies and crew too, but those commodities are irrelevant in here as other structures does demand same or greater amounts of those. However by applying a gamma core on WS, I had effectively removed another unit of commodity from overall equation - pushing the overall % of demand met from 29=>31%! And getting another 58 credits a month in the process
(it's meme worthy but it's still a gain) :x
So, I had one last gamma core left to use. And that's where I'm going to show you the "cookie principle" at work as my two remaining choices were to apply it to either orbital station or population & infrastructure. Tech-mining does not have any demands so placing gamma on that structure is pointless. While SP's demands are 1 unit of fuel, hulls and supplies - so applying gamma there would completely nullify the demand for this building. It wouldn't however affect the overall commodity situation, so it wouldn't lent itself towards a bigger % of demand met. However, if you're loosing shipments due to raiding - dropping gamma on SP might prevent you from loosing further accessibility as SP will be less susceptible to trade disruptions (and completely impervious on size 3).
So, lets first take a loot at what happens when we drop gamma onto Population & infrastructure:
"Cookie Principle" on Pop&Inf
So, this time we're getting quite different results that perhaps otherwise expected (for those unfamiliar with my laughably named principle). After all, we've clearly lost money - despite % of demand met staying at the same level of 31% (as we still have gammas on GF, PHQ and WS). Why is that?
Although we had eliminated the demand for Recreational Drugs, and limited the demand for Domestic Goods - we had also removed 1 unit of food from equation. Which means that we had eliminated 2 units of imports from the total demand - but we had also removed 1 unit of in-faction imports. Which means that we've reduced in-faction market and demand for foodstuffs we already produce. Which in turn yields us a hit towards monthly income, while removed imports from outside of our faction kept the overall % of demand met on 31%.
In the end, unless we have an axe to grind with smuggling elements - placing a gamma core on population and infrastructure turns to be unprofitable for us. Lets try again, by removing this gamma and placing it on orbital station:
"Cookie Principle" on Orbital Station
This time results are even more surprising, aren't they?
As the previous 3 gammas are still on their industries (GD, PHQ, WS) - the only effect we've got this time was upon crew demand. Although they're a non-taxable good, they do apparently still count towards the overall % of demand met on the market. And by placing the 4th gamma on OS, we had reduced their demand from 3 units
(which we are providing in faction/on planet) down to 2. Effectively
removing 1 unit of in-faction imports - thus the 31% dropped down to 27% and we've lost money through reduced discount towards the planetary upkeep. As you can see it raise from 0.84 up to 0.87 which is then slashed in half (because 50% hazard) and applied across all industries and structures.
I hope this post will help those who don't yet understand how to use gamma cores in a way to not loose money.
Edit: *The figure 0.88 comes from 25%/2 (as max in-faction supply is to give us 50% upkeep discount) rounded down, so 100-12=0.88 - then local hazard conditions and possible further 25% from beta/alpha core and 10% from IP perk are being applied.
