M.U.L.E./Phase II: Production

The Production phase
Once all four players have taken their turn during the development phase, that phase ends and the next phase begins. It's time for your M.U.L.E.s to do their thing.

Expected yield
When a M.U.L.E. is newly installed, the house icon on the plot turns into the icon representing the job that the M.U.L.E. is assigned to do. Once the production phase begins, a series of dots show up beneath that job's icon and will remain so unless that M.U.L.E. is unassigned from the plot. The number of dots, between 1 to 4, show that plot's yield potential for the given job. On average, you can expect two times the number of dots in product from that plot. If a plot has no dots beneath the symbol once the production phase begins, that plot is incapable of yielding the product requested, and it would be wise to reassign it next turn.

Other factors

 * The economic of scale: The "law" of Economies of Scale says that the bigger you are, the better you get. If you double the size of your operation, you more than double your effectiveness. This is because of things like mass production, and volume discounts on buying raw materials and building tools. In M.U.L.E., if you have two or more plots of land side by side, doing the same kind of production, your M.U.L.E.s become more efficient, and average one extra unit of production on each plot.  No more than one 1 extra unit is given for "economy of scale" regardless of how many plots are touching.
 * The learning curve theory of production: In many industries, as you build more and more of a product you learn how to do it more efficiently. The "Learning Curve Theory" says that every time you double the total number of units you have ever built, you "learn" to build that product for 20% less. This is the reason that calculators and computers keep costing less and less every year. In M.U.L.E., you get an extra unit (on each plot) for every 3 plots of land you have that are all producing the same kind of product, regardless of where they are located. This is in addition to the bonus you get from economies of scale you get from adjacent plots.

For example, if you had 3 Smithore mines, and 2 were side by side, each mine would produce one extra unit for the Learning Curve effect, and the 2 adjacent plots would each produce a second extra unit for the Economies of Scale effect.

Random colony event
On occasion, a random event may occur just before or just after the production phase. The effect may be felt by every player equally, or by one player specifically. Here is a list of those events.