Population

Yes, I'm breaking these down into manageable chunks. At least, I hope they're manageable. oh god the pressure
Okay, so we've got the concept of resources. But where do these little buggers come from? How I mine for carbon?
Well, to explain that, there's one more concept that needs covering: Population.

To start with, your nations will have 10 population units to work with: This represents your first 10,000 dudes(each population unit is ~1,000 dudes) stepping forth onto a mysterious new world. These population units are highly versatile; They can mine ore, harvest food, build new guns, research new advances, etc etc. They are a vital portion of your economy, as they are the sole source of your economy.

As time progresses, of course, your population will expand, either as a function of natural births, or new people being unfrozen as room becomes available. That will be discussed later.

However, what you need to know for now about population units is that many tasks on the planet will call for one or more population units to work for a prolonged period of time in order to complete them. After completing their current task, that population unit is available for orders again.

As a bit of a fluffy aside, when you assign a population unit to a task, that does not mean that 1000 dudes are all working on that task: Rather, it means that, of 1000 dudes, there are enough remaining after removing the chunk of population that are working support jobs, or do not work, or are children, or whatever to do sufficient work to produce the effect desired.