[dmm]

A complicated, small thing can take just as many resources to build as a simple, large thing for the following reason: in the latter case, the thing itself uses up the resources, whereas in the former case, the workers use up the resources. So the current resource allocation scheme implicitly takes labor into account already.

However, the labor "resource" would be an improvement if construction times/costs depended upon racial attributes. Then, for example, an emotionless race could build small, complicated things at less cost in resources because of their simple lifestyle. But large, simple things would have the same resource costs. As another example, warlike races might get a labor bonus when building/maintaining warships and a labor penalty when building/maintaining infrastructure, but other resource costs would be unaffected. Another aspect that could be explored would be how usage of labor (i.e., employment) affected happiness. A worker race might be unhappy with unused labor resources, whereas an artist race would love it. The happiness level would, in turn, affect productivity. (Not sure how to balance that so that worker races don't get unfair advantages. Maybe worker races should be harder to keep happy [because they're Type A], or more prone to set up independent empires [because they're more entrepreneurial].)