Bring back resource replicator.

[The Boz]

It's not really the *weak* economy, but the hilariously unstable economy that is the problem.
Static empire, worlds with nothing being built, no piracy growth, no new edicts or policies, and you'll just have *massive* resource production swings for no obvious reasons. Size ~200 empire going from +50 to -20 energy/mineral/food per month suddenly for half a year, then up to +10, then down to 0, all in the course of a year, with no input... The economy is *impossible* to plan for.
"I'm at +35 minerals, I can easily fit another alloy fab here" is just not a thought you ever think, because that +35 can turn into -15 with no obvious reason.

 

[WhapXI]

It's not really the *weak* economy, but the hilariously unstable economy that is the problem.

This has kind of always been the case but now there are several factors contributing to it.

For one thing, numbers are just bigger now. Running a +200 mineral surplus is still fine, but now that will probably be from +2000 produced against -1800 consumed, even in the early-mid game. A 5% drop in production would cut that surplus right in half. Surplus levels remain the same but both production and consumption are much larger. % changes are much more significant.

Another thing, pop numbers are bigger as well. Doing something to lose 10% faction happiness that would piss off maybe 50 pops who could be reshuffled to less important tiles will now piss off 300 who are stuck working their jobs as specialists and rulers. This has the knock-on effect of dropping stability across your empire, and as mentioned, even a couple of % points across the board can easily make the difference between dozens in credit to being dozens in debt.

Also the way that promotion to new specialist buildings works screws over raw resource production. You build a couple of new civilian industries to try and fight a consumer goods deficit but they take workers from your mines so you're now losing a couple dozen minerals from miners as well as from the artisan's input. If you aren't careful with where you build factories, you can very easily lose +30 from your mineral income overnight.

One thing I will say is that having big stockpiles makes you pretty resistant to the wild swings. Things tend to normalise when pops are happy and there are no jobs left vacant. As long as you're developing based on this base-line and can see shortages coming (i.e., dropping below +150 minerals per month or below +20 consumer goods per month) then you can plan for the impending shortfalls and for any unplanned variances.

 

[hellatze]

Can we get back to topic about replicator ?

 

[Silens]

That's what I mean when I say 'weak economy', your surplus is just barely in the dozens or lower hundreds. Whereas you had a huge profit margin in the thousands earlier, you now try to make ends meet. That's the reason why people keep complaining about economic instability, since you always walk the thin line between profit and loss. When you make a net profit of let's say 2000, a little bit of instability won't bother you. Even a drop by 500 wouldn't faze you. But when you make only 100 (2000 gain, 1900 upkeep), it's another story.

I'm fine with a few resources serving as bottleneck, forcing you to invest in certain areas of your economy (or territorial expansion) from time to time. But all of them? At every time? However realistic, it feels not right from a gameplay standpoint. Especially raw materials should practically never run out. Struggling economies mostly experience a shortage of specialized goods and that's almost always due to a underdeveloped infrastructure. Having a shortage everywhere makes things hard for no good reason.

This only leads to exploiting certain weak points of this system, like the AI cheating (buying from the market without costs) or farmers producing more credits than technicians (also by using the market as food-credit-converter).

Empires need to become economically independent once more, with bigger and faster net gains. And I wouldn't achieve this by lowering upkeep, as this is a very welcome change. Things are expensive, I accept that. But with the way the economy is balanced right now your cost of expansion is nearly as high as what it nets you. So buildings like the replicator or mines/power plants should come back to us. One +XY% building is not enough to truly specialize a planet. It's kind of sad that a Ringworld is just a big farm nowadays. It has enough energy, so why now converting it to minerals? Replicators ftw!

And once empires are able to stand on their own feet again, the market can become more balanced (aka limited) in its capabilities. Right now I wonder how the market can have more alloys or living metal than all empires of the galaxy combined. Even in a game with space dragons that's fairly unrealistic.

 

[Sigma 582]

When you make a net profit of let's say 2000, a little bit of instability won't bother you. Even a drop by 500 wouldn't faze you. But when you make only 100 (2000 gain, 1900 upkeep), it's another story.

If you make net +2000 minerals, you are probably overproducing and are going to hit storage limit very soon, unless you have like 40-50 planets to build stuff on. The market will let you sell some excess stuff but prices will drop very quickly and impose diminishing returns on these profits. You'd better look into diverting that surplus into other production (in case of minerals, build more alloy forges and/or CG factories, whichever you need more).

If you only have +100, you gotta look into expanding your resource base as your high priority. Options are plenty: new planets, new mineral districts, +% buildings, new mineral-rich systems, manual assignment of workers into mining jobs if you have any open slots, +% mineral techs, even pop modification for extra job output.
Also worth checking if you overproduce alloys or CG - in this case you might want to replace a forge or two with research lab so that you consume less minerals, and produce extra research instead. Cherry on top: faster research means you'll reach and finish your next +% production tech a bit faster which will help too.

All in all, the key to stable economy is planning ahead and soberly assessing what you can and can't afford. E.g. carpeting your planets with upgraded alloy forges without building up mineral income (and CG for extra specialists) in advance can ruin your economy pretty quickly. If your planets and systems at this point can only produce so many minerals, you shouldn't overstretch your processing layer over what you can sustain.

One +XY% building is not enough to truly specialize a planet.

I too would love to see more means to boost specialized planets, and it just came into my mind that after you've constructed that +% building, you still have room for improvement by increasing planet stability. One way I can think of is to create amenities surplus which can give up to +20% pop happiness. Happier pops give higher approval rating which contributes to stability, and high stability gives +% to all production on the planet. I quickly looked through wiki but couldn't find any jobs/buildings apart from civic-gated Nobles you could add to increase stability directly. Am I missing any ways to do so?

 

[sillyrobot]

<snip>

I too would love to see more means to boost specialized planets, and it just came into my mind that after you've constructed that +% building, you still have room for improvement by increasing planet stability. One way I can think of is to create amenities surplus which can give up to +20% pop happiness. Happier pops give higher approval rating which contributes to stability, and high stability gives +% to all production on the planet. I quickly looked through wiki but couldn't find any jobs/buildings apart from civic-gated Nobles you could add to increase stability directly. Am I missing any ways to do so?

The only other direct way to boost Stability I've found is the Black Site star base building. +5 Stability.

 

[Silens]

If you make net +2000 minerals, you are probably overproducing and are going to hit storage limit very soon, unless you have like 40-50 planets to build stuff on. The market will let you sell some excess stuff but prices will drop very quickly and impose diminishing returns on these profits. You'd better look into diverting that surplus into other production (in case of minerals, build more alloy forges and/or CG factories, whichever you need more).

If you only have +100, you gotta look into expanding your resource base as your high priority. Options are plenty: new planets, new mineral districts, +% buildings, new mineral-rich systems, manual assignment of workers into mining jobs if you have any open slots, +% mineral techs, even pop modification for extra job output.
Also worth checking if you overproduce alloys or CG - in this case you might want to replace a forge or two with research lab so that you consume less minerals, and produce extra research instead. Cherry on top: faster research means you'll reach and finish your next +% production tech a bit faster which will help too.

All in all, the key to stable economy is planning ahead and soberly assessing what you can and can't afford. E.g. carpeting your planets with upgraded alloy forges without building up mineral income (and CG for extra specialists) in advance can ruin your economy pretty quickly. If your planets and systems at this point can only produce so many minerals, you shouldn't overstretch your processing layer over what you can sustain.


I too would love to see more means to boost specialized planets, and it just came into my mind that after you've constructed that +% building, you still have room for improvement by increasing planet stability. One way I can think of is to create amenities surplus which can give up to +20% pop happiness. Happier pops give higher approval rating which contributes to stability, and high stability gives +% to all production on the planet. I quickly looked through wiki but couldn't find any jobs/buildings apart from civic-gated Nobles you could add to increase stability directly. Am I missing any ways to do so?

The kind of economy we have right now suits a more realistic approach of paying, partial payment or payment when the product is done. Especially as we talk about construction, minerals/alloys are only gone once they've went into the final product/building/ship and not a day earlier. That would mean: instead of paying 1000 alloys for a battleship and then waiting until building starts in a year or two, and another 16 months until construction is finished, it would only deduct alloys as construction is proceeding. That means roughly 2 alloys a day for the whole duration it takes to make it. Then we wouldn't need to have big stockpiles, then the current economic model would suit our needs very well.

But since we have to pay the full price for everything in advance, we ought to have the means to overproduce. That's the way the game has worked until 2.1 and I think I never read any complaints about this particular aspect of the game. With 2.0 the devs even favored the big stockpile/paying upfront method when they changed the payment method for edicts/campaigns.

Now that we have a new system in place, we probably have not the best mix of both worlds. It should be balanced out, either way is good, but it should be balanced in the end. Gameplay has slowed down quite a bit and that's not a bad thing. But the imbalance shows when gameplay slows down too much, when economies need constant converting between whatever resource is just available, when the AI can barely keep up even with a cost-free market.

 

[Dinkelman]

Sure energy can be turned into matter, just not in the proportions of the replicator. Anyway, I personally don't care for the replicator. I feel the building is unnecessary. It is inefficient. You can either focus your production so they aren't needed, or use the market. Yes the market has big flaws that can be criticized, but I believe they will make enough improvements to it so that it is worthy of a place in the game.

 

[hellatze]

Sure energy can be turned into matter, just not in the proportions of the replicator. Anyway, I personally don't care for the replicator. I feel the building is unnecessary. It is inefficient. You can either focus your production so they aren't needed, or use the market. Yes the market has big flaws that can be criticized, but I believe they will make enough improvements to it so that it is worthy of a place in the game.

Thats for you. (For replicator talk). You doesnt know what other people play style.