Core planets - focus on research, minerals, energy or mix

[nfmarque]

Greetings,
i want to check what people do in their core planets.
Because i only go for full energy or full minerals even ignoring tile resources, leaving sectors to mostly focus on research.

why research on sectors?
- research is always taxed at 100% on sector
- on 0% happiness (conquered xenos) gives a penalty of -25% while on energy/mines the penalty is -50%
- minerals/energy can only be taxed at most 75%

why full energy/minerals on core?
- always taxed at 100%
- planetary edicts become much better when active on a planet that gives 200+ energy/minerals

what are your thoughts?

 

[ranma100]

I always have the sectors concentrate on research. The core worlds are mostly minerals and energy, with some research.

 

[Diezy]

Capital does good research with the extra upgrade level. And sectors with Research Focus are great for research. :3

Sectors have that 25% penalty to Minerals and Energy, also you can put a governor in the sector that boosts Research output further, much better than it would for just a core world. Sector AI also loves putting Observatories on Starports. And even if they don't build them for some reason, you can manually do it for them. Nice!

 

[AmpsterMan]

Mixed approach early on. Once i get sectors, those get focused on science and my core worlds produce energy and minerals.

 

[terrycloth]

I'm always putting core worlds into sectors as I colonize more worlds, so nothing gets specialized. But I do tend to slack on actually building labs so most of my research ends up being from sectors.

 

[Mauer]

Build mines on tiles with minerals, build power plants on tiles with energy and empty or food tiles next to capital buildings, build labs everywhere else. Don't care if it's sector or core world.

 

[KaTiON]

Build mines on tiles with minerals, build power plants on tiles with energy and empty or food tiles next to capital buildings, build labs everywhere else. Don't care if it's sector or core world.

Mid/late game its better to specialize planets. Even more so after Banks since we will no longer need to place food buildings to satisfy a planet.

Take an average size 16 planet that will be dedicated to energy production, fully populated with pops at 50% happiness and without trait bonuses such as agrarian, without a governor and no slaves:

• 1x Planetary Capital (4*2=8)
• 15x Power Plant IV (15*6=90)
• 1x Power Hub II (6 + 20% total planetary production)
• Edict: Capacity Overload (+15% total planetary production)

8+90+6=104
35% of 104=36.4

104+36.4= 140.4 energy

 

[terrycloth]

Mid/late game its better to specialize planets. Even more so after Banks since we will no longer need to place food buildings to satisfy a planet.

Take an average size 16 planet that will be dedicated to energy production, fully populated with pops at 50% happiness and without trait bonuses such as agrarian, without a governor and no slaves:

• 1x Planetary Capital (4*2=8)
• 15x Power Plant IV (15*6=90)
• 1x Power Hub II (6 + 20% total planetary production)
• Edict: Capacity Overload (+15% total planetary production)

8+90+6=104
35% of 104=36.4

104+36.4= 140.4 energy

The new power and mineral hubs are efficient uses of a tile by themselves, so you might as well have them on every planet. The only benefit of specialization is the edicts and I hardly ever have spare influence to use on them (unless I'm using a mod that gives me tons of extra from Governor's Mansions or something).

Hmm, I guess specializing a planet would also make it easier to use genetic engineering on the pops to give them appropriate bonuses.

 

[LordMagus]

I actually tend to turn most of my core planets into research planets (might be silly of me). The reason is that they're usually the nice 20+ tile planets, and I slap down as many labs as possible, and genetically mod the species there to be natural x. and intelligent (if they aren't already). I suppose that means I earn less energy and minerals than I otherwise could, due to 25% of it being taken by the sector.

Because I only have a limited number of scientists I can dedicate to assisting research (+30% science output from the planet) I put them over the FULLY specialised research planets. Also, fan. materialist gets the spirit of science edict, so I'd rather put than on 5 planets and get a nice boost than have to pay for 10 sector planets. The sector AI doesn't fill up a planet with labs, they aim for more balanced energy + minerals as well, and so the scientists would be more wasted assisting research there.

Perhaps someone would like to see if you can get more research from sectors than dedicated 20+ tile core worlds, as you're able to just use a single governor with the intellectual trait for a sector.

 

[Alblaka]

Depend on whether I play wide or tall. And given playing tall gets you wiped in the endgame, I always play wide.
For playing wide, I usually have my capital (relocated) in a system with 2-3 planets and another system with 2+ planets, which I use for baseline incomie and ship production.
All other core system slots I use to colonize new planets and develope them properly in the pattern

• build Frontier Clinic and 1-2 farms (depends on planet size)
• start clearing out blockers whilst waitng for migration (even for collectivists)
• upgrade reassembles shelted straight to planetary capital
• upgrade the farms and clinic / place basic buildings on all planet types (optionally enslave the pops on all tiles which will produce minerals/food)
• upgrade the research labs to their specialized tier
• shift-queue all upgrades (aka, ~40+)
• stuff the planet into a sector with redevelopement turned off and try to forget the fact the sector AI will mess around with the slavery placement anyways

Leads to a 'slower then maximum' but mostly efficient expansion rate, and nets me a 100k fleet by the time a fallen empire awakens (well, I suppose it's me making them awaken, but whatever).

 

[Dr. B]

Depend on whether I play wide or tall. And given playing tall gets you wiped in the endgame, I always play wide.
For playing wide, I usually have my capital (relocated) in a system with 2-3 planets and another system with 2+ planets, which I use for baseline incomie and ship production.
All other core system slots I use to colonize new planets and develope them properly in the pattern

• build Frontier Clinic and 1-2 farms (depends on planet size)
• start clearing out blockers whilst waitng for migration (even for collectivists)
• upgrade reassembles shelted straight to planetary capital
• upgrade the farms and clinic / place basic buildings on all planet types (optionally enslave the pops on all tiles which will produce minerals/food)
• upgrade the research labs to their specialized tier
• shift-queue all upgrades (aka, ~40+)
• stuff the planet into a sector with redevelopement turned off and try to forget the fact the sector AI will mess around with the slavery placement anyways

Leads to a 'slower then maximum' but mostly efficient expansion rate, and nets me a 100k fleet by the time a fallen empire awakens (well, I suppose it's me making them awaken, but whatever).

That looks like a good plan, and sensible approach to the (current version of the) game, but man, that sounds like a ton of micromanagement! !

 

[Alblaka]

but man, that sounds like a ton of micromanagement! !

What else is there to do in between truces?
That said, you wouldn't believe how much micromanagement I had BEFORE I generalized colonization into that 'plan'. I would constantly monitor all colonies and repeatedly queue all aviable upgrades, usually one by one.

But turns out, using Migration regardless of ethic to kickstart a colony, then priorize the planet capitel, helps reducing ethic drift, and the number of clicks and 'check colony' iterations for full construction.

 

[tobias.mb]

For your first planets it's not really a good idea to destroy tile resources. Even a +1 mineral matters a lot, if your mine only provides +2.
That basically leaves the empty tiles and excess food tiles. Though I sometimes use 'excess' food to boost pop growth.

Mostly I build Power Plants on all those empty tiles. But since I usually play with robots, I have rather high energy requirements, so this might not be the best strategy for all empires.

Only exception are planets with a specialisation modifier. If I find a mineral rich planet, I obviously turn it into a mining colony.

 

[LordMagus]

I actually feel sad that I didn't build more synths. I never kept checking my colonies, so useless flesh bags kept growing and I haven't made that many synths.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

I generally focus planets around what resources they have naturally regardless of whether it's in a sector or my core. If a planet is extremely rich in minerals or energy though, I tend to keep those under my direct control if possible.

 

[Hauntmachine]

If you're playing Fanatic Materialist, I normally have most of my core worlds set as research worlds (2 of my 5 starting planets will normally have energy/minerals so that I can pay the upkeep on my tech worlds.)

 

[henzington]

Heavy energy and research

 

[Ratanka]

What else is there to do in between truces?
That said, you wouldn't believe how much micromanagement I had BEFORE I generalized colonization into that 'plan'. I would constantly monitor all colonies and repeatedly queue all aviable upgrades, usually one by one.

But turns out, using Migration regardless of ethic to kickstart a colony, then priorize the planet capitel, helps reducing ethic drift, and the number of clicks and 'check colony' iterations for full construction.

what is this word "truce" ? i dont know it

 

[redomer]

I go with specialized plantets that work with the natural resources because there is often some kind of bonus to be had. For example a world fully dedicated to research gets more out of an observatory than a mixed world and a planet with only energy only "wastes" one tile on an energy hub to maximize the energy production of a planet. It also help to increase the benefits of edicts and assist research.

Sectors mostly produce research to outweight my constant expansation. They usally end up a producing a surplus of energy and minerals no matter what. The worst case is that I have to make a sector focus on energy because terraforming and constant warfare is expensive.

 

[Cruxador]

I normally treat the core world limit as a functional cap and don't use sectors, so my core worlds are a mix. If I do have sectors, they tend to be technology focus though. Gotta offset that penalty.