Food is better than energy

[redharo]

Currently, 1 pop produces 6 food, while 1 pop only produces 4 energy
At the start of the game, you can sell 1 food for 0.7 energy.
Now, 6 * 0.7 = 4.2
This means, at the start of the game, it is more efficient to sell food, than to produce your own energy using generators.
Since the base trade from food to energy is 1:1, if you manage to reduce the market fee, then this becomes even better.

This means, all you have to do is sell food in bulk, wait for food price to rise again, and rinse/repeat.
Or, just sell 100 and wait, and repeat. Actually,

Gets even better once you get trade reductions

 

[LaznAzn]

I don't even build energy districts anymore. Heck, once I get livestock slavery going, I just build as many mining districts as possible and export my surplus resources (including Xeno Burgers) to cover my energy deficit. Then you get your first Ecumenopolis online as a normal empire, and even the energy deficit vanishes.

 

[BoomWolf]

It...does not seem like that much of an issue.

Sure, at the start it works, but I'd wager the food sell price drops quickly, and it no longer becomes viable.

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

It...does not seem like that much of an issue.

Sure, at the start it works, but I'd wager the food sell price drops quickly, and it no longer becomes viable.

You'd lose that wager. Food price goes up once the galactic market exists for a period of time.

 

[alexti]

It only works on a small scale. When you produce a lot of food the price tanks and selling food at 0.1-0.2 is not very efficient.

 

[redharo]

It only works on a small scale. When you produce a lot of food the price tanks and selling food at 0.1-0.2 is not very efficient.

Nope, try it, sell 100 food, wait 0.5 second, sell another 100 food, wait 0.5 sec. it returns to 0.7 real fast

 

[OfficerBrennan]

100 food per day is small scale.

 

[alexti]

Nope, try it, sell 100 food, wait 0.5 second, sell another 100 food, wait 0.5 sec. it returns to 0.7 real fast

Try selling 10K couple of time per month and see what happens. It can work a little bit if AI is buying a lot of food, but even then after a year or two the prices will collapse (presumably all AI will buy food up to their limit and stop)

 

[Kryndude]

Unless you get super lucky with map resources and get a ton of EC from mining stations it's impossible to maintain all the infrastructures and fleets and armies and stuff through trade untill at least mid to late game. And once the market goes galactic the said strategy usually don't work cuz the price drops as you try to sell food in mass quantities. So unlike what some claim it is actually necessary to build generator districts.

 

[Newberg]

In my experience this works even better once the galactic market appears. Because the starving AI pumps all its magic juice into buying everything.

 

[Chthon]

Unless you get super lucky with map resources and get a ton of EC from mining stations it's impossible to maintain all the infrastructures and fleets and armies and stuff through trade untill at least mid to late game. And once the market goes galactic the said strategy usually don't work cuz the price drops as you try to sell food in mass quantities. So unlike what some claim it is actually necessary to build generator districts.

I don't build energy districts at all anymore. There's no point and my economy is better off for it. The galactic market has ruined the energy district which makes Robots species feel weak. Hell, I treat the energy improvement techs and buildings now as useless techs I only pick to quickly reshuffle the cards for something better.

 

[wingren013]

One of the first things I did was mod the energy produced by technicians to 5. And I still don't usually feel like building energy districts.

It...does not seem like that much of an issue.

Sure, at the start it works, but I'd wager the food sell price drops quickly, and it no longer becomes viable.

Nope. Food is very reliably at around 1 food per energy in the late game. You can't sell fast enough to offset the AI buying if you only sell 10k when you cap.

 

[zukodark]

Anyways, didn't they change exchange prices in the newest patch? So selling 10k will no longer give you a base of 7k energy but rather what you would get for selling 100x100, so a significantly lower price.

 

[Gratak]

Anyways, didn't they change exchange prices in the newest patch? So selling 10k will no longer give you a base of 7k energy but rather what you would get for selling 100x100, so a significantly lower price.

They did. But the galactic market is still the best place in the game to make energy. Though selling minerals and alloys is even more profitable than selling food (they have less output, but the prices become much higher)

 

[beckermt]

I don't build energy districts at all anymore. There's no point and my economy is better off for it. The galactic market has ruined the energy district which makes Robots species feel weak. Hell, I treat the energy improvement techs and buildings now as useless techs I only pick to quickly reshuffle the cards for something better.

In my latest megacorp playthrough, I have literally 0 energy districts. The +10% energy from technicians techs are literally useless.

 

[Todie]

Anyways, didn't they change exchange prices in the newest patch? So selling 10k will no longer give you a base of 7k energy but rather what you would get for selling 100x100, so a significantly lower price.

They did. But the galactic market is still the best place in the game to make energy. Though selling minerals and alloys is even more profitable than selling food (they have less output, but the prices become much higher)

i've been testing / playing a lot on small/tiny galaxies while lookig at the market and its define-parameters. Its apperent that the fluctuatins of prices aught to have parameters that are dynamically sensitive to galaxy size in some way; on larger gaalxies, prices can sometimes stay displaced from their standard for longer periods of time because of supply / demand ratio. hoever, when supply/demand from empires is taht much smaller due t a smaller or less dense galaxy, the markets artificial parameters that pull the price back towars its norm become much stronger by comparision.

This can be modded, but i im not sure it can be done in a dynamic way in just one mod, since market parametrs are all in defines. Maybe you ahve more of a clue on this with experience from dynmic-difficulty modding @Gratak ?

 

[stumason]

In my current game, I am happily selling 100 food a month for 0.7 each. The price seems fairly stable too, so it's a nice little earner. Likewise with minerals. I could, if I wanted, shut down my generator worlds entirely as I am now making +343 a month in energy.

(and for anyone saying "that's not a lot!" - I know, but I am only in 2090, I was boxed in for the 1st 50 years and I decided to try and play tall rather than my usual wide...)

 

[Althizor]

100 food per day is small scale.

100 food a day is 3000 food a month.

Producing +3000 anything in excess of your expenditures in a month is not small scale. Come on now. No one is claiming that food alone pays all the bills for the entire game. But when food starts to fall short of covering everything, the answer still isn't generator districts.

Yea, in the mid to late game you can't always get the full base price if you are going hard on selling food, but by then I have a 10% market fee, so even if the price is a bit lower than the base price the conversion is still more favorable than having generator districts.

Selling food/minerals covers my consumer goods (military economy, no civilian industires) and energy until mid game. Then selling alloys comes in as well. When I finish an ecumenopolis I'll usually remove my massive consumer goods deficit because I am leaning on the market a bit too hard by then. I have never built a generator in my last several empires, and even replace any existing ones with farms and mines.

 

[TheGrouch91]

The food price in my current game is basically at 1.15 and won't go down no matter what. I'm selling 700 food a month and it barely moves and spikes back up. I still do have generators but that's because I'm a dummy and I just find it ridiculous how much more efficient farms are. If I were to min-max I would have literally 0 energy districts.

E: Also I went for Synth Ascension and still no problem. Trade value alone covers 80% of my energy needs and almost 200% of my consumer goods.

 

[Derp]

Try selling 10K couple of time per month and see what happens. It can work a little bit if AI is buying a lot of food, but even then after a year or two the prices will collapse (presumably all AI will buy food up to their limit and stop)

wtf you doin producin tens of thousands of food per month