So I've seen a lot of people still complaining about sectors. For me they seem to be working pretty well. Here's the secret:
You want to start every sector with these settings selected. If you do this they will grow well. Here's why:
Sector Focus: Absolutely needs to be minerals. Just like you, sectors need minerals to do things. If you don't start them out with this select they will suck (see Northwest sector where I forgot to change it from balanced to begin with). Once your sector is established with a good mineral income you can switch to balanced. Other options are for really well developed sectors.
Military Station: Never start with this on. Build these yourself, your sectors are gimped horribly if they spend minerals on non-economic stuff themselves. Eventually you can turn this on if you are really lazy, but I'd recommend against this.
Colonize: HELL NO. Do this yourself.
Redevelopment: This is a big no-no early on. Destroying old structures to make new ones is something you don't want a mineral-starved sector doing when it should be building a new building for new pops. When a sector is developed it can be a good idea, they will go back and scrap a Power Plant to replace with an Energy Grid and so on, but starting off this option is really bad.
Build Robots: This can work either way. The sectors seem to like to build robots for new squares with tile bonuses before building buildings on an already occupied square. But it seems to work all right.
Finally, a note on Sector Contribution: Resist the urge to demand 75%. I know, it's tough. But you need to keep in mind that those tier 1/2 structures a sector is building are the most efficient investment in the game in terms of how quickly they pay themselves off. You want your sectors to be building those before you build less efficient tier 3 structures or mining stations. 25% or 50% should be your cap for weak sectors, and shove some more minerals their way if they are falling behind according to the report on what they are planning and/or what the ground looks like. Just avoid letting them throw away minerals on the money hole of military stations or redevelopment and they'll be sure to use it pretty well.
Doing this, things seem to be working out pretty well for me. The AI has buildings ontop of the right resources mostly (a few 1 food resources are covered by other buildings), robots are all placed on minerals/food (I'd prefer minerals before food, but that's almost nitpicking), and almost everyone in all my sectors has a building to work with. The main problem with sectors is turning off all of those options that cause its economy to stagnate building useless junk.
You want to start every sector with these settings selected. If you do this they will grow well. Here's why:
Sector Focus: Absolutely needs to be minerals. Just like you, sectors need minerals to do things. If you don't start them out with this select they will suck (see Northwest sector where I forgot to change it from balanced to begin with). Once your sector is established with a good mineral income you can switch to balanced. Other options are for really well developed sectors.
Military Station: Never start with this on. Build these yourself, your sectors are gimped horribly if they spend minerals on non-economic stuff themselves. Eventually you can turn this on if you are really lazy, but I'd recommend against this.
Colonize: HELL NO. Do this yourself.
Redevelopment: This is a big no-no early on. Destroying old structures to make new ones is something you don't want a mineral-starved sector doing when it should be building a new building for new pops. When a sector is developed it can be a good idea, they will go back and scrap a Power Plant to replace with an Energy Grid and so on, but starting off this option is really bad.
Build Robots: This can work either way. The sectors seem to like to build robots for new squares with tile bonuses before building buildings on an already occupied square. But it seems to work all right.
Finally, a note on Sector Contribution: Resist the urge to demand 75%. I know, it's tough. But you need to keep in mind that those tier 1/2 structures a sector is building are the most efficient investment in the game in terms of how quickly they pay themselves off. You want your sectors to be building those before you build less efficient tier 3 structures or mining stations. 25% or 50% should be your cap for weak sectors, and shove some more minerals their way if they are falling behind according to the report on what they are planning and/or what the ground looks like. Just avoid letting them throw away minerals on the money hole of military stations or redevelopment and they'll be sure to use it pretty well.
Doing this, things seem to be working out pretty well for me. The AI has buildings ontop of the right resources mostly (a few 1 food resources are covered by other buildings), robots are all placed on minerals/food (I'd prefer minerals before food, but that's almost nitpicking), and almost everyone in all my sectors has a building to work with. The main problem with sectors is turning off all of those options that cause its economy to stagnate building useless junk.
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