So ... Dyson Spheres
- Thread starter klingonadmiral
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How many of those do you build after you've run out of things to spend minerals on and are at your cap?
Surely then you spend them on mass building mineral silos?
Alien 1: "Oh we just have so many minerals we can't store anymore! Whatever will we use them for?"
Alien 2: "I know! We'll use them to build more buildings we can use to store minerals!"
But joking aside, part of the idea for civilian goods is to reduce late-game mineral over-abundance. It might well be the case that this just doesn't happen anymore, or at least not to the same extent. I think it's going to be one of those things we need to wait until the update is out to really get a feel for. Hopefully 1.6 will rebalance it based on whatever feedback though (unless it's fine, obviously).
I miss the days of creating the tomb world storage locker that was nothing but mineral silos. Now it's only one a planet. *sigh*
I think that depends quite a bit. Sure, you can crank up the user goods to make your people happy in exchange for the minerals you don't use, but the happiness isn't really of much use if it only boosts the production of material you don't currently need anyways. I'd actually say its smarter to crank the user goods down and use the resulting extra minerals for habitats and mega structures, only cranking it back up if you get to dangerous levels of unrest or during war if you're the pacifistic sort.
How many pops would you need to run the power plants to match the Dyson Sphere?
What is the consumer goods cost for the Power Plant workers
How many more worlds would you need
What is the additional Research cost
What is the additional unity cost
How many farms will be needed to feed all the pops needed?
What is the consumer goods cost for the farmers?
Again those farms need EC and POPs to run, and the increased research and unity costs
How quickly can these farms and Power plants and POPs be constructed and grown?
I fail to see that you assertion that power plants are better that a Dyson sphere, as if you say "well I will just conqueror the planets and pops" then the EC and Minerals put into armies and Fleets will need to be taken into account as well if you wish to say it is still better than 1 Dyson sphere in a system you already own with No habitable worlds in.
What is the consumer goods cost for the Power Plant workers
How many more worlds would you need
What is the additional Research cost
What is the additional unity cost
How many farms will be needed to feed all the pops needed?
What is the consumer goods cost for the farmers?
Again those farms need EC and POPs to run, and the increased research and unity costs
How quickly can these farms and Power plants and POPs be constructed and grown?
I fail to see that you assertion that power plants are better that a Dyson sphere, as if you say "well I will just conqueror the planets and pops" then the EC and Minerals put into armies and Fleets will need to be taken into account as well if you wish to say it is still better than 1 Dyson sphere in a system you already own with No habitable worlds in.
Dyson spheres certainly don't seem to have the best benefits to cost ratio, but you definitely cannot ignore the major advantages of a massive power source that cannot be destroyed and does not increase the cost of consumer goods, research, or traditions. You could certainly dedicate a few maximum size worlds to energy to get the same amount but those worlds are going to slow down research and unity gain and you'll probably have to put them into sectors anyways.
Well, let's see here... Assuming habitats to make power and planets with free non-Agrarian Pops to make the food, you would need forty Pops living in habitats generating power for your empire, nine Pops living on planets farming food for those and the subsequent power workers plus themselves, and three more Pops living on those habitats generating power to run those farms. So that's four full habitats and half of a good-sized planet, putting you at a dyson sphere saving you about 560% research penalty. We don't know how significant the impact on Unity production the additional Pops and habitats will be, but I'm not too put off by the research penalty (however, those same forty Pops could instead be producing 120 science in each category if the labs were powered by a dyson sphere, with plenty of power left over, so the opportunity cost is considerable).
The existence of consumer good bonuses and High and Utopia living standards seems to indicate that consumer goods will serve as a late game way of trading unneeded minerals for happiness.
Which means they'll still expect you to have unneeded minerals.
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Seems reasonable building for me:
- Pacifists often don't have planets to expand.
- 1 energy isn't the same than 1 mineral. Slavers for example get much better multipliers for minerals than energy.
- Dyson doesn't cost food to upkeep.
- Late game there is no room on core planets, so new power plants would be part of sectors => 25% tax.
- It looks cool and you get bragging rights
I will probably start first game with pacifist race and could see myself building this.
- Pacifists often don't have planets to expand.
- 1 energy isn't the same than 1 mineral. Slavers for example get much better multipliers for minerals than energy.
- Dyson doesn't cost food to upkeep.
- Late game there is no room on core planets, so new power plants would be part of sectors => 25% tax.
- It looks cool and you get bragging rights
I will probably start first game with pacifist race and could see myself building this.
Mentioning how it is more efficient to build a Ringworld instead of a Dyson Sphere is missing one very important fact: a ringworld requires 4 planets around the star to build. You can build a Dyson Sphere around any star.
Which means that you can make any star into a mining station that gives you 400 energy.
You're discounting that flexibility.
Which means that you can make any star into a mining station that gives you 400 energy.
You're discounting that flexibility.
A fair point, I had forgotten that, yes.
That said, the fact that you can do it with ring-worlds in some systems and then have the ring-world perk to build other ring-worlds elsewhere adds it's own flexibility, and if you want ringworlds, I don't think it's really worth the ascension slot for Dyson spheres as well, unless there is a extra significant cost to just using ringworlds, but I may well be wrong.
Now that we've seen the numbers I find megastructures on the whole to be fairly disappointing actually. I mean, habitats are amazing, and dyson spheres are pretty okay, but the science nexus is just laughable.
Loading up the 1.4.1 empire I always load up when I need real numbers, here's where I was at in 2,440: 2,197.85 energy coming in per month (1,325 of which is spent maintaining a fleet in orbit); 2,259.79 points of science per month; 1,754.38 minerals per month. 1,369 of those minerals go towards maintaining the fleet each month, and with 942 Pops I'd expect to be paying another 471 in consumer goods each month.
Basic math says that minerals are actually a real problem for me, much more than energy is. Obviously I'd have built more mines and fewer power plants under such conditions, but I am less sanguine about finding the mineral surplus to make these megastructures. I'm also incredibly disappointed in the science nexus. I mean, +150 science points per month? That's impressive when? I mean, if you could make several I could understand, but you're limited to only one in your empire, ever. That's one way to make sure only tall empires get a real benefit from it, I guess.
Loading up the 1.4.1 empire I always load up when I need real numbers, here's where I was at in 2,440: 2,197.85 energy coming in per month (1,325 of which is spent maintaining a fleet in orbit); 2,259.79 points of science per month; 1,754.38 minerals per month. 1,369 of those minerals go towards maintaining the fleet each month, and with 942 Pops I'd expect to be paying another 471 in consumer goods each month.
Basic math says that minerals are actually a real problem for me, much more than energy is. Obviously I'd have built more mines and fewer power plants under such conditions, but I am less sanguine about finding the mineral surplus to make these megastructures. I'm also incredibly disappointed in the science nexus. I mean, +150 science points per month? That's impressive when? I mean, if you could make several I could understand, but you're limited to only one in your empire, ever. That's one way to make sure only tall empires get a real benefit from it, I guess.
I think somthing is being forgoten here.
Well too things.
1. When looking at the whole trade minerals for energy, the boost in effective energy generation only lasts a short while, (however long it takes to drain), and the minerals are still gone. With a Dyson sphere it's permanent. Thus over the long term investing in mass Dyson sphere's will always trash trading because the best you can get is effectively half your mineral income as extra energy income. Dysons can turn that same mineral income into many times the energy income over time.
2. Pops have a mineral upkeep cost now. Over time they'll consume more minerals whilst working those tiles than it would take to build a Dyson and vacuum up, (sorry couldn't resist), all that energy from a star with no habitable planets.
If your the sort who power rushes through your game, you'll probably never break even, if you play at a more medium standard and speed where you vassalise and then intigraite your going to be seeing way better returns as the time for a single dyson to break even is about on par with the time to integrate a new vassal.
Well too things.
1. When looking at the whole trade minerals for energy, the boost in effective energy generation only lasts a short while, (however long it takes to drain), and the minerals are still gone. With a Dyson sphere it's permanent. Thus over the long term investing in mass Dyson sphere's will always trash trading because the best you can get is effectively half your mineral income as extra energy income. Dysons can turn that same mineral income into many times the energy income over time.
2. Pops have a mineral upkeep cost now. Over time they'll consume more minerals whilst working those tiles than it would take to build a Dyson and vacuum up, (sorry couldn't resist), all that energy from a star with no habitable planets.
If your the sort who power rushes through your game, you'll probably never break even, if you play at a more medium standard and speed where you vassalise and then intigraite your going to be seeing way better returns as the time for a single dyson to break even is about on par with the time to integrate a new vassal.
I play on 1000 star maps exclusively. The galaxy is awash with stars,
You can get a massive amount of core systems in Utopia:
3 base
+2 from Civic
+2 from Expansion Finisher
+2 from tech
+4 from Ascension
+2/4 from Pacifist/ Fan Pacifist
So you'll look at 13 core systems without pacifist and repetables if you want to.
Farms are ludicrously effective however, even with the now nerfed Pitharan Dust. Agrarian becomes a desirable trait, get a farm world full of Agrarian pops and feed 5 or 6 or more other planets.
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It seems in general that production will simply shift towards minerals. I.e people maximizing mineral output and perks and building more planets around minerals than they did prior. Moving energy "off planet" if feasible.
Prior primarily energy production was planet bound, due to the thrifty trade and fewer energy resourced being located in space. With the massively increased demand for crystals both in terms of maintenance, consumer goods and other structures and the new dysonspheres etc we might see a massive shift here depending on galaxy size and lenght of the game. Unless there is a hard "cap" to these things, one can effectively build them endlessly as long as one has enough minerals.
Damn, now I am even more sad that they only allow one ore depot. I miss my 300+ crystal planets.
Dyson Sphere should be at least 1000. Roleplay-wise, you could build the Dyson Sphere even if it costed you 1,000,000 energy a month. It should be balanced for gameplay, and using simple math and the info we have now, I don't see how the hell it's ever going to be a wise investment. Assuming I built a ringworld instead, I'd get 100 POP slots that could, in theory, produce the same energy as the Dyson Sphere in just over 50 slots, while also allowing me to produce any other resource in the remaining slots. I also have the added advantage of flexibility (I can respec those energy slots if I'm getting a huge surplus from elsewhere), and the natural advantages of having more POPs (bigger armies and fleets, for example).
The only advantage of the Dyson Sphere is that it won't give you a temporary research penalty before being populated... but of course, the ringworld will give you a research bonus once it is populated.
The only advantage of the Dyson Sphere is that it won't give you a temporary research penalty before being populated... but of course, the ringworld will give you a research bonus once it is populated.