The "take direct influence" vs "quest completion reward" balance should be looked at

[Aepdneds]

Yesterday I had a mushroom event which gave me the choice between taking 80 influence instantly or to dive into the quest, just out of curiosity I finished the story line and all it gave me was a lousy +15% society research bonus on a single planet. One of them is a big boost, the other one is forgettable. It would be nice if we could get an option at the start of the game to see the possible results of all options, I couldn't find this certain event on the wiki or with google. (I don't use any game-changing mods)

 

[ImaTomato]

....a 15% society research bonus on a planet is far better than 80 influence .

 

[Aepdneds]

....a 15% society research bonus on a planet is far better than 80 influence .

I can't agree, 80 influence can buy you much more than 15% to a single research field on a single planet. As said before this is 2/3 of a habitat for void dwellers which can give you 20 times the research of this 15% and also additional pop growth. Influence is the only resource which does not exists in unlimited numbers and is always short.

 

[Elh]

I can't agree, 80 influence can buy you much more than 15% to a single research field on a single planet. As said before this is 2/3 of a habitat for void dwellers which can give you 20 times the research of this 15% and also additional pop growth. Influence is the only resource which does not exists in unlimited numbers and is always short.

It's not 2/3 of habitat cost. There is also a battleship-like cost in alloys. The influence is so "precious" only because there are very few ways to get it.

 

[Aepdneds]

It's not 2/3 of habitat cost. There is also a battleship-like cost in alloys. The influence is so "precious" only because there are very few ways to get it.

Battleships are soft limited by your fleet capacity which can be boosted by habitats too, except of the early game there isn't a decision to build a habitat or a battleship, it is always build both as long as there is influence to do so.

 

[Elh]

Battleships are soft limited by your fleet capacity which can be boosted by habitats too, except of the early game there isn't a decision to build a habitat or a battleship, it is always build both as long as there is influence to do so.

in the early game there is really no option, because you have no tech for building battleships. As well as, without exeption of being voiddweller, you have no tech for building habitats. Both of them reqire ton of science for "unlocking". this is the most obvious reason (and there are the others) why 15% sci output is better than 80 inf.

 

[Me_]

90%+ of the time the influence option is there there for those cases where you don't want to be bothered with the quest. There's only a handful of cases where it could potentially be a better option.

 

[Ryika]

....a 15% society research bonus on a planet is far better than 80 influence .

I think the two options in this particular example are difficult to compare. In the long run, getting +15% Society on a planet is certainly going to amount to a lot of research, but you can make immediate use of the influence, which may very well snowball into a far bigger bonus. I think it's very dependent on whether you can make use of the influence to get something out of it, or whether it just adds to a 600+ pool that you've already accumulated and no plans for using yet.

There are far more one-sided examples of this though. It seems to me that the one event where you can choose to get 500 minerals and a bit of negative opinion with a neighbor, or return them for 100 influence and a bit of positive opinion really, really requires you to be starved for minerals to ever even consider it for anything other than role playing.

 

[Aepdneds]

And you can't chose when you get this quest or on which planet it does occurre, yes if it is somehow on your first colony at a time where you are getting flooded with influence due to new contacts and you don't have the alloys to spend it on the +15% are better, but this is already over 2240 to 2250.

 

[sillyrobot]

....a 15% society research bonus on a planet is far better than 80 influence .

Umm, no it's not. 80 influence is an extra system and a half to colonize or half a habitat . That's a lot more than +30 Society research even assuming the colony is a dedicated research world hitting +200 society to begin with.

 

[sillyrobot]

It's not 2/3 of habitat cost. There is also a battleship-like cost in alloys. The influence is so "precious" only because there are very few ways to get it.

The only real constraint in the game is influence. By mid-game, I'm typically *selling* alloys to avoid going over cap.

 

[grommile]

Both of them reqire ton of science

ton of engineering.

the bonus discussed is society.

 

[sillyrobot]

I think the two options in this particular example are difficult to compare. In the long run, getting +15% Society on a planet is certainly going to amount to a lot of research, but you can make immediate use of the influence, which may very well snowball into a far bigger bonus. I think it's very dependent on whether you can make use of the influence to get something out of it, or whether it just adds to a 600+ pool that you've already accumulated and no plans for using yet.

There are far more one-sided examples of this though. It seems to me that the one event where you can choose to get 500 minerals and a bit of negative opinion with a neighbor, or return them for 100 influence and a bit of positive opinion really, really requires you to be starved for minerals to ever even consider it for anything other than role playing.

Not too difficult, though slightly situational. Can 80 influence give you a new colonizable object? If yes, it is better. +15% of 1 research pales when compared with even the weakest colony's output.

If you cannot use the influence to colonize a new object then perhaps -- and only perhaps -- the research bonus might be better.

 

[MathyM]

I agree, but it's the other way around.

I pretty much never take the influence over the boon.

 

[Ryika]

Not too difficult, though slightly situational. Can 80 influence give you a new colonizable object? If yes, it is better. +15% of 1 research pales when compared with even the weakest colony's output.

If you cannot use the influence to colonize a new object then perhaps -- and only perhaps -- the research bonus might be better.

Not necessarily.

You seem to be treating that extra planet as a permanent addition to your empire that you couldn't get otherwise, but it's not. Chances are, even without the 80 extra Influence, you're still going to get that planet eventually, unless someone takes it from you. Everything is just delayed by however long it takes you to genrate those 80 influence (under the assumption that you're Influence-starved to begin with). So the "real" benefit here is getting a few months of extra resources earlier than you would have gained them, and a bit of extra pop growth during those months - which can definitely snowball (although, it also means that you need to build the colony ship earlier if you want to benefit from the extra resources), but it's not like you're just getting an extra planet permanently.

The +15% research on the other hand, are indeed accumulating until the end of the game (if you don't lose the planet), but are much slower to actually show any difference, and when they do, they still don't amount to much.

Overall I don't see a clear "Always pick this"-choice here. The only real thing that pushes me towards Influence is much faster if that it is much faster ifyou can make good use of it, and that situationally it can help you lay your hands on something that you might have otherwise not have gotten peacefully. But then again, that's highly situational.

 

[sillyrobot]

Not necessarily.

You seem to be treating that extra planet as a permanent addition to your empire that you couldn't get otherwise, but it's not. Chances are, even without the 80 extra Influence, you're still going to get that planet eventually, unless someone takes it from you. Everything is just delayed by however long it takes you to genrate those 80 influence (under the assumption that you're Influence-starved to begin with). So the "real" benefit here is getting a few months of extra resources earlier than you would have gained them, and a bit of extra pop growth during those months - which can definitely snowball (although, it also means that you need to build the colony ship earlier if you want to benefit from the extra resources), but it's not like you're just getting an extra planet permanently.

The +15% research on the other hand, are indeed accumulating until the end of the game (if you don't lose the planet), but are much slower to actually show any difference, and when they do, they still don't amount to much.

Overall I don't see a clear "Always pick this"-choice here. The only real thing that pushes me towards Influence is much faster if that it is much faster ifyou can make good use of it, and that situationally it can help you lay your hands on something that you might have otherwise not have gotten peacefully. But then again, that's highly situational.

Sure! But the bonus is miniscule. It is after all somewhere south of +40 Society research in net proceeds (15% of 4 research per job with 9 slots holding 6 jobs each = 32.6 bonus ). I am discounting the permanent effect because in a mid-game empire, +40 Society income is miniscule in effect. And it is only that high if the colony is targeted to be a dedicated research facility anyway with almost all slots holding advanced research complexes which tends to be rare in my experience -- such dedication tends to be applied to those colonies with research districts preferentially. It can be al low as +0 bonus for a bureaucratic or refinery based colony.

In a typical game, you never run out of colonizable targets. Every bit of bonus influence is adding to another colony you wouldn't have otherwise. Would you swap 40 Society income for half a habitat's monthly output (which will usually have more than 40 Society income!) or a quarter of another ringworld?

 

[Ryika]

Sure! But the bonus is miniscule. It is after all somewhere south of +40 Society research in net proceeds (15% of 4 research per job with 9 slots holding 6 jobs each = 32.6 bonus ). I am discounting the permanent effect because in a mid-game empire, +40 Society income is miniscule in effect.

But so is what you get from taking the influence. If we take the best case scenario, you're at 0 influence, and those 80 influence allow you to get a planet right now, with a colony ship already built for whatever reason... then, if we assume you're at ~5 Influence a month and take the other choice, you'll be able to colonize that planet 16 months earlier. 16 Months of a technician that then works on the planet, that's what, 500 Energy maybe?

By the midgame most yield-based effects that don't affect your empire as a whole simply don't have much influence at all.

And it is only that high if the colony is targeted to be a dedicated research facility anyway with almost all slots holding advanced research complexes which tends to be rare in my experience -- such dedication tends to be applied to those colonies with research districts preferentially. It can be al low as +0 bonus for a bureaucratic or refinery based colony.

Sure, and with some strategies you're sitting at 1000 Influence for considerate parts of the game.
That's why I'm saying this one is actually surprisingly nuanced. There are some situations where you'd always pick one over the other, but most of the time the choice isn't quite as obvious in my opinion.

In a typical game, you never run out of colonizable targets. Every bit of bonus influence is adding to another colony you wouldn't have otherwise.

No, it doesn't add "to another colony you wouldn't have otherwise". As already explained, assuming nobody takes it from you, it merely allows you to get that colony a bit earlier.

 

[Elh]

Sure! But the bonus is miniscule. It is after all somewhere south of +40 Society research in net proceeds (15% of 4 research per job with 9 slots holding 6 jobs each = 32.6 bonus ). I am discounting the permanent effect because in a mid-game empire, +40 Society income is miniscule in effect. And it is only that high if the colony is targeted to be a dedicated research facility anyway with almost all slots holding advanced research complexes which tends to be rare in my experience -- such dedication tends to be applied to those colonies with research districts preferentially. It can be al low as +0 bonus for a bureaucratic or refinery based colony.

In a typical game, you never run out of colonizable targets. Every bit of bonus influence is adding to another colony you wouldn't have otherwise. Would you swap 40 Society income for half a habitat's monthly output (which will usually have more than 40 Society income!) or a quarter of another ringworld?

usually additional system is almost empty node with 2-6 energy or minerals. most of the systems are just like this, and they add noting worth 30 additional research.
also 80 influence obtained naturally in a couple of months. Therefore, it just production of a system delayed for some months (80-120 basic resources) against permanent bonus bringing 30 social research every month.

 

[sillyrobot]

But so is what you get from taking the influence. If we take the best case scenario, you're at 0 influence, and those 80 influence allow you to get a planet right now, with a colony ship already built for whatever reason... then, if we assume you're at ~5 Influence a month and take the other choice, you'll be able to colonize that planet 16 months earlier. 16 Months of a technician that then works on the planet, that's what, 500 Energy maybe?

By the midgame most yield-based effects that don't affect your empire as a whole simply don't have much influence at all.

Sure, and with some strategies you're sitting at 1000 Influence for considerate parts of the game.
That's why I'm saying this one is actually surprisingly nuanced. There are some situations where you'd always pick one over the other, but most of the time the choice isn't quite as obvious in my opinion.


No, it doesn't add "to another colony you wouldn't have otherwise". As already explained, assuming nobody takes it from you, it merely allows you to get that colony a bit earlier.

Sigh, No, it gives you a colony you wouldn't have. I get the next site faster, sure. But I end up getting one more site overall than I'd have otherwise. When I would have bought that colony naturally, I'm buying the next most valuable colony instead. I'm always one ahead because the bonus influence is an extra colony not a advance towards one.

In a century, I'll have 101 colonies rather than just the 100 I'd have without the bonus influence not 100 just completed in year 99.

 

[Ryika]

Sigh, No, it gives you a colony you wouldn't have. I get the next site faster, sure. But I end up getting one more site overall than I'd have otherwise. When I would have bought that colony naturally, I'm buying the next most valuable colony instead. I'm always one ahead because the bonus influence is an extra colony not a advance towards one.

In a century, I'll have 101 colonies rather than just the 100 I'd have without the bonus influence not 100 just completed in year 99.

No, in a century, you'll have 101 colonies a few months before I have 101 colonies.