Transform all the mineral-deposits ( in space ) into alloy-deposits ( in space ).

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Kayden_II

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Suggestion: Title.

Reasons:
01. Mineral-Mines on colonies would actually be used ( builded ). I mean due to the ( current ) abundance of mineral-deposits in space, there's hardly any situation in which anyone would actually use ( build ) any mineral-mines on colonies.
02. That's a buid-in-scaling in regards to the slider for the number of habitable worlds. A low or high number of habitable worlds -> colonies wouldn't matter and couldn't screw anything up anymore. If someone wants to produce more alloys ( or consumer goods or volatile motes / exotic gases / rare crytals ) on colonies, more mineral-mines have to be used ( builded ) on them as well since with this suggestion in mind, colonies would be the only sources for minerals.
03. In reference to point 01 and 02: Compared to the other districts, mineral-mines would become competitive in general: EC-Districts are competitive, because ECs are not only used as resources, but as money-units as well. Food-Districts are competitive, because food is already an example for something that's already exclusively produced on colonies. City-Districts are competitive, because ( unless you want to waste building-slots for housing ) they're basically the providers for the housing for the POPs that work in the buildings so that they're tied to any building(s) ( with the tied benefit(s) ) you can think of.
04. This frees up choices ( in regards to buildings ) on colonies. I mean alloys are still the king, but since there would be a much higher and steady income from space-deposits, there's actually more freedom to build anything else on colonies than buildings for alloys.
05. Star-Systems ( with or without colonies ) become more valuable in general due to the transformation of ( cheap ) mineral-deposits into ( more valuable ) alloy-ones.
 
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If you have such an excess of minerals
Typically this becomes more obvious the lower you've set the slider in regards to the number of habitable worlds and you've forbidden guaranteed habitable worlds, too. ( My suggestion scales with this ( point 02 ) ). And usually, that's already the case without any mineral-mines on colonies on top. ( My suggestion makes this kinda necessary ( point 01 ) ).

I strongly suspect that you have never built an ecumenopolis
Typically I can turn a **** load ( if not all ) of my colonies into ecus before I've got any trouble in regards to minerals. ( My suggestion ensures diversity since in order to fuel a certain number of ecus ( with minerals ) a certain number of colonies has to remain as ordinary ones ( with mineral-mines ) in return ). Not to mention that ecus are a DLC-feature ( "MegaCorp" ) so that they're typically not the intended solution for any general problem like this one. It's also a thing that ecus appear pretty late whereas this mineral-excess-problem appears already pretty early.

and/or aren't building resource refineries
Pretty unlikely in consideration that alloys are still the most important resource so that alloy-factories will be builded with the highest priority anyways. But somehow, there's still an excess of minerals ( and sometimes even without any mineral-mines on colonies ).
 
Just an example from my current game:

minerals.jpg


As you can see mining stations won't cover anything and I actually find myself buying more minerals to expands.
That's also the point where the mineral deposits are useful in early game, you can build stuff without having to wait or buy from the market too much.
 
Pretty unlikely in consideration that alloys are still the most important resource so that alloy-factories will be builded with the highest priority anyways. But somehow, there's still an excess of minerals ( and sometimes even without any mineral-mines on colonies ).

This shows that you completely miss how the economy of rare resources works. A refinery takes up a building slot and costs 10 minerals, but gives you TWO rare resources back. Since each rare resource allows an upgraded building, this means that you get back the building slot lost to the refinery, and get a new one. You are basically paying 10 minerals for an extra building slot, as well as the versatility of being able to move building slots around.

If you have a need for more of ANY secondary level good, and don't have the building slots to produce it, the solution is rare resource refineries and upgraded buildings.
 
As you can see mining stations won't cover anything and I actually find myself buying more minerals to expands.
Your monthly gain is +1751.96 minerals. ( So why you have to buy additional minerals is an other question ). The jobs on your colonies produce 1866.89 minerals per month. The difference would result in just -114.93 minerals per month. That's just 3.34% of your actual consumption ( - 3444.90 minerals per month ). That's already pretty low, but if I consider the market on top then it's pretty neglectable.

Long story short: Mineral-Mines on colonies are still not needed. ( And you can include starbases and megastructures ( with the exception of habitats and ring-worlds ) as a form of mining-stations ( since no POPs are manning them ), too ).

That's also the point where the mineral deposits are useful in early game, you can build stuff without having to wait or buy from the market too much.
Yeah, that's actually something that has to be changed as well: I mean stuff like districts have to cost alloys ( instead of minerals ), too.

This shows that you completely miss how the economy of rare resources works.
Or next time: Be more specific that you mean with "resource-refineries" the actual refineries for rare resources ( exotic gases, rare crystals and volatile motes ). And that's actually an other can of odd arbitrariness that's just a bit more oddly and arbitrary than ( for example ) alloys: Alloys have to be refined from minerals, but for some reason there exist alloy-deposits in space as well ( as if alloys haven't to be refined anymore ( contradiction ) or mining-stations are already capable to transform minerals into alloys on their own ( my suggestion in its core ) ). Exotic gases, rare crystals and volatile motes have to be refined from minerals, too. But for some reason there exist space-deposits ( and colony-deposits ), too. My opinion: Rare resources have to be handled like primary resources ( like minerals ): 01. No refining ( from minerals into ) and 02. deposits in space ( just like now ) and deposits on colonies ( but as districts ( just like with minerals, energy and food ) ). I mean this whole "rare resources are refined from minerals" sounds more like an odd, arbitrary and desperate "solution" to deal with a mineral-excess that would become even more obvious otherwise.
 
Your monthly gain is +1751.96 minerals. ( So why you have to buy additional minerals is an other question ). The jobs on your colonies produce 1866.89 minerals per month. The difference would result in just -114.93 minerals per month. That's just 3.34% of your actual consumption ( - 3444.90 minerals per month ). That's already pretty low, but if I consider the market on top then it's pretty neglectable.

Long story short: Mineral-Mines on colonies are still not needed. ( And you can include starbases and megastructures ( with the exception of habitats and ring-worlds ) as a form of mining-stations ( since no POPs are manning them ), too ).

You do of course know that you need minerals for every planetside building, these have to keep up with population growth. Just to give you an example:
My planets build cost ranges from 135 to 275 minerals per pop and I get on average 8.7 pops per month. When you divide the surplus of 1750 minerals by these 8.7 pops you land well within this range and it's not hard to see how you exceed it.

Yeah, that's actually something that has to be changed as well: I mean stuff like districts have to cost alloys ( instead of minerals ), too.

So your plan is to remove everything that cost minerals and replace it by alloys?

I mean this whole "rare resources are refined from minerals" sounds more like an odd, arbitrary and desperate "solution" to deal with a mineral-excess that would become even more obvious otherwise.

See it the other way around you get some free rare resources to get you started, but once you need more you have to make them yourself.
 
Or next time: Be more specific that you mean with "resource-refineries" the actual refineries for rare resources ( exotic gases, rare crystals and volatile motes ). And that's actually an other can of odd arbitrariness that's just a bit more oddly and arbitrary than ( for example ) alloys: Alloys have to be refined from minerals, but for some reason there exist alloy-deposits in space as well ( as if alloys haven't to be refined anymore ( contradiction ) or mining-stations are already capable to transform minerals into alloys on their own ( my suggestion in its core ) ). Exotic gases, rare crystals and volatile motes have to be refined from minerals, too. But for some reason there exist space-deposits ( and colony-deposits ), too. My opinion: Rare resources have to be handled like primary resources ( like minerals ): 01. No refining ( from minerals into ) and 02. deposits in space ( just like now ) and deposits on colonies ( but as districts ( just like with minerals, energy and food ) ). I mean this whole "rare resources are refined from minerals" sounds more like an odd, arbitrary and desperate "solution" to deal with a mineral-excess that would become even more obvious otherwise.

Sorry if it wasn't clear I was talking about the buildings that produce rare resources from minerals when I say "refineries", however that is the term widely used to refer to them. There are millions of various alloys that occur naturally, but just because they can occur naturally doesn't mean they always do. There will be some rare, valuable deposits which can be directly harvest and used with little processing, while others require various alloying or enrichment to be usable. More esoteric materials are the same. But honestly this is less about what the lore is and more about game balance. It's not that rare resource refineries were added to be a use for an excess of minerals, but rather that the production of minerals was balanced such that using refineries is supported.

You also seemed to have completely ignored the fact that if you are properly using refineries, you won't have a mineral surplus. Refineries directly allow the spending of minerals to "buy" extra building slots through upgraded buildings, which will then pull pops away from the basic level jobs.