Translucers, Refiners, Chemists

[yapxingguan]

Just figured out why my empire was always lacking in minerals mid game:

Spoiler

resources = {
category = planet_translucers
produces = {
rare_crystals = 2
}
upkeep = {
minerals = 10
}

resources = {
category = planet_chemists
produces = {
volatile_motes = 2
}
upkeep = {
minerals = 10
}

gas_refiner = {
category = specialist
condition_string = SPECIALIST_JOB_TRIGGER
building_icon = building_refinery
clothes_texture_index = 3

possible = {
specialist_job_check_trigger = yes
}

resources = {
category = planet_refiners
produces = {
exotic_gases = 2
}
upkeep = {
minerals = 10
}

anybody think their upkeep is a tad too much?

 

[Badesumofu]

No, I don't think they are too much. If they were significantly less then it would making finding those resources a lot less meaningful. Having minerals be scarce is a good thing too, it applies a pressure on an empire to find a way to get more. That almost always means getting more planets.

 

[yapxingguan]

but that only applies if you want to expand.
not to mention you also need said minerals to power up the forges and create consumer goods.

 

[wingren013]

You can do fine with only level 1 buildings. Synthetic rare resources are supposed to be something you resort to if your economy is so hungry for them that the market is too expensive.

 

[evilcat]

If you have Leviathan DLC you can buy 5 of each rare resource from traders for 10e. In my galaxies AI generally have high market demand on minerals so that could well pay off.
Unless some Devauring Swarm will destroy the trade outpost of course.

Late game you stacking bonuses to minerals could pump mineral production. So that 10 mineral late is less value than early.
Early you could be better just having 3 dedicated planets and building there building not upgraded just get the specialization bonus.

 

[Talanic]

Most of my colonies wind up with level 1 buildings only. Later on, though, I hand over control of sectors to the governors, and they love building those, giving me significant stockpiles of rare resources.

 

[Badesumofu]

You're seriously crippling your ability to keep developing your economy if you don't upgrade buildings. One of the reasons that the AI becomes such a pushover beyond the early game is that it doesn't upgrade buildings.

 

[Surimi]

If the upkeep was lower, it would be a no brainer. You'd just upgrade all your buildings as soon as you could. As it is, you need to make a choice and to focus your upgrades where they will have the most effect, which I think is a much better system.

One of the big perks of gestalts is that they can run much of their economy on tier one buildings very easily due to not needing space for consumer goods factories.

Generally, the more urbanised a planet is the more upgraded buildings it will need, so the trick is to balance rural worlds which provide the raw materials with urban worlds that produce refined goods and research in large quantities with upgraded buildings.

 

[Dëzaël]

Another thing is that you can lower the upkeep by having dedicated refinery worlds via the production bonus it gives. Where this can be tough though is the refineries giving only one job slot. Keeping unemployment at bay while not loosing the refinery world modifier due to overabundance of another production can be tricky.

You need to save on building slots to put enough refineries to be worthwhile, so you need districts for other jobs, a few urban districts for extra housing, and so you need a planet with a good amount of districts compared to its size, plus the number of resource districts being evenly spread between each type. Otherwise you can end up with district production competing with refineries for planet specialization.

I'd rather like refineries to get an upgrade giving 2 jobs, making it easier to specialize a planet, than having their base upkeep lowered. That way they would still eat a fair amount of minerals and put pressure on an empire, but being able and willing to invest in mass production would be less randomly tied to planet layout and more rewarding. Increasing their weight towards specialization compared to districts could do though.

 

[Latheloi]

Increasing their weight towards specialization compared to districts could do though.

Pretty sure that their weight is quite high - I accidentally turned my Fen Habbis Forge world into a refinery world after adding, like, four refiners on it. (compared to... five or six alloy districts at the time, I think)

 

[Madzai]

Synthetic production is supposed to be expensive. But taking in consideration how many building upgrades require those strategic resources, i think their natural generation could be upped a bit. May some special costly mid-game tile blockers that allow mining of those resources if cleared. Same with space - they are way to few and too rare.

 

[Dëzaël]

Pretty sure that their weight is quite high - I accidentally turned my Fen Habbis Forge world into a refinery world after adding, like, four refiners on it. (compared to... five or six alloy districts at the time, I think)

Yeah it is already. I didn't consider it from the oecumenopolis perspective. But the problem arises when you have too many districts of one type on regular planets. Since you need 2 districts for 1 refinery to keep pops employed, I had planets constantly switching between mining and refinery because there was only mineral districts left. When you have 2 planets like that and you rely on them for upkeep, that's pretty unreliable. I had no better candidate planets at the time.

Ideally the refinery planet have :
energy_districts_count = mineral_districts_count = food_districts_count,

and :
total_districts_count >= planet_size - some

for employment and housing enough. Rural have lower weight and better stays under refinery specialization. Of course there is some margin in this, but the good refinery planet candidate is harder to find than others, especially since they can compete with the urbans you want to power the upkeep of in the first place, if you're low on planets left.

Not that big of a deal, but between everything, this specialization is harder to make good use of. Thematicaly fitting though, those 2 planets I spoke of were polluted unemployment and crime hellholes.

 

[AmpsterMan]

I don't think they are too much at all. However, I tend to run mostly rural worlds with a small number of urbanized worlds so minerals aren't typically a problem for me.

 

[fuzzybuttons]

In my first game I thought they were too expensive and didn't build them. In my second game I realized I was selling my excess Minerals for 0.7 E and buying synthetic resources for 30 E. So I built the buildings, because 10*0.7=7 E for 2 synthetic resources. Then I found that they were producing more like 3 resources each due to productivity bonuses.

Their cost in Minerals is cheap. Their real cost is the building slot vs the loss of what you could have built there instead.

In my next game, I think I'll colonize some size 10-12 worlds with the goal of making them dedicated planets for this. And to get to 75 pops using as few other slots as possible, I'll use Commerce Megaplexes. They have 10 jobs per slot and produce amenities for free, so I don't have to spend another slot on a Holotheater. Seems like a good pairing with refining.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

You could also buy those with energy.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Synthetic production is supposed to be expensive. But taking in consideration how many building upgrades require those strategic resources, i think their natural generation could be upped a bit. May some special costly mid-game tile blockers that allow mining of those resources if cleared. Same with space - they are way to few and too rare.

Techs that increased number of workers in rare resorcebuildings would really help.

Best bet though is mining guilds the +1 applies to them.

 

[gareaap]

i didn't realise this was an actual problem for people. What i end op doing is making 3 types of world science ,consumer goods/alloys, and tactical resources worlds. tactical resource worlds also have a high amount of districts left because they dont need allot of housing space for building workerpops. i have played multiple different empire types and those 3 seem to be the only ones you need/can actually build.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I'd just like natural spaceborn Rare's deposits to be bigger. A deposit of 1 Mote isn't really worth a war, and probably not even an expansion rush toward it if it means spending a massive amount of Influence i could spend on, say, claiming a system with a planet or a strategic chokepoint, is it?

 

[szmik]

deficit penalties aren't too bad and you could upgrade all buildings ignoring rares and still be better off than not upgrading

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Really I'd like (I said this elsewhere) deposits to be far rarer, but richer.

Right now, finding motes/gas/crystals dosent really change a planet, at best its 1-2 tiles of 16? Teh woop it is a big one.

That, falls far short of the shadow Dune and her spice cast over the universe, or the way Pandora swayed a human civs steps into space, its a nice bonus, but it fails to shape an economy or to define the pacings of conflicts and civalisation.