Upgrading buildings is pointless

[Agamemnic]

Sure you get to squeeze out that extra production in your building

But then you also have to commit to several planets worth of low-job refineries to churn out the necessary strategic resources. Is the extra empire sprawl penalty worth it? And given the limit of minerals especially late game, is it not better to spare those precious minerals for alloys?

It's possible I'm missing something and talking complete gibberish but its been working very well for me thus far. The few strategic resources I mine are used solely for edicts.

 

[pryr]

Producing rare resources and using upgraded buildings is more space-effective than just using only basic buildings. You can use two building slots for 8 specialst jobs and one refiner job, or 4 buildings for 8 specialist jobs. (Not mentioning that output of refiner jobs can be increased as any other production from stability/etc, and maintenance of advanced building can be reduced)

 

[Ariphaos]

I you are building the buildings, you are doing it wrong.

Buy the resources you aren't spacemining off of the market.

 

[Agamemnic]

Producing rare resources and using upgraded buildings is more space-effective than just using only basic buildings. You can use two building slots for 8 specialst jobs and one refiner job, or 4 buildings for 8 specialist jobs. (Not mentioning that output of refiner jobs can be increased as any other production from stability/etc, and maintenance of advanced building can be reduced)

Spot on. Hadn't thought of that. So instead of a 2 labs, 1 lab and a refinery. But in my case, late game I'm still better off saving those 10 minerals for alloys. Perhaps different for others

 

[Gyrvendal]

It depends pretty heavily on your playstyle.

- If you get access to ecumenopoli, you can make do with basic buildings until you move all production to the ecumenopoli, meaning that you’ll only need some gases for research labs.

- If you go for agrarian Idyll, you’ll have enough housing from resource districts to run a few basic buildings on each planet, meaning you can have a decentralized economy with each planet being a hybrid agrarian/industrial planet without using strategic resources

- If you have access to neither of these, (or you are a gestalt), then it might be a good idea to put the synthetic industry on habitats and specialize a few planets in industry with the advanced buildings.

Point is, building upgrades are no longer a no-brainer, but neither are they useless.

 

[Kaios26]

I'd say the mechanic is uninteresting, and really doesn't add anything besides busy work and an extra point of failure on an economy. But the math kinda works to upgrade, and its necessary to fill something like a Ring World or Ecumenopolis.

 

[Agamemnic]

Point is, building upgrades are no longer a no-brainer, but neither are they useless.

Sums it up nicely. Would've preferred upgrades without the monthly rare resource upkeep but probably just me.

 

[AlanC9]

At least some of the gases, etc. should come free from space mining. Obviously you'll want to upgrade to use those, whatever the rest of your strategy is

 

[Saphire]

Personally, in my current mid-late game, I produce about 200 exotic gasses just from jobs (and what a waste of minerals too) but my net gain is only 2. My research is 27k. I mean seriously, I'm on Applied Electroconductivity 25, and my unity is sky high - literally have all of the ambitions active at all times and still have a surplus. My only issue is the mineral loss, but with the market, I can afford it.

 

[AlanC9]

Applied Electroconductivity 25? What year is that?

 

[wundergoat]

I'll also point out that refineries are great for rural worlds with very few city districts. They make use of the excess building slots without much impact on housing. You probably should not be wasting building slots on your forge worlds for refineries.

 

[Kaios26]

You probably should not be wasting building slots on your forge worlds for refineries.

Another thing that is a bit sub-optimal about habitats. They can never get a specialization bonus, unlike a terrestrial world, so you are giving up that 5% more alloys by building foundries on a habitat. That might be an oversight, or it might be design, but a habitat can only ever be a habitat.

 

[Eye Urn]

Upgrading buildings is simply no longer the automatic thing that it was. You only upgrade them when you need the extra jobs per building as those rare resources are definitely not as easy to come by as minerals and alloys (although note that Autochthon Monument to Heritage Site does not require rare resources). You fill out all of your building slots with more basic buildings before moving on to upgrading them. You still build rural districts for jobs for awhile because you need the basic resources more than the specialist output. But eventually, you will want to be able to generate more jobs and more production out of fewer building slots, and the upgrading system allows you to do that. I consider it a major hurdle to get to the point where it makes sense to start upgrading things, especially with the state of the AI not doing so. At high difficulties (without further modding) it comes down to being able to survive the early, pre-upgrade game without being down too far such that you can use your upgraded buildings to climb up to the top. At lower difficulties, you're probably outpacing the AI before it comes to that point and you've dominated the galaxy by the time it makes sense to upgrade buildings.