What makes a good system to take ?

[Theter]

Hello,

I was wondering what minimal requirements you attach to an isolated system before taking it.

I am obviously not talking about systems you "need" to get an objective (usually a planet or chokepoint, but zro can do that as well !)
I am talking about all the systems than are not in your direct path but accessible. See, im not gonna take that 2 EC system if I dont have to. Or 3 EC or 4 ! But when do I stop ? I have had lately a difficulty to define what makes a "good" system to take.

Right now I'm ignoring everything that does not yield at least 8 EC equivalent, as long as my empire cohesion is ok. Below that, it seems not worth it. My problem is that this is arbritrary and completely subjective.

I find the problem hard because it factors in alloys, influence, cohesion and sprawl, but most importantly, timing (which is focused on expansion phase so early mid game, but you don't have the same mind on it on 2210 and 2270 right ?)

How do you guys deal with this ? Do you have a rule of thumb ? Have you run some maths on this ?

Cheers.

 

[Urza1234]

Idk if the maths are that valid. I think its still largely strategic.

As you point out, planets, choke points, and certain resources are key, but beyond that I think its a function of your influence supply in relation to your starbase capacity needs.

A large amount of naval supply in 2.2 is related to your starbases, unless you commit to soldier planets. More starbases also = more trade collection.

Starbase capacity is now mostly a function of the number of systems you own. The tooltip is a lie, starbase capacity is now not related to your pops in any way. The only way to get more starbases is more outposts, and to a lesser extent tech.

Administrative cap is linear, so owning more systems doesnt really punish your whole empire, it just makes additional systems provide a reduced value as a ratio to their average yield.

IMO a system has to be pretty shitty indeed to not be worth putting an outpost in. Obviously its still very important to prioritize the planets and choke points, but if you're nearing your influence cap and there is a mediocre system you have access to you might as well take it.

 

[Theter]

snip

Your insights on naval capacity and trade with more system are completely justified and I missed those legitimate points which complexify the equation even more.

But are you going to take 3 systems worth 10 EC total when you could use those around 200 influence points for a more useful edict ?
What is "shitty" ?

More over, I do not now such thing as influence cap. Things has seriously gone wrong if you can get to 1k.

 

[fodazd]

I think 8 energy equivalent is about right. Systems are really, *really* expensive in terms of admin cap compared to planets/districts, so I don't want to take them unless they give me something really worthwile.

 

[Livigy]

I like to hoard my purple mana for claims. Unless the system has something of value like a planet/strategic resource or a choke point it isn't considered outside the very early stages of the game. As I will instead claim other empires systems that do have something of value like planets or strategic resources.

 

[Urza1234]

I think 8 energy equivalent is about right. Systems are really, *really* expensive in terms of admin cap compared to planets/districts, so I don't want to take them unless they give me something really worthwile.

Planets yes, districts no

Admin Penalty to Tech = +0.6% per system
(a 1000 point tech would then cost 1006 points)
Admin Penalty to Traditions = +1% per system

Those are the important ones
You also get a +2% energy penalty to your leaders and campaigns per system, which never scales high enough to be punitive imo.
Consider, if you owned all stars in a 1000 star galaxy, you would still only have 21x cost to your campaigns. Even without all the bonuses to edict duration etc. 21,000 energy for 10 years of -10% CG upkeep across the whole galaxy. Doesnt seem like that much. The additional cost from systems for that would only be 166 energy per month.
Each consumer good (wthout all the stacking synergistic bonuses) is worth 1 mineral and 0.33 energy. Assuming your pops are eating 0.5 CG each, you would only need ~250 pops across the entire galaxy for all that expansion to still be a net profit, in terms of campaign cost/benefit. Very minor

So yeah, the big penalties are to the tech and traditions. Since finding +research in systems is linear, and since the admin penalty to research is also linear, I'm pretty sure that capturing extra systems is on average a net gain in research, even if you didnt discriminate and capped every single system.
Remember, Stellaris's extremely -not stellar- AI has to be able to navigate this new territory system. I've looked at their colonization and outpost weights, they're not complicated, in fact there is a literal random chance value, so that the AI doesnt even just pick algorithmically, it also picks partially randomly. If the new system is not too penalizing for the AI to work, then its not too penalizing for you. I wouldnt worry about it.

The most significant penalty then, by process of elimination, is the penalty to your Traditions, since you dont randomly find Unity out in space. Again, that I think is more of a strategic consideration than a mathematical one. The maths say that the additional energy and tech costs are made up for by the extra expansion, so all we're left with is unity.
How the Unity penalty affects you depends how you set up your empire. If you are set up for Trade, then the additional Starbases can actually cause stellar expansion to be a net Unity gain. If you are set up more for research to matter than traditions, then the additional research from that expansion outweighs the losses in unity.

Basically.
+ Outposts = + Naval cap +Energy +Minerals + Research but -Unity
Unless you run Trade and Marketplace of Ideas, which negates the unity penalty.

Your administrative cap is a soft cap, heavy emphasis on the soft.

 

[Urza1234]

More over, I do not now such thing as influence cap. Things has seriously gone wrong if you can get to 1k.

I somewhat disagree with this, especially early game, which is the subject of the discussion.

Firstly, early game not everyone has access to particularly beneficial edicts.
Secondly. I behave more like @Livigy and horde my influence somewhat, so that when my science ships do find planets or choke points I can very quickly take the necessary systems. The AI is set to never intentionally colonize beyond your borders. If you can choke out a whole block of stars by taking a strategic choke near enemy territory, you can easily afford to go back and put outposts in those isolated systems later at your leisure.

 

[Kryndude]

I don't bother with anything that has value lesser than a district. So approximately 12 EC but I also give alloy and research points a bit higher value than their market equivalent cuz I need buildings to produce them otherwise. I'm not sure if this is the right approach cuz technically you're getting value without having to assign pops and there are many other factors to consider (like planet tech, modifiers, etc) but that's too complicated and I just go with the easy way.

 

[Kryndude]

I somewhat disagree with this, especially early game, which is the subject of the discussion.

Firstly, early game not everyone has access to particularly beneficial edicts.
Secondly. I behave more like @Livigy and horde my influence somewhat, so that when my science ships do find planets or choke points I can very quickly take the necessary systems. The AI is set to never intentionally colonize beyond your borders. If you can choke out a whole block of stars by taking a strategic choke near enemy territory, you can easily afford to go back and put outposts in those isolated systems later at your leisure.

Isn't it better to snake to that system you want instead of paying the distance penalty for it? You spend a bit more inlfuence for a lot more systems. I guess it's entirely situational?

 

[Theter]

I somewhat disagree with this, especially early game, which is the subject of the discussion.

Firstly, early game not everyone has access to particularly beneficial edicts.
Secondly. I behave more like @Livigy and horde my influence somewhat, so that when my science ships do find planets or choke points I can very quickly take the necessary systems. The AI is set to never intentionally colonize beyond your borders. If you can choke out a whole block of stars by taking a strategic choke near enemy territory, you can easily afford to go back and put outposts in those isolated systems later at your leisure.

Of course I cant argue with that, and i used to be snaking back in 2.1. You just dont need 800 influence for this, more like 300.

snip

You didnt answer the question or Im confised about your answer. Do you suggest to take every system no matter what ? Only those with science boni ?

 

[fodazd]

Since finding +research in systems is linear, and since the admin penalty to research is also linear, I'm pretty sure that capturing extra systems is on average a net gain in research, even if you didnt discriminate and capped every single system.

I am pretty sure this is not the case.
-> If we assume an average of +1 research per system (which is generous I think), then +0.6% tech costs will push your research time asymptotically towards 6 months per 1000 base cost.
-> If we assume an average of +200 research per planet (you can get much higher numbers than that if you really try), then +8.1% tech costs will push your research time asymptotically towards 0.4 months per 1000 base cost. In other words, about 15 times faster.

Conclusion: If your research is currently slower than 6 months per 1000 base cost, then claiming a system with +1 research will speed up your research speed. Otherwise, your research will get slower. Of course, if the system has like a single 4 energy deposit, your research will *always* get slower, and I think it's not even worth it in terms of energy, because while the penatlies to leaders and campaigns aren't that relevant, flat +4 energy is even less relevant.

...And all of this is assuming you are not a megacorp.

 

[Urza1234]

Isn't it better to snake to that system you want instead of paying the distance penalty for it? You spend a bit more inlfuence for a lot more systems. I guess it's entirely situational?

Yeah, I do mean snaking, but snaking still takes influence, you cant do it at 0.

You didnt answer the question or Im confised about your answer. Do you suggest to take every system no matter what ? Only those with science boni ?

I suggest that its relative to your available influence.
Do you need influence for habitats, claims, elections, diplo, decisions etc soon, or are you low on influence? Dont spend it on marginal outposts.

Do you have a excess influence? Take the best system thats on your border.

Basically extra outposts are essentially never going to be a net-negative in the long run, thats the math that you essentially dont need to worry about. But they still might not be the best use of your influence at a particular moment in time.

I don't bother with anything that has value lesser than a district. So approximately 12 EC but I also give alloy and research points a bit higher value than their market equivalent cuz I need buildings to produce them otherwise. I'm not sure if this is the right approach cuz technically you're getting value without having to assign pops and there are many other factors to consider (like planet tech, modifiers, etc) but that's too complicated and I just go with the easy way.

I agree with this as a rule of thumb early game, at least when we're talking about taking a system only for its mining and research station value, but later on I dont consider any system off the table, if only just because each system is worth 1/10 of a starbase cap.
Its all relative to your available influence imo.

 

[Kryndude]

Okay I got curious and looked into my current game.

If you assume there's no modifiers applied and compare just the raw value then quite a lot of systems seem worth taking for 2 admin cap.
For example, a mining district costs you 1 EC, 2 food, 2 amenities while earning you 8 minerals. That's approximately 5 EC in terms of market value.
A system with 12 minerals would cost you 1 EC for the starbase and 1 additional for each mining station you have to build. 3/3/2/2/2 would require 5 EC and total 6. So net market value becomes 6 EC.

It looks like that 12 mineral system isn't too bad but usually you get to stack A LOT of modifiers for worker jobs. In my current game I'm getting 10.23 minerals per pop. (civic, governor, stability, trait, slavery bonus, empire modifier, etc)

So a system to match my mining district it would require at least 16 net market value, which is almost impossible even for an unusually rich system cuz you have to build that many space stations to extract those resources.

So in conclusion, unless it's early game when mining whatever resources you can find is really important, a regular system with no colonizable planet(s), rare resources, an enclave (especially the trade enclave that allows you to build 5% market fee module), or value as choke point is 90% of the time not worth taking. The other 10% would be when it has freakishly large amount of resources due to anomaly/rng or when it's a capital system.

 

[Urza1234]

Okay I got curious and looked into my current game.

If you assume there's no modifiers applied and compare just the raw value then quite a lot of systems seem worth taking for 2 admin cap.
For example, a mining district costs you 1 EC, 2 food, 2 amenities while earning you 8 minerals. That's approximately 5 EC in terms of market value.
A system with 12 minerals would cost you 1 EC for the starbase and 1 additional for each mining station you have to build. 3/3/2/2/2 would require 5 EC and total 6. So net market value becomes 6 EC.

It looks like that 12 mineral system isn't too bad but usually you get to stack A LOT of modifiers for worker jobs. In my current game I'm getting 10.23 minerals per pop. (civic, governor, stability, trait, slavery bonus, empire modifier, etc)

So a system to match my mining district it would require at least 16 net market value, which is almost impossible even for an unusually rich system cuz you have to build that many space stations to extract those resources.

So in conclusion, unless it's early game when mining whatever resources you can find is really important, a regular system with no colonizable planet(s), rare resources, an enclave (especially the trade enclave that allows you to build 5% market fee module), or value as choke point is 90% of the time not worth taking. The other 10% would be when it has freakishly large amount of resources due to anomaly/rng or when it's a capital system.

If you count modifiers to pops, you have to count modifiers to stations as well, you quite easily get +60% to all your mining and research stations from tech and unity. You also have limited planet slots, and limited growth speed, especially when habitability is considered, you cannot compare Districts vs Outposts as zero-sum.

 

[Kryndude]

If you count modifiers to pops, you have to count modifiers to stations as well, you quite easily get +60% to all your mining and research stations from tech and unity. You also have limited planet slots, and limited growth speed, especially when habitability is considered, you cannot compare Districts vs Outposts as zero-sum.

You're right, they're not mutually exclusive. But then mining station modifiers are very few compared to worker job modifiers, and even the ones that exist give you only 10% at a time. I generally don't think they're worth it because unike planets jobs you can't get systems in big numbers. They cost inlfuence and other empires fill up the space pretty fast. Geneally speaking systems shouldn't be seen as a direct source of resource. In the early game maybe, but EC/mineral numbers under each system quickly lose value as game progresses.

 

[Urza1234]

You're right, they're not mutually exclusive. But then mining station modifiers are very few compared to worker job modifiers, and even the ones that exist give you only 10% at a time. I generally don't think they're worth it because unike planets jobs you can't get systems in big numbers. They cost inlfuence and other empires fill up the space pretty fast. Geneally speaking systems shouldn't be seen as a direct source of resource. In the early game maybe, but EC/mineral numbers under each system quickly lose value as game progresses.

No, I agree that mining/research stations shouldnt be seen as a main source of resources, but at the same time they are there, they are net-positive.

My perennial point is still about the opportunity cost. If you're doing literally nothing else with the resources required to mine a system, why wouldnt you?

 

[monkeypunch87]

Well, I guess I'm more casual then, I wouldn't do math to decide if I take a system or not. I take every system in a constellation of stars between chokepoints and I'm doing fine.

 

[Roddo]

choke point.
or
>+1 "strategic" resource.
or
>+2 research (personally like tech edge)
or
>+5 basic resources (mineral|energy)

 

[Jandos]

Wait outposts give you research ? I mean outpost itself without any research stations in system ?

 

[Theter]

choke point.
or
>+1 "strategic" resource.
or
>+2 research (personally like tech edge)
or
>+5 basic resources (mineral|energy)

Ok. Now, Why ?

Wait outposts give you research ? I mean outpost itself without any research stations in system ?

No, with the exceptions or Black Holes observatories and Curator Think Tank