Planet Build Strategies

[tetley]

Just do this:

First, put your Starport on Idle and check the domestic screen to see what you income is.

Next, change your starport to produce a colony ship and purchase it. And again, check to see what your income is. It should go down. If you're producing 20 military/turn, your income should go down by 20.

[DaviddesJ]

OK, I tried a few experiments.

It seems that if you rush-buy a ship, your military production for that planet for that turn is wasted (you still have to pay but you don't get anything for it). The cost of the rush-buy is unaffected by how much military production you have.

This isn't an issue for social projects, because they appear immediately (and you can still build something else with your social production for that turn). But, if you don't start another project in the build queue, then your social production for that planet for that turn is wasted (you still have to pay but you don't get anything for it).

The game would be hugely improved if surplus military production were carried over to a new ship, and surplus social production were applied to the next project in the build queue. I don't think it's necessary to have Civ4-style "overflow calculations", which are harder to implement (as evidenced by the several tries they took to get it right)---you can just apply the balance of production immediately to the next thing in the queue.

[tetley]

What I wish is if you could rush-buy a ship and then switch production. In other words, if my planet produces 20bc worth of military, I'd like to ship-build something that costs 20bc less than my colony ship. Then rush-buy the other ship, change to the colony ship, click "End Turn", and get a colony ship for 80bc cheaper.

Trust me I've already tried it. Doesn't work.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by tetley
What I wish is if you could rush-buy a ship and then switch production. In other words, if my planet produces 20bc worth of military, I'd like to ship-build something that costs 20bc less than my colony ship. Then rush-buy the other ship, change to the colony ship, click "End Turn", and get a colony ship for 80bc cheaper.

I would absolutely hate that. We suffered through exactly that sort of micromanagement in Civ3. If the game is going to let you do this, it should just do it automatically (i.e., reduce the cost of the rush-buy by the amount of military production you have), or do something else with similar effect (i.e., credit your military production toward a new ship).

It makes no sense, to me, to give people the ability to do something but to require them to do it in an annoying and time-consuming way rather than a simple and convenient way.

[tetley]

That's fine. Just as long as Mitrosoft doesn't put my colony ship on layaway.