Build starports on all planets - or not?

[Strategist83]

Meant planets, not bases. Obviously.

[Brizey]

I do not. Only big production planets or high quality planets that can burn the square.

For example, on a medium map and otherwise defaut settings, I may only have three or four planets that regularly produce ships.

Usually one or two are conquered capitals!

[tetley]

I do starports on them all, but not right away. When the economy starts running a surplus, I need an outlet for that surplus production. Otherwise you end up running an even bigger surplus and purchasing stuff. That's not efficient.

[Strategist83]

You could also just replace some money-making structures with money spending ditto.

[tetley]

Is it more profitable to build markets and then squish them than it is to just not build anything in the first place?

[Brizey]

Originally posted by tetley
I do starports on them all, but not right away. When the economy starts running a surplus, I need an outlet for that surplus production. Otherwise you end up running an even bigger surplus and purchasing stuff. That's not efficient.

This really needs more analysis. For example, on a medium map, I try to get to the point that I have maybe four ship producing planets. I try to get the military slider to zero and then just use the focus on the ship producing planets.

I think you may be wrong about efficiency, but don't have the numbers to back up my hunch. First of all, I would rather use my surplus on research. Plus I don't think it is that simple when you consider the combination of the focus buttons and the slider. My late games usually sees the slider near 100% research and I use the focus buttons for my ship producing worlds and my developing worlds. I switch away from research for a few turns to social when I get a tech that allows me to upgrade infrastructure.

I think that in general a highly developed market/research square produces more value than a starport square late in the game if you use my model of using focus for military spending instead of the slider. I can use the credits produced to shave turns off of ships being made by the ship builder worlds. And it allows me to keep the research slider up.

Another way to look at is that for a weak world to produce ships requires that you bump the military slider, which steals research credits.

BTW, I love the complexity of the economic model of this game. So many choices that are interconnected with a lot of complexity. And it even has multiple turn inertia with the tax slider and its cumulative effect on approval.

[tetley]

If I did what you were doing, I would have so much treasury surplus it's ridiculous. Meanwhile, the Drengin would be breathing down my neck because I don't have military. Here's the problem I have with too much research:

a) You have to build lots of research centers
b) To build research centers you have to build factories.
c) To build factories AND research centers you have to turn up the Social slider.
d) If your Social slider's up then you're not getting anything out of your research centers.

Chicken and the egg problem. So I tend to go 100% Social and focus-spend on the other two. If you have to have factories up anyway, you can get pretty decent research just by focusing. You can't do that the other way around.

Where the treasury surplus problem becomes more pronounced is when you have any military spending on your slider at all. If you don't have a Starport, that's all going back in your treasury. I don't need more money--I need ships. And you can never have too many ships, because...Economic Starbase.....

[Topgun]

I used to limit myself to "Starports only on PQ9 or better" but I learned my lesson.

Now if I colonize it, it gets a starport. (And if it flips to me from the AI it'll already have one, regardless of PQ) No reason not to, since to develop the rest of the tiles in a reasonable amount of time you're going to need factories and if you have factories there is no logical reason not to have a starport. (And too many reasons -to- build a starport)

Even low PQ low-production planets will still turn out a ship every 15 to 30 turns or so - if you have enough of those planets that adds up to a couple of fresh new ships every turn. In my last game (Large Galaxy / Challenging) I was punching out 15 to 20 Constructors ever single turn. Some of the individual ships had taken 20 turns to complete, but as a whole my production capacity was virtually unlimited. When the Torians declared on my Ally and brought me into a war I hadn't planned for my Military Rating was 140ish compared to the Torians 160ish.

In two turns it was my Military Rating of 340ish vs their 140ish

If you need ships in a hurry all those poor production worlds will churn out -scads- of ships, just buying them all outright. You can only buy one ship per starport per turn so you want as many starports as possible for rushing ships. If you only have a half-a-dozen production worlds with starports you can only rush half-a-dozen ships. The ships are cheaper if they have some construction time already devoted to them so again, it makes sense to have a starport even on terribly low production planets to make those ships cheaper if you have to rush them.

So take a lesson from the AI: Build a starport on every planet.

[tetley]

I do a variant of that. What you suggest to rush-buy everything would take scads of money, but--you can partially finish a bunch of ships at a time if you have lots of starports, and rather than pay the maintenance on the ships you're only paying the 1bc maintenance for the Starport. Then you can rush-buy the ships when you need them. That's actually affordable. Or, if you wind up not needing them, you can unlock a new technology and switch production to the new ships. MUCH cheaper than upgrading ships you already built.

[Brizey]

Again, that is what I love about this game.

Another obvious advantage is geography.

[Spearthrower]

Originally posted by Topgun
I used to limit myself to "Starports only on PQ9 or better" but I learned my lesson.

Now if I colonize it, it gets a starport. (And if it flips to me from the AI it'll already have one, regardless of PQ) No reason not to, since to develop the rest of the tiles in a reasonable amount of time you're going to need factories and if you have factories there is no logical reason not to have a starport. (And too many reasons -to- build a starport)

Even low PQ low-production planets will still turn out a ship every 15 to 30 turns or so - if you have enough of those planets that adds up to a couple of fresh new ships every turn. In my last game (Large Galaxy / Challenging) I was punching out 15 to 20 Constructors ever single turn. Some of the individual ships had taken 20 turns to complete, but as a whole my production capacity was virtually unlimited. When the Torians declared on my Ally and brought me into a war I hadn't planned for my Military Rating was 140ish compared to the Torians 160ish.

In two turns it was my Military Rating of 340ish vs their 140ish

If you need ships in a hurry all those poor production worlds will churn out -scads- of ships, just buying them all outright. You can only buy one ship per starport per turn so you want as many starports as possible for rushing ships. If you only have a half-a-dozen production worlds with starports you can only rush half-a-dozen ships. The ships are cheaper if they have some construction time already devoted to them so again, it makes sense to have a starport even on terribly low production planets to make those ships cheaper if you have to rush them.

So take a lesson from the AI: Build a starport on every planet.

I am definitely *not* going to learn from the AI when it comes to planetary development. The AI is a little bit loopy at this aspect of the game..... Building a starport on a PQ4 planet is just a waste of money.

I still use the PQ9 as a general rule of thumb. Naturally, if I can see tiles that will develop with future techs, or the planet has a manufacturing bonus, then lower PQ's will be considered.

Other than that, PQ9's are pretty much the only ones worthy in my experience of building starports. Everything PQ9 and above gets a starport and any planets I capture of flip from the AI which are lower than PQ9 and have starports get built over.

I dont need to rush build a load of starships - I keep a sizeable armada around at all times with all my planets defended.

[tetley]

> Building a starport on a PQ4 planet is just a waste of money.

But what about when you have a monetary surplus? That's where I'm coming from. After you've fully developed a PQ4 it's good to have a Starport, to bleed off that excess manufacturing into some ships. Otherwise it just goes back into your treasury, and when your economy has matured you don't particularly need that.

[Topgun]

Originally posted by Spearthrower



I am definitely *not* going to learn from the AI when it comes to planetary development.

Indeed - nor did I suggest that you should. I suggested you take a lesson from the AI - as their first structure on -every- planet is a starport.

The rest of what they build is largely irrelevant. (and often downright insane - like building a farm on a 300% research tile )

[tetley]

A starport is usually not the first structure on any of my planets (except obviously the initial colony). It's a drain on the money, and if there's a manufacturing bonus tile I tend to develop that first. Although, if the colony rush is on and it's a forward planet, it can help to get a starport and then a colony ship out there ASAP.