I have a planet with lots of manufacturing and research facilities.
With the research project active i get more research when setting to 100% production
than with 100% research:
Needless to say this is
1) unintuitive
2) needlessly complicated
I would strongly suggest to look at the govern panel. it makes manufacturing way too flexible, leads to tons of micromanagement (a different govern setting for each planet) and is very unintuitive. imho it should be removed. if i want to specialize a planet into a research center, shipyard or economic powerhouse it should be done via buildings and not with buildings + some weird govern setting.
3) flexible
4) working as designed
I agree that Micro Sucks, but I disagree on the fix. You want to dumb away the micro by removing the decisions. I want a full script language to write my own automation. Neither of us are going to get what we want
i am not against flexibility and complexity on their own, but i am against them if they are unintuitive and micro intensive. in the end i want an economic system that allows for many gameplay options, while being easy to grasp. personally i can live with the current system, but for stardocks sake, if you want to have some accessibility to a wider audience besides accountants.
i am not sure if it is intended as you say and i am skeptical if it is working as intended unless the dev says so.
as for flexibility: too much flexibility is bad for game because it makes long term commitment to planet specializations less important because you can just move a slider if some need arises, thus depth gets lost.
You've got 10 manufacturing buildings with incredible adjacency bonuses and 4 research buildings without such bonuses.
No matter how hard you try, those 4 buildings aren't going to produce more than the 10 manufacturing buildings. If you were to have it the other way around - 10 research with fantastic bonuses, you'd get a LOT more research than the manufacturing -> research project.
It makes sense; that's not a research world, it's a manufacturing world. Even with production being wasted via the inefficiency of converting manufacturing -> research, you'll still pump out a lot more production through your manufacturing buildings than your research buildings. Just because there are so many - and so perfectly placed, your research buildings can't even pretend to keep up. If that makes any sense...do you understand what I'm saying? (I ask because I don't always explain things well!)
This!! The slider allows you to adjust what is being produced, but it bases that off of the population and the buildings in the system. as you have very few research buildings with almost not adjacency bonus they produce very little research in comparison. The current model works in your example due to the number of manufacturing facilities.
Build a planet with equal bonuses and you will not see the same effect.
i understand why this is happening, i understand the system. however, i think it is bad because it is:
-unintuitive
-too complicated
-too flexible (sliders and manufacturing conversion make specialization not a long term development commitment, just change a slider)
-micromanagement intensive (each planet has it's own slider setting to gain maximum effectiveness)
I think the take home here is that if you are concentrating on factories in a world, building a few research buildings (aside from bonus tiles perhaps) doesn't make a lot of sense. If you desperately need some research, you can commandeer your factories, but it won't be nearly the research production as if one had built mostly research buildings, and it will throw away a ton of manufacturing. So my feeling is that, yes, it feels wrong, because misusing your factories is wrong, or very bad planning, or whatever. Using factories for research shouldn't be very efficient. I tend to build roughly 50-50 research/factories, but I am on the lookout for colonies appropriate to tech and manufacturing capitals, and on those worlds I go to the max with the appropriate building. But I am thinking I am being awfully lazy, my excuse being everything will get rebalanced later on anyway.
My intuitive grasp is that the production slider, as in GC2, is about labor allocation. In principle, it should be that allocating labor/production in the same ratio as the buildings you have should be the most efficient, as forcing the whole labor force to work in cramped facilities shouldn't be as efficient. But I haven't got a good idea of whether that is true or not!
But the OP has provoked me to do some in game testing to clarify things a bit more, so that's probably a good thing.
the reason why i got some research and the research project is that i don't need that much production. i can pump out any ship in 1 turn and because you can not build multiple ships per turn the production is pointless. having said that i don't need the research either for the same reason, you can only finish a tech a turn and i don't need the money because i get enough already. You should also take in account multiple bonuses from starbases, e.g. if you have research and manufacturing bonuses from starbases they apply twice if you convert manufacture to research but only once when you just set the slider to research.
imho there are two ways about this:
1) a balance discussion about the flexibility/balance of manufacturing, e.g.:
Manufacturing focus is too strong, because even if pure specialization planets (e.g. only research facilities on a planet yield more research) is better than a manufacturing focus, the manufacturing focus is way more flexible as you can switch to money/research/ship/building production on a whim.
-or, since this is early in the beta
2) a fundamental system discussion. do we even want such a system.
Just an example of the micromanagement hell this system implies. say you have all your worlds ideally set up where the production/money/research slider is set to it's optimum for each world. any technology or star base that grants a bonus to either research/manufacturing or money implies to readjust the sliders for each world. If you have 10+ worlds and get a new starbase with a research relic you can spend the next minutes min/maxing those sliders. to me this is not fun.
personally im not to much a fan of this system
-magic money (where does it actually come from? were essentially just printing money without somehow de-stabilizing the economy)
- double bonus's as was stated before and in an earlier post i made manufacturing points when converted to a project get added as a raw bonus which then gets multiplied by the new resources multiplier using wealth as an example if i have 100-points of production and a 500% bonus to manufacturing and economy if i put that all to wealth i get 600 wealth whereas if i put it to manufacturing i get 600 points Manufacturing divide by 4 for economic stimulus for 150 and then add 500% for my economic output of 900.im not sure if the same holds true for research but i dont expect it to be any different
my earlier post on overpowered economy
https://forums.galciv3.com/458739/page/1/#3502492
this was some time back so im not sure how much of this remains..... i think im going to have to generate a new game considering iridia is the homeworld and some of those ideology bonus's i think i can really push this up
well here they say that the multiplier multiplying multipliers is intentional
https://forums.galciv3.com/458781/page/1/#3503121
I think the easiest fix for this is to raise the efficiency of the projects from 1/4 to 1/2 or 1/3, but not have the output of the project modified by science or economy buildings or space station modules. In the current system, at a certain point a mixed manufacturing/science world running research project will out perform a pure science world running 100% science.
i agree with the last half but i think the projects themselves should be weaker rather then stronger. a manufacturing world should be able to add that extra tiny kink but cant hold a candle to a specialized world
I don't think the projects themselves are modified by research/economic buildings. I believe (I'm no expert, just a casual observer!! I'm just thinking out loud here!) the system works by allocating your something like this:
100% Production is split, via the economy wheel, into Manufacturing (M), Research (R), and Wealth (W).
And research, with a project, would be calculated like (my guess):
(M*Bonuses)*(0.725) = Project Points
Project Points + (R*Bonuses) = Total Research
So if you are split 50% M, 50 %R, and 0% W, your production will be evenly split between P and R, modified by all your bonuses (buildings, civ, tecjh, planet, etc.) for each. At that point, your research is added straight to your total. If you're running a research project, that project generates research equal to (based on above screenshots) 72.5% of your total manufacturing, which is then added to the total research.
I could be completely wrong.
If manufacturing numbers are so high that 72.5% of a max manufacturing planet is doing more research than a max research world, some tweaking needs to be done. (that would mean manufacturing buildings are nearly 40% stronger, ultimately, than equal-tech-level research buildings) But that's what Beta is for. They are still not even close to done with balance issues, as much of that will need be done in the "polish" phase of development.
I agree with tesb. Unintuitiveness, micromanagement-chore if you want max. efficiency and too quick switching (e.g. from 100% focus on production to research in 1 turn) spoiled the game for me*.
My suggestion (easy fix proposal): make the production-wheel a percentage-modifier like starbase-modules of buildings, which are free ...
So from the start you can have like +100% for one area (like production), or +50% for science and production or ... you get the picture.
Maybe the outermost parts of the production-wheel are grayed out at first, so you can only achieve +40% (all three areas summed up) maximum. And later through research increase the inner radius of the production wheel to 60%, 75% 90% etc. - its like free empire (or planet-)wide bonus buildings that have some effect, but a less dramatic one because they are not a multiplyer (times 0 equals 0) but additive (Times [basemultiplyer + 0] equals not 0).
--------
*I became a founder but after the first couple of days in beta have not played since because this dreaded system seems to be here to stay. Sorry for the tone, but I'm frankly disappointed and a little sad.
it was in an earlier beta im not sure if they have changed it but they said it was intentional then
Here are some actual numbers. In a current game Earth has four factories (bonus 225%) and four labs (bonus 190%). Bonuses include starbases, etc. Both manufacturing and research have the same base production: 37.9 (From the colony display).
Without a research project running, this gives
Man 100% -> 123 while Res 100% -> 106 with the other outputs zero. It doesn't matter where the social/mil slider is set (for total output).
With a research project, it depends on how you set the soc/mil slider. At 100% mil, the result is exactly the same as above. At 100% social, the research project turns all the manufacturing into research but at a reduced rate:
At 100% manufacturing: 123 man 87 res
At 100% research: 0 man 106 res
It looks like you are doing a lot more at 100% man, but that's an illusion, because no buildings or ships are being created. All you get is 87 research.
So setting the slider to 100% research gives you the best research output. Also, at a 100% mil/soc slider setting, the research project does nothing. No factory output is converted to research, the results are the same as if you didn't run the research project. And of course any other project would get zero contribution as well.
To me this all seems quite natural, but that is only my reaction.
Edit: My conclusion would be that running a research project is not useful unless you have a colony that has an excess of factories over labs. Then you can force some extra research at a significant cost to your output. Good to know.
Here is the math on how the research project work: they take your manufacturing output, divide it by 4, then run it through all your research or economic bonuses. Here are some of the ramifications:
The break-even point is +300% manufacturing. Until then, you are better off using your slider. At exactly +300% manufacturing, setting the slider to 100% science is the same as 100% manufacturing with the research project. Above +300% manufacturing you are better off using projects than the slider.
Assuming you could get the same research bonuses by replacing your manufacturing buildings with research buildings, early and mid game a research planet will out preform a manufacturing planet doing a project, but the manufacturing planet has the ability to produce manufacturing, research, or credits depending on your needs. Late game however, a planet with partial manufacturing and partial research can out perform a pure research planet.
Here are some idealized numbers run through the actual formulas. Note: For this exercise I am assuming that you would get the same bonuses by replacing research buildings with manufacturing buildings and visa-versa. In the real game it will usually play out more in favor split-type planets due to one-per planet buildings and starbase modules.
Planet 1: 100 production, total possible bonuses +600%
+600% manufacturing using research project: 175 research
+300% manufacturing, +300% research using research project: 400 research
+600% research using slider at 100% research: 700 research
Planet 2: 100 production, total possible bonuses +1000%
+1000% manufacturing using research project: 275 research
+500% manufacturing, +500% research using research project: 900 research
+1000% research using slider at 100% research: 1100 research
Planet 3: 100 production, total possible bonuses +1400%
+1400% manufacturing using research project: 375 research
+700% manufacturing, +700% research using research project: 1600 research
+1400% research using slider at 100% research: 1500 research
Well then. In that case, I agree with your earlier suggestion, peregrine23. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me.
Stray idea:
Add a "migration lag" to the triangle slider.
This prevents shifting your entire economy around on a dime and adds strategic depth. It would take a certain number of turns to get the slider from where it is to where you would like it to be. More change = more time. It would automatically move a bit towards your target spot each turn until it finally gets there.
I like this idea
When I first saw projects back in the alpha, I thought that they were a tool to shift spending, not as a tool to direct manufacturing to some other goal. Run out of planet improvements to build? Then use a project to shift production to research. Research some techs required to upgrade your planet improvements, then the project is put to the end of the list and the planet starts building once more. I was disappointed later when I started checking the numbers and they weren't adding up.In many ways, I was looking for a tool to shift production from research or economics towards manufacturing to develop planet improvements. Projects appeared to do the opposite, but it looked like it would get the results that I wanted. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.
In that case I would say the game is not yet balanced correctly. You should never be in a situation where you have too much or even enough of all three factors (production, research, money).
You shouldn't be able to finish any ship with just one planet in only one turn. You shouldn't be able to research high level tech in one turn. You shouldn't be so rich that there is nothing you couldn't spend the money on even if you wanted to - or at least be forced to save money for worse times to come. In managing your empire there should be a constant struggle to balance the three factors and you should always feel a lack of at least one of the factors.
In that case I would say the game is not yet balanced correctly. You should never be in a situation where you have too much or even enough of all three factors (production, research, money).You shouldn't be able to finish any ship with just one planet in only one turn. You shouldn't be able to research high level tech in one turn. You shouldn't be so rich that there is nothing you couldn't spend the money on even if you wanted to - or at least be forced to save money for worse times to come. In managing your empire there should be a constant struggle to balance the three factors and you should always feel a lack of at least one of the factors.
that would require reducing the production of each planet by about 90% and multiplying maintinance costs by a factor of 10 or more
I don't know what it would require - but if it is the way Quoting tesb has described, than there is no managing, just waiting for the tech tree to fill up and cranking out the newest ship types. That's not GalCiv for me. In GalCiv you should be forced to make decisions like "Do I want that tech faster or do I want those ships?"
@Empress_Fujiko
that is mostly an issue with non-scaling tech costs regarding the map type. if you play on smaller maps or with less planets than the game is more strategic. as soon as you get 15+ planets the technology progression is just choosing a new tech every turn (sometimes two turns). needles to say this is not just an issue between large and small empires but also between map sizes and settings.
One of the main beefs I have with galciv2 was the difficulty in specializing planets. You only had universal sliders that effected production on all your planets, and your only means of having planets go against the overall grain was the weird focus mechanic. So, I definetely prefer having a production / research / economic sphere or whatever it is called for each planet so planets can be effectively specilized and differentiated from each other. So long story, short, despite some tedious micro, I am voting against this particular part of your post as I want a production allocation spehere or pallet for each planet.
you don't need sliders to specialize planets. sliders provide flexibility (currently too much imho). For example in ciV there are not sliders yet you can specialize cities depending what improvements and buildings you construct. it could be argued that the citizen assignment is a form of sliders (in the later stages of the game), but in general the system is much easier to grasp and much less prone to constant readjustments. in galciv3 when i unlock a tech that gives an economic bonus i have to readjust a ton of worlds to their new optimum.
i certainly agree with you that planet specialization was not sufficient in galciv2.
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