Yes...and no.

It's a decent strategy to go all labs and then convert to all factory, or alternatively to go all factory and then convert to all labs.  This is affectionately referred to as the flip-I believe Wyndstar pioneered the term, if not the idea, but I could be mistaken.

But you certainly don't want to go decommissioning your first buildings (whether they be labs or factories) to build the other type.  In the first case, replacing labs with factories, you can get social out of your labs via focus to build your factories, as well as a discount on building them in the first place, so long as the upgrade cost is 50 industry or more.  When switching from factories to labs, your factories provide a hefty amount of social production with which to upgrade them into labs, and by the same token also provide a discount on the industry required for the build so long as what you're building costs at least 50 more.

Ty for the reply sir. Let me see if I got this right- I should not decommission the first set of buildings, instead I just upgrade it to avail the discount? If I may take an opportunity to ask yet another question,sir- I saw a screenshot somewhere where taxation of 49% brought in 42 bc, but the production capacity was set to 100% ,costing merely 4 bc.(military at 60%, social and research at 20% each) Is it so because the factories and labs were low in number, thus costing only a wee bit to work ?(I know I am not wording this correctly- I can only hope you get an idea of what I am trying to ask, my apologies).

odd question, but why do you always say sir?

Uh-oh I am sorry if I ended up calling a lady 'sir'. (Although gamers mostly seem to be male, I think?). I dont know why I use it - it just kinda feels natural to call a stranger 'sir' I think. Maybe I have read too many stories where people get called that. I truly dont know. ( I call even people  who are way younger than me as sir/madam).

Essentially.  Even in a case where you don't get the discount (for instance upgrading invention matrixes or perhaps industrial sectors to discovery spheres, which actually cost less and therefore don't give you the discount as they don't cost 50+ more), you still have the building in question helping to build the upgrade, which is a good thing.

This is one planet (the homeworld), with no other planets colonized yet, with 20% of 24rp (civilization capital) going to research spending (4.8, becomes 4 when truncated).  The planet is not building a ship (hence the military at 60% is not being charged), and nothing is in the social queue, either (and therefore the social at 20% is not being charged).

Oh thank you so much sir, that was a great explanation.

i'm just curious as to why you say it, that's all.

Oh ,np sir, you can put it down to me being an old fashioned relic from the past :p

That's okay, we could use some more relics like you.

Sir.

Yikes! Please dont call me 'sir', sir! (This here relic  is shy and gets kind of embarrassed if someone calls me that hehe). Oh my goodness I just saw you gave me a Karma, mADDYman! Very naughty of you, sir! *sheepish grin*

I see no one trying to stop me. Besides, it's good to know the human race hasn't lost all tradition.

I dunno how to reply to that mhmm. Except this maybe- I have more than my share of flaws.Honest!

Don't we all .

Oh by the way, We finished moving from Austria to Midsomer England. Austria business was bad.

I was just reading through this thread and there is a lot of great info here. I did think of a question though.

You guys who have experience, do you build labs at all early in the game? Do you just build all factories or all econ, and get all your research points just by focusing your planets? If so, at what point do you start building labs, and when you do, do you build all-lab planets like you do with econ?

Thank you in advance for your help!

I personally don't ever build a lab.

Ever.

I get all the initial research I need from my civilization capital and any initial colonies I set up, and then during the colony rush I research purely by way of focusing my industrial might (i.e. initial colonies and factories).

You do need enough of an economy to sustain it, but all-factory is easier than all-lab in that respect, as discussed in the all-lab recent topic, although if you're building ships on every planet, it can certainly feel more expensive.

Thanks for the help! I've tried the all-factory strategy before, but I think I was doing it all wrong! I'll give this a try next time.

Well, one comment to that is that in Twilight of the Arnor, focusing a planet to research will only cause 80% of the social / military points to go to research whereas before this worked with 100% efficiency.

Everyone seems to agree that this was the developers' way of making all labs / all factories harder to play.

This post is technically true but misleading for those who don't know how focus works, so let me clarify-no offense intended.  (As though I haven't said enough about focus and depreciation!)

In DL and DA, focus takes 25% of your military and 25% of your social and transfers that to research.

In TA, focus takes 25% of your military and 25% of your social but only transfers 80% of that, as Noctilucus mentions, or 20% of your military and 20% of your social, to research.

Do note that this is without any bonuses applied-if you have say a 50% military bonus and a 20% research bonus, the focused military does not get the military bonus (it's just the base value), but it does get the research bonus when it "arrives" at research.

There's also the fact that the focus from military to social and vice versa is twice that of normal (50% rather than 25%) and perhaps more to the point it does not receive this efficiency penalization in TA, as it is the same production "type".

Exactly in what situations would the all-factories or all-labs strategy ever need to be used?

I believe I have seen posts where they can be used to get very high scores (scoremongering scenarios, or perhaps zero year wins), such as converting to all factories and pumping out tons of units (or something like this), to achieve high military score and so forth.

But as far as it being needed to beat the toughest difficutly level, Suicidal, it is not needed. Suicidal is easy enough to beat using regular building methods, and just using other tricks (taking advantage in diplomacy being the only thing that I use, and some slider micromanagement during the first year).

Sole Soul: no offense whatsoever taken, thanks for the clarification, fellow empire man - in my haste my explanation was too much of a shortcut to be correct.

@ mADDYman: Uh sir I am somewhat puzzled about your last post(obviously I am not running on all cylinders). You changed residence ?

*reading through the rest of the thread and taking notes*

yeah I did a few days ago. Austria to england. My dad works in trade so we move around from time to time.

Oh so you must be picking up  a lot of languages moving about in different countries all the time, sir! And a bit annoying too I suppose, to have to lug your personal articles (like your GC2 cd's ) and making sure nothing is left behind and all that?

It can be, my dad's the one with the language gift. I barely grasp many languages. but i learn alot about cultures around europe. We only work around europe.

Ooh I thought the thread had died, my apologies for not answering sooner. I wish I had a talent for learning languages. But as my posts make clear, English is something that eludes my grasp.