Cannot figure out how to make money.

For starters, you probably need to adjust your starting settings.

Increasing the frequency of habitable worlds and decreasing the frequency of extreme worlds would seem to be the way to go there.

I already have it set up like that. But even so that does not address the atrocious money flow...

First things first, what are your settings for Habitable Planets, Number of Planets, Number of Stars and Number of Extreme Planets?  I take it your government is already at Star Federation or Star Democracy.  Next, what are your expenses i.e. what does the right column look like on the domestic stats Finance Manager screen?  

Only worlds with enough population generate any income to speak of.

So building tax-centers on worlds that you just colonized is kinda wasted for as long as they need for their pop to grow.

When there's only few worlds to colonize, make your home-world your tax-collection center by building the Economic-Capital there.

The game makes you constantly balance your income vs. your expenses.

It is the best idea to specialize your worlds. But that is not always possible. Especially when there are not a lot of worlds around.

Till the population reaches one billion I rarely build any buildings (apart from recruitment center and maybe starport) because the economic buildings have a maintenance costs. For example if the maintenance cost is one and it is a +12% then you will need to have the planetary income at 9 otherwise the economic buildings will produce loss.

Also, just building something on a planet costs money (Social budget).  In the early game you've got to be very picky about what building projects you have running.

Two is not a lot of planets to do much with.

I also build little on planets before ~1B population for the reasons others have already noted, but I think you had a very unlucky galaxy layout.

Also, I buy very sparingly in the early game, and that includes others' techs.

One thing I did not see mentioned was if you had built more survey ships.  They add money by finding cash anomalies and also by contacting Minor races with which you can buy/sell stuff.

Its not just limited to one galaxy. *Every* galaxy I make, no matter the settings, has only the two planets around each home system that are habitable.

The starting survey ship is the only way I am surviving at all. I cant figure out how to make more.

... I think I might just go back to masters of orion 2.

Now do not give up so easily.

First of all, do not limit yourself to planets just in your area. Expand! Even if you have to send it across the galaxy, it is better than having no planets!

Good money flow requires time. For a long time, the money does not come easily for me at all as well.

Just gather many planets and build as few as possible until you gain a profit.

Consider economic treaties if you are really stuck.

The starting setup ALWAYS has just two planets in thge home system unless you mess with the settings.  I think one variation in race and home world REnaming produces an extra PQ8 planet in the home system.

You must use the starting colony ship to grab a planet in a DIFFERENT system, and also "upgrade" the miner to a second colony ship and grab another in a third system.  If you ever want to colonize the second planet in your home system, just build an engineless hull just big enough for a colony module and use that.

You build more survey ships by researching Sensors and adding a Survey module to a hull.  I recommend a cargo hull with nothing else other than engines and a couple extra life support modules to increase range.

This is the unintuitive part of the game. When you colonize, you see all these empty tiles, so it's only natural to queue a building on all the empty tiles.  But as others have pointed out, you should build nothing for a while.  The main colony hub building can sustain a small colony just fine.  I know it is a bit of a pain to then remember to go back to so and so planet, or even check on its population, but it's part of playing the game.

I know these tips work in Dread Lords. It sounds like you are playing an expansion, so hopefully some of these will still apply to your game.

1) Be sure that your trade routes are between planets that are as far apart as possible. You will get more money from longer routes than from shorter ones. Don't forget that you can always cancel the route(s) you have to make better ones.

2) Economic starbases are great for income. Build some of these along your established trade routes, upgrading them with trading post modules. A bonus perk of using these starbases is that they can also boost the military, social, and research production of planets under their influence, when also given industrial modules. If you plan it right, you can put a couple of these around your homeworld and nearby planets, boosting both your trade income and your industrial output simultaneously.

3) Adjust your overall economic output spending to less, if you need to. Less spending here can help you regain cash over the next several turns. This will also mean less military production, less social production, and less research being done, but sometimes you might need to do this to keep bringing in income.

4) Adjust your military, social and research sliders to accomplish your goals, and to save money, too. For both this point and #3, it helps to experiment with the slider settings and watch the amount of income you will still be bringing in, with the proposed changes you are considering. There are times where you can further your research or building projects, etc., while also spending less.

It can take quite a while to get a really good economy going, so try not to get discouraged.

So if it takes so long to get a stable economy or a full planet of buildings, then how is it the AI players manage to do it VERY quickly even on the easy difficulties? I will be struggling to get out of the red, and they will be sitting there with both planets full and months ahead of me in research, and tons of money in the bank.

@LTJim: I mean that out of the entire galaxy, the ONLY habitable planets are the two in the home systems. No matter what settings I use this is always true. If I am playing against the yor, then I am screwed as they are the ONLY ones that can colonize outside their system until months into the game.

Can you take a picture of your situation and post it here?

I can try to help you out.

My question is along these lines so thought I would post here instead of a whole new thread.

I read in the manual that being in "debt" is a drag on approval.  need to clarify debt.  i have a good pile of money, about 7k from selling off techs to friends, but my weekly costs are now in the negative, about -24 per week.  Am I in "debt" due to the negative cash flow, even though I have a surplus?

No, You are not in debt until your stored reserves fall under 0 bc. If they fall under -500bc, you will be unable to continue construction until they are above -500bc again. The approval penalty does not strike instantly, you have quite a few turns before your people start to act up. However, once it does set in, you will be informed by a pop-up screen and a red frowned smiley will appear. Once this happens, be sure to try to get to above 0bc, even if it is only for one turn. It will reset the counter that keeps an eye on how longterm your debt is. The longer you stay in debt after you are warned by the pop-up, the harsher the morale penalty will be.

that helps a great deal Highwater, thanks.  Of my 5 colonies its only my homeworld that has a lackluster approval (70%) and thatmostly due to population I believe.

One other ? If I can impose.  I have 2 morale resource starbases I picked up early on, but they are out on the borders well away from any of my colonies.  I read here that it was a good idea to grab as many galactic resources as possible.  With these being so far away am I getting any benefit from them, I can't seem to find where they are helping?  Do I need to set up some kind of route thru them, similar to a trader routyeV

Thanks for any help, I found this game very late obviously but it is totally cool! 

bloodstone44 -

The numerical morale/approval of your planets will not affect the timing of appearance of the debt "red frowned smiley."  Once it does appear, the approval numbers will start to drop and drop until you restore (as HighWater said even if for only one turn) a positive treasury balance.

Additionally, high morale/approval also does not prevent "flipping" due to influence.

The main impact of low morale/approval is the effect on population growth, and low enough values will cause population drop, and revenue = (tax rate  x  population) + trade + treaties + sales.

bloodstone44 -

The mining starbases on anomalies help w/o any other actions (no routes).  The contributions by mining bases increase as you add mining modules.  One constructor builds the base.  Each additional constructor that tries to enter the square with the base prompts a choice of module upgrades.  As you gain certain techs, more modules become available.  IIRC, the max boost to a stat from a mining base is 39%.  E.g, a mining base built on green anomaly and then maxed out with mining module upgrades will be the equivalent of a 39% economics boost.

For comparison, choosing Federalist boosts 20% Economics, while economics boosts are also available in the race set-up.

Green = economics

Blue = Influence

Yellow = Morale

Red = Ship Attack/Defense

Purple = Research

Thank for the answers, that helps clarify things a great deal.  i will be back with more I'm sure 

Heres what I do to get started on any game I play in GC2:

1) set your flagship to survey

2) dock your colony ship with your homeworld to boost its pop+tax

3) lower tax to 31% so improving morale and increasing pop and lower prod to 60%

4) research planetary improvements and then economics to get adv econ buildings then go for ion and impluse techs.

5) once your homeworld starts getting near 12-14B pop I then launch the original colony ship and go for class 8+ planets and start building new colony ships.

6) when setting up trade routes I always try to go from my homeworld to aliens homeworld as the route is worth more.

hope this helps

Thanks Echelion that helps a good deal.  I haven't had time to go forum searching yet so these two ? May already be out there if so, and you have it available, anybody with links to discussions on these topics would be great.

#1. I have a freighter I got from The Korx in a trade, any idea on what colony it will establish the trade route, or do I need to send it to one of my worlds first?

#2  How do I set up an "escort" for my Trade ships?  i have designed a good fighter to help protect them, but how do I tell it to follow the trade ship?

Thanks for all your help, I'm having a blast with this game, it's a good brteak from Civ IV  if need to be in a different place on these boards with my silly ?'S plz just let me know 

I offer advice different from that of Echelion.

1) Dock the flagship and relaunch it and redock it until you have done all four "corners" of the square containing your Homeworld.  This maximizes what you can "see" at the start.  Once in a while, a good planet is revealed or an anomaly or a mining resource for a mining base.  For example, if you see a "green" one, shift tactics to get a constructor there before an AI does.  (AIs start off with absolute knowledge of placement of mining anomalies and planets).  Use that new knowledge to choose where to place the flagship when you give it its orders to "auto survey."

2) Dock and relaunch the starting colony ship in a chosen direction.  The initial load is 100 colonists and you want it to have 250 when it founds a colony.  Choose the direction to either be opposite the flagship or towards a juicy high PQ planet if one has been spotted already.

3) Create a colony ship design with an extra engine (if necessary, no life support modules), if your race setup allows this due to miniaturization and engine techs.  Convert/Upgrade your mining ship to that design on Turn 1.  Launch it the next turn in a third direction, unless the flagship has found a juicy high PQ planet already.

4) Especially at higher difficulty settings, a player has no time to waste early.  I advise you to get both initial colony ships some distance from your homeworld before colonizing, unless a planet at least PQ 11 is found, and preferable greater than 11.  Your goal here is to maximize the "envelope" of space in which your flagship can wander about discovering things, especially useful anomalies.  A few 500 and 1000 BC finds are incredibly helpful in the early game.  Those 1% bonuses to research and economy are also not to be sneered at. 

5) After a few turns, get some planet(s) building more colony ships.  You want to keep your homeworld population DOWN by syphoning off colonists to other worlds.  This is to allow higher tax rates while staying at 100% morale for the population growth bonus.  Your income is based on ALL population, not just those on the Homeworld.  (This changes some later when you have good morale and revenue enhancing buildings on certain planets, but you will not have those techs and the income to build them for many turns.)

6) If you colonize a planet in a system that has another good planet in it, you can build a small hull colony ship on that new colony with no engines and get it to a near planet in a turn or two.  Don't waste a good and expensive ship on it.

7) I don't use Trade, so I do not know about escorting freighters.  I do research Trade early, though, to place the Economic capitol on the Homeworld and to trade Trade especially to Minor AIs so that they send freighters to me.

LTJim;

Wow, thanks man, that is some incredibly useful info.  I think I will start a whole new game and incorporate your strat's too see how it goes.  I got a couple questions about Tech Trading, but I think I will start a new thread on that instead of running this Necro.  Very much appreciate all the input though.

Thanks