[.97] A concern about the new way planetary projects are handled [x% times 0 is still 0]

from GalCiv3 Forums

As of the last update to Beta 6, all planetary projects are now percentage based,  OK.  No real philosophical problem there, I suppose.  Except.  Except in the case where one is running a "pure" speciality planet.  Then one is hosed if one runs a research or economic project. 

For instance, on planets that will be my main supplier to shipyards, I often will run 50:50:0 manufacturing to research to net income.  On shipyard supplying planets that are relatively low manufacturing (either because of lack of tiles or because they are still getting up to speed), I will sometimes slam it to 100:0:0.  This lets them give a reasonable amount to the shipyard they are supplying while also being able to build their on-planet improvements in a timely manner.

Problem is, when I want to shift to research or economic planetary projects, I'm suddenly left with a dilemma. Namely I have to start sacrificing my shipyard building to actually have my planetary projects mean something.

Sure, I can fiddle with the production wheel and the social/military slider to get something approaching what I was doing.  But that's increased micro that I'd rather not have.

More to the point, I can have a planet that has 90 points of manufacturing going on (before the social/military split)  with 0 research and 0/negative net income and not have an ounce of research or income generated by their respective projects. After all, as I said in the title, x% of 0 is still 0.  Thus if I don't want to "waste" all of the social. I have to start fiddling with the wheel and then the slider, as mentioned above. Or go to one of the other planetary projects that isn't research or economic based (and there may be many reasons why I don't want to that [availability and or desirability])

I was under the presumption that one of the whole points about planetary projects was that it would take the manufacturing one is not using and apply it so it doesn't get wasted.  Well, under this new system, it can most certainly get wasted in the case of research and economic projects.  Quite easily, in fact,

Now if one is running 33/33/33 on their planets, it's probably fine.  But in the edge cases of specialty planets, I'm not sure that either of those two planetary projects is actually worth it at the moment.  Which, as I said, seems to run counter to the reason they are around in the first place.

7,277 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

They ought to change it so that 1 unit of social manufacturing is simply transformed into 0.5 units of something else. If it doesn't change by release I'm definitely modding it in.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Wer900, reply 1

They ought to change it so that 1 unit of social manufacturing is simply transformed into 0.5 units of something else. If it doesn't change by release I'm definitely modding it in.

Thats how it used to be and they changed it. The main reason why is it was better to build factories and set the production slider to social then it was to set it to the planets specialty. 

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Planetary projects used to convert 1/4 of your manufacturing into research or wealth. If you had enough manufacturing, you benefited from increased production when you used a project to do research or generate income. On a lrage enough planet, this multiplicative effect was often greater than the additive effect of simply building more labs or banks. Apparently some people thought this was stupid.

 

The new planetary projects convert 10 manufacturing into +5%. At this rate, you are simply wasting your production if you use projects. 

 

Old projects was fine, if projectre too sts werong, then they should be lowered to 1/5 of your manufacturing.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

It seems to me their new method caters to those who generalize planets and do not use planetary sliders, i.e. the dev team and the AI. Manufacturing-specialized planets are obviously hit hardest by this. Now such planets are useless if you find yourself not building anything. It also means your civilization is now much less flexible if you specialize. You cannot rush extra research or income as needed. The system was supposed to replace the specialization system in GC2 where you would click one of the resources on a planet and convert from one resource to another (military, manufacturing, and research). I guess those days are gone. I suppose the need for hundreds of constructors makes up for it, since now you can have the manufacturing planets build those.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We're playing around with this still.  I think we may do something where the population of the planet is put onto something that produces raw resources in a particula rarea.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Since you know this when planning your planet infrastructure, it just means you need to adjust your thinking.  Now generalizing has some advantages.  Specializing means more production but is less flexible. Trade off.  That's a good thing, IMO.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like that this change makes less specialized planets more useful, I never liked specializing my planets 100% in one area. Not because I disagree that it can be effective, but because I just couldn't be bothered to micromanage dozens of planets that way.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Bamdorf, reply 7

Since you know this when planning your planet infrastructure, it just means you need to adjust your thinking.  Now generalizing has some advantages.  Specializing means more production but is less flexible. Trade off.  That's a good thing, IMO.

I find this acceptable, as long as that is what the devs deem a desirable design choice.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6

We're playing around with this still.  I think we may do something where the population of the planet is put onto something that produces raw resources in a particula rarea.

That sounds like a good idea.