All these tests were done with a Neutral Culture, using a Starbase whose cost is exactly 20,000 mineral and 5,000 radioactives. The maintenance reduction of this ship is -50% according to the vehiclesize file.
Here are the results for a few values:
* 100: modified upkeep is 50, base upkeep 100
* 110: modified upkeep is 45, base upkeep 90
* 120: modified upkeep is 40, base upkeep 80
And so on.
So, a point in Maintenance actually decreases the base upkeep by 1. However, as all ships have a reduced upkeep, calculating the efficiency of increasing maintenance compared to increasing resource production will be a bit hard.
In the case of the Star Base (the most expensive ship to maintain):
* 110% maintenance costs 1400 points and reduces effective upkeep by 10% (9000 instead of 10000 here).
* 110% resource production costs 750 points and would have the same effect.
* 120% maintenance costs 4400 points and reduces effective upkeep by 20% (8000 instead of 10000 here)
* 120% resource production costs 1500 points. It is still cheaper to increase resource production than increasing maintenance.
* After that, a +10% decrease in maintenance costs 3000 points while a +10% increase in resource productions costs 3200 points. (If you DO need to increase organics as well)
A bit below in the post there were results with the Scout, and they were quite the same. Hmm... My previous results seem to not be that flawed, or the problem lies in my maths skills. Your choice.
And the Star Base is the most expensive ship to maintain, that is to say, the one which is most affected by upkeep reduction. And as you have pointed out JLS, there is an Engineering Section which improves maintenance, thus also reducing the need to increase the Maintenance characteristic. (I am not sure how this one is working though with regards to the formulas)
I don't understand your Last phrase though. How increasing resource production instead of decreasing upkeep could affect a standard game? But you do raise a valid point, as it may be useful to decrease upkeep in finite game in order to save resources. I cannot speak about Finite games though, as I seldom play them, so I will let someone else speak about these ones.
EDIT: here is a little, more practical example. Let's say you want to build 10 Star Bases, each requiring 10,000 minerals. You have 10 Space Yards, and each base is built in four turns. (2,500 minerals used each turn) Your mineral production is of 20,000 minerals.
- First case: you have a +20% bonus in resource production. You are now producing 25,000 minerals, enough to build all the Star Bases. When they are built, you will spend 50,000 minerals to maintain them. Meaning your economy will collapse in no time, but that's another problem.
- Second case: you have a -20% reduction in upkeep costs. You will have trouble when building the Bases, as you don't have quite enough minerals. (Hmm, it won't happen often in the game, only when you are paying little or no upkeep at all, when maintenance reduction is therefore useless. That is seldom the case, only in the early game or so.) Still, when the stations are built, you will spend 40,000 minerals each turn. You have a deficit of 20,000 mineral each turn, while in the first case, the deficit is 25,000.
- However, for the same price in points or slightly less (I assume you won't increase organic production much), you can have as much as 140 in resource production. You now have 32,000 mineral at your disposal each turn, resulting in a final deficit or 18,000 mineral. That's slighty better than in the second case, where the shortage of minerals was 20,000 minerals.
The bottom line is that maintenance can effectively be more useful than resource production, but it tends to only happen when upkeep is above your income as in the previous example. (And if you want to be really mean, you may increase the upkeep in the example even more. But if your upkeep is twice as important as your income, you are in serious trouble no matter what.
)
However, there could be another factor, this time involving trade. But calculating the pros and cons of increasing Political Savvy over reducing maintenance is next to impossible. And perhaps there are circumstances under which upkeep is more important than increased resource production. (Circumstances which do not lead to an economical collapse, contrary to the example above though) Perhaps when you have either a swarm of low cost ships or a few, expensive vessels?
[ October 24, 2003, 16:05: Message edited by: Alneyan ]