Resources and Monoliths

Markavian · #1 February 2nd, 2001, 12:51 AM

Those calculations are very interesting, but you'll find that well, for me normally - after building 4 of a facility - I then always build a Mineral Extraction, or Rad. Collider, or Eco Farm, or Robatoid Fact. etc. etc.

This is because at highest tech these produce more then building another resource prod. facility. Then anything built after that gets a further bonus.

I also destroy 6 of my starting facilities on large, or huge planets to make way for 1) a Robatoid Factory, 2) Urban Pacification 3) More Radioactive Refineries 4) Some other useful facility (Sys Robatoid, System Shielding, Resource Converter)

Okay, this may only be possible for high tech games, butit illustrates the point that it can be a lot quicker than 35 turns till you get ya money's worth back off these monoliths.

Maybe I'll do some excel calcs as well if it doesn't crash on me. . .

John Beech

Sinapus · #2 February 2nd, 2001, 12:54 AM

Since the amount of resources is limited by storage, the real value for a facility that generates resources isn't "paying for itself" it's value is in getting your resource production so it isn't negative anymore.

You use your stored resources for crash building of various items that takes up more resources per turn than you are generating. Like building brand new WPs for all of your planets, things like atmosphere converters, huge fleets of ships and units. Ring and sphereworlds.

A monolith is useful on worlds where you have pretty much equal values for all three resources. A Monolith III provides 900 in each resource while the resource-specific facilities' lvl III ones provide 1100. Use the mineral, organic and radioactive facilities for near-immediate gain on worlds with high-output in one or two resources. For long-term investment (since it takes a long time to build monoliths) build them on some worlds, and put in a value improvement plant or five as well, til the value reaches 250% in all three.

Keep the planets with all mineral miner facilities for most races and all organic and all radioactive extraction facilities for races w/organic and temporal. Oh, and build lots of storage on planets w/low value, along with research and intelligence centers. Or divide planet types among the low value planets towards what you need. Eg, some are all research or all intelligence, others are all storage and such.

Daynarr · #3 February 2nd, 2001, 01:56 AM

quote:
Originally posted by lwmweb:
My question (not well stated) was are they really worth using? My feeling is that they are questionable except in special situations where the planet has high modifiers. I am a finance type and always look at return on investment whether it is time or money. So what is my financial analysis of SEIV. Hey some things you do just for fun.

It is simple really, when a planet has at least two high resources (say, above 110%), it pays to build monoliths instead of standard extraction facilities. If however planet has only one high resource, build extractor for that resource - it is most cost effective. The only exception from this is when you build multiple value improvements on planet (yes, they are cumulative) - in that case go for monoliths, simply because all resources (except those that have 0% value) will rise and make your investment pay off.
Of course, if you were in an emergency for a specific resource, you would go for extractors for that resource because they are cheaper and faster to build.

Marty Ward · #4 February 2nd, 2001, 03:34 AM

I've found the best reason to build a monolith is you get production from all three resources from only one facility. While they may be expensive you gain a lot of extra space for other uses.

pathfinder · #5 February 2nd, 2001, 03:53 AM

or in small worlds, only 1 facility to get all 3 resources

Drake · #6 February 2nd, 2001, 06:01 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Daynarr:
... when you build multiple value improvements on planet ... all resources (except those that have 0% value) will rise and make your investment pay off.

Even those that have a 0% value will raise. Remember, the increase isn't a percentage based on the current value of the planet, but rather percentage point(s) added to the value of your planet.

-Drake