Are You Addicted To SE IV?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I assume you're talking about some mod here Fyron... in stock Monolith III produces 700 of each resource per turn, and as I often get into slight economic trouble early on (nervous laugh) when my Min stores hit rock bottom and I'm forced to put all but one queue on hold, I prefer to go with the 1k Mineral Miner III (or am I mistaken here) to produce more resources... also getting hi-lev Miners/Farms/Extractors requires less research than getting Monoliths.

(And btw - I never build Monoliths on gas giants. Everytime I do, they seem to multiply and turn the planet into a small star system )

[Alneyan]

His point was, Monoliths produce minerals and organics and radioactives, so 2,700 resources in total. You will not need that many organics and radioactives, but they can be converted into minerals, for 1,700X0.7 (about 1,200 minerals I would say). So a single Monolith is almost twice as productive as a Miner, provided all planet values are equal; but then, you won't be building Monoliths on planets with 0% radioactive and 3% organics.

The problem of Monoliths is, of course, the time needed to get them up and running. But nothing prevents you from first building the regular facilities and then switching to Monoliths; they only require SM III, and you *want* that technology as soon as you can afford it, while the other economic techs (Mineral Extraction, Organics and Radioactives) do not give a lot of benefits, unless you are willing to sink a *lot* of research to get all the way to level 9 (where, at least, they beat the Computer facilities, and only since 1.91).

[Fyron]

StrategiaInUltima said:
I assume you're talking about some mod here Fyron... in stock Monolith III produces 700 of each resource per turn...

That would be the Monolith II. The Monolith III produces 900 of each. Mineral Miner III produces 1000. Monoliths are far, far more productive than normal miners. They just cost a lot more, so it takes a while to get the monolith economy going.

StrategiaInUltima said:
...and as I often get into slight economic trouble early on (nervous laugh) when my Min stores hit rock bottom and I'm forced to put all but one queue on hold, I prefer to go with the 1k Mineral Miner III (or am I mistaken here) to produce more resources... also getting hi-lev Miners/Farms/Extractors requires less research than getting Monoliths.

Monoliths are an added bonus for the required stellar manipulation technology. I never build them in the early game, more of the mid to late game. I usually only start building them around the time I can support a sufficient fleet to start conquering my first neighbor...