Newbie Observation

[alien]

I am finding it difficult to keep up with the production
of storage facilities for my resources (minerals, organics,
radioactives) therefore I have to scrap the production
facilities themselves to reduce production. What I would
like to see is the option to temporarily shut down a
facility without scrapping it (similar to mothballing spaceships).
There could be a gradual scaledown in resource production to
zero and then a gradual scale up again if the facility was
re-activated. What do you think ????
Cheers Everyone.

[Aristoi]

The wasted resources won't cost you anything, unless you're playing in a finite resources game (or remote mining). For that game, it could be very useful. Otherwise, there is no harm in not spending the points (if you can get by the mental picture of throwing away all that production).

You might also try building things like mines and fighters just to soak up the extra production.

[Gimboid]

Are u saying that u want to match your resource production with your storage facilities so that u dont lose any of the minerals that your empire has produced?

If u are then dont worry about it, its like Aristoi said, no harm done in losing the resources. But if u can produce more things with your current resource production then do it, the extra units always come in handy...

[This message has been edited by Gimboid (edited 03 June 2001).]

[alien]

Yes I am playing a finite resources game. I have good relations with the other species and I am therefore obtaining a lot of resources from trade. I suppose I am still early into the game and it may be that if/when war breaks out I will need all the resource production I can lay my hands on.

Thanks for the comments. By the way, is there an imbalance in the requirement for minerals versus organics/radioactives in an average game ??? It seems that a lot of production requires lots of minerals but few organics/radioactives. Maybe I haven't played the game for a long enough.

Cheers.

[capnq]

quote:

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By the way, is there an imbalance in the requirement for minerals versus organics/radioactives in an average game ??? It seems that a lot of production requires lots of minerals but few organics/radioactives.

---

A lot of people share that opinion. Some have modded the components file to increase the use of organics and radioactives.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Beck]

By way of an answer, I build at least 6 mineral storage units for every 1 or organics/radioactives. It's also another good reason to get a resouce converter Online.

[Baron Munchausen]

Resource Balance: Yes, this is a problem and I've done some things to try to correct it.

1) Organics:

Make every life-support module cost 500 organics. It represents some sort of a 'recycling' system after all. There has to be an initial investment and then with this cost it will have a continuing maintenance cost representing replenishment of your life support.

Make the emergency resupply components use LARGE amounts of all three resources. Especially organics. These represent a store of everything you need to operate your starship, remember.

Increase the organics cost of many facilities to represent the feeding of workers who build them. Certain facilities, like Urban Pacification Center, ought to have very high organics costs to represent their actual construction. If you think it's a "vacation" center then it needs lots of food and other goodies for the vacationers. If you think it's a "psychological control center" then it needs lot of organics to make drugs to practice mind-control. The Resupply Depot also ought to have elevated organics cost.

2) Radioactives:

Make shields use at least 1 radioactive per shield point, possibly even more. Shield regenerators should use TEN radioactives per point of regen ability. Also make many weapons use some radioactives.

This gives warships a substantially higher cost per kt than transports, as it should be.

Make the Quantum Reactor require at least 1000 radioactives. It's a REACTOR, right?

Add more radioactives to the costs of resupply depots and ship yards. Building and fueling star ships should be very energy intensive.

3) Additional tweaks: Make each sort of resource extraction facility require a substantial amount of it's production resource. This is already done with mineral extraction, but organics and radioactives ought to cost 500-1000 of their respective resources to "prime the pump" as it were. Organics to fertilize the initial growing beds/fields, radioactives to build the extractor/reactor that refines things.

These changes have helped to make resource requirements more balanced in the games that I play. Things are still heavily tilted in favor of minerals, but not nearly so much as in the default game where you practically don't need organics if you're not an organic tech race.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 03 June 2001).]

I think the current ratio 6-1-2 is about right. Realistically there are far more minerals required to finish products like ships and facilities than either organics or radioactives. Remember these figures are in THOUSANDS of TONS. You could actually make a case for the rate of usage of o/r being too HIGH versus minerals! So I think that if you want to mod your own game - fine, but do NOT monkey with what everybody else uses.

[Marty Ward]

I've always wondered how an organic race makes it. You only start with one organic resource producer but all your special stuff need lots of organics. I admire those who can pull it off, especially in a high tech game with one planet start.