Yes.

It's a game, not a VR Holodeck. There are lots of aspects that we must mold ourselves to and adapt, not try to change the rules because we don't agree with the "reality" of it all. If this were a truely realistic game, we'd be bored out of our minds. I don't know why some of these features raise such a cry of disdain from some people.

Adapt or lose.

As for those strategies being unrealistic, keep in mind that you only have control of the "public" sector of a planet. When you have a planet's economy running at less than 100%, it's assumed the workers go off to work in the private sector. So if it makes this particular mechanic easier to swallow, you could assume there are private research facilities on planet, and focusing a 100% factory world on research is equivalent to temporarily nationalizing the private sector's research facilities. And similar for a 100% lab world focusing on production.

I don't like having the research/manufacturing ratios either, but I figure, "Eh, what the hell."

I don't see how "this is a single-player game" argument helps make a point. And what the heck is a VR holodeck anyway? I just think that being able to define how much money you devote to each production type would give a lot more flexibility and creativity in strategies used than the current system. I definitely agree with Mascrinthus that you should be able to use max capacity of both production building type if you can afford to do so. If you cannot, it result in exactly the type of nonsensical system where you players begin using loopholes in the way production works in order to achieve efficiency.

I strongly doubt that when game designers put that system in place they had in mind the possibility of running all-labs and using them to create production. So from the point of view of design, those strategies are definitely not the intended use of the system of intended way the game was supposed to work.

Like I said, the ability to set both research and production to run at meximum capacity would open up a lot more strategic possibilities than the current model allows. It's completely nonsensical to have a trade-off system where you can either have max research or max production. The argument, "this is a single player game, so it's ok" really does nothing to prove your point...

How would you remove it? By removing the player's ability to focus production on individual planets? Because that's what that feature is for - allowing one type of production facility to use part of its capacity to augment the other type of facility.

It's not even that unrealistic, at least in terms of internal game logic. If a planet's population has no effect on its production capacity, everything must be 100% automated. The research facilities are probably mostly computers performing simulated experiments; when they are needed for production, they switch over to managing processes in the production and supply facilities.

And, if nothing is being built on a planet, the production computers would be switched over to running experiment simulations. It would just be the physical production facilities that could not be fully converted to research, and which the research facilities could not duplicate.

What's not to love?

The point is that there are features that an individual player can use or ignore. Just because you don't like something, it doesn't mean that you need to project your "reality" onto others. Play your way and mod it however you want. Leave the rest of us to do the same.



As you've never seen a Star Trek episode, this might help...



http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/technology/article/105222.html




To what end?

The people arguing against me are defending a game mechanic that is clearly not being used the way it was intended to and that is clearly inferior to the ability to set each production type individually up to 100% both on global and individual planetary scale. It just seems like such an obvious solution that I don't see how other people and designers do not see it... If you have the money for it, you should be able to run both research and production at maximum capacity. There is no logical reason for why you cannot.

How can you possibly explain that when you set your overall production meter to 100%, your labs are working at 33%, your factories are working 67%, and you are getting some monetary surplus that goes unused by your production that you cannot allocate to production?

Most importantly: the game mechanic is confusing to new players. When I first started playing this game, I knew my eventual goal was to maximize my research and production. It took me a while to understand that the "Production" slider didn't affect how many of my labs and buildings were funded, but how much of a theoretical number based on the other three sliders was being funded. I don't want to have to do that kind of number crunching. I want to know: "I'm funding my labs at 50% efficiency. I'm funding my factories at 75% efficiency. 99% of my factory production is going to social structures. 1% goes to military construction."

In my opinion, the "focus" mechanic is flawed as well: I'd much rather see three sliders underneath the hammers/shields/flasks bar and a checkbox saying "Override Defaults." That way, I can put the rest of my Empire's funding at, say 90 percent military and 10% social to keep my war machine funded and my buildings upgraded as new research comes in, but shift it to 100% social on new planets I colonize. Or just change the focus mechanic so that you can put focus on either industry or research: doing so immediately forces that planet to use 100% of its production in that field.

Just a thought, but I think that the whole all-labs or all-factory tactic is the kind of exploit the creators were trying to avoid.

MottiKhan: If you would excuse me, I think you are not really following the argument very well, your replies don't seem to tally well with the points made.

This idea would not in any way indicate an "I win" button, no one remotely suggested it would or that they wanted one, nor is it about achieving reality (again only you said that).... it's about fixing an in-game loophole that allows people to play the game in a way that one must presume the designers didn't intend.

If the designers said: "This is the way it was intended" then fair enough. However, it is very likely that it is, as quite clearly explained, an ingenious strategy used to exploit the system. Exploiting things is what strategy games are all about, but when it is an internal mechanic, there is clearly room to improve upon it.

The suggested method would allow 100% spending in both research and production.... this would need a little rebalancing to stop it from throwing things out of skew, but also remember that the AI's main skill is in micromanagement.... it would benefit more than most lazy players! It also wouldn't necessarily mean more micromanagement for the player, unless they wanted to achieve more control and flexibility of their economy.

Actually, I think it would add some depth, and depth is at the guts of the game anyway.... why argue against something potentially good just because it's different?

Finally, just to nail this "single player game" issue too.... there's the metaverse to consider: what value is a metaverse if unintended loopholes allow people to achieve higher scores?

The one point I did agree on is that if you solely play single player games like me, then you could always just not use this method. I've never had a need to.

You might be right, but I can't see a way to lose if you can get all of the advantages of using the all labs and all factories strats and still be able to tune your economy to 100% production. As it is, with all labs, you're restricted to a maximum of 25% social production. Your research capacity is so overheated that you can't really build all labs on all worlds and expect to win. Most of your planets will be relegated to economic buildings.

It's similar to the all factory strat. The economics are easier and the ability to refocus to all military or bonus economics when you need it is there.

Combining the two and using sliders to be able to have 100% production on labs for one planet and 100% factories on another, plus the potential temporary economic boost that it can produce, plus the bonus starport destruction/building military boost would be overwhelming to the AI. I can't see how it could keep up, even on suicidal. A creative human player can adapt so much better than a rules based AI.

To be on equal footing, the AI would have to be able to think outside the box, much like we do. That's asking an awful lot from a $39.00 game.

As I understand it, the reason all manufacturing or all research beat the AI now and are used at the high difficulty levels is that you are being more efficient than the AI by utilizing you max production, while AI is not. If both you and the AI could maximize your production, it would actually make the game harder than going for all manu or all research.

Actually, allowing you to allocate 100% of your production entirely could screw you even more: remember that production costs money, so the n00b player who tries to allocate 100% to their factories and their labs when they can't afford it will find themselves.

Example:

Research Center costs 2 maintenance, provides 10 research. The equivalent is Enhanced Factory, costs 2 maintenance provides 14 Industry. Assume a theoretical planet with 10 squares. I'm not sure how the focus button works, but let's say that it converts 25% of the off-type production to the type you want. Also, I'm using the DL figures, so it might be different for DA, and if I'm reading this totally wrong, let me know.

*****

The Balanced Player: builds 5 Research Centers and 5 Factories, assighs 50% to Military Production, 50% to Research, 100% production efficiency.

He spends 10 bc a turn: 5 bc for 50% maintenance on his 5 research centers, 5 bc for 50% maintenance on his 5 Factories.

He gets 25 research (10x5/2) and 35 Production (15x5/2)

*****

The All-Techer: Builds 10 Research Centers, 100% Research, 100% Production.

He spends 20 bc a turn: 2 bc for 2 maintenance on each of his 10 Research Centers

He gets: 100 research (10x10). If he assigns a Military Focus, he gets 75 research and 25 Production. (25% of 100 is 25).

*****
The All-Industrialist: builds 10 Enhanced Factories, 100 Percent Military Production, 100% Production

He spends 20 bc a turn: 2 bc for 2 maintenance on each of his ten Enhanced Factories

He gets: 140 Military Production (14x10). If he assigns a Research Focus, he gets 105 Military Production and 35 Research (25% of 140 is 35)

<<<<< Pause Here >>>>>

You can already see that going All Industry or All Labs provides an insane efficiency boost: you spend 2x as much on maintenance, but you're getting almost 3x your on-type production and not losing all that much (if any) of your off-type. Even if it's only 10%, you're still getting 14 research in all industry and about 10 Production in all research, and I'm sure it's much higher than 10%.

*****

Separate Allocation: builds 5 Enhanced Factories and 5 Research Centers, sets Production to 100% with 100% of it going Military, sets Research to 100%

He spends: 20 bc a turn 2 bc for 2 maintenance on each of his five Enhanced Factories and Research Centers.

He gets: 50 Research (10x5) and 70 Production (14x5)

*****

In other words, it costs the same, is a little better than all research, but it makes more sense in terms of what you get for what you pay.

Now let's look at the following three income scenarios.

*****

1. The Empire's Income is only 10 bc per turn, and the books must be balanced.

A. Balance is fine, his expenses are only 10 bc anyway. He still gets 25 Research and 35 Production

B. All Research cuts production to 50%: He now gets 50 Research, or 32.5 Research and 12.5 Production if he assigns a Industry focus.

C. All Industry cuts production to 50% He gets 70 Military Production, or 52.5 Military Production and 17.5 Research if he assigns a Research focus.

D. Seperate Allocation can choose to cut research entirely (giving only 70 Production) keep research but cut Industry (giving only 50 Research) or cut both to 50% (giving 35 Production and 25 Research, same as A.) This gives more strategic options: do I cut my research and keep my production and build more constructors? Do I cut production and devote research towards improving my economic techs? Or do I just slow the Empire down some until my traders arrive at their destination?

*****

As it is set up right now, the three-allocation and one production system basically just serves to penalize players who take a balanced approach. You could still do your Tech Cheese or your Factory Zerg Rush in the Separate Allocation system, but building up a healthy empire with a good all-around balance would also be an option, and the rewards for doing so would be more substantial.

I've actually tried this strategy and found that I do better with my original factories-and-labs approach. Maybe I just wasn't doing it right, I don't know. It was kind of neat for a while, but I found it actually limited my research more than I liked. Have you people who are railing against the all-factories (or labs) approach even tried to play a full game that way? It is really not that ridiculously powerful. The folks who originally brought up the idea are all highly advanced players anyway. They're trying different playing styles because they are looking for a challenge and a new way to play the game. It's not like somebody found some kind of Easter egg that gives you 0-cost, 1-space doom rays or something. Y'all need to calm down, at least until you have tried it.



Well, there is one big drawback to this idea, especially as it applies to creating a bunch of sliders for each individual planet: micromanagement hell. You could take the view that you would just micromanage as much or as little as you like, and that's fine...but just think how much better at this sort of micromanagement the computer would be. The AI would be in all of those sliders every single turn and doing a better job of it. Some players would welcome this level of challenge, of course, but think how demoralizing it would be for new players, or for the casual player who wants to play above the kiddie AI levels but doesn't have the time to tweak sliders on 200+ planets every turn.



Why not just take away the sliders and planetary focus altogether? That way everyone will have to play at 33/33/34 and be forced to build their planets the same way and develop along the same lines every game. Don't advocate the removal of yet more options from this game simply because you don't agree with a strategy. Almost every patch and upgrade lately has done something to limit the player's strategic options. It's not like it's a multiplayer game and you're being stomped on by another player because of it. As for whether it impacts Metaverse games, what about the fact that someone who has the time and patience can drag out a game for years, building up their military score to insane levels just for the score?



Have you even tried it, or are you just a bandwagon-jumper? It's not "both". "Both" would be if you could fund factories and labs at 100% each. All it really does is simplify your building queues. Planetary focus only puts 25% of the production from on category into another, so you're putting a serious cap on the amount of research you can do at one time even at max production. Tech capitals and other research bonus buildings and trade goods become completely worthless.



Who said anything about getting rid of stock markets? When I used the all-factories strategy, about 2/3 of my planets were nothing but money-generators. And I still had serious cash flow problems. I also spent lots of time juggling focus on various planets. With a max of 25% or your econom going toward research, I wouldn't call it one-trick, because it takes a lot of work, at least in the early game.

I urge anybody who is really upset about this idea but hasn't actually tried to use it in a game to give it a spin. Just start a small or medium galaxy game and see how it plays out for you. It's just not that big of a deal.