Things I don't understand

Hmmm, I would also like to be able to fiddle with each planet's spending on an individual basis. We can do that a bit by putting priority on one form of spending but that leads to waste. It would be more work but I don't mind the micromanagement so much. Just one problem..... The AI would be *far* better at it than me! I don't mind popping in to planets every now and again to tweak the spending but the computer AI would check every single planet every single turn, even if it was just to change the spending by 2%! A bit more micromanagement I can take but trying to keep up with the AI in that kind of environment would be FAR too harsh.

I think it might be best just to stick with this system. After all, we're running an empire here, not a perpetual motion machine.

I can barely manage my checking account. Some of you guys simply frighten me.

What the hell is going on with the spending distribution sliders?? I have spending at 100% with a positive income, in which case the distribution sliders should do nothing, but they still gimp my overall production by 66%!!!! If I have 100 military production, 100 social production, and 100 research no matter what I do I only end up with 100 of them total!

Seems like several of the people new to the series have been confused by this, but IMHO it's fairy simple.

I hand you a hundred dollar bill, and tell you to spend every bit of it. Are you going to buy three okay things for $33 apiece, or one really nice thing for $100, or some other combination?

You can't magically create $200 extra dollars to buy three nice things, no matter how much fun free money would be.

IMO it's pretty simple also, and Luminae's example is right on

The way I look at it...and by no means do i have my PH.D in Econ...The only thing that should limit any economy from producing at 100% is (1) Dead weight loss, NA in GC2, (2) Taxes, in GC2 tax rate doesn't decrease Production, (3) Supply and Demand, in GC2 there is unlimited Demandm and unlimited supplies ie no reasources besides money. (4) Population, This is what I want to talk about today.

Lets say I have my spending bars set to 33-33-33. And I begain to buil a planet with 1 fac, 1 lab, 1 farm, 1happy place, 1 market. I have enough Happy People to run each Location at 100% But I can only do it at 33% under the current system. This makes no sence to me what so ever.

I am paying the money for the factories to be run at 100%, I have the Labor pool to run it at 100%, Yet its stuck at 33%.

Another example, I have 2 planets each with enough Population and moral bonus. 1 Planet is all Factories, 1 is all Labs. Why must each planet only run at 33% or at best 50%. Wouldn't the Scientist from Planet A move to Planet B for the Jobs and Vis versa? Eventually causing each planet to run at close to 100%?

If I have the Tax base, and I have the Labor Pool, Why are my factories only running at 33% when I can run EVERYTHING at 100%? This is a huge Dead weigh loss IMO.

To address Luminae's example...your right I can't create free money. But your example should really be "You give me $300, enough to buy 3 nice things at $100, and tell me that nomatter how i spend it, and i must spend it, I can only get $100 worth of goods and services."

Granted if I didn't have the money to run everything at 100% I shouldn't be able to. But if I have the Capital to back it up, and the Labor pool to fill all the slots, My economy should be running at 100%...or close to it.

Bascialy the game is, deliberatly or not, modleing the inherant waiste in an economic system, Granted the level of waistage is worse than anything in the Former Soviet union at this point,

I think theirs a couple of mistakes as to what people thing is actualy going on here

1) first off, aparently their is not a 1-1 corelation to workers and how efecient a planets assets are, aparently the same 100-500 million people will efficiently work 1 factory or 1 factory 1 spaceport 1 researchlab 1 embasy and 1 entertainment center. The reality is that considering just how automatied you can make a production process nowdays though, its probably not so surprising that by the time the game is set you can basicaly automate production to the point where labor costs for everthing is the same whether or not you use robots or people, Even in Farming.

2) the tax rate combines national investment(the factories-farms-Colony ships and freighters) public works (Star ports and some of the tile improvments) with national defence spending. Everything not spent on "Taxes" for thoes purposes is bascialy kept by the people to spend any way they see fit,

Also you can give the planets a focus, either military, production, or technology. So you can target a planet to do more than what you have your sliders set at.

It's the way the numbers on the economy screen work. You get a fraction of your maximum production based on manufacturing capacity x the number on the slider. So 50% capacity x 40% labs gets you 20% of what your labs should be able to do.

Some people like having the decision between labs and factories. Some people want to be able to put in all the money and get all the results. Why isn't there an option to choose one or the other in the menu or something?

Seems like several of the people new to the series have been confused by this, but IMHO it's fairy simple. I hand you a hundred dollar bill, and tell you to spend every bit of it. Are you going to buy three okay things for $33 apiece, or one really nice thing for $100, or some other combination? You can't magically create $200 extra dollars to buy three nice things, no matter how much fun free money would be.

The correct example would be you build a manufacturing complex that gives you 8 units of production and a research facility that gives you 5 units of research, but under no circumstances will you obtain that 8 units of production and 5 units of research.

Non-intuitive game mechanics are a major barrier to entry for people just picking the game up. I have a strong feeling that a lot of people will buy the game, but not actually play it much because they don't understand why things don't work they way they seem like they should.

Seems like several of the people new to the series have been confused by this, but IMHO it's fairy simple. I hand you a hundred dollar bill, and tell you to spend every bit of it. Are you going to buy three okay things for $33 apiece, or one really nice thing for $100, or some other combination? You can't magically create $200 extra dollars to buy three nice things, no matter how much fun free money would be.

That's easily proven to be incorrect.

You can have spending at set to 100% and still have a positive net income, and be completely unable to "spend every bit of it", for no other reason than that the interface won't allow you to.

Further, the game allows you to go into debt should you not have enough funds on hand at the time.

What the original poster is asking for is *not* to have extra money, but to be able to spend the money that he already has on production at the facilities (factories, labs) that he's already built.

If you have your $100 for the week, for example, and are on a planet where it'll take $50 to run your factories at max and $50 to run your labs at max, the game *won't let you* spend all $100 to do so. Instead, it'll "let you" split your production in such a way as to never allow you to make use all the facilities on a planet at once, regardless of how much extra cash you have.

A number of threads have come up on this subject already, (and will continue to come up, I would expect) until Stardock releases a patch that cuts the Gordian knot tying research and factory production.

Stardock is working on V1.1 - it's been said that the economic system will be one of the changes.
I think the major difficulty will be the proper AI adjustment to a different economic model.

I think I also read somewhere that they are fixing it. It will be a Production and a Research slider that are seperate. So you can run both at 100% capacity at the same time. Better make sure you can build a good economy when they implement that.

It seems some folks are forgetting Civilization, where you have to pick between military or social production period. I've played *thousands* of hours of the Civ series since Civ1 way back in the day, but that part has always been irritating; upgrade your city or build a unit. GCiv, at least, lets you pick between either, or a mix. The slider-waste thing is irritating in GCiv, but other than that I like how colonies can work on both.

HI I HAVE JUST HAD THE GAME ONE DAY AND THINK ITS GREAT . BUT,NO MATTER WHAT COMBINATION OF CRAFT I FORM TO TRY AND MAKE A FLEET, I KEEP GETING A MESSAGE THAT I MAST HAVE 2 VALID SHIPS, COULD SOMEONE PLEASE ADVISE ME

You can't magically create $200 extra dollars to buy three nice things, no matter how much fun free money would be.

Free money, eh? That reminds me of eighties style Reaganomics.... maybe a 'stockmarket crash' type random event could be added to make it a gamble to run your empire with the industrial slider above 80%.

It might help to think about the % of spending as % of work hour.

In each game turn, i.e. 1 week.
Let say all population on a planet can only work 1 thing at a time (clone control by a super computer? )
How many hours of a week do you want your population to run your shipyard, social production and lab?
for simplicity, let say spending are set at 100%, factory capacity at 70BC and lab at 7BC

If the shipyard is worked for 2 days, i.e setting the slider to 2/7 or 29% cost 29% of 70BC = 20BC
and Social production is worked for 3 days, i.e. setting the slider to 3/7or 43% cost 43% of 70BC = 30BC
and work the lab for the remaining 2 days of the week, i.e. setting the research slider to 2/7 or 29% cost 29% of 7BC = 2BC

So, total spending = 20+30+7+whatever maintain

NO MATTER WHAT COMBINATION OF CRAFT I FORM TO TRY AND MAKE A FLEET, I KEEP GETING A MESSAGE THAT I MAST HAVE 2 VALID SHIPS, COULD SOMEONE PLEASE ADVISE ME

After clicking on the square that has all the ships you want to form into a fleet, you have to select each ship by clicking on its icon in the lower left of the screen.  Then select "Create Fleet" and you should be fine.

And stop shouting! 

That's easily proven to be incorrect. You can have spending at set to 100% and still have a positive net income, and be completely unable to "spend every bit of it", for no other reason than that the interface won't allow you to.

you guys are forgetting that GC requires you to spend money (from taxes) to turn those potential industrial points into acutal production (in other words, factories don't really produce anything, they just allow you to buy production points using your income). if you still have a net income after you turn the industrial spending to 100%, it simply means that you're already buying all the production your factories can generate. there is NOT waste going on!

Stardock is working on V1.1 - it's been said that the economic system will be one of the changes. I think the major difficulty will be the proper AI adjustment to a different economic model.

I have lobbied to change the system in Beta, because it was my most hated thing from part 1. However sicne then I have learned to live with it. It's a nice learnign cerve. It's not what yuo may want at first but I have no hate for it anylonger. I would be troubled if they changed it too much. I think any change will make the game that much easier. But hey if they want to hand me the medals by the buckets let them.

you guys are forgetting that GC requires you to spend money (from taxes) to turn those potential industrial points into acutal production (in other words, factories don't really produce anything, they just allow you to buy production points using your income). if you still have a net income after you turn the industrial spending to 100%, it simply means that you're already buying all the production your factories can generate. there is NOT waste going on!

But if I have 100% funding and positive income, and set research to 100% on the sliders manufacturing drops to 0.

Thats wasted manufacturing capacity. I have the money to fund those factories, but they arn't running. Why?

And please, people, stop with the explanations via population. Population has nothing to do with manufacturing as far as I can tell.

Why am I forced to split production between social and military projects on a global scale? This is very confusing and I don't understand the benefit of implementing production in this way.

As a fellow optimizer/micromanager, my first instinct is to agree with you. OTOH, had they implemented the game as you suggest, it would dramatically increase how long it takes me to play on those gigantic maps that I do so love! (As it is, I rarely finish a game.) So, this could be one of those situations where "Be careful what you wish for!" applies.

It results in significant wasted production.

Indeeed. But the game designers do this knowingly, and including waste intentionally is fair, from a game design point of view. The benefit to the player is that it reduces the amount of micro management needed - some players will like this, others will not.

And please, people, stop with the explanations via population. Population has nothing to do with manufacturing as far as I can tell.

Correct.

But if I have 100% funding and positive income, and set research to 100% on the sliders manufacturing drops to 0. Thats wasted manufacturing capacity. I have the money to fund those factories, but they arn't running. Why?

The basic game mechanic that they've implemented here is very common in economic/strategy games. It's simply a matter of taking a fixed buget, and dividing it amongst 3 possible spending categories (military/social/research).

What makes it confusing is the absolutely brain dead implementation of their sliders.

The spending distribution sliders are simply taking a fixed budget (fixed at least, for a given setting on the spending slider), and dividing it 3 ways. The way that these 3 sliders should have been implemented is such that if you slide one slider down, the other two move proporotionately upward.

This should done in a fashion such that the positions of the sliders are always graphically consistent with the % spending numbers displayed (e.g. if you have military spending at 33%, it should be 1/3rd of the way from the left end, if you have military at 100%, it should be all the way to the right, while both the other 2 sliders are all the way to the left.)

This is so obvious a flaw that I would imagine the game developers are aware of this, and have it on their todo list for upcoming patch.

I'm sorry, guys, but I have to throw my weight in with the confused party!

Years of Civ have obviously got me used to a totally different system, but even after viewing the tutorials, skim-reading the manual and skim-reading this thread, I am still lost... I even did a bit of experimenting, but couldn't figure out what was going on...

As an example, I have my brand new, shiny homeworld, with its 24mt production. I buy a factory straight away on a 100% bonus production tile, so that should give me an extra 2 x 16mt production = 40. Apparently I get a bonus of 10% to production too, for this being my homeworld. Total 44mt.

So I figure if I understand the game right, if I set social spending to 100%, I should get 48 social, right?

I go back into the planet, and it now says 48 social!

Okay... close, but not quite there... I figure what the hell, I'll run with it anyway, see if it works... I've also set my tax rating pretty low so that my approval rating is 100% on both my planets (I colonised the second planet in the first turn with 500,000 brave colonists, but I'm ignoring that for the most part).

So, certain that my second factory will produced as desired at the end of my first turn, and confident that my population will be at it like rabbits due to my fiscal generosity, I press the Turn button...

Nothing.

No new factories, no population increase.

Okay, as I've typed this, I've figured that maybe you have to finished construction of a building even in the turn you buy it - hence my 48 social was all wasted on that building I'd just bought. Not ideal, but fair enough. But where did my population boost go?

I tried this twice, same results both times... Please guys, any help would be appreciated on this. I'm not dumb, though I must admit I am a little set in my ways! Judging from the reviews, I would imagine the reviewers had no such problems, but I can't for the life of me fathom what's going on here Some people could be forgiven for thinking these are some pretty big bugs here, but I'm praying that's not the answer...

First of all, I'd like to say that the game is FULL with TONS of small bugs, sometimes they're annoying, sometimes not, but still.

Now to your question, Zild.

First of all, stop messing with the numbers. If you have a factory, then you have a factory. It makes stuff. If you have any percentage of your industrial capacity ( spending ) put into social production, the factory will use a % of its potential. That's all there is to it.

I noticed, that, if you are in the planetary interface, and click the "Turn" button, not an entire week will pass, which is wierd, but you don't see me freaking out about it just click it again.

If you purchase something, you pay the fee for the total construction fee, minus the fee for the % of the construction you already made. so if you have 50% of the building complete, and you purchase it, you will pay only 50% of the fee. So it's not wasted.

Also, I don't think you are better off looking at the indivisual turn, because not much happens in a turn just wait till 10 pass, and I'm sure you'll have many new offsprings, and factories, and whatnot.

Tell me if this answers your questions :>

At retrospect, I think that the second paragraph is the only thing you need to read, but I'll leave it like that

Won't let me edit

Also, another thing, just btw, I noticed that social (and possibly military; stuff that use the factories) production, which uses the factories, increases your potential industrial capacity. Meaning that, you you can throw more money at stuff. Researching, however, does not, it just uses your research facilities, which do not contribute to your industrial capacity. So, if you have a planet, with both factories, and research facilities, you can actually get more social/military production, and more research, by simply having the production slider at 100%, and in that planet, use "focus" on research. This way, the researching uses more money, because you have more industrial capacity, and more money to throw at whatever. It doesn't make sense, but it works.