Perhaps one change that would be good, is when u have loads of money, u should be able to have military or social at 100% and research at 100%. Thus yr factories would be at 100% efficiency and labs at 100%.

That's exactly the design decision I was talking about. What you suggest seems the more logical and natural way to do it to me, whether you have just one spending slider (x% of production and research capacity used) or one for each (so you could if you wanted get 50% of total research capacity, and 80% of production capacity for example). I was wondering if it was ever explained why they *didn't* do it that way?

If you put down 100 points of research and 100 points of production buildings, you get 100 total points of whichever you want, depending on how you adjust the sliders. If you put 200 points of research in the same space, then you can get 150 points of research and 50 production. That's a *massive* advantage over the balanced build approach.

The current system penalises anybody going for a more balanced approach to planet development, which is ironic as that's exactly what the AI does!

The current system penalises anybody going for a more balanced approach to planet development, which is ironic as that's exactly what the AI does!

Er, how does it penalize anything? I thought those sliders represent the proportion of your total output is going to each field of production. Therefore you can have 33% for each of them and be at 99% of your maximum production. If you want your labs at full capacity, set Research to 100% and pocket the excess cash (or, better yet, dial Research down and spend the leftovers on Military or Social).

I like the sliders as they are.

But i do have to say the Rare and i mean RARE time i have a massive surprlus of income it would be nice to over spend, it makes no sense there is a $ cap on your spending.

In what way does it penalise them? You can't go without either military or research, you have to do them both. If you build all factories or all labs you'll loose fast

I don't. I've usually switched to all labs and 100% research spending inside 18 months on a gigantic map. The computer loses at anything below the top 2 levels because it is so far behind in the tech race - the slightly reduced production capacity over the balanced approach (and it is very slight, if anything at all) is a non-issue because you need so little of your much more advanced military material to completely dominate. And you don't need NLCs to do so (in fact, I never play neutral any more). All factories is slightly trickier to pull off if you have tech trading off, but still works - you overwhelm the AI through sheer weight of numbers in the early invasion stage then keep reasonably in touch techwise by stealing through invasion. It's actually more effective than all labs (unless possibly you go for NLCs) on the top 2 levels. Both are more effective than a balanced approach.

Would you rather have 50 production and 50 research (equal mix of factories and labs, 50/50 spending split) or 50 production and 150 research (all labs, focus on research) from the same tiles? Sure, it costs more, but since each building is working at its full capacity, it is producing twice as much as an average building in a balanced approach. This means more space for stockmarkets to support additional total spending! In practical terms, you can usually support near the levels of production you'd get on average from a balanced approach *and* have a load of extra research as a bonus (or vice versa). You lose some flexibility since you have no way to ramp up production on demand, but that's nothing a little forward planning doesn't fix.

If you decouple the sliders, the advantage I've outlined above completely disappears because then *everybody* is getting 100% use out of their buildings at all times. I can't see any reason why funding of research and production should be an either/or decision as it is at the moment. If you have the money, why shouldn't you be able to fund both to their full capacity?

There is a modding way around this - all buildings have equal or at least near equal research and production, like the initial colony. That way, you'll get the same total production wherever you put the sliders (issues with rounding apart) and the sliders really will represent the proportions of your total spending. I'd do that, but it would make it redundant separating labs and factories and research and production in the tech tree, which would be a big shame.

Although, now I think about it, you could emphasise the production and research trees giving bonuses and access to modules or superprojects instead of new buildings...

actually beakers can be converted into hammers and vice versa depending on what you chose for a planet to specialice in . if you choose social or military production then any beakers from that planet get converted into hammers at the cost of 1bc each unit. so in essence. yes they can be used for either

I was wondering, was the reasoning for this design decision ever given?

It is a leftover design decision from GC1, where planeteray improvement where adding only % . Get the GC1 demo to understand what I mean.

actually beakers can be converted into hammers and vice versa depending on what you chose for a planet to specialice in . if you choose social or military production then any beakers from that planet get converted into hammers at the cost of 1bc each unit. so in essence. yes they can be used for either

No, it doesn't work like that. The focus buttons will convert 4 beakers into 3 beakers and 1 hammer and vice versa. However, it's the beakers you are *actually producing* that get converted, not the maximum potential production. The focus buttons do not change total production on a planet (at least, before race bonuses are applied), they just allow you a small measure of extra control over spending emphasis on a planet by planet basis.

Going back to the example I gave you yesterday, if you have 100 points of research and 100 points of production on a planet, your total production will *always* be 100 on that planet (before bonuses are applied). Where you put the sliders and whether you use the focus buttons is completely irrelevant. You're getting half as much total production as somebody who builds only one type and uses the focus buttons to get the other type.

Actually, as well as decoupling the production and research sliders, I'd like each planet to have its own set of sliders. These could be set to the empire wide values by default, but with the ability to override them with new values if you want.

I understand perfectly well *how* it works. I just didn't understand *why* do it that way. Read the thread!

Edit: I can't be bothered with an argument. I asked a question. Eventually it got answered (thanks Peace Phoenix). I'll leave it at that.