All-tech and all-industry--should it remain in game?

I agree it is crazy that factories can produce research output and labs can produce manufacturing output. It is also crazy that you can't fully fund both your factories and labs at the same time if your economy can support the expense. This unrealistic dependency between factories and labs is the problem. Removing this dependency would make the game easier for all players, human and AI.
Researching with Factories and Building with Labs is Crazy!

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.

Agreed 100%.

It's a single player game. Don't like the strategies, don't use them. Don't force those who want to be creative in a GAMEPLAY environment to conform. It's a matter of choice.

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."

Just because the game allows it, doesn't mean you have to use it. This game's middle name is "Flexibility".

I agree that using reseach output to build ships doesn't make a lot of sense from a simulation point of view, but then being able to completely flip your economy from social to military production in a week doesn't jive with reality, either.

So, if you want to play the game as a simulation, just add some house rules:

- set the mix of mil/social/reseach to something realistic for your race at the beginning of the game and leave it there. If you want to change emphasis, do it by changing the buildings on your planets. The time required to rebuild seems more realistic as a time to change directions.

- don't use focus.

- change tax rates by small amounts, no more than every 4 years (or whatever your election cycle is .)

etc.

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...

My point is that a system where you could use the maximum capacity for each production would make a lot more sense and allow for a lot more strategic flexibility than the current system. Sure I can work around the current system and establish "house rules" all I want, but that does not mean that the current system cannot be improved.

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?

Read my posts--I am arguing for ability to set both research and industry to 100% individually. That way you could do that if you can afford it or try to prioritize, if you are strapped for cash. Or if you decide you do not want to do any more research, just stop research funding completely.

So have 1 slider for production and one for reseach, then have the production sub-sliders for social and military.

This can be implemented on both gloabal level, but should also be possible to set it on individual planetary level.

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?

No. It's an game mechanic exploit pure and simple: I've used it too, but that doesn't mean I'd complain if it were removed. We might as well just have one kind of building: the Universal Producer or something, have it generate both research and industrial points at the same time, because it's all the same thing in terms of the domestic sliders.

The option should still be there, but it shouldn't be as useful as it is right now. Two things I am considering.

1. Reduce the ratio of nonoptimal production points gained.

2. Split Industry and Research. Instead of the sliders going:

Tax - 1 to 100%
Production - 1 to 100%

Social - 1 to 100 shared
Military - 1 to 100% shared
Research - 1 to 100% shared

It could instead go something like:

Tax - 1 to 100%

Industrial Production: 1 to 100%
Social/Military Ratio: goes from 100% social to 100% military, determines how much of Industrial Production goes where

Research - 1 to 100%

This would have the effect of not only allowing playeres to fully fund research and industry, it also makes distributing production much more understandable.

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?

If you were able to use 100% of your economy in the way you suggest, the game would offer no more challenge. Victory would be assured as soon as you hit the "Play" button.

By using focus and an all labs strat, you're forced to pay close attention to your economy. Overheating and losing all production is always close at hand. You also have to think much farther ahead than you would otherwise. A mistake now might not show up until next month and by then, it's too late.

The all factory strat is similar, but you have more flexibility and only have to look a few turns ahead. Mistakes can be compensated for without suffering as many setbacks.

Using the strats and modifying them to your own game play makes the game more interesting. Trying to make it a VR exercise with a guaranteed win would just make it boring.

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.

I don't see how the ability to control each production type individually would make the game auto-win. The AI would be able to to this as well obviously, so you would be on equal footing with it, and at higher difficulty levels, it would get all the same bonuses it does now. I am really not sure where you are coming from here.

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.

If a carefully balanced economy with factories, research centers, and stock markets is outpaced by an all-factory or all-research economy, then I say that's an unintended result and thus should be fixed. I don't see a reason to prevent a one-trick economy, but it should not be more effective than one that follows a more logical course.

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.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to throw my lot in with those against the all lab/factory strategy. Like themocaw said, if this sort of exploit was intended, why not just have a "universal producer"? Because the intent was for specialization of worlds, where you had to consider where it was more important to have more research capacity or manufacturing capacity. This exploit gives you both, and therefore should be removed. Hats off to those who found this loophole, it is indeed an ingenious plan, but it seems like this is the "I win" button that you claim to be trying to avoid. Focus should be scrapped, and the independent slider method is a great idea in my opinion. Late game I'm always running thousands of surplus bc's per week that I could be putting in to more production. Maybe they should tie population into production capacity too, that would definitely make things more interesting.

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.

Wow, this started about one thing, but seems to boil down to the old sliders argument that has been kicked around since release. I don't think this strategy is an exploit. I think it is just the number crunchers doing their thing, trying to come up with the most efficient way of doing something. Big deal. If everyone cared only for efficiency, we'd all be driving the Prius. Anybody harping the strategy tried it themselves? It really only works on very specific settings. Set everything to random, then attempt the "all lab" build. See if this is the uber-win exploit that needs to be removed. Let it be.

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.

And if the game gets harder. . . GREAT!!! Suicidal should be just that, Suicidal, a victory at that difficulty level should be something to dance around and crow about and show off your now-gigantic e-peen, you should be doing hip-thrusts and yelling "SUCK IT! SUCK IT, AI, SUCK IT!" like playing DOOM on Nightmare.

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.

I'll refine my point since you missed it. "if going all-factory or all-research is more effective than carefully balancing the two types of structures then something is wrong".

I'm not upset or judging you or saying the all-xxx strategy is unfairly superior. I'm just making general statement that the game should play as expected. One would expect a mixed-structure setup would be superior.