I tend not to bother even researching the power plant techs and never build them. The research coordination centers I will build, though. Ive never done hard research on the coordination center, but I do think it helps vs. just building another lab. Especially when you are talking about a planet solely doing research where flasks can get into the thousands. ESPECIALLY when you get a set of planets that can fall under the same range of a few starbases and they can all be centered on research. For all I know the power planets might be more effective, especially at the higher tech ones, but I think the first level adds like 10 percent or something and seems a waste of time.

So if I have a planet class 26 and build

20 research facilities and one coordinator -->25 labs worth of research
1 research lab and 20 coordinators--> a) 5 labs worth of research or 1 x (1.25)^20 = 86 labs?


in case In my example the maximum would be somewhere in the middle - the maximum of the function f(x)=21-x+1,25^x (I believe)

There are some pretty amazing players with in-depth knowledge of the game that frequent these forums, and I'm not one of them, but my two cents anyways:

I build the power plants on production intensive worlds (for warship production) and rarely anywhere else. I'm not much of a number cruncher but I'm sure there's a breakpoint (number of factories) where a power plant is more efficient than another factory (industrial sector), and I think they're cheaper to maintain too. The first power plant (+10%) is pretty weak, so I usually don't build it until I have a really industry heavy world or I've researched past the first plant. I've also been wanting to look into how the +% from power plants is applied in the myriad of calculations to know what the real benefit is.

I upgrade all of my buildings (let them autoupgrade, with occasional micromanagement to stop developing worlds from making too huge of industrial upgrade jumps that take forever, and/or to reorganize upgrade order). If possible I'll research industrial upgrades first so that production upgrades before other buildings naturally (ie, without having to go thru all my planets and reorganize), since a solid industrial base helps everything else upgrade faster.

I often do incremental (and manual) upgrading of industry for new/captured worlds as I tech up, especially for hostile environment worlds with weaker production. This seems to help worlds get rolling quicker, and you can slip in some other buildings like a starport or stock market during the upgrade cycle to make the slowly developing world a bit more useful.

Things that will slow down your updating are not having enough industry to begin with, planets with hostile environments (barren, etc) where you don't have the full colonization tech and therefore have a big production penalty, having your social slider really low, not having the planet focused on social, and/or not having your industrial capacity at 100% or as high as possible.

If you're experiencing super slow upgrades, it's probably one or more of those causing it. I tend to keep the social slider pretty low and focus planets on social for upgrading, but there are a few really beefy upgrades in the industry line or end of the research lines that can benefit from a little bit more social spending. The final industry and research upgrades do take a while, but, they're the end of the line, so it's to be somewhat expected.

OIC

Very bureaucratic, heh.

Manufacturing centers, power plants, no labs. All-factory is the way!

Hi!

Sorry, but here you're wrong: you pay for ALL production they provide. You pay a half for the production from abilities and starbasses.

BR, Iztok

Gosh, I can't believe how many smart guys are getting the logic of these buildings WRONG!

First of all, let me say that these buildings are the greatest thing since sliced...er...bureaucrat...if you're Drengin.

Second, everyone please note that although there are similarities, the RCC and the power plants are NOT alike.
The power plants begin to be available very early in the game, IF YOU CHOOSE to research them; they require a separate research effort. In additon, they are relatively cheap to build, compared to a similar tech-level factory, but have fairly stiff maintenance (3).
The RCC does not require a separate research effort because you gain the ability to build it when you develop Research Academies, in the main research tech branch, but by the same token it is probably not available until mid-game, when the similar level lab is providing a healthy hunk of tp's (12 from an RA). The RCC is expensive to build compared to an RA (300 vs 150), but the maintenance is cheap (1 vs 3/wk).

Third, note that both types of development amplify the respective applicable capability points of the planet, that is power plants multiply mp's and RCC multiplies tp's. They DO NOT just multiply 'factories' or 'labs'. This is key.

On your homeworld, you start out with 24 tp's and 24 ip's from your Civ Capital.

For research, since the RCC is hard-linked to the know-how to build Research Academies, after your first 2 labs on the homeworld have upgraded to RA, the RCC should be the next research building you build, even if you have to replace an existing lab to do it. If you have even one lab on a bonus tile, the RCC should be the very next thing to happen after that one tile upgrades. It costs a bit more to build, but it pays it back in maintenance in 75 weeks, and after that its gravy.
Just labs: Civ Cap (24) + RA (12) + RA (12) + RA (12) = 60 tp, 9bc/wk maint.
With RCC : Civ Cap (24) + RA (12) + RA (12) + RCC (25%->12) = 60 tp, 7bc/wk maint.
W/ bonus : Civ Cap (24) + RA & 100% (24) + RCC (25%->12) = 60 tp, 4bc/wk maint.

For production, it isn't quite so simple. If you have developed/traded/stolen Fusion PP, and you still only have Basic Factories, it makes marginal sense in terms of production numbers for the Fusion plant to be the 5th industrial structure you build, but you will pay a maintenance penalty for it.
Civ Cap (24) + BF (4) + BF (4) + BF (4) + BF (4) + BF (4) = 44 mp's, 0 maint.
Civ Cap (24) + BF (4) + BF (4) + BF (4) + BF (4) + FPP (10%->4) = 44 mp's, 3bc maint.
If you have a couple of Basic Factories and one of them is on a 300% or, God bless it, a 700% bonus tile, then the FPP should certainly be your next industrial build.

If you are already building/converting to full Factories, which produce 6 mp's each, then there should be an equivalent of at least 6 Factories in production before you build the FPP...but that will happen if you have a Precursor Mine. Other wise, wait to develop the Anti-Matter PP before you build one.

For the Anti-Matter PP, production levels break even if you build the APP in addition to just 1 full Factory. With more Factories in play, you gain an actual weekly mp benefit from having the APP on-line. There's still a small maintenance penalty until you reach Manufacturing Centers (level 4 'factories'), or when there are large numbers of Enhanced Factories (level 3 'factories')
Civ Cap (24) + Fac (6) + Fac (6) = 36 mp's, 2bc maint.
Civ Cap (24) + Fac (6) + APP (20%->6) = 36 mp's, 4bc maint.

I'm not going to do the slightly more complicated math for the colonies; but it would be similar, with a somewhat later beneifit point in the development sequence of the colony, since the Colony cities only give 10 tp's and 16 mp's to start. Any primary production structures on bonus tiles can make the support structures a superior immeadiate choice of improvement.

The bottom line is there always is a big benefit to building these things, from almost right away for the RCC to ~mid-game for the power plants.

drrider

Sorry, Pesky, but accoroding to some of Iztok's excellent research, you pay full price for asteroid ip's that have been generated by the basic mining function, and half-price for any ip's generated by applying the off-planet bounuses to them after they have 'reached" the target planet. And the above is calulated separately for each asteroid field output, and rounded down.

drrider

Hi!

Regarding asteroids: yesternight I noticed a strange thing regarding their output. I have some level-3 mines in the game that add 18 MPs to a nearby planet, but I can't see ANY BOOST to planets's manufacturing output. I'm playing all-labs, so by my research there should be 4 MPs transferred with the focus.

Just checked that with a testbed game. Seems that focus doesn't transfer production from asteroids to research. Sigh...    Will update the Economy explained post.

BR, Iztok

This is correct, and its why I use my initial miner as either a constructor or freighter.