there is a lowly building not being used completely

that lowly building is the starport.


what is going to be the center of commerce in interplanetary empire. it is going to be the starport. meaning that the starport should be a source of income rather than expense. all commercial traffic is going to go through the starport on and off. meaning that no self respectable government is going to allow all of those credits go without taxing them. the current income is based solely on the taxation of income. what about tarrifs and inport fees. not to mention launch and docking fees.
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Reply #3 Top
If you compare modern nations budgets, you will see that docking fees and all that are only a very small part of the income. They are negligible and since the economics model of GC2 is a very big abstraction, I do not see any reason to complicate it on behalf of a not noticable gain in game mechanics. Do you really want to set docking fees for every starport? I do not want to.

(In the current model, the money "going through" the starport actually is taxed on the side of the customer.)
Reply #4 Top
i was using the docking fees as an example. the real money would be the import taxes and the last time i looked there wasn't any sales tax in the game. so no the customer is not being taxed. i bring this up because i am still running into econ. problems in the game.
Reply #5 Top
The customer is paying taxes.
The point is, that all taxes are added together and result in "taxes". There is no distinction between private consumer taxes, private income taxes, corporate taxes, fees and fines or even pay-back of government investments. There is not pension fund system, no health insurance or unemployment insurance. It is all amalgamated into the numbers we see in the economics screen.

A game always has to have a certain level of abstraction and the larger the scope of the game is, the larger the level of abstraction. The starport building is not a symbol for a starport as you see it, but a symbol for a large governmental wharf. Besides that edifice, every planet has a lot of private or economic wharfes and starports. The one you build just gives you the ability to build ships. It has nothing to do with ships being able to land or start from that planet. After all, you can build trade routes to planets that have no starport and you can land and start from planets without starports.

To summarize my argument: If any change is necessary, we should rename the starport to "military wharf". The commercial income generated by trade is already considered and it is considered elsewhere (commercial buildings, trade routes and general tax income).
Reply #6 Top
Concerning the economic problems: I know quite well what you talk about.

Since I am not a go-for-high-ranking-player, I have made up a sheme that works for me. First of all, I always chose Super-Breeder (sometimes Super-Warrior, but that is another story), colonize every planet worthwhile and then sit down and do my pop rush by bringing most planets to 100% morale. This makes them grow insanely fast and within five to ten turns, I can fund my empire even though doing an all-labs-approach.

Other important things that help:
* racial economic bonuses
* at least two econ buildings on every big planet and a farm there (that one is disputable, I do it because the payoff of the first farm is positive)
* research techs that give you a generic bonus on economy

I am sure some of that was not new to you, but if you never tried Super Breeder, you should do next. It is great to see your empire grow four times as fast as all the others. Ever been in a war, where you had problems mustering troops for invasions? (Well, then you made a mistake, but that is another story.) Go Super-Breeder and a freshly conquered planet will have 3 billion people on it before you can blink!

Anyway, I hope I have been of some help, at least.