Constructing a specific Economy

[CheKaa]

I was hit by the same. Built a colony port and a refinery hub, but did not take into account geological "signals" - in result: Extraction 180%, Industrial 140%, Refinery
260%. CMM composites are present, but Ceramic Composites are not. It looks like I'd better building the same on another body.

PS And of course, thank you all for research.

Up: Extraction 180%, Industrial 140%, Refinery 380% - still Ceramic Composites are in import/demand.

 

[Plut0nia]

The planetary property is too strong. They need to make player-placed economies overrride it entirely. If there are no strong links, let the planetary property influence it. If there are strong links, completely disable the property. This is a surface port on a world with only military bases. Two strong and three weak links to military result in 95% output, and an ice world with no volcanism plus one weak link produces 145% industrial. How is the architect ever supposed to compete with planetary properties when it's like this? The base game has plenty of military economy ports on ice worlds. It took a while for the market to generate its commodities, and once it did... it has ZERO military commodities. It's only industrial. All because it's a bit chilly outside and there's a small factory 400 million miles away.

 

[PilotB]

Two strong and three weak links to military result in 95% output

Not all strong links are created equal. You skimped out and built t1 military settlements. You could have built the t2 settlements instead or 1 t1 and 1 t2. T2 links do double what t1 links do. The UI is missing so much information. Your point is entirely correct but your choices made the result worse than it needed to be.

 

[Plut0nia]

Not all strong links are created equal. You skimped out and built t1 military settlements. You could have built the t2 settlements instead or 1 t1 and 1 t2. T2 links do double what t1 links do. The UI is missing so much information. Your point is entirely correct but your choices made the result worse than it needed to be.

Yeah I only made the largest possible T1 military bases to get T2 points that I need. The main point is that the planetary property is too strong and needs to be nerfed or conditionally abolished. It was originally made to fix the problem of colony economies in colony stations. It should have never been made capable of overriding deliberately constructed supporting economies.

 

[Unfluffydave]

Planetary influence on economy should be removed. I can see why certain planet types would apply bonuses or penalties to certain types of economy but the economy of a station in orbit should be determined by what other stations feed it rather than what type of planet it orbits.

Also, the links from facilities on a planet should only link to facilities either on or orbiting that planet. One of my systems has 3 High Metal Contents worlds, one of which is set up as extraction bases feeding a refinery which in turn produces the raw materials, cmms and ceramics for building other bases elsewhere. The other 2 planets are unused, logically I would be able to set one of those planets up as extraction bases feeding a refinery which feeds an industrial base and the last planet set up as extraction bases feeding a refinery which feeds a high tech base, then the output from those 3 planets feed an orbis for trade.

But no, I am not allowed to have a system that makes logical sense since such a set up under the current game system would probably end up producing next to naff all since each base would consume the resources of the others instead of just its own. I have to colonise 3 systems just to achieve what should be possible with 1 that has enough of the correct type of planets.

 

[Ross B]

I have a question about effect of Biologicals on Refinery economy. I have a rocky moon with pristine reserves, no volcanism, but it has Biologicals. It has 3 spots for surface structures. If I put 3 Extraction Hubs and 1 Orbis station, will these biologicals butcher my refinery economy? There are other moons without Biologicals but they have only 1 surface spot. Or maybe 2 Extraction Hubs and 1 Surface Port would be better?

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Why do people keep insisting on building extraction facilities when they want refineries... If you want refinery, build refineries.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The bios will add Terraforming which will consume some of your Refinery exports (without producing anything directly useful itself). It's not as bad as volcanism adding Industrial which consumes almost all your Refinery exports, but it's still not great.

A moon with no biologicals still generates Refinery economy to your ports from the moon itself so you'd get more reliable exports by building a surface port and orbital station on the 1-spot moon.

You don't need Refinery hubs (and as Ned says, you certainly don't need Extraction hubs!) if you're not trying to overwhelm another unwanted economy type in the first place - a basic T1 surface port or T2/3 orbital will give you far more commodities than you need if you can keep it to a single economy type.

(Which means being careful about what you build elsewhere in the system to avoid generating non-Refinery weak links)

 

[Ross B]

Sorry, I made a mistake there. I didn't mean Extraction, I meant 2 Refinery hubs + 1 Surface port + (probably) orbital Commercial Outpost.
Anyway, thanks for the answer.
So, 1 Refinery Hub + 1 orbital Commercial Outpost on a rocky moon with pristine resources without Biologicals would be better that 3 Refinery Hubs + 1 Orbis on a rocky moon with pristine resources with Biologicals?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So, 1 Refinery Hub + 1 orbital Commercial Outpost on a rocky moon with pristine resources without Biologicals would be better that 3 Refinery Hubs + 1 Orbis on a rocky moon with pristine resources with Biologicals?

"Better at what?" is the question here.

The Orbis is a much higher-population market than the Commercial Outpost, and you're giving it two additional Refinery Hubs to boost development level (and economy fraction, but development level is probably more important) even further. So for anything it exports at all, it'll export probably hundreds of times more tonnage than the Commercial Outpost (it really should, since you hauled over ten times as much to build it)

On the other hand, the Orbis is on a moon which adds Terraforming, and 3 extra hubs can only go so far to cancel that out, so it's possible that for the specific Refinery exports that Terraforming imports - Polymers and Semiconductors especially are very import-biased - the Commercial Outpost will end up with some exports of them and the Orbis will be importing them instead.

If you want maximum spread of cargo and maximum tonnage for that sort of budget, then:
- on the one-slot no-bio moon, build a T1 surface outpost and the Orbis for two huge markets at only slightly more than the cost of Commercial Outpost + Orbis (plus this way you get both orbital and surface refinery exports, rather than just the orbital ones)
- on the three-slot moon with bio - or anywhere else in the system that's convenient - build the three refinery hubs so you get the development level boosts and T3 points anyway.

(The refinery hubs are only generating weak links rather than strong links to the stations, but you probably won't notice the difference given everything else that's going on and the moon already providing a perfectly good baseline refinery economy)

 

[Ross B]

Wow, thank you very much for this.
I have 6 (six) one-slot moons of the stated type. Should I build something (T1 outpost or refinery hub) on each one to make the total yield of the economy of my system higher?

 

[ragnamach]

This may have already been discussed but I can't find it. If a planet has both a planetary outpost and an orbital outpost do both outposts receive weak links. I want to avoid colony outposts generating weak links just because they are being shielded from links by the other outpost.

 

[Kira Goto]

This may have already been discussed but I can't find it. If a planet has both a planetary outpost and an orbital outpost do both outposts receive weak links. I want to avoid colony outposts generating weak links just because they are being shielded from links by the other outpost.

If there are no other ports present on or in orbit of that same body, then at least the orbital port/outpost should not generate weak links. Not totally sure about the surface port again but it shouldn’t either, only passing on planet influence and that of support facilities to the outpost in orbit.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Wow, thank you very much for this.
I have 6 (six) one-slot moons of the stated type. Should I build something (T1 outpost or refinery hub) on each one to make the total yield of the economy of my system higher?

If you want a ridiculously large refinery system then putting a T1 outpost on each of those is the way to do it.

The advantage of not using Refinery hubs and just using the default planetary economy is that you won't be generating weak links, which does allow you a little opportunity to diversify (very carefully to avoid generating weak links with anything else - don't do this until you understand exactly what does and doesn't generate them!) and provide a little of other economies on the side.

(Though you'll probably find that the first one and the Orbis is enough to cover anything except "surprise Beryllium CG next door" already)

 

[Ross B]

If you want a ridiculously large refinery system then putting a T1 outpost on each of those is the way to do it.

Thanks.
I also have a couple of asteroid belts and gas giants with rings (one ring has palladium). Should I put mining outposts at them or Asteroid Base? I want to avoid industrial economy in my system. Just Refinery + Extraction.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Mining outposts generate Extraction weak links, which aren't the worst thing to get in a Refinery but aren't ideal either because they can mess up your Refinery's imports.

I'd go for Asteroid bases in that case if hauling time is no barrier.

All of this construction is going to massively lower your system security. There are three ways to deal with this and the obvious one is probably to be avoided.
1) The obvious way is to build military constructions which give massive boosts to it, but these will generate military weak links and mess up a lot of your refinery production
2) If you put an Anarchy faction in charge of the system you can basically ignore this problem entirely
3) Otherwise - and especially if you want security to be higher than Low - you don't have many options for increasing it which don't involve weak links.
- Comms Installations are cheap and completely safe to build, but only give +1
- Military Outposts are more expensive, give +2, but you have to be careful where you place them to avoid getting military links generated from them (basically: at most one per planet, and not sharing a planet with any other orbital stations including each other)
- Government Installations also give +2 safely but use up T2 points (depending on what else you're building, of course, you might find this useful to convert them to T3 points instead)

 

[Ross B]

I'd go for Asteroid bases in that case if hauling time is no barrier.

Thank you so much. My system is rather small. One star. 3,500 ls from the star to the farthest point so hauling is not an issue. I'm planning a bunch of comm stations and goverment installations as there is a decent amount of orbital spots and I hope to keep security at medium at least.

 

[Unfluffydave]

Why do people keep insisting on building extraction facilities when they want refineries... If you want refinery, build refineries.

I'd love to build an orbital refinery simply by selecting "orbital refinery" from the build menu but for some silly reason i've got to play the "place a colony and play the link/planetary economy " roulette game. I can place orbital production facilities simply by selecting them in the build menu, I can place orbital mining facilities simply by selecting them in the build menu so why not be able to place orbital refinery facilities simply by selecting them in the build menu?

It shouldn't make a blind bit of difference if a planet has weeds growing or geysers to what I can produce on that planet unless the process of production uses those features in some way.

What difference does external environmental conditions make to an agricultural facility that is sealed from that enviroment and creates its own growing environment? I can place a farm in hard vacuum, on a near 0 Kelvin planet so far away from its parent star the star as well not be there, on a moon that makes the sunward side of Mercury seem like a chilly day but it makes no difference but if that moon or planet just happens to be tidally locked then my farms are penalised.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Ok... not really sure what relevance that has to my post pointing out that extraction facilities will produce an extraction economy rather than refinery. Argue all you want about planetary influence but don't act like it's not common sense for a facility to produce the same economy as it's named after rather than something else.

 

[Greasetrap42]

If you want a ridiculously large refinery system then putting a T1 outpost on each of those [1-slot rocky moons] is the way to do it.

Do you mean not necessarily colony outposts (that get converted to refinery which aren't going to link to anything) but whatever outpost gives the system advantage. Military for better security rating, Industrial for increased tech and dev levels, etc. Because colony outposts would keep driving the security level down with not any accumulating refinery advantage.