Issue with Exotic Gases, Volatile Motes and Rare Crystals

[Pupique]

Hello guys, I am currently experiencing a crippling issue with these three special resources. You see, my empire got so big that, in order to keep everyone employed, I had to upgrade several buildings in my empire. It was no issue at first, since my empire's economy could handle it smoothly, having a 2k~3k energy credit surplus.

However, because of the supply/demand system (which isn't bad, this isn't the issue), my economy simply tanked overnight, to a point that now I have a 2k deficit.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1719519556

As you can see, half of my expenses are because of purchasing these resources. Naturally, I won't be able to support such an expense for much longer, so my bankruptcy is pretty much inevitable... I just hope I can hold it off until the end of the game.

The thing is: shouldn't higher tier buildings (civillian factories, alloy foundries and research labs) use less special resources, or maybe have such resources in more abundance in star systems? They will pretty much become a huge issue in the late game, impossible to fix.

PS.: Minerals are overpriced as well, so abusing refineries is not a solution.

[Stormsong]

I find that an Ecumenpolis handles joblessness for a good long while. If that is not an option for you, you might consider setting living standards so that unemployment has some benefits.

[Ishau]

I think you need to control your own growth some more. This looks like a case of growth getting out of hand and rather than benefit your economy it has massively hindered it.

By that year you should also have built a Dyson Sphere with some of the issues you are having.

In terms of turning your current game around, I think you should look at building a Dyson Sphere ASAP, downground many of your buildings and ship the excess population off to other planets, and bring your ship count down or naval capacity up before you can sustain being over the cap.

[kbmodigity]

I think your problem is that you are buying these resources and not making them yourself. The more you buy something from the market the more expensive it gets over time. Just build the buildings that make you motes, crystals, and gasses from minerals.

If you build a lot at once your economy will take a hit as they are considered high end jobs so a bunch of your menial workers that are making you minerals, energy, and food will take those jobs. In time though as more pops grow those jobs will get refilled.

[Captain Conundrum]

Instead of a dyson sphere you could also go with a ring world. You can get a lot of energy out of it and it provides a huge number of jobs.

[Pupique]

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

I find that an Ecumenpolis handles joblessness for a good long while. If that is not an option for you, you might consider setting living standards so that unemployment has some benefits.

I don't have the Megacorp DLC so... no Ecumenopolis for me, although it would fix my problems easily.

Originally posted by Ishau:

I think you need to control your own growth some more. This looks like a case of growth getting out of hand and rather than benefit your economy it has massively hindered it.

By that year you should also have built a Dyson Sphere with some of the issues you are having.

In terms of turning your current game around, I think you should look at building a Dyson Sphere ASAP, downground many of your buildings and ship the excess population off to other planets, and bring your ship count down or naval capacity up before you can sustain being over the cap.

Yeah, I grew a bit too much, to a point that I have 3k pops scattered over 31 planets, so downgrading buildings isn't really an option, because of the unemployment it would cause. And I should have definitely done the Dyson Sphere, but I made a Science Nexus and a Ring World instead... noob mistakes.

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

I think your problem is that you are buying these resources and not making them yourself. The more you buy something from the market the more expensive it gets over time. Just build the buildings that make you motes, crystals, and gasses from minerals.

If you build a lot at once your economy will take a hit as they are considered high end jobs so a bunch of your menial workers that are making you minerals, energy, and food will take those jobs. In time though as more pops grow those jobs will get refilled.

As I said in the main post, Minerals are overpriced as well. The 5:1 Mineral:Resource ratio wouldn't be favorable to me, the problem would still persist.

Originally posted by Captain Conundrum:

Instead of a dyson sphere you could also go with a ring world. You can get a lot of energy out of it and it provides a huge number of jobs.

I did a Ring World, but it is a solution focused on the long term... and I don't know if my empire will survive much longer at this rate. The game will end in 30 years, the Ring World won't make much of a difference in due time.


What I am going to try to do now is to demand tribute of all the empires that I can. My fleets are so strong that a single fleet can maul a whole federation fleet, single-handedly. I think that will be my best bet, to at least delay my inevitable demise.

I'm also praying, on my knees, for the End of the Cycle event. As the game will end in 30 years, I don't mind being turned into dust in 50... lol

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by Polanski:

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

I find that an Ecumenpolis handles joblessness for a good long while. If that is not an option for you, you might consider setting living standards so that unemployment has some benefits.

I don't have the Megacorp DLC so... no Ecumenopolis for me, although it would fix my problems easily.

Originally posted by Ishau:

I think you need to control your own growth some more. This looks like a case of growth getting out of hand and rather than benefit your economy it has massively hindered it.

By that year you should also have built a Dyson Sphere with some of the issues you are having.

In terms of turning your current game around, I think you should look at building a Dyson Sphere ASAP, downground many of your buildings and ship the excess population off to other planets, and bring your ship count down or naval capacity up before you can sustain being over the cap.

Yeah, I grew a bit too much, to a point that I have 3k pops scattered over 31 planets, so downgrading buildings isn't really an option, because of the unemployment it would cause. And I should have definitely done the Dyson Sphere, but I made a Science Nexus and a Ring World instead... noob mistakes.

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

I think your problem is that you are buying these resources and not making them yourself. The more you buy something from the market the more expensive it gets over time. Just build the buildings that make you motes, crystals, and gasses from minerals.

If you build a lot at once your economy will take a hit as they are considered high end jobs so a bunch of your menial workers that are making you minerals, energy, and food will take those jobs. In time though as more pops grow those jobs will get refilled.

As I said in the main post, Minerals are overpriced as well. The 5:1 Mineral:Resource ratio wouldn't be favorable to me, the problem would still persist.

Originally posted by Captain Conundrum:

Instead of a dyson sphere you could also go with a ring world. You can get a lot of energy out of it and it provides a huge number of jobs.

I did a Ring World, but it is a solution focused on the long term... and I don't know if my empire will survive much longer at this rate. The game will end in 30 years, the Ring World won't make much of a difference in due time.


What I am going to try to do now is to demand tribute of all the empires that I can. My fleets are so strong that a single fleet can maul a whole federation fleet, single-handedly. I think that will be my best bet, to at least delay my inevitable demise.

I'm also praying, on my knees, for the End of the Cycle event. As the game will end in 30 years, I don't mind being turned into dust in 50... lol

Well now that I look again 1 thing that is killing your economy is how far over your fleet cap you are. All your ships are costing probably double in upkeep if not more. And no offense that is a very low amount of fleet to have that late in the game. Try changing some of your none border stations into full on stations with only anchorages with the naval logistics building.

As for the response you gave me, you should never HAVE to be purchasing anything from the market if your economy is set up right. As I said, instead of purchasing motes, crystals and gas, set up the refineries yourself on your planets that have extra building spaces. You are making plenty of minerals which is the big upkeep for those buildings. The main part for the market I find is that if you ever cap out on your storage for a resource you can then sell it and let the amount keep growing. A resource that is maxed out on storage and doing nothing about it is basically throwing away the amount you would have made every month. Then you can buy something from the energy you made that you need like say alloys.

If you did build too many buildings at once then yes your economy will tank on the menial resources. As I said before all the higher end jobs will be taken over by all the people that were making you energy, minerals, food, and amenities. It will take time for pops to grow to fill in those jobs again. But looking at your screen shot you have unemployed people all over the place. Resettle them to planets that need jobs filled. With how many planets you have that can become a bit tedious. There is a mod called auto pop migration that will do this for you automatically.

Another thing I notice is that you have a lot of homeless people. this will lower their happiness and they will produce less. I would definetly try to build more housing on those planets. Also, speaking of happiness, are all your planets the prefered type for your species. By that point in the game you should have learned all the teraforming researches and should be teraforming all your planets to exactly what your pops want. This will increase happiness which will then in turn increase production.

Also, dont forget about edicts like capacity overload if your hurting on energy like that. Having the specialty buildings ( I forget the names) that give +10% and then upgraded +20% energy/ minerals/food on all planets is key too I find. Youd be suprised how much those add up.

Edit: here is a screen shot from one of my more recent games. It is on admiral difficulty without scaling. As you can see it is earlier than you and with a proper economy you can have everything go through the roof if set up right. The only mod used is that auto pop migration mod i mentioned.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/842645917274008839/A236F56887180379E60A80853035285D4200499D/

Edit 2: On another note, every month you have pops that are unemployed on a planet and can be working on a different one but you haven't resettled them you are throwing what they could have been making you out the window. By ignoring things like this can easily crush your economy with your own negligence.

[Pupique]

Thanks for the tips, but these are the problems:

1. Minerals are expensive, and as I said, they're not worth the 5:1 refining ratio. It's better to purchase the refined materials;

2. I can't forcefully resettle anybody. I'm egalitarian, that's forbidden;

3. Nice naval cap, but that isn't really the issue. I don't really need 2k fleets, my 900 managed to pawn the opposing awakened empire. And I produce ~1k alloys per month, upkeep is no problem (I even sell 500 alloys per month because I keep hitting the alloy cap);

4. ALL my planets are crowded, with the exception of the Ring Worlds, which are growing rapidly. I had circa 4k pops scattered over 35 planets (including the Ring Worlds), resulting in an average of 100+ pops per planet;

5. Several of my starbases were trading hubs, leaving merely 5 or 6 dedicated anchorages only.

From what I see, you're playing as a synthetic, as you have several machine worlds. As these worlds have a ridiculous district cap, these crises will never happen to you. Since I was playing with an organic empire without the Megacorp DLC, I wasn't able to create Ecumenopolises, which would no doubt take me out of this crippling crisis.

I appreciate your suggestions, regardless. What I would really want to know is how you managed to pull off this 2k fleet cap. Was that only through anchorages?

[Ishau]

Why do you have more than one trading hub Polanski?

[Pupique]

Originally posted by Ishau:

Why do you have more than one trading hub Polanski?

Because my empire is large, so I had to build some hubs to get all the trading spots.

I could have built some anchorages on the systems themselves, but they still wouldn't be enough, as I would have to dedicate some stations to protect the frontiers. That's why I have some trading hubs.

[Shinzor]

I personally don't upgrade building unless I can afford it I find paying the extra consumer goods to stop criminal jobs from showing up much more sustainable than trading for rare resources(since the cost will go up every time you buy them), I would recommend building habitats or ringworlds if you can to make more rare resources, I use them for rare resource production since they are easy to balance and cap off so I never have to go back

[Shinzor]

Originally posted by Polanski:

Originally posted by Ishau:

Why do you have more than one trading hub Polanski?

Because my empire is large, so I had to build some hubs to get all the trading spots.

I could have built some anchorages on the systems themselves, but they still wouldn't be enough, as I would have to dedicate some stations to protect the frontiers. That's why I have some trading hubs.

When you can make gateways you can use them to collect trade since a fully upgrade trade port can reach 6 jumps out of any gateway if you have one in the system with the trade port saving you all that room for those anchorages

[Ishau]

Originally posted by Shinzor:

Originally posted by Polanski:

Because my empire is large, so I had to build some hubs to get all the trading spots.

I could have built some anchorages on the systems themselves, but they still wouldn't be enough, as I would have to dedicate some stations to protect the frontiers. That's why I have some trading hubs.

When you can make gateways you can use them to collect trade since a fully upgrade trade port can reach 6 jumps out of any gateway if you have one in the system with the trade port saving you all that room for those anchorages

Yes exactly this. One upgraded star base with trade hubs is really all you need, then just build gateways to collect the rest.

Typically 2 shipyards, 1 trade hub and then use the rest to increase ship capacity.

[Pupique]

Originally posted by Shinzor:

Originally posted by Polanski:

Because my empire is large, so I had to build some hubs to get all the trading spots.

I could have built some anchorages on the systems themselves, but they still wouldn't be enough, as I would have to dedicate some stations to protect the frontiers. That's why I have some trading hubs.

When you can make gateways you can use them to collect trade since a fully upgrade trade port can reach 6 jumps out of any gateway if you have one in the system with the trade port saving you all that room for those anchorages

Originally posted by Ishau:

Originally posted by Shinzor:

When you can make gateways you can use them to collect trade since a fully upgrade trade port can reach 6 jumps out of any gateway if you have one in the system with the trade port saving you all that room for those anchorages

Yes exactly this. One upgraded star base with trade hubs is really all you need, then just build gateways to collect the rest.

Typically 2 shipyards, 1 trade hub and then use the rest to increase ship capacity.

Damn... didn't know that one trick. In fact, I am so noob that I thought that the enemy could go through gateways to invade me lol. Thanks a lot for the tip, will definitely change my playstyle now.


Regarding the resource issue, I might just play with synthetics or hive minds now until I get the DLC, because I can create Hive / Machine Worlds, thus preventing this kind of crisis.

[kbmodigity]

I would recommend a synthetic empire just to get your feet wet if you are "noob" as you said. They are very easy to play. You can basically do a cookie cutter of every planet and go through the roof quickly. There are no factions, no food, no consumer goods, and you can colonize anything right off the bat.

I do have to admit I was playing them solely and am now making my way back into the biological side of things which add more nuances. I stopped playing after getting so frustrated with the constantly having to manually resettle pops after each month until I found that mod I posted before.

Currently I'm playing a hive mind (non devouring swarm) on admiral no scalling and I do have to say it is much more involved than playing anything synthetic. Its a nice ease of transition from synthetic as now I do have to deal with food and all the buildings seem so less buffed. As synthetic I only had to build 1 maintenance depot per planet unless it was 22 size or bigger. Now I have to have 3 or so with planets that are only 19 and they are still growing. I still dont have to deal with pirates and trade routes and all but I will get there. I like to master something and then move on to a more difficult/complex type of race.

[kbmodigity]

AS for your question about getting fleet cap that high, I put a stronghold/fortress on every planet as they increase your fleet cap. I also had 12+ star bases that were full on anchorages. Combine that with all the tech perks and unity tree perks it is easily achievable.