Ecumenopolis: still worth it?

[Whiskey Wight]

So as we're probably all aware, as of 3.01 there's a new district type on planets call industrial. Which produce alloys & consumers goods (and can be specialized in one or the other). But it begs the question, is there a point to Ecumenopolis' anymore? they've had dedicated alloy & foundry districts since their introduction in Megacorp. But is it still worth it?
I know it has the inherit bonus where all specialists get 20% production, but is that worth the time to have a dedicated foundry / fabricator world when you can just as easily have bog standard worlds doing the same?

[Forblaze]

If anything, I think production bonuses are even more important now that fewer pops are in play. Also, industrial districts don't prevent you from turning a planet into an ecu, so you can pretty easily transition a planet a normal forge/industrial world into one without disrupting anything.

[YunggGravy]

I tried doing the 25 years ECU rush, got it in about 50 (lol I suck), and I found it lacking. Ringworld are for more useful. What is the point to all that pop anyways? Takes forever to fill em up anyways!

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by YunggGravy:

I tried doing the 25 years ECU rush, got it in about 50 (lol I suck), and I found it lacking. Ringworld are for more useful. What is the point to all that pop anyways? Takes forever to fill em up anyways!

Better at what? Certainly not producing CG/Alloys, especially with ring worlds lacking a specialization option. All ring worlds have going for them is the research specialization.

[TSP]

Originally posted by YunggGravy:

Ringworld are for more useful.

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Better at what?

That question is spot on.

[Purodiusa]

Yes and no.

Regular planet to ecumenopolis is good.
Relic world to ecumenopolis is bad. Keep the research bonus.

[CrUsHeR]

TBH the Ecus are almost a must-have, just for the pop growth bonus and immigration pull.
At least the restored relic worlds, which don't require perks.


Problem with the industrial districts on all other colony types:
They always come with 1 job of the "other" type which gets no benefit from the planet specialization.
Also if you happen to have a lot of trade from a large federation, perhaps even a Trade League federation, all those extra artisan jobs produce a vast surplus of consumer goods you don't need.

You can only shut down those jobs, but the problem is already that when you unlock all building slots with city districts, there are too few jobs and too much housing. Every planet simply needs at least 5 refineries, the required infrastructure, and your 12 build slots are already full.

While on the Ecumenopolis, you simply build something like 9-12 foundry arcology districts, 1 leisure arcology, fill the rest with residential arcologies and can even have 4+ research labs on top of everything else you need. With the massive immigration pull and pop growth bonus, you can easily fit 120-150 pops in there. My recorded peak in pop growth was 25.6 / month.

There is nothing else remotely comparable in the game.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Purodiusa:

Yes and no.

Regular planet to ecumenopolis is good.
Relic world to ecumenopolis is bad. Keep the research bonus.

You keep the research bonus when upgrading to ecumenopolis.

+20% all resource production from Ecumenopolis planet type

+10% research from "former relic world" planetary feature

This is identical to the 2x 15% on relic worlds.



What you don't retain are the free 8 researcher jobs on a relic world, however these come at the cost of 6 permanently blocked districts.
And these only exist on Fen Habbanis and the Rubricator world. The Remnants homeworlds, and (iirc also) the other relic worlds like the Ferrophage planet don't even that nor the +15% research bonus coming from it.

And there is no planetary designation to increase researchers output, just their upkeep which is highly irrelevant. So if you were to keep a relic world just for research, you are wasting the best colony in the game. Because you can have both, a huge amount of reseach and alloy production, on the same planet.

In particular the Remnants homeworld is complete garbage because it has no research bonuses at all, except maybe for +10% society from a metal boneyard or whatever the basic homeworlds all can have.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

If anything, I think production bonuses are even more important now that fewer pops are in play. Also, industrial districts don't prevent you from turning a planet into an ecu, so you can pretty easily transition a planet a normal forge/industrial world into one without disrupting anything.

The Ecu upgrade/construction prevents regular building processes. Unlike Gaia terraforming, you can only do one at a time.

So if you need to build anything during those 10 years, you need to move the Ecu construction back in the priority. Every building means at least +1 years delay on the project.
And you can only start the construction of the Arcology project if all city/industrial districts are filled.

So the total build time for an arcology project is not 10 years, but probably closer to 30 or 50 years.

While for the relic worlds, you just need anti-gravity engineering and press that button. The relic world can even produce the minerals required to upgrade itself, as there are no district requirements at all.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

The Ecu upgrade/construction prevents regular building processes. Unlike Gaia terraforming, you can only do one at a time.

So if you need to build anything during those 10 years, you need to move the Ecu construction back in the priority. Every building means at least +1 years delay on the project.
And you can only start the construction of the Arcology project if all city/industrial districts are filled.

So the total build time for an arcology project is not 10 years, but probably closer to 30 or 50 years.

While for the relic worlds, you just need anti-gravity engineering and press that button. The relic world can even produce the minerals required to upgrade itself, as there are no district requirements at all.

Sure, but you still need CG/Alloys in the early game. You can have a fully built industrial world before you even unlock the ascension perk. Relic worlds also need blockers cleared and also will be delayed if you build buildings, so I'm not sure what the point is. You can definitely turn a relic world into an ecu faster than a normal world if you start from scratch, but it's also fairly easy to prep a normal world while keeping it productive.

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Problem with the industrial districts on all other colony types:
They always come with 1 job of the "other" type which gets no benefit from the planet specialization.

You can get rid of the "other" job with the forge/industrial world planetary specializations.

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

And there is no planetary designation to increase researchers output, just their upkeep which is highly irrelevant.

I disagree that job upkeep is irrelevant. Cheaper researchers means fewer CGs need produced (which can also be discounted on top of that) which means fewer miners are required. Alternatively, you can just have more researchers. Also, research rings buff research output directly.

[Ryika]

They've been buffed indirectly in the beta, since by default logistic growth is now capped at 1.5 extra Growth instead of 3. This means that it's not as important anymore to spread your pops around to maximize growth, so you can actually go back to stacking a whole bunch of pops on that place and benefit from its production bonus without hurting your long-term development.

They're certainly not as dominant as they were before 3.0 though.

[VoiD]

The thing is: If you have found a great unique relic world, why would you waste it turning it into an ecu?

Just take some random big world and you get to keep both an ecu and a relic world.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by VoiD:

The thing is: If you have found a great unique relic world, why would you waste it turning it into an ecu?

Just take some random big world and you get to keep both an ecu and a relic world.

If you're just roleplaying sure. Mechanics-wise it sounds like there's a good argument that converting to an ecumenopolis gets you as-good-or-better research than keeping the relic world.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by VoiD:

The thing is: If you have found a great unique relic world, why would you waste it turning it into an ecu?

Just take some random big world and you get to keep both an ecu and a relic world.

How the hell is it a waste to restore a relic world?

As a "waste", i would define spending an ascension perk on the Arcology Project, despite having a relic world which you can upgrade for free and only a tiny fraction of the construction time.

[tathen]

relic worlds are really good for research

[Tiasmoon]

Minerals have a much greater importance now:
Its easier to develop colonies as city districts are more important and building slots unlocked faster. Its also easier to create Alloy/Consumer Good Jobs. (no longer capped to 2 out of 5 Pops before building upgrades) As a result the Mineral use skyrocketed compared to before.
On top of that, Energy Jobs have been buffed but Mineral Jobs havent. With much less Pops now, we earn much less Minerals.

So that 20k mineral cost now has a much higher opportunity cost then it used to. Which in turn also makes Ecumenopolis more expensive to get.

I dunno how worth getting they are now, but definately a lot less then before. Saving up will require delaying a lot of buildings elsewhere.