Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Suggestions => Topic started by: Borealis4x on February 03, 2021, 01:43:23 PM
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Civilian Lines are a great start to try and combat micro-management but it doesn't go far enough imo. They are very unreliable and inexact, and can only ship facilities. What I propose instead is a sort of player-run Shipping Line that uses freighters you build and assign to it in order to automatically ship the right stuff to the right place.
The Shipping Network would handle minerals, colonists, fuel, munitions and MSP in addition to facilities. Planets can be designated as Sources for all these goods and Stockpile Quotas can be set to make sure a planet never runs low on a particular good without getting resupplied. For instance, if a colony doesn't have a source of Duranium in the system you can set a Stockpile Quota and the Shipping Network will automatically send freighters full of Duranium from designated sources until the stockpile is full enough. Planets can also be prioritized to receive shipping.
You can set Conditional Orders for the whole Shipping Network. By default, ships will refuel in-between missions and when at 25% capacity. They won't accept missions outside of their range.
The Shipping Network also applies to Mining and Fuel Harvesters. When assigned, these ships will automatically fly to a valid source, harvest until full, and then unload at the closest available colony prioritizing those with a demand for their goods and then those who source their goods. Ships themselves can be designated as sources and be given Stockpile Quotas.
Colonization can be automated as well; the player can set a 'target population' that will automatically place orders for colonists AND the infrastructure to support them. The Shipping Network will never ship colonists to a planet that can't support them.
Production Quotas are like Stockpile Quotas, but instead of relying on the Shipping Network the colony will fulfil it by actually producing the designated good. Production Quotas when set higher than Stockpile Quotas produce a surplus that can be distributed via your Shipping Network throughout your empire. For example, a colony can set its Production Quota to make sure it is always working towards having 10,000 ASMs but have a Stockpile Quota of only 1,000 ASMs, meaning it has 9,000 ASM available to export to colonies that request it. This allows you to make sure you always producing enough of a good without wastefully draining your resources on continuous production.
Ships in the Network can either be assigned to service the whole empire of a few choice systems. They can be organized into Task Groups and you can specify what kinds of jobs they can take. By default, ships in the Network will take any job they can given their design.
Such a mechanic is large, complex, and would radically alter the game for the better imo. Every game I've quit was due to the logistics spiraling out of control with no way to suitably automate them, so lessening that burden I think should be a top priority.
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- I'd settle for the ability to make ships available to the Civilian Shipping Lines, maybe a checkbox in the Ship Design screen? A Civilian Shipyard Complex to go with it, and a pseudo-fuel system like the NPRs have to make forward fuel bases more useful. Make them check for range and not go where they can't, but never actually run out of fuel or track it so they don't get stuck.
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.
This would be really nice.
I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.
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In terms of contracts there could be a way to automate them as well.
Let's say I could add a demand like... 50% of the workforce you use Mines, 30% should use Construction Factories. The game would then add actual demand to the colony based on that rule so as the colony grows demand would be added automatically. To be honest I should not need to add demand manually if I can automate it.
The same could go for supply... if a colony are set to 20% Construction Factory it will add any factories above that level to the supply of factories.
When a civilian ship looks for a contract it would then be able to dynamically find a supply and demand source and things would sort of solve itself.
I think we should be able to do this with either hard numbers or as a percentage... I could say that Earth should have 1 Mass Driver anything above that will automatically go to the supply of Mass Drivers on that planet.
Minerals work the same way... anything above the reserve levels goes to the supply and everything below becomes a demand. The civilians will then figure the rest out by themselves. You probably are better of having a separate demand and supply level for minerals though... I think that would work best. Perhaps you should have for all contracts you could automate.
My only work would be to set the level or ratio of stuff that I like my worlds to have.
If I also can have government trading company and assign my own transports and colony ships too it that would be even better. Do as suggested above and make them use the same fuel system as the AI does. It is then up to us players to make sure that fuel is distributed accordingly.
Add fuel and MSP distribution to the system as well so we can assign tankers and supply ship to move that between location with at least large stations not stationary tankers or supply ships.
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While we are at it: priority contracts
Double the pay for civlians and they prioritize that one. Everything that is assigned before you uncheck the priority will recieve the extra pay.
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Oh also:
It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them. I personally think this should be the default.
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Oh also:
It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them. I personally think this should be the default.
Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.
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I really like this idea.
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Oh also:
It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them. I personally think this should be the default.
Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.
I agree. In particular I dislike that I can have a 0.0 colony cost 'destination' colony more or less vacuum my home planet dry and not really notice until its exceeded the population of the homeworld. Its even weirder when my budget then crashes after I disable this, because I was making so much money taxing the shipping companies for the privilege of moving workers somewhere that they wont have any employment and aren't needed, so why on earth did the workers pay to move there in the first place?
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Oh also:
It would be nice if there was an option to set a world to only receive citizens from civil shipping if there are jobs for them. I personally think this should be the default.
Migration is another aspect of the game I think could do with some fleshing out. There should be 'push' and 'pull' factors for planets based on stuff like unemployment/work shortages that influences how attractive they are as a colony destination/source.
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I agree. In particular I dislike that I can have a 0.0 colony cost 'destination' colony more or less vacuum my home planet dry and not really notice until its exceeded the population of the homeworld. Its even weirder when my budget then crashes after I disable this, because I was making so much money taxing the shipping companies for the privilege of moving workers somewhere that they wont have any employment and aren't needed, so why on earth did the workers pay to move there in the first place?
You could see it as your fault :) You paid them too high a wage on your homeworld, now they have a sizable nest egg to go off to an exotic new planet and buy lots of land and be rich....and not work.
The issue is the current simplicity. Citizens aren't required to work to live comfortably, therefor zipping off to some planet that has no jobs isn't a problem.
A Reserve setting for pop (like minerals) or a max pop allowed setting on a body would work.
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I'd really prefer if it just didn't overfill past available jobs by default...
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You could see it as your fault :) You paid them too high a wage on your homeworld, now they have a sizable nest egg to go off to an exotic new planet and buy lots of land and be rich....and not work.
The issue is the current simplicity. Citizens aren't required to work to live comfortably, therefor zipping off to some planet that has no jobs isn't a problem.
A Reserve setting for pop (like minerals) or a max pop allowed setting on a body would work.
Then again... are they really not working?!?
In my opinion this is a faulty logic to begin with. The economics in the game are just very abstracted. Available workers just mean population NOT required for basic civilian economic needs, it does not mean these people have no jobs. It's not like society require the government to provide these people with jobs outside of the regular sectors.
This is just a highly abstracted mechanic. Available worker is just that... available to the player for use in the buildings and installation they build. Its's not like your population will become mad or low on morale if there are allot of available workforce.
It also should not be a huge problem to move people as long as you don't have worker shortage someplace, then you need to make sure that world no longer provide population for colonisation.
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.
This would be really nice.
I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.
i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):
Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals
and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.
This would be really nice.
I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.
i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):
Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals
and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth
The main problem I have with this is when the colony produces more than the shipping rate, Load all Minerals does not ensure an even distribution of minerals, so it just goes down the list. This becomes a problem on planets that have many types of minerals being mined.
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We also could get access to a bit better ways to conduct contracts.
Right now I have to update my contracts every year or else I'm spammed with messages they can't pick up stuff.
I should be able to set contract such as a general demand and general supply of installations. Which means a planet that build mines have a general supply and then I can set a demand for 100 mines and ships would not just look at the demand but that there is a mine available before they get assigned to pick it up. Once a mine is reserved nothing else can pick it up. This way I would not have to babysit my supply and demand all the time.
In addition to this I would like to have more command to automate shipping runs manually... even changing things like amounts and delay times on orders without having to recreate the entire order would be really good. Let's say you have a transport set to pick up 5000 Duranium and deliver them to X colony and a delay of 90 days. After a few years you might want to change to 90 days to 75 days as you need more stuff being sent there every year. Now you have to recreate the order... if would be easier to just pick the row and change the value.
There probably are many other automation functionalities I would like to be added.
Being able to set reserve levels for installations and create minerals contracts for civies to fill planets up to reserve would be brilliant. Everything else is a bonus for me.
This would be really nice.
I would really like to have more automation for moving materials around in general just due to the sheer agony of trying to do it manually.
i use fast 25k cargo size transports
set reserve of minerals on colony
orders (starting point : Earth):
Earth: load Durantium x1000
Earth: load Neutronium x1000
and all other minerals types x1000
Earth: Refuel&Resupply
Colony: Unload all minerals
Colony: Load all Minerals
Earth: Unload all Minerals
and Cycle Moves.
If minerals are belov colony reserve level - transport picks up nothing, if minerals are above reserve level - transport picks it up and unloads at Earth
The main problem I have with this is when the colony produces more than the shipping rate, Load all Minerals does not ensure an even distribution of minerals, so it just goes down the list. This becomes a problem on planets that have many types of minerals being mined.
Can be tuned with increasing cargo / decreasing loaded on Earth minerals. Cheap, fast transport can be done with 35k cargo and fit into sub100k tonns size.
Something like that :
Akmolinsk-F G9M class Freighter 88 842 tons 584 Crew 6 855.4 BP TCS 1 777 TH 25 000 EM 0
14070 km/s Armour 1-177 Shields 0-0 HTK 96 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 18 PPV 0
MSP 385 Max Repair 1562.5 MSP
Cargo 35 000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 10
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Commercial Gas Core AM Drive 50% EP6250.00 (4) Power 25000 Fuel Use 0.35% Signature 6250 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 573.1 billion km (471 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
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I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.
You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.
I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.
Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.
I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.
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I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.
You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.
I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.
Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.
I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.
Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:
I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.
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I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.
You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.
I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.
Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.
I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.
Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:
I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.
I still actually research low power engines for use in my own designs... I just SM techs out after designing something so civilians use 0.5x engines.. mainly for game performance. I think this is an ill thought out mechanic to be honest that does not help either the player or game performance. Civilians are better of just using 0.5x power level on their engines always for game performance reason. They don't gain any benefit from lower power engines anyway as they don't earn more money or burn less fuel this way, rather the contrary they earn less money as they move slower and build more ships which lower game performance. Game mechanically it makes no sense for civilians to utilise this technology even if it makes sense from a more "realistic" perspective.
I tend to build a rather large commercial fleet in my games as I want the ability to expand as quickly as possible. I also want to be able to build a larger industry to maximise my populations workforce as soon as possible. Then I also must spread out as much as possible to make sure that my population grow as fast as possible.
These are things I find interesting in Aurora to "optimise" in a role-play way, trying to make my empire (or empires) as "efficient" as possible whatever that means. But mostly it means making sure that as much population as possible are working with something, it hurt my brain when my population are not working... some unemployed workforce is OK but not more than 5-10%
If you have too much abundance of any resources they are ultimately badly utilised, this also include fuel, supplies, population or any other mineral.
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I do this even more "efficient" in using much smaller mineral haulers... down to about 2000t cargo size sometimes where each ship only haul one mineral type. I also use as slow and fuel efficient engines as possible... the reason being that minerals is should never be a time sensitive operation unlike facility transport which is.
You then can use a mix of pick up X amount, wait until X available and/or minimum available and colony reserve levels.
I mainly use mass drivers to move minerals within systems and mineral haulers to move minerals in between systems. Only one planets in each system act as the mineral hub for transport in between systems.
Having on small mineral hauler with a cargo capacity of 2000t, 6000t I can optimise the distribution of minerals and have them flow quite nicely in all the empire for a reasonable price in fuel. I also can add and remove transport on each route as I need them for each individual mineral.
I also distribute industry to all populations as I always want each colony to be self sufficient in building what they need, thus moving minerals efficiently is important to me.
Too complex, while no practical benefits for me, since i don't have problems with fuel:
I don't research low power engines technology because civilians will use it.
Less ships&fleets - less impact on game performance.
Less ship types - less problems with upgrading them.
Collection of system minerals in one colony is practical when system has one distinct "center colony" - about half of my populated systems can have two or more more or less equal colonies : next jump from Sol system is Alpha Centauri in my game, it has 6 planets with 10+bln population capacity - three are already populated and two are in top 3 by population after Earth. So i need the ability to maintain large-scale flow of minerals in both directions to maintain large scale industrial activity of colonies. So i use star topology instead of tree in intra-sector minerals transportation.
Sector here is more virtual entity, while it corresponds with actual sector command : no more than 2 jumps from center colony and there is one colony in center that serves as hub of intra-sector mineral transportation.
The only downside here is that large amount of minerals is stored on colonies and constantly flying in space.
I still actually research low power engines for use in my own designs... I just SM techs out after designing something so civilians use 0.5x engines.. mainly for game performance. I think this is an ill thought out mechanic to be honest that does not help either the player or game performance. Civilians are better of just using 0.5x power level on their engines always for game performance reason. They don't gain any benefit from lower power engines anyway as they don't earn more money or burn less fuel this way, rather the contrary they earn less money as they move slower and build more ships which lower game performance. Game mechanically it makes no sense for civilians to utilise this technology even if it makes sense from a more "realistic" perspective.
I tend to build a rather large commercial fleet in my games as I want the ability to expand as quickly as possible. I also want to be able to build a larger industry to maximise my populations workforce as soon as possible. Then I also must spread out as much as possible to make sure that my population grow as fast as possible.
These are things I find interesting in Aurora to "optimise" in a role-play way, trying to make my empire (or empires) as "efficient" as possible whatever that means. But mostly it means making sure that as much population as possible are working with something, it hurt my brain when my population are not working... some unemployed workforce is OK but not more than 5-10%
If you have too much abundance of any resources they are ultimately badly utilised, this also include fuel, supplies, population or any other mineral.
I have too few mineral sinks - i only encountered few precursors and Aether Rift spawned in 3 jumps from Sol - i noticed only few gravsurvey ships and few combat ships and wasted only missles so far.
My expansion build around concept of sectors - i invest heavily in central colony in the beginning and bordering systems so they can be fortified with static defences (so i could build habitats) and lot of automated mines. After that i go to the next target.
After that scheme with Earth repeats itself (when Earth / Central colony serves as population source for other colonies) in new sector.
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I have too few mineral sinks - i only encountered few precursors and Aether Rift spawned in 3 jumps from Sol - i noticed only few gravsurvey ships and few combat ships and wasted only missles so far.
My expansion build around concept of sectors - i invest heavily in central colony in the beginning and bordering systems so they can be fortified with static defences (so i could build habitats) and lot of automated mines. After that i go to the next target.
After that scheme with Earth repeats itself (when Earth / Central colony serves as population source for other colonies) in new sector.
I get what you mean... if you have a large enough production capacity to build all the Automatic mines you ever will need the only way is to add more industry and less of other facilities. I usually try to not have too much in the way of Fighter & Ordnance facilities as an example as I don't want industry to stand idle too much. Some small over capacity in some location might be wise but otherwise I want them building stuff rather than not, the same goes for naval and commercial yards for example.
I also play at very slow tech progression so that might also factor in to why I find it harder to get to the point I have all the minerals I need and then some... another way for me is to play with several factions at the same time, that means that military also have to be more of a priority in general which is another resource sink, even if you are not at war you always have to be prepared for it.
So... some factors in my games are 10-20% research rates, 25% terraforming rate, 5% survey speeds and I only have about 40% gravity tolerances. All of which make the game more resource intensive in general.
Finding the right balance in how large portion of your population are dedicated to industry (factory production) is a tricky one.
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While there isn't yet a mechanic for dealing with MSP and fuel in a fully automated way. I really don't see the OP as an inssue for minerals.
Unless I am just really lucky in my game there isn't ever a problem, I just make use of things we already have, my logistics are laid out like this.
To start with Earth will be my only point of industry and the only place that needs minerals, when inside a system I make extensive use of mass drivers to shift things. They might not throw stuff around at fast speeds, but once the flow starts it just works perfectly and you can forget about it. As a mining operation starts to exceed the MD capacity you expand it to keep up, if this is done in a way where your MD capacity always slightly exceeds your mining then it will always balance out and keep 100% of minerals heading where they should be. As my empire grows beyond Earth to other Sol bodies I make a start on a MD network, for example I have colonised Mars and Titan with industrial capacity. First all MDs shoot for Titan, then Titan shoots to Mars, and Mars to Earth, this just expands and gets altered anytime I need minerals onto a new body. By using this combined with recourse limits on a planet I can control the minimum amount a colony needs to grow, and just alter the minimums whenever needed. This means that my freighters in Sol are only being used for shipping facilities around about 90% of the time, and I can forget about having to conduct mineral management orders. The exception to this is a small group of freighters kept in standby, these are used to ferry minerals to a new colony that might be in need of a kickstart to get up and running.
This approach applies to every single system in my empire so each system only ever has one final destination point where all excess minerals end up. To then shift this between systems in a simple repeat order of frieghters, pick up at point A and drop at point B, with a refuel order thrown in too. Once that starts you can again forget about doing anything for them for the most part, all they ever need is the occasional check to see if they are coping with the workload. If their capacity has been exceeded, then just build another frieghter and add it to that group.
Using this method my only real outlay costs are the mass drivers, but once they are established then you forget about them forever. over their lifespan I would argue they cost you less in minerals and definitely an exponential less amount of work to control than using freighters everywhere.
I'm not sure where an issue arises with a freighter not being able to load all minerals and then only loading them in order lies. That to me sounds like simple logistics, and is solved by just having two freighters. If the capacity of a transport is being outweighed by the output of a mine, then no matter what approach you take you will always have the same problem. The only solution is to increase your transport capacity, or reduce your mining output.