Guideline to industry expansion

[Whitecold (OP)]

Hello, I'd like to ask what is your guideline on expanding your industrial capacity as in what proportion do you invest in mines/factories and research labs?

[spoongoon]

I´m not very experienced so take this as a conversation opener.
I´d go at least 1. 5-2 mines per factory with about 50% of total production from the start, decreasing as you start to have enough for your immediate needs.  Automines are a must as soon as you have some initial mining capacity.
Maybe 20-30% of total bp for research labs.
It´s a marathon not a race so I have switching priorities depending on the situation.

[DuraniumCowboy]

I'll qualify my response and say I am kinda new, but here are some rules I have been using:

For your capital system:
1.  Convert all conventional industry first, if you are doing a conventional start
2.  After that, I try to fill out my local industry.  I would do something like 40% industry on mines and 40% on factories, and then slow down as you build it out.  Keep an eye on your duranium levels.  When I get to the point where my native duranium reserves will only last about 40 years, I slow down and go about 20/20% on mines and factories.
3.  I try to build enough refineries to keep my fuel reserves slightly expanding, but eventually most of my production will come from sorium harvestors, so I try to avoid building more refineries than I need.
4.  I go between 10-40% on RL's based on other project needs.
5.  Once I start running out of major minerals on the capital, I start converting large numbers of mines to automines and start really expanding my mineral imports.
6.  I buy all minerals from automines.
7.  Keep an eye on finances.  If you start running a deficit, that's when you need to start building some financial centers.  You can also shift to non-growth projects like PDC's or engine components to slow your expansion rate and give your economy time to catch up.  If you have a populated world with no minerals, crank out financial centers there.
8.  Don't forget to build out maintenance facilities, shipyards and spaceports.  Don't go too crazy on fighter and ordnance production early, but don't forget to build that out once your economy is humming.

For a new system:
1.  Send enough infrastructure (if needed to get it started) and then push some colonists.
2.  Send mines first (hopefully it has minerals).
3.  Send some construction brigades or factories.
4.  If you don't have vendarite, mercasium, duranium and tritanium, you will need some automines to get those to the new colony.
5.  Start building mines 50% and factories 50%.
6.  Keep an eye on available workers, if you don't have enough, shift to building infrastructure.
7.  Terraform as soon as you can, although concentrate on only a few (or one) project at once.  The growth you will get in your cost 0 colonies will eventually be a big economic boon.
8.  Don't forget to strip infrastructure from terraformed worlds to bootstrap colonization on your next set of colonies.

[Griswel]

I'm new also, but I have taken to using 100% on everything and varying the projects instead.  Early on (TN start) 10 Construction then 25 Mines (if Earth has good minerals, esp Duranium) or alternate 12/13 Automines (OCD FTW!).  When the minerals crunch inevitably threatens, using automines is much quicker since you can find comets with a handful of good accessability deposits equal to an entire year or more of your needs.  There's nothing like finding Duranium 1 Neutronium 1 Corundium 1 all in the same place, and a few others as bonus.  Terraforming and moving population is great, but since Infrastructure is 100% Duranium, in the short term it probably makes shortages worse.  Comets and maybe a moon or two can see you through a decade after earth starts dropping accessibility ratios.

Also, don't neglect Asteroid Mining ships.  Using them allows you move Automines to planets and moons (where the mining ships can't work), and mmining ships transport themselves from target to target.  All you do is move the Mass Drivers (and one automine to keep it near the top of the F2 list).  Yes, they're huge (I tend toward 90kt and fifteen-ish modules), but once you get the shipyard rolling them off, just keep adding slipways.  Pre-build the mining module with factories (Ship Components in the industry window, where you swap to fighters/ordnance) to speed up construction.  I love having 500-1000 mines that I can strip a comet with and move with a single order.  Careful what comet you pick, some can be a year out at lower speeds (500kps is normally fine, not for that), and a year back.  Be careful you're not mining a moon, some of the names may sound comet-like, but you'll get nothing at all.  Asteroids are fine.