Author Topic: Colony worth it?  (Read 1464 times)

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Offline linkxsc (OP)

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Colony worth it?
« on: October 10, 2014, 03:03:36 PM »
So in my ongoing quest for universal domination. Im starting to run into a bit of a dilemma.

So in most of the systems that I have a presence in, and no current enemies. Ive got automines here and there on asteroids, perhaps 8 planets total with population and regular mines. And here and there attached to asteroids that pass near jump points, ive got a bit of infrastructure and planetary tracking stations.

Now that works great and all, but what can I really do with the rest of the planets/asteroids. Most everything with worthwhile minerals if being automined, but there are dozens of planets around that dont have any minerals.... but theyre just there doing nothing. Is it worth it, to drop a few thousand infrastructure, send some colonists, stick a terraformer in orbit and just leave them to their own devices (civilians will generate more infrastructure down the line wont they?)

Like will this net me more wealth via more trade routes, or should I just not bother?
 

Offline Erik L

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Re: Colony worth it?
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2014, 04:08:30 PM »
The only time I colonize 0 mineral worlds (or low mineral) is if they are cost 0.0 - 0.9, the body is in an important position (choke point system, system before a large nexus), or I need a depot.

Offline Haji

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Re: Colony worth it?
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2014, 04:21:37 PM »
(civilians will generate more infrastructure down the line wont they?)

It really depends on where you are with your game. If you have only a single planet with reasonable population (your homeworld) then you can colonize a planet and leave it, assuming you have sufficiently large civilian line. In such a scenario your colony can grow to ridiculous size without any effort on your part, all the while generating free infrastructure and wealth.
The problem is that if you have two or more well developed planets, that are close together your shipping lines will just move goods between them and will not support new colonies. As such, unless you are roleplaying, colonization of planets occurs because of one of the following reasons:

1. Mining (or other similar reason, like alien ruins or anomalies).
2. Wealth generation issues. Smaller colonies have larger population growth (in terms of percentages) so numerous small colonies mean the fastest population growth which means the fastest growth of wealth from taxation.
3. Positioning (the colony basically becomes a military base).
4. If you're left with spare terraformers you may as well use them on a random planet which you can later colonize.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Colony worth it?
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2014, 06:25:54 PM »
I usually change the gravitational tolerance to just 0.4 in my games so any world colonizable with a decently low cost is viable to spread my population to bring in more wealth, build more factories, house more laboratories, yards etc...

If you expand your economy in a smart way you will always end up with either a wealth or population issue sooner or later.
 

Offline linkxsc (OP)

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Re: Colony worth it?
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2014, 08:54:10 PM »
So is there an upper limit to the amount of population a planet can support?

Laptop game has earth scraping up into the 2.5bil range. And at home I had a game started with 10 bil pop that made it to 15 before I left
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Colony worth it?
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2014, 03:06:20 AM »
So is there an upper limit to the amount of population a planet can support?

Laptop game has earth scraping up into the 2.5bil range. And at home I had a game started with 10 bil pop that made it to 15 before I left

There are no upper limit but the increase in percent will decrease the more population that you have on a planet so your overall population will grew faster if they are spread out over many planets.