Growing the civilian economy

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

So I just had a game with a huge duranium crunch, and I was rescued by the civilian economy, so some tips:

The shipping lines seem to require that you have a nuclear thermal commercial engine developed, as well as a colony with infrastructure on it before they build a colony ship.  And they build more if the ships they have are in use.

So once you see them build a freighter, make sure you have contracts for it.

But be sure to take breaks in those contracts so those freighters will ship you wealth and infrastructure on their own.

It seems to take about 2-3,000 infrastructure on Luna (with pop to match) before the computer really starts shipping your civilian produced infrastructure.  As I had a major duranium crunch coming up, getting the civilians starting producing infrastructure was essential to my plans.

I used a small colony ship with LOTS of cargo handling to ship colonists back to Earth, so that Luna would not become overpopulated, and worse, so the civilian cargo ships would not go idle, as I needed the wealth flowing to get them to build more and more ships.

One of the quirks of computer colony ship and freighter design is their lack of cargo handling systems.  So I would really like to know if their loading times are affected by Spaceports.  If so, you can greatly increase the return on the Earth Luna runs, and to a lesser extent the Earth-Mars runs by building Spaceports.  It is fairly simple to build a Spaceport on the moon, even though you can't ship them direct.  Just build a small freighter with a lot of cargo handling systems and shuttle factories to the moon, + the materials for it, and then ship the construction factories back when done.  Two spaceports on earth and two on the moon and you almost triple the income you will get from shipping colonists.

And once the moon is over 25 million, you can make money periodically reversing whether the Earth is the source or destination of the colonists.

16 years in to a slightly boosted conventional start (800 million pop, 9 research facilities, 3 naval academies) I have 29 civilian mining facilities.  Earth has been 6 years from running out of minerals for a couple of years now, as I frantically convert mines to automated and ship them out with the civilians.  I wouldn't have been able to afford duranium for the ships needed to ship all my mines out and build the mines.  It was touch and go as duranium fell below 2,000 a couple of times, and i had to shut down shipyard expansion and shift production to converting mines, but now my economy is back on track, all thanks to my early efforts to boost the civilian economy.  +20% research boost to the civilian economy and +wealth leaders and the Sector Command bonus helped too.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

Also, one of the best times to subsidize your shipping lines is right after you develop a new engine for them to employ.

I am of the belief that it is better to build a bunch of cheap small freighters for collecting minerals rather than getting a mass driver on each civilian mining colony.  The upfront cost of a small freighter is under 150, and unless the flight time is many months, it can do several round trips a year.  The mass driver can only handle 5,000 units a year, and each trip can handle 2,500.  Certainly as you get better drives, the low upfront cost of the packet freighter is a better deal than the mass driver.  I suppose the fuel issue is a concern, as the freighters do use up a bit of it.

But I have 7 mining colonies, and 3 freighters are keeping up with the minerals.  I suppose that for the mining colonies that are furthest away it makes sense.

[davidb86]

The civilian mining complexes have their own mass driver built in. You only have to build a mass driver for your own auto mine colonies

[Drgong]

The civilian mining complexes have their own mass driver built in. You only have to build a mass driver for your own auto mine colonies

Yep, for smaller automine sites of my own, I just let them build up a large amount of material, then rotate a mass driver between them to send the material home.

I generally only use cargo ships to ship material from one system to another, and I try to be as fuel efficient as possible. 

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

The civilian mining complexes have their own mass driver built in. You only have to build a mass driver for your own auto mine colonies

Well I feel like an idiot now.

So that also explains why civilian mining centers do not get built until you have a mass driver on your homeworld to CATCH the packets.  Important tip if you were wondering why no civilian mining facilities were being generated!

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

I have to say, managing the civilian economy is worth it.  Running around 20 years into a conventional start with something like 3 times my population income from taxing shipping.  I had 75 mines in transit at one time.  Not needing to pay for infrastructure after the first 3000 I built?  Worth the savings in duranium, definitely.

I think the civilian economy invented more duranium than existed on my home planet.  I get the giggles looking at the share price.  Yeah, there was some government subsidies, but it is still a hundred fold return a little more than a decade after the invention of the Nuclear Thermal drive.