120k income loss each turn, help!

[adecoy95]

i dont know what to do!!!

[WoodMan]

Wow!  That's not looking healthy dude. 

Okay I don't know the best way to solve your problem, but the last Empire I had that size was my Securans under the last patch and they were swimming in cash, when I compare with yours here are the main differences:

You have 28 Exploration Ships!!!! The most I have ever had is 5.  Cutting down to 5 Exploration ships should reduce your maintenence on them from 16k to about 3k.

Your spaceport income is dwarfed by the maintenance costs of your Spaceports.  Spaceport income seems to increase when your Empire is growing and decrease sometimes even back to 0 when your Empire is stagnant, no matter what the size of the Empire.  Personally I never give anything larger than a small spaceport to a colony with a population of less than 100M.  I *think* if those Medium Spaceports were all Small size you would save about 70k on maintenance.

So on cutting Exploration Ships and using small spaceports you would have saved about 83k of the needed 110k.

About the Construction ships, you have slightly more than I would have (I'd probably have 4) but 6 shouldn't be a problem, I wouldn't build anymore though.

Finally your military.  Check in the Diplomacy screen and take a look at your rivals military strength, yours is over 11000 which is very high.  If your nearest rival has something like 5000 or 6000 you know you can afford to cut back a bit.  You have really inbalanced military with all those Cruisers and viurtually no other ships.  Cruiser is very expensive and you now have super military power but hardly any ships, you have more planets than military ships in your Empire [:D]  As a rule of thumb I build 1 escort for every mining base my Empire owns, and 1 frigate for every contruction slot in my Empires (e.g. 2 for every small spaceport, 4 for every medium etc) and on top of that build as many Destroyers as I need to fight my enemies without killing the economy (build them gradually not at once, so you can know when to stop).  Throw in a few Cruisers here and there, but I think an entire military of cruisers is not very ifficient economy wise.

I hope this helps, good luck dude.

[Vanguard_DW]

I must admit I've never got that far into a game, but it looks too me like to many medium spaceports, near enough one for every colony, are you using the standard Ai design?

Basically I have four spaceport designs, first very basic stripped down (1 shipyard, 4 docking bays, couple of shields) for early starter colonys,
second (Standard issue to most worlds not important/rich enough) has 3yards, 8 bays, few shields and guns iirc.
Also all of these spaceports have their cargo bays reduced to 1 as it uses the planets cargo space so it doesn't need lots of its own (not 100% on this but someone mentioned it and it seems to bear up), removed labs, that sort of thing.

I picked up most if not all of these tips in the war room sub-forum, I'd recommend a visit[:)]

Also your resort income seems quite low.

Edit: Or just do what Woodman said[:)]

[WoodMan]

I should mention that I only use default ship and bases designs, its a preference I have because I don't want an unfair advantage over the AI, but you could probably save cash like Vanguard says by having custom designs, but I cant help with that because I don't know much about that part of the game [:D]

One other important thing to keep in mind is that only high population planets give an economic boost to your Empire.  1 high population planet would do more than all the planets shown in your screenshot put together.  To make your populations grow you need luxury resources provided to them all, with so many colonies you probably would need an abosulute ton of luxury resources to keep them growing at a decent speed.  So keep an eye out for luxury resources and build mining platforms at them, then the private sector will build the frieghters needed to transport the stuff increasing your spaceport income. 

The C column on your planet screen shows Culture which I believe is the same as develpment (can anyone confirm this?) by increasing the amount of luxury goods you will slowly increase that number, the higher that number, the more population and eventually cahs you will get from the planet.

[Starfry]

The main drain on your economy are the space ports; they are costing you 148K per month and you don't have the tax revenue or the trade route set up to supoort them. Start shutting down all the medium space ports over low population planets and allow your popuation to grow so the tax revenue goes up and demand for materials increases.

[adecoy95]

yes i was building the medium space ports that the game designs, are they bad?

i made more money in this game from exploration ships than anything else, i sold maps to the whole universe and made over 500,000 credits, i used half of it to build medium star bases (since they are the only ones with weapons). i assumed that the medium star bases would earn their money back through space port income, i guess i was mistaken.

i actually build the small crusier fleet (it was only around 10 crusiers i think) to try and take my neighbors worlds to get a quick boost to income, but unfortunatly they only had like 120 fuel, so their trips took forever.

i scuttled all my medium starbases and that brought me back into the positive (around 20K) but it still keeps going up and down, so i made a new game.

its ironic that in this new game i have only a capital and i make more money with my starbase income than my entire empire did this game.

also, do i have to have a space port at all at a world for it to develop?

[MuthaF]

as others suggested: you really need to cut down on your maintenance;meaning you need to rebuild medium spaceports to small and/or remove most of them completly, and replace most of your cruisers with escort/frigate/destroyer mix. Also get rid of most exploration ships, if you feel like you almost done with exploring, then leave just a couple.

I basically leave all escorts/frigates/destroyers on AI control(AI is then pretty effective at keeping peace in your space), while using cruisers/capitals as attack/specialis fleets.
Also, although I use AI designs for balancing reasons, i always remove research labs from spaceports
IMPORTANT:
I think no one has mentioned this before:
You have TOO MANY spaceports!!!
35 colonies
23 systems
and you have 33 spaceports!
at least one third of it is completly useless!
your MAXIMUM spaceport number shouldnt be bigger then your colonized SYSTEM NUMBER, preferably smaller in system:spaceport ratio of 2:1 or more...
- spaceports not in systems/at planets are mostly useless
- more than one spaceports in system is completly useless (well, practically)
- you dont need to have many spaceports that are working at low capacity, its better to have less of them working full-time (so that income>expenses)

+to your last post:
"yes i was building the medium space ports that the game designs, are they bad? "
- no they are not, but on small colonies small spaceports is more then enough, basically build spaceports at selected systems as HUBS, not in every system

"i made more money in this game from exploration ships than anything else, i sold maps to the whole universe and made over 500,000 credits"
- yes, lots of explorations ships is basis for successful game, though i NEVER sell my maps not good to help my opponents in expansion IMHO

"also, do i have to have a space port at all at a world for it to develop?"
- no. Bud facilities on it give something like 15% development bonus in early game - i prefer to have less spaceports as more luxuries are offseting quite nice any lack of port at small colony - without the maintenance costs


 

[Vanguard_DW]

Now I think about it I wonder if you miss out on spaceport income from not having any and just using the planets own two docking bays?

As I said earlier I'll make a small design for most planets as I think each planet deserves some sort of port, also they can build the occasional freighter for themselves, and the extra docking bays helps reduce ships queuing for a berth if you rely on just the planets.

Forgot to mention but MuthaF reminded me, you get a happiness bonus from having a recreation and medical facility in orbit, whilst they do appear on a starport you can get the same effect for cheaper, just design a Starbase, add all the basics it requires (reactor etc) and add rec/med facilities, with starting techs it's less than 1K maintenance. Build it at any newly colonised planet and you get a very cheap bonus that I believe also helps pop growth.

[Webbco]

Is your tax rate 1% for all colonies? You can bump this up quite a lot for your more well-developed planets.

[MuthaF]

(Al)Most certianly not: in the screenshot you see only fresh colonies with basic 10M load of inhabitants - and A.I. tax collection sets 1 % at these so he is almost certainly running tax on A.I. as almost everyone does

if im in error here, kudos to your deductive reasoning

[Vanguard_DW]

Basically reiterating what's been said but,

After looking at your screenies, I see you have a total pop of 17.5 billion, your cap planet has 11 billion and is supplying 70% of your GDP, meaning there's 6.5 billion people spread amongst 34 planets supplying not much [:)].
As you can see from your second pic low pop worlds generate little income, high pop colonies generate most of your money, and it's colony tax I try to live off, resort income and spaceport income (which jumps and can look unnaturally high due to the private sector buying ships) I save for a rainy day.

Also note I've not got too far into any game, just testing things out, so I may be a bit wrong [;)]

[lordxorn]

As Woodman has touched on, it bears further emphasis.

Your main problem is not your maintenance cost. I am going to guess that you were fine with all those maintenance cost then all of a sudden big negative.

Your problem is your culture which is too low especially on your largest colony. You need to find more luxury resources, preferably of 10 different types.

People's biggest problem is that they expand too much, then your current supply network of luxury resources are not enough to keep your new colonies culture high enough.

I focus 100% on locating new luxury resources, then once I have expanded net to other civs, I will try and bargain with those that have luxuries I don't have. This is indicated on the diplomatic screen, where it says "So and So has x Luxury resource and they will not trade with you".

[Spacecadet]

A few notes on what's shown.

1.) What version are you playing?
There was one version where the Economy was very rough.

2.) Way too many Space Ports as has been mentioned, and way too big (Mediums).

3.) FWIW, I usually don't even build a Small Port until the planet pop is around 500M+ unless there's a somewhat rare resource I need.

4.) Too many Explorers - you should have a third to half of what you have.

5.) What do your Resources look like?
It actually looks like you Mine count is low to me, so I would suspect you may not be getting enough of certain resources to get you Economy humming.

6.) You're playing as Zenox it appears, but you're only colonizing Desert planets?
Yeah, with only Desert planets showing up on your screen I'm thinking you're short on some resources.

7.) You need more Escort ships and not as many Big Boys early on.
I seem to get the impression that Freighters don't travel as much without an Escort - it might be something else though.

8.) You've been bad (Evil), so you're probably having to pay more than usual to keep your Colonies from rebelling.
Try to take out some Pirate bases and play nice for a while.

 

[Shark7]

As I learned, a resource shortage can really kill your economy due to driving maintainence costs through the roof. You need to figure out which basic building resources are the ones you are lacking and get more of them if possible. You'll also have to downsize your navy in the short term.

If it is a luxury resource problem (as yours appears to be) the only fix is findnig the resources you need and mining them.

[Wenla]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

The C column on your planet screen shows Culture which I believe is the same as develpment (can anyone confirm this?)

Yes.

[adecoy95]

i appreciate all the suggestions sofar, i will try to use them in the new game i have started [:)]

also, i had 10 different luxury resources, did i not have enough of each to support all the worlds?

ORIGINAL: Spacecadet

A few notes on what's shown.

1.) What version are you playing?
There was one version where the Economy was very rough.

2.) Way too many Space Ports as has been mentioned, and way too big (Mediums).

3.) FWIW, I usually don't even build a Small Port until the planet pop is around 500M+ unless there's a somewhat rare resource I need.

4.) Too many Explorers - you should have a third to half of what you have.

5.) What do your Resources look like?
It actually looks like you Mine count is low to me, so I would suspect you may not be getting enough of certain resources to get you Economy humming.

6.) You're playing as Zenox it appears, but you're only colonizing Desert planets?
Yeah, with only Desert planets showing up on your screen I'm thinking you're short on some resources.

7.) You need more Escort ships and not as many Big Boys early on.
I seem to get the impression that Freighters don't travel as much without an Escort - it might be something else though.

8.) You've been bad (Evil), so you're probably having to pay more than usual to keep your Colonies from rebelling.
Try to take out some Pirate bases and play nice for a while.

evil? i took some of my neighbors worlds late game, but i got most of my evil from invading neutral colonies.

i will post a save game if you want to poke at it, i have almost everything off manual, but i still tend to put my ships in to auto when i want to

i have it set so the ai recommends ships to build. most of the time i honestly dont care less about what the civilian ships are doing since i dont get any of their money, so i just let the ai recommend some escorts now and then to build, but they dont recommend them often

http://www.filefront.com/16930615/must% ... 0debth.dwg

here is the save

[adecoy95]

double post....

[Canute0]

1 big income tip i didn't read yet:
Build Resort station !!! Resort create nice income.

Another hint to improve your private sector, give all your private ships more sublight engines for more speed, and remove weapons from them. More speed for freighters means shorter travel and docking time, bigger surviving chance on combat situations.