'A Space Port in each system'

[Apheirox]

I have to say I still don't get it. In my current ongoing sandbox game with just a single docile opponent and pirates disabled, running a skeleton fleet only, I've gone with this 'space ports at every solar system' build (no ports for low quality planets, though). The effect? Total, economic disaster! The entire population is happy alright, but these darn ports are eating up a good 66% of my tax income.

Another issue the space port spam raises is research: You don't really need research stations when you have this many space ports with their built-in labs - I'm currently maxing my research and have zero research stations.

Makes no sense at all, sorry. An explanation is appreciated.

[Data]

two things to note here:

1. better to always design your stations and ships for best performance and, most importantly at this stage, lowest maintenance. Indeed, I never use labs on space ports as a well placed research station (at resource bonus location like black holes) can get the same research with less maintenance overall.

2. watch out for the prices on the resources that make the components of the stations / ships. The cost of these resources determines the maintenance cost, you want them as low as possible (1 is the minimum for strategic resources).
You can actually see all the resources and quantities that make up a design which is great for estimating the most money eating resource. Then make sure you have enough mining stations or planets that cover that resource and voila, instant lower maintenance costs.

[KenchiSulla]

Arent you hampered a lot if there is just one other empire out there? Your not trading with other races.. I think you would do better in a "normal" game.

[Abraxis]

Interesting, I never thought of that.
Does this mean you could also lower your maintenance rates by having excess resources (resource surplus = lower cost)?

[Data]

that's exactly what it means [;)]

[Abraxis]

Awesome, I never really saw a reason to actually try and hoard resources so long as I had enough to build things.  I guess this changes that.

[Data]

Just remember to keep an eye on the expansion planner, there you can see the current price for each resource....once the strategic ones hit 1 (and they do relatively fast if you have some constructors on auto) then you're good....no need for further hoarding [:)]
luxury ones are a different matter, they take much more time.....but they are not that much needed for the maintenance aspect, primarily for colony development

[Apheirox]

Data, thank you so much for your replies.

It sounds like to a great degree it's simply a matter of the fact that you cannot really have an efficient empire without custom designing your 'stuff' because the default designs simply aren't very good. I think this is a shame - you might as well not have automatic designs if you're required to create your own anyway to play properly. Moreover, having to build space ports everywhere still seems counter-intuitive to me since the AI doesn't do it, neither in the form of your AI advisor suggesting it (with that enabled) or the opponent AI empires constructing them at each system.

Now, I'd really like you to go back and address my other question from before:

You wrote:

don't think only of taxes, Apheirox, think also of war weariness and possible rebellion....there is also development that is boosted by these facilites; and development is in everything: growth rate, research potential and many other aspects

to which I replied:

I understand about the value of keeping happiness high to prevent rebellion etc, but what is this 'development' you speak of? Both the medical and recreation centres of space ports increase only happiness as far as I'm aware - and unless excess happiness (15+) increases growth rate I don't understand its merits. As far as I know the only way happiness increases growth is by attracting emigrants better.

As far as I can tell, growth rate is controlled by 1) planet quality and 2) development level. Are you saying happiness increases growth?

[Data]

no, indeed it doesn't....what you observed about "the only way happiness increases growth is by attracting emigrants better" is indeed correct
i went back to the pedia and clarified my misunderstanding

"Population growth
Small colonies have faster population growth: when a colony has less than 500 million people, then population growth receives a 50% bonus.
Migration of your citizens from large colonies to smaller ones is a major factor in achieving fast growth of new colonies. Citizens will be naturally attracted to nearby colonies with low taxes and good development levels. They will board passenger ships and migrate to those new colonies, boosting the population there.
Some areas of colonization research can also accelerate population growth at particular planet types.
Colony populations eventually reach a natural limit, at which point no further population growth will occur. This limit is determined by two factors:

· Quality of world: more hospitable worlds with higher quality allow for higher maximum population levels
· Size of world: larger worlds allow for higher maximum population levels
· Native planet type: if the type of the planet or moon is the native type for the race living there, then the maximum population is 10% higher"

There is more interesting stuff there but I didn't want to clutter the post. But indeed I think I got the wrong idea when reading about "Migration of your citizens from large colonies to smaller ones is a major factor in achieving fast growth of new colonies" -> you were correct.

[Data]

Forgot about the first part.
The AI default designs are not that bad and you can get by with them just fine. It's just that once you get to know how everything works you really want to squeeze the most out of them in ways even Elliot may have not considered initially; the forum and wishlist are full of requests on this, I'll not be surprised if a future patch or the next expansion brings us improved AI designs.

[Spacecadet]

I usually build a small spaceport at every planet (for multiple reasons) - eventually.

I don't build a spaceport until the planet is around 100M - 500M, depending on needs (exception being early game).
Remember, Population x Tax rate = Money.


Some reasons for building a Spaceport:

I've noticed that once your Empire starts to get pretty fair sized that resources don't seem to get picked at a planet level very often - this really hits on the Luxury side of things.

Spaceports are ship building centers.

Spaceports are refueling points.

Spaceports are Research centers.
I leave Labs in the design until I've completed the Tech tree, and then I do I redesign and rip them all out *(oddity observed) .

Spaceports augment defensive capabilities.

Spaceports provide Recon (Scanners).

Spaceports provide a means of introducing Medical and Recreation Happiness Bonuses.

For super rare, or even somewhat rare resources, I'll upgrade to a Medium Spaceport for added protection and dock throughput.



*(Oddity)
I've noticed that when I reduce the components/maintenance costs by removing Labs that my Cash Flow seems to drop after I replace the older versions - even though the new maintenance cost are lower.
Not sure if this is persistent or not, but it is note worthy.

[Apheirox]

There is more interesting stuff there but I didn't want to clutter the post. But indeed I think I got the wrong idea when reading about "Migration of your citizens from large colonies to smaller ones is a major factor in achieving fast growth of new colonies" -> you were correct.

If I'm correct and happiness doesn't speed up colony growth then I don't see why space ports should be built at every solar system. Which means we're back to the initial issue. Apparently, however, everybody IS indeed building them everywhere.
[&:]

[Apheirox]

Overlooked something in Shark's post, post #4:

1. The port gives the medical/recreation bonus to the planet, which should be affecting growth rate.
2. Planets with ports are far less likely to revolt.
3. Each port increases bonus income, which is the reason I can have 2+ million cash on hand by end game.

Are you sure?

If they do indeed increase growth, they are definitely worth it. However, I don't see how it is feasible to have them everywhere unless you're designing your own 'discount' stripped versions - the default ones are just way too expensive in maintenance.

[Tehlongone]

The only changes I make to the spacestation designs is take out the labs from the small one (and reduce defenses, to make it cheap), and make an additional stronger one meant for my homeworld.

I have to say, that in my experience as well as plain common sense: you should NOT initially build a spacestation in every single system. If you have a juicy homeworld, sure you can possibly afford it, especially in a small game or one with few colonizable worlds, but it doesn't make any sort of economic sense.

The stations should be built to form economic hotspots where the freighters go to dump the harvests from the low pop worlds, if there isn't a port nearby they'll fly to the closest one, which might take some time. Just take a look at the trade lines on the map, if they are too long, one makes another, or just allow the game to automatically make them with a certain spacing between.

The bonuses spaceports give are awesome for your economy, but ONLY if the planet in question actually generates income. New worlds generate roughly no income, there is some slight profit from trade taxes, but nothing near as much as maintenance. Besides if it is the bonuses you want, why not build them at every single colony instead of one per system?

Once a world reaches 500m I start to consider giving it a spaceport even if it isn't far away, but even then it's borderline economic waste.

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

There is more interesting stuff there but I didn't want to clutter the post. But indeed I think I got the wrong idea when reading about "Migration of your citizens from large colonies to smaller ones is a major factor in achieving fast growth of new colonies" -> you were correct.

If I'm correct and happiness doesn't speed up colony growth then I don't see why space ports should be built at every solar system. Which means we're back to the initial issue. Apparently, however, everybody IS indeed building them everywhere.
[&:]

Happiness does speed up colony growth.

The higher the Happiness, the higher the Population growth number will be.

If you are manually controlling your Tax rates you can experiment with this and see the results.
Take a high Pop planet that has 50% taxes and note the Happiness and the Growth rates.
Drop the tax rate for that planet to 40%, wait about a month, then recheck the Happiness and Growth rates.

The Happiness should show up almost immediately, but it takes a while to filter through to affect the Growth rate.

[Tehlongone]

If you are building them for population growth then there is no reason to limit yourself to one per system, why not one on every colony, the bonus only applies to the particular planet that has the station after all.

If you set tax rates to 0% for all your new colonies they will grow very fast, getting the bonus from space ports doesn't seem to make any difference, if there is a difference it is small.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

Overlooked something in Shark's post, post #4:

1. The port gives the medical/recreation bonus to the planet, which should be affecting growth rate.
2. Planets with ports are far less likely to revolt.
3. Each port increases bonus income, which is the reason I can have 2+ million cash on hand by end game.

Are you sure?

If they do indeed increase growth, they are definitely worth it. However, I don't see how it is feasible to have them everywhere unless you're designing your own 'discount' stripped versions - the default ones are just way too expensive in maintenance.

Makes the people happy, and happy people grow more quickly.

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone

If you are building them for population growth then there is no reason to limit yourself to one per system, why not one on every colony, the bonus only applies to the particular planet that has the station after all.

If you set tax rates to 0% for all your new colonies they will grow very fast, getting the bonus from space ports doesn't seem to make any difference, if there is a difference it is small.

I need to look in on a game, but I'm thinking there's more of an impact than you're thinking.

Early game I'll build a Spaceport at a planet that has a Luxury that I need.
I don't trust Mines to supply my needs (Pirates / aggressive AI).
This will actually put you up quite a few Spaceports.

As the game progresses I'll want to have three or more Luxuries of the same type secured via Spaceports.
Now I'm really loading up on Spaceports.

As mentioned in the reasons at the top, this isn't really a bad thing.

All these Spaceports are building not only my Ships, but the Private sector ships (way more than I build).
These ports aid in the flow of resources and keep your Private sector busy and generating income.

[Data]

this needs to be tested in game as currently there is no info to support the fact tha happiness affects growth rate
afaik, happiness = approval so the only effect it has is on the possibility of rebellion. I also assumed that happiness would affect pop growth but I have no evidence of that....aside from Spacecadet testing which sounds very reasonable indeed. I hope it does work like this; the fact that Shark also confirms is quite enough for me. [:)]

[sbach2o]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

I build a small space port on every planet, and larger ports on more important planets.

1. The port gives the medical/recreation bonus to the planet, which should be affecting growth rate.
2. Planets with ports are far less likely to revolt.
3. Each port increases bonus income, which is the reason I can have 2+ million cash on hand by end game.

This sums it up nicely.

ORIGINAL: Haree78

Has anyone cosidered when building a Large whether it is best to build a small then upgrade twice?

I typically wait for a colony to develop before I install a large space port. The need for a space port should arise much earlier when I, depending on the development potential of the colony and my economic status, will either start with a small or medium space port.

So most of my large ports come from upgrades. The ugly thing about this is that when upgrading to the next size class of space ports, the image of the installation often (but not always) doesn't adapt. So it goes...

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

New question: You say one of the reasons to build the space ports is the morale boosting. But isn't boosting morale a moot point on newly founded colonies with 15M citizens? They provide exactly 0,0000001% of your income. All that matters are your main colonies, particularly capital. So, it doesn't really help increase revenue nor increase growth rate, since these colonies are max happy anyway?

I am not 100% certain of this, but having a space port may also encourage propulation growth, either directly or indirectly. I had the impression that the happiness of the colonists also factors into the growth rate, although that may be not the case and it is only tax rate (or a combination of tax rate and culture rating) determining this.

An indirect influence may be that the raised happiness has at least the potential to attract more migrants. Or that the presence of a space port may (I am absolutely not sure here) attract the delivery of more luxury goods.

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

and unless excess happiness (15+) increases growth rate I don't understand its merits

This is indeed the crux of the matter. If happiness doesn't affect growth rate, it would actually be counter-productive under automatic taxation, as it gives the AI more room for higher taxes and these certainly stop growth.

ORIGINAL: data

don't think only of taxes, Apheirox, think also of war weariness and possible rebellion [...]

Yes, taxes should be zero on every developing colony, as long as you can sustain that (i.e. you really need the money). Or you do not want to manually set taxes.

Unfortunately the difference between taxation by the AI and 'correct', growth oriented taxation is extreme in this game. I regard the growth model and its relationship to taxation and the awareness of the AI about its implications as somewhere from 'severely flawed' to 'utterly broken' in this game.