Early game private sector - is this normal?

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Early game private sector - is this normal?

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Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 3:33:12 PM

Andy06r

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Joined: 6/7/2014
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In my experience, any game I play as that is not ugnari/teekun merchant guild results in a private sector 200k in the hole. I do not alter my prewarp play style based on my race, and I'm looking for tips on how to makes republic start work on a race without +Income.

0) Auto tax, typically works out to 30-50% depending on race.
1) 3 constructors. Grab a casion, helium, +% lab, good barren moon, and the continental
2) Retrofit
2a) All civilian ships get 1 shield and collector, all civilian bases get 4 shield and armor.
2b) Retrofit constructors to warp bubbles and repair the destroyer and fill in the mines while I explore

It seems like a routine opener, but once hyperdrive hits they go -200k in the hole buying freighters.

Is this normal? I feel like it shouldn't be.

< Message edited by Andy06r -- 6/10/2014 4:35:10 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 5:41:45 PM

Unforeseen

Posts: 608
Joined: 3/26/2013
From: United States of Disease
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Well the private sector in real life would probably be scrambling with the 'get there first' notion. Since their is a private sector we have to assume that it is a capitalistic economy with various companies competing with one another. It is to be expected that they invest massive amounts of money into beating the other companies to the punch by building alot of freighters and mining ships.

< Message edited by Unforeseen -- 6/10/2014 6:42:16 PM >

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 5:57:34 PM

Lucian

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Joined: 12/1/2012
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No matter which race I play, the private sector is always rolling in cash. I've never even seen them come close to running out of money.

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 6:01:07 PM

Unforeseen

Posts: 608
Joined: 3/26/2013
From: United States of Disease
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucian

No matter which race I play, the private sector is always rolling in cash. I've never even seen them come close to running out of money.

On Prewarp?

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 6:19:35 PM

Futarchy

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Joined: 6/10/2014
Status: offline

I'm still new to the game so I might be wrong, but I think the problem is with your tax rate. 30-50% at the start of a game seems very high. Money that goes into taxes comes from the private sector, so if taxed highly the private sector doesn't have the chance to stockpile cash during the pre-warp years. Also, high tax rates will reduce your population growth, which also negatively affects the private sector. For my starts, I tax at 0% and only raise it when I need some cash for some specific purpose. Haven't seen the private sector run out of cash so far.

(in reply to Andy06r)

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 6:33:39 PM

Andy06r

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Joined: 6/7/2014
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Futarchy

I'm still new to the game so I might be wrong, but I think the problem is with your tax rate. 30-50% at the start of a game seems very high. Money that goes into taxes comes from the private sector, so if taxed highly the private sector doesn't have the chance to stockpile cash during the pre-warp years. Also, high tax rates will reduce your population growth, which also negatively affects the private sector. For my starts, I tax at 0% and only raise it when I need some cash for some specific purpose. Haven't seen the private sector run out of cash so far.

I'm using auto taxes and auto policy since it isn't clear to me that excessive happiness or low taxes does anything. Auto taxes just tries to maximize income subject to a 50% cap.

If low tax remains the optimal style in 0.52, then the AI isn't capable of pursuing it and I'm not interested in taking that advantage. If I'm at -200k private sector, I wonder what the AI is?

(in reply to Futarchy)

Post #: 6

RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/10/2014 8:10:38 PM

NewZodiac

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Joined: 5/26/2014
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucian

No matter which race I play, the private sector is always rolling in cash. I've never even seen them come close to running out of money.

Same here. Always near the end of my games, I take a peek at the private sectors income. It's over a billion xP.

< Message edited by NewZodiac -- 6/10/2014 9:11:29 PM >

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/11/2014 12:23:57 AM

Aeson

Posts: 784
Joined: 8/30/2013
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It is not particularly abnormal for the private sector to go broke in the early game, particularly if you've recently significantly increased the number of colonies you control or if your merchant marine (well, it's space equivalent) is suffering heavy losses from pirates. This is because the private sector has a tendency to buy ships in bulk when you gain colonies and will usually buy replacement freighters when pirates capture or destroy your existing freighters.

The private sector's biggest source of income is colony GDP, but you're taking a cut of that in taxes so high tax rates on the high-GDP planets can significantly cut your private sector cashflow. Another thing which can take a bite out of the private sector's cashflow is overbuilding mining stations and gas mining stations, as the private sector pays the upkeep on these structures.

Regardless, as long as the private sector has a positive cashflow, its cash on hand will eventually become positive, assuming the situation regarding expansion and piracy stabilizes. The length of time this takes will vary depending on how heavily taxed your worlds are, how many ships and stations the private sector is maintaining, and how much money the private sector has to spend to replace freighters lost to pirates, space critters, and hostile empires.

You should also be aware that hyperdrives are a fairly expensive component, and the private sector will typically have more ships than are perhaps strictly necessary in the very early stages of the game prior to acquiring warp bubble generators, and once you obtain the warp bubble generators the private sector may attempt to retrofit all those freighters and mining ships as quickly as it can, which as you might imagine can be a rather expensive process. Since at this point in the game your private sector's income base is fairly small and may be somewhat heavily taxed to try to keep the state's books balanced (especially if the state is paying off pirates), the private sector can have some issues paying for all this. Plus, having all those retrofit orders which try to add the same components drives up the demand for a bunch of resources you probably don't have sources for, so the price of those resources can jump between the time when the computer orders the retrofit and the time when the retrofit gets paid for. The computer will look at its current money situation to decide whether or not it can afford to order a retrofit, but does not appear to reevaluate its money situation at the time that the retrofit takes place, and so the bill it expected to pay when it orders a ship to retrofit isn't the same bill it pays when the retrofit is undertaken. You can see the same thing happen with state ships - you cannot order a retrofit that you can't currently pay for, but if you have the money for the current retrofit cost you can order it, but the ship's orders will not be changed if a price fluctuation makes the retrofit more expensive or if some other bill comes due that reduces your cash on hand below what is necessary for the retrofit, and in this case the state cash on hand becomes negative.

(in reply to NewZodiac)

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/11/2014 7:18:52 AM

Bingeling

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Joined: 8/12/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy06r

quote:

ORIGINAL: Futarchy

I'm still new to the game so I might be wrong, but I think the problem is with your tax rate. 30-50% at the start of a game seems very high. Money that goes into taxes comes from the private sector, so if taxed highly the private sector doesn't have the chance to stockpile cash during the pre-warp years. Also, high tax rates will reduce your population growth, which also negatively affects the private sector. For my starts, I tax at 0% and only raise it when I need some cash for some specific purpose. Haven't seen the private sector run out of cash so far.

I'm using auto taxes and auto policy since it isn't clear to me that excessive happiness or low taxes does anything. Auto taxes just tries to maximize income subject to a 50% cap.

If low tax remains the optimal style in 0.52, then the AI isn't capable of pursuing it and I'm not interested in taking that advantage. If I'm at -200k private sector, I wonder what the AI is?

What is the maintenance cost of your civilian ships and mining bases compared to the ones that the AI designs? If in addition more mines trigger more civilian ships, you 3 eager constructors could help in running the civilians broke from maintenance.

Possibly using a ton of resources early could drive the resource price and the maintenance cost up too.

I have seen the civilians broke in preWarp, but I can not remember when, possibly in shadows beta. More like "can't build that mine right now" kind of broke compared to utterly lost kind of broke, though. When I have seen the civilian economy really screwed, it has been in much later game after losing some really good colonies in war.

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RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/11/2014 8:06:42 AM

Kantay

Posts: 33
Joined: 5/30/2014
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy06r

In my experience, any game I play as that is not ugnari/teekun merchant guild results in a private sector 200k in the hole. I do not alter my prewarp play style based on my race, and I'm looking for tips on how to makes republic start work on a race without +Income.

0) Auto tax, typically works out to 30-50% depending on race.
1) 3 constructors. Grab a casion, helium, +% lab, good barren moon, and the continental
2) Retrofit
2a) All civilian ships get 1 shield and collector, all civilian bases get 4 shield and armor.
2b) Retrofit constructors to warp bubbles and repair the destroyer and fill in the mines while I explore

It seems like a routine opener, but once hyperdrive hits they go -200k in the hole buying freighters.

Is this normal? I feel like it shouldn't be.

0) This will not help you. At the start, you really don't need that much money, while your private sector does. Really try going with 0% tax at start until you really need the money (you get plenty of it back from private when they build ships)
1) 3 constructors are a bit too much at start (for you). Build one, grab a caslon gas giant and immediately scrap the constructor. Most other things can be easily mined using mining ships at the start. Only build constructors once you get at least the basic warp tech
2a+b) this is useless and drains the private economy. I am sure that you will notice most of the time when one of your private ships/bases gets attacked, there is nothing you can do for it, it dies. So forget shields, forget armor. But putting 1 colector on everything is great, keep doing that, it saves a ton of fuel in the long run.

Last thing is, don't overdo it with mines at start. Your priority should be the strategic resources, and except for steel, gold and caslon (unless you are quameno), you should be fine with 1 of each, preferably close to your homeworld. Grab some luxury resources if they have high yield, but that's not that important at start with 1 colony.

(in reply to Andy06r)

Post #: 10

RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/11/2014 6:58:25 PM

Fleshbits

Posts: 140
Joined: 5/29/2014
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I disagree with the 0 tax guys, especially after the last update.

I'd tax 5-10% and slowly climb until the "taxes are too high" text appears. As long as that is green it doesn't seem to affect pop growth as much as it used to. They def nerfed the growth bonus from low taxes.
Keep an eye on private sector money. If they get low, cut them a tax break.

Sure you need money. Crash research gets you that lead that can snowball you to eating planet's faces.

(in reply to Kantay)

Post #: 11

RE: Early game private sector - is this normal? - 6/12/2014 9:03:11 AM

Kantay

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Joined: 5/30/2014
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You can't get enough money early game to crash research the big important projects (hyperdrive, colonization), so there is really no reason to tax your HW unless you need the money for something else. You will get plenty from private sector, that should be enough to last you for a few years. Then you can start taxing really hard to support your exploration fleet, your troop invasion fleet and a few constructors.

(in reply to Fleshbits)

Post #: 12