When should you stop building mining stations? (Full Version)

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UnfriendlyBG -> When should you stop building mining stations? (1/13/2015 3:49:47 PM)

I've read that having too many mining stations is bad for your economy. I don't really understand that because you don't pay for them but I have no handle on the economic side of the game so I just take it at face value. Ive been playing with manual construction ships lately and just building mines that I need. When theres no more locations under 'empire resources needed' or whatever the category is in the expansion planner what do you do?

I'll look and see if theres a resource that seems to be unfullfilled and see if I can find it from the galaxys needs section and build that. I'll pretty much always build on any caslon in any of my systems. I'll build some of the things listed by galaxy priority at the top that are in my system.

But when do you stop building mines? Do you just build them forever? I don't really get mining in general as you can't even do it consistently from the expansion planner, like if you wanna mine a specific resource it might not be in there so its a pain in the ass to deal with. For galaxy's needs it usually will tell me to build things like steel. Do I REALLY need more steel when its priced low and my needs are met?

Basically when do I stop building mining stations, and prior to that what sort of resources should I be going after once the list for empire priorities is empty? Thanks.



Bebop Cola -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 1:05:24 AM)

While the player controls how many mining stations are built, maintenance for the stations are paid for by the Civilian side of the economy.

I'm no expert on the economics of the game, but here is how I understand it:
The civilian economy get its revenue from "economic activity" on your colonies This economic activity is somewhat abstract, but is related to the population of your colonies. From this revenue are subtracted taxes at those colonies, maintenance costs for the civilian fleet and mining stations, and the cost of fuel purchased by that civilian fleet. Any surplus goes to building a balance for the civilian economy, similar to your balance as the state economy, and from this balance are purchased new civilian ships as needed.

What this means is that you can build as many mining stations as you like, but too many can strangle the civilian economy due to rising maintenance costs. Additionally, building more mining stations tends to promote the purchase of more civilian ships, which also incurs additional expenditures for both maintenance and fuel on the part of the civilian economy. As the civilian economy runs out of money, you might see mass scrapping of civilian ships, and certainly no additional construction of new ones. The civilian economy can't scrap mining stations, however, so it's stuck paying for them even if it can't afford anything else.

When one should stop building mining stations is somewhat subjective and depends on how many colonies one has and how large those colonies are, and how many ships they and their civilian economy are building. Basically, how many raw materials they need. And, of course, more mines means more mines to defend, or more expensive mines that can defend themselves.

It's all a balance. Personally, I try to build as few as possible. It keeps my costs down and I like to think having some scarcity promotes more robust trade with other empires. Then again, it sucks to run low on a given resource when in a pinch. I try to maintain at least one supply of the most important strategic resources but rarely concern myself overly much with luxury resources. I figure the AI can mine those and I'll trade for them.



Acheron7 -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 1:38:10 AM)

I build one or two stations per strategic resource only. ie I will only have one or two stations that mine steel. Fuel resources are the only exception to this, I try to have one fuel station close to every colony and at strategic locations throughout the galaxy if I have to move fleets.

I build on every luxury resource that I can.

My stations are designed with several extractors, a large cargo hold and armed to the teeth, taking advantage of every point of size limitation.

In large maps where luxury stations will far outnumber strategic resource stations, I will design luxury extraction variants.

In no way is this the only, the best, or even a good mining station strategy. This is what I do.



Kayoz -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 2:50:01 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Acheron7
In large maps where luxury stations will far outnumber strategic resource stations, I will design luxury extraction variants.


I tried this, but when they introduced auto-upgrading for mining stations , it made keeping multiple variants rather awkward. Good idea, bad implementation, imo.



UnfriendlyBG -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 9:42:26 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bebop Cola

While the player controls how many mining stations are built, maintenance for the stations are paid for by the Civilian side of the economy.

I'm no expert on the economics of the game, but here is how I understand it:
The civilian economy get its revenue from "economic activity" on your colonies This economic activity is somewhat abstract, but is related to the population of your colonies. From this revenue are subtracted taxes at those colonies, maintenance costs for the civilian fleet and mining stations, and the cost of fuel purchased by that civilian fleet. Any surplus goes to building a balance for the civilian economy, similar to your balance as the state economy, and from this balance are purchased new civilian ships as needed.

What this means is that you can build as many mining stations as you like, but too many can strangle the civilian economy due to rising maintenance costs. Additionally, building more mining stations tends to promote the purchase of more civilian ships, which also incurs additional expenditures for both maintenance and fuel on the part of the civilian economy. As the civilian economy runs out of money, you might see mass scrapping of civilian ships, and certainly no additional construction of new ones. The civilian economy can't scrap mining stations, however, so it's stuck paying for them even if it can't afford anything else.

When one should stop building mining stations is somewhat subjective and depends on how many colonies one has and how large those colonies are, and how many ships they and their civilian economy are building. Basically, how many raw materials they need. And, of course, more mines means more mines to defend, or more expensive mines that can defend themselves.

It's all a balance. Personally, I try to build as few as possible. It keeps my costs down and I like to think having some scarcity promotes more robust trade with other empires. Then again, it sucks to run low on a given resource when in a pinch. I try to maintain at least one supply of the most important strategic resources but rarely concern myself overly much with luxury resources. I figure the AI can mine those and I'll trade for them.


Well what if my private sector is swimming in cash? Any reason to not just set the construction ships on auto at that point? You don't have to defend the mines if you have 5 of them instead of 1 of them also...



Icemania -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 10:52:10 AM)

Before you put them on Auto consider that Construction ships have other purposes other than building mining stations. They can be used to repair derelict ships, which can either be retired for technology or used. I also use them to build defensive bases at new colonies as they are built much faster as compared to being built by the colony itself. I tend to build a lot of construction ships (20-30 by mid-game) so before putting them on Auto, it's worth reducing the number of ships, otherwise they can crash a private sector that was once swimming in cash. Learnt that the hard way...




UnfriendlyBG -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/14/2015 3:01:22 PM)

Ok thanks. I'm only rolling with like 5 constuction ships on a default map and I have all the story events turned off so theres no need to repair large fields of ships or anything and I can still queue them to repair my ships etc it's probably safe to turn them on auto. 20-30 construction ships wow. I dont even see how you do that, I was using like 3 and met all my empires needs easily (on default size). Building defenses is interesting but the more I play the more worthless the defenses seem to be, unless I want to make bases with 10k upkeep all they can really do is fend off 3 to 4 ships. well at that point I might as well just have troops stationed there anyway as a defense doesnt prevent them from landing troops anyway so Ill probably have to keep the troops even if I had defenses. I covered my colonies with starbases and all it took was 1 fleet to go through and kill essentially all of them. They had faster warp then me and just ravaged my systems. My bases which I thought were strong could maybe kill 1 ship out of the fleet before they moved on to the next one. I finally put long range sensors on them all though and that was awesome though. I had no idea that they showed u the vector the enemies were on, that makes them a lot more useful than I thought. No more whackamole nonsense, it was just that the enemy researched faster warpdrives when I had the regular enhanced ones so I couldnt catch them anyway as they ravaged my territory....



Icemania -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/15/2015 8:53:25 AM)

Story events and playing style certainly make a big difference to how many Construction ships you'll need.

If you simply go with ground defences you'll also need a lot to hold off a large group of raiders. My space defences are typically a large defensive base and defence fleet (of different sizes depending on whether it's a hot spot or not) armed with long range weapons. Early game yes it's true they'll be able to land sometimes anyway, but mid-game those space defences can wipe out any Pirate fleet. In my games on Extreme difficulty they never land troops. I can then use those defensive troops to do other things like invasions and it does take time to get enough troops together for homeworld invasions. Being very aggressive with wiping out Pirate bases also helps immensely.

With Auto construction ships the AI will put them in locations that are hard to defend. I tend to focus my mining stations in a couple of systems only (beyond systems with colonies that is) so that I can station a defence fleet in support without breaking the bank by dispersing them everywhere. I only put them on Auto once Pirates are basically cleared otherwise you'll find some Mining Stations get raided or destroyed.



aaatoysandmore -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/15/2015 12:33:46 PM)

I have yet to ever totally control mining. I let the ai take care of that aspect of the game and I've yet to ever run into an economic crisis. Last game when I stopped playing I had a surplus of 49 million credits and sufficient fleets and strike forces. I think if you let the ai do it that between your construction ships which I do manually control some of the time and civilian ships that they will keep the eco balanced. I only manually control a construction ship for fuel planets that have helium and cason and maybe a luxury item and strategic fueling points. The rest I could care less about. I'm more interested in exploring the map than I am mining stations. Since I build them with big storage facilities and docking bays when I edit them. I see nothing else to worry about. When I look at my stock check list I usually have 1000's of resources and hardly ever see shortage of suppy msg.

Two things I do keep a watch on though are how many construction ships I have and the number of mining stations as those do cost money in the maint screen. I have more of a hard time with troop requisition than I do mines or construction ships. In fairness to the ai I try to leave most things on automate except building ships and design and I have set up new numbers of when to build and what to build in the automate building and placement of troops area.

The game is super easy I don't know why anyone would worry about the economy so much.

I also tend to leave strike forces near or in mining station areas that I have built. Especially gas mining. If I go on long distance wars I need those stations intact to keep me supplied. The ai does try to take them out from time to time but fails most of the time except maybe in the early game.

From what I've seen and determined revenue is gained by civilian building of ships and trade. Not the amount of resources you have in stock. But you do need to keep storage facilities high so you can keep mining and the civilian ships keep building new ships to get those extra resources you are mining. It's when you stop producing just like in the real world. People need jobs and for jobs to grow industry needs to keep producing so you just keep glutting the market with more resources. Fortunately this game doesn't model an economy with one of those balloon bubbles like in the real world. It just lets you keep growing and growing and growing. I just keep constant production of mining facilities of certain mines going and when mines and construction ever start giving me a headache then I'll take a look at it.

I also tend to balance my economy by my main income and don't count trade or tourist income. You can get in big trouble if you just spend spend spend like republicans and don't watch that income from taxes vs total income. I try to spend only what tax money gives me and surplus the rest. ONLY in time of war will I draw from that surplus. That's probably why my population is soooo happy and grows as I don't overtax them during wars. It's also why I probably have a surplus of 49 mil. Most of the non wartime military just isn't necessary and a waste of credits to just sit at some place doing nothing. If this were a multiplayer game I might play a lil differently but I've pretty much figured out how the ai plays and don't build as many fleets and strike forces as I might in multiplayer.



Icemania -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/15/2015 2:10:47 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore
The game is super easy I don't know why anyone would worry about the economy so much.

Because some of us play at high difficulty levels.



Tophat1815 -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/15/2015 11:50:56 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

quote:

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore
The game is super easy I don't know why anyone would worry about the economy so much.

Because some of us play at high difficulty levels.


And some of us don't use:
1) No tech trading
2) fine tuned to the enth degree research optimization.
3) People role play
4) Pre-warp start
5) Iron man the game and live with your blunders without using saves for a time reset.
6) very high research costs
7) Pirates minimum at normal....Higher is more fun
8) Space creatures also minimum at normal....Higher is more fun
9) At least 11 other races...............Higher is more fun

So basically what Icemania said......[:D]



NephilimNexus -> RE: When should you stop building mining stations? (1/16/2015 6:02:32 PM)

I never stop building mining stations. It's not a question of me needing something, it's a question of my enemies needing it - and denying it to them.



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