My point was at no point is there a time when planets are useful. I've waited till I could dump unreasonable amounts of resources in it, and the returns never stop being lackluster.


I purely used it as a reference point as an example of how inefficient they are. If I had screen shots from when I had 78quad I'd use that, but I don't.


While the idea is sound, by the time they are 'ready' they are either already holding a massive lead and the round is almost over, or they weren't going to win anyway, it puts them more behind, and the round is almost over.

Round length and how snowbally the game is at the end keeps in a spot of "Too early" or "Too late". Again, by the time you have hundreds of trillions, or upwards to quints, GTs are far far far far far more efficient, cheaper, and reliable.

Also making upgrades more expensive would make it an even bigger noob trap, not a deterrence. It'd be better to raise the base price so people can tell from an instant "Yeah, too costly, move along."


Noob traps are a game design flaw, not a player flaw.

If something is horribly bad at low costs, but has a very low entry cost as well as no indication in the game that it's horrendously inefficient until the extremely late game, then it's the game's fault.


I agree with that.
I would still say the initial costs and starting benefits being higher on a planet would be nice too.


Your suggestion in the other thread would make planets weaker due to segment costs.

So planets are inefficient. Like, extremely.

They do tend to pay out a bit more once you get enough workers in them, but even then, it's kinda on the extreme end of being inefficient.

Compare them to stations and it's night and day...
I mean, cost wise;

Stations;
(His list doesn't add the 565 turns in, or the 440 turns and 274,965,125 credits to mine it up, but I think that's because, for the latter, it talks about donating for the resources)

Compare that to a planet;

Sooo yeah. The startup costs are really high, but that's kinda expected since, from what I can tell, planets are meant to be more lategame than stations.


But that's kinda an issue.

A planet with 27 billion workers put in(As well as the segments and credits to get that much) brings in 76m an hour, or 1.82b each time you unload it.

That doesn't mean I've put in 27billion in order to get it back every 2 weeks, it means I've put in nearly 60 billion in, as well as 10-14k segments.

"Well that's not so much once you get the ball rolling"

Maybe not, but consider a mine. A single mine in a decent place, with no work put into it, will bring ~187 million an hour. Baseline. If you decide to put some work into it and micro it using replication, you can get 380 million an hour.

So using the resources to make 4-6 stations, and not doing ANYTHING ELSE, brings around 750 million an hour(if 4) or 1.1 billion an hour(If 6). Microing them bring 1.5 BILLION an hour(if 4) or 2.28 billion an hour if 6.

So a planet is not nearly worth it compared to that, due to the shear amount of segments(And thus turns) you have to dump into it.
It has the benefit of scaling(As far as I can tell) exponentially with colonists...but the scaling comes too late to matter. Even when dumping trillions into it(I had 4 quad in one a few months back, not a huge massive amount, but if it's not efficient by that point there's no use...) it takes forever to get your amount back...and by that point doing encounters will bring you far more back for less opportunity costs.(Simply credits for the ships, and turns for the encounters)

For one to be worth it, you need a lot of time. You need a lot of segments, a lot of tech, and a shitton of turns.
And rounds simply aren't long enough.


Final thoughts
Sadly, Iunno really how to fix it other than a general "Make rounds longer" or "Make them give more money back". I think though, easing up on the cost of increasing the colonist cap might help. I mean, it costs 2.25b+500segs to add 1b colonists to a planet... Maybe increase the gain with 1 expansion to 50m instead of 10m? Or even up it to 100m?




TL:DR
Planets take too long to be worth it.
Rounds are too fast for that too long to happen.
Thus Planets aren't worth it.

As someone who learned the game somewhat recently, I think more than just changing FP, a better means of seeing if an encounter is too strong for you would be nice.

Like; Early on, you don't want to take on things that are more than like 20-30% of your FP, it's just simply too risky and you'll loose ships a lot.

But later on you can(And need) take on encounters that are much higher, from 60-100%, and even in the 150-200% after you get commander upgrades.


As someone who has played a bit, it seems kinda obvious, but when I was starting out I had no clue. I would attack things at 100% power, lose all my ships, and just not understand why.




Also if there was a way to make planets better/Ship builder more intuitive, I'd def donate towards them.

Oh please! That would be wonderful <3

I'm relatively new but yeah... I agree. Have someone who can help people out or something.

Hellos everyone ^^ I'm new, joined through Decimus and stuffs and yeah. Started the last day of the last round, and really enjoying it and stuff c:


Also my name is Lia. And I'm a wuffeh.