I usually only bothered to much later when resources were easier to get, military demands were often much more valuable, but that was in a finite economy. (and I would build up trade obviously)

Now I am building up the population upgrades... much to my annoyance. Frankly we need a civ manager now.

I think the penalty should naturally go away as the population on the planet increases. On planets that support a high population by default, this penalty should disappear and the planet could even start making a profit without having to invest in planetary development. On planets that don't support a high population by default (like asteroids) then they wouldn't become profitable until you put in at least one planetary upgrade.

The other thing I thought of is to have the ability to abandon a colony to quickly get rid of any costs it may incur. Perhaps this ability is already there. I haven't played in about a week .

well, in order for population to grow you have to upgrade it, which in turn already eliminates the penalty. as for me, I am fine with the current system, although I can imagine it could get tiresome when you own a lot of planets. but then you dont colonise them all at the same time, so I don't see it as much of problem.

its to prevent too rapid expansion which is a good thing and it does it well imo.

Well it was a terrible thing to tell people suffering in the deppression. That the economic recession (of a massive scale and the first for the American People in relation to both banking and industrial surplus) could somehow be solved by people simply 'working harder' or 'keeping resolve' was kind of insulting to the masses of unemployed people.

It certainly wasn't what they wanted to hear, and a 'New Deal' was soon ushered in.



At any rate: I think its good to limit the super expansion, but over time this can be problematic. And Annatar- when we play games with about 60 planets, managing the population upgrades and such on say 20 of them, is a real pain in the but. I either need a screen where I can have a list of all planets, their upgrades, and the ability to que new upgrades all in the same place. OR I need some sort of automatic upgrade manager.

The screen would be easier, and could work Just like the research or diplomacy screen.

60 planets fo every player? wow, big games, but yes, at that scale present tools are insufficient. in some other thread I wanted something similar to your planet manager. basically a sins equivalent to a civ internal/ city manager.

But you don't get all 20 planets at once and presumably you upgrade as you colonize. But, if you are missing upgrades, hovering over your total credits will give you a breakdown of how much each planet generates, and if a planet isn't fully upgraded to negate a penalty, it will show with a penalty so you know what to upgrade.

Yes I know the list isn't scrollable and too many planets can overrun it, but that's already been mentioned multiple times

Yes Annatar and it should be mentioned again. Are you Opposed to us having extra and easier tools for the management?

Sure I may not get all 20 planets at once, but I may get 5 or 6 and I'm very busy doing other things like handling the conquest of the other 5 or 6. So yeah One Screen where I can do all of that buying at Once is very useful. And hovering over each and every planet to figure things out is time consuming too.

I will say this... it sure has changed since Beta 2 when people were screaming:

"I'm Bored, I don't have enough to do!" The Devs said that this would change, Man were they right!!   

But Annatar... realistically I am having that happen right now in several Single Player games!

And I've lost several MP games, partially because I assumed the negative income went away for developing planets! Not all of us used the develop planet strategy, aside form fleet points and logistics later, I always favored more planets over developing them.

Now granted I don't mind the change, I just want a better tool for doing it. And realistically (again haha) big games will get like this for numerous reasons... not just population.

While you may upgrade population as you go (which is annoying too and would be easier with 1 measly screen that summarizes things) you don't do that for fleet supply or logistics do you? You can't always do so either due to resources.

The auto-placement builder is a godsend for larger games... but I need something similar for planetary upgrades too. Even a status report that lets me see the upgrades but not initiate new ones would help greatly. This isn't a Big major change either.

I suppose fixing the scroll list for income will help the population issue, but it wont do anything for logistics or fleet supply. Or hell even tactical slots.

I agree with P5yy.

The current system does not require a significant amount of micromanagement IMHOP. I mean, when you have the money (which the upgrades aren't too terribly exspensive) it takes all of two clicks to upgrade the planet (one to click on the planet, one to click the upgrade). Even in the really large games I've played I normally don't have to deal with upgrading more than two or three planets at a time to get rid of the penalty (and by that point I normally have more money than I know how to spend so that isn't an issue). Bedsides, from a logic perspective, upgrading and terraforming a planet is a big exspensive project which only a government (aka the player) would be able to afford. I say keep the current system.

If you either mouse over or click on (i can't remember which one) the amount of credits you currently have, it will show the planets and their income rates. The ones in red are the ones that you need to upgrade...

I realize that people are probably using this already and still wanting a new tool, but this is what has been working for me for the basic income upgrades.

Really- okay well explain yourself, as your the first to say so lol

do you mean a higher penalty Period with no modifications?

Notably an Idea I had that would really make things different, would be limiting the # of planets you may control by a technology tree just like Caps. Now wouldn't that limit things! lol so wrong... not seriously suggesting that   

Agreed on logistics for dead asteroids, but the permanent low drain doesn't make very much sense to me. The initial drain on colonies comes from the bare-bones infrastructure barely able to support any population.. but dead asteroids have no population and really no infrastructure. Already their only use is to create a defensive buffer without any logistics slots, if they had a permanent drain I imagine very few people would bother colonizing them.

Vasari might if it's in an advantageous position since phase gates are tactical, but a TEC player would really have no reason to except to slow an attack on their empire by a few minutes