Help Please, factory vs. fussion generator

If you are looking purely at which gives you the most output with the least number of tiles used, you will want that 25% bonus after you have built three enhanced factories. As your technology advances more it will take you fewer factories to reach the point where that 25% is better than one factory. IIRC that bonus % production is also cheaper than "real" production.

The bonuses for power plants and manufacturing capitals add together; in the current version, a fusion plant gives 10% and a manucap gives 33%, so if you have both on one planet you'll get 43%.

You can only put one power plant on a planet, so there's not a lot of strategy involved; just put one anywhere you have enough factories that it gives a better bonus than one more factory would.

Generally speaking, I never put down a power plant until I have researched at least Anti-Matter power plants. Fusion just isn't worth it. And even then, I put a higher priority on researching Industrial Sector, for the starbase upgrades. I usually research neither Fusion nor Anti-Matter until Industrial Sector is done, and I won't research Fusion until I am prepared to research Anti-Matter next.

Remember, there are a few more considerations about when to put down a power plant.
One is that the power-plant's production is Bonus production, which only costs 50%. If your economy is tight it may be worth getting less bonus production...

Also, don't forget that your initial colony and civ capital are also producing industry points, as well as any asteroids you have coming to your planet - don't just count factories.

Let's say you've got an initial colony and 3 basic factories on a planet. Thats 12 + 3*4 = 24 points. A fusion planet would only add 2 (or 3, I forget how the rounding works) points, less than another basic factory. You would need seven basic factories plus the initial colony (12 + 7*4 = 40) to break even with a fusion plant.

If we move up in techs, let's say enhanced factories and anti-matter plant, you can see that the break point is also at 40 points (20% of 40 = 8, the output of an enhanced factory), but it comes between 3 and 4 enhanced factories (36 and 44 points).

Interesting aside - once you've got Xeno Industrial theory, you can build Factories and the Manufacturing capital. On a civ capital (24 industrial points!) a manufacturing capital is actually actually already a better deal than even the first factory - a factory produces 6 points, 33% of 24 is 8. Plus the Manufacturing capital produces bonus production and has an econ bonus. But of course the manufacturing capital costs 350 to build - you could get four factories for the same price.

Ohhh i hadn't even though about the effects from asteroids. And thanks for the math, once i understand it, it'll help.

So what you're saying is, with the inital colony (which they all have) and three factories (advanced, enhanced, +++) it IS better to get a fusion generatior and then of course upgrade with each new tech? And having mined asteroids just adds to the benefits of the fusion generator.

Side question, more of an opinion, When mining a group of asteroids where you have one planet near by and a second one a bit further away, do you take advantage of the maximum addition production or try to split it between the planets even if one gets a +4 and the other gets a +2? So far I've been suppying the planet that gets the most benefit even if that mena sit gattets all of the asteroids.

Sorry but just one more,,, do I have to do anything to get production out of the moons?

um, first off you don't get the 24 production unless its a capital planet, normal production on just colony base that isn't a capitol is 12....

you should calc when fusion/anti-matter is worth it.......having asteroids you mined going to higher production center for bonus production might be better off, even if you lose some on the way there.....

Planets with a moon automatically get a 10% production bonus.
Planets with rings automatically get a 10% research bonus.

It sounds to me like you don't have the latest patch installed. Fusion plants have been reduced to 10% bonus, and the maximum with all upgrades is now 25%, I think, not 100%. So you need more Factories now in order to break even with a fusion plant. However it still useful for planets being supplied by asteroids, and they do upgrade in time.



And that's the way you should keep doing it. Why would you want to lose out on a +2 production bonus? If you have an asteroid field that is far enough away that it only produces +1, then it doesn't make any difference where you send them. I find those very useful for getting those planets requiring terraforming techs up and running.



No, it's automatic.

About the asteroids, I actually micromanage those. Whether you get +4 or +2 production is secondary; what matters is whether you can crank out that starship one turn earlier. A little switcharoo of the asteroids can make that happen.