Supply costs should not be a percentage.

Seriously, Sins should have just had upkeep based on number of ships you own, not on researches which will eventually reduce your income by 70%, no matter your fleet size.

The problem I see here is that not all games get to 200 cr/s, have had some where you barely break 5 cr/s (it was an asteroid heavy map) and I have had others where I was hitting 1000 cr/s (yes there were mods involved). Ironically the percentage makes better sense overall due to these irregularities in maps. Because in one sense you would be bankrupt in seconds and others you could spam spam spam away.

No, because if it was based on number of ships, you would still have a percentage penalty, it would just vary based on your fleet size.  An advantage would be that if you lost a significant portion of your fleet, you wouldn't have to pay upkeep on ships you don't have, allowing a player to be able to come back easier because he isn't paying upkeep on ships he doesn't have.

I think it's fine the way it is.

Besides, if you are doing single player you could look for a mod to get around the fleet supply tax.

@spardason21-I was responding to the OP's comments, Yours I don't have a problem though I too feel it is fine the way it is

Think of researching fleet supply as the investment your 'star nation' takes into providing the appropriate labor/capital towards the building of construction docks and providing employees for them (yes I know thats a bit much in terms of role play) but this explanation justifies the large "gaps" of fleet supply it takes as well as the percentage of your total economy given to providing these jobs instead of "farming the fields" one might say.  Its basic guns and butter economy, the production possibility for total economy is lessened as you build more guns.  Only in Sins, it is a permanent fix.  If one was able to build ships without the worries of having to upgrade fleet supply first then the game would change entirely.  It would be an econ war up until first contact/shortage of colonizable planets and then, within the course of minutes, very large armies would be made due to heavy investment into frontline factories ( i would imagine 5+ factories on the frontline planets).  Thus would create a spam battle where the player who has the worst economy surely loses.

The problem with this is that as the losing player loses ships, his economy improves (due to less fleet supply tax) and as the winning player gains the upper hand, HIS relative economy is destroyed (Because of very large fleet upkeep).  I would predict very fusterating games to come out of this. 

A flat rate economy would destroy the opportunity cost that makes teamwork essential in late games.  Because people would no longer need to trade with their allies (protection for money) and make economies of their own, thus creating supernations that attack each other with no weakness other than player skill.

Thats just my explanation on why things may be how they are, perhaps a DEV would spy this topic and explain their reason/motives but I hope this helps clear things out for you.

if you changed it from a percentage to a flat rate wouldnt this be unbalanced for the different races? like, one race has ships that are on average a higher supply cost than others dont they?

If I am loosing ships, upkeep cost should return to lower % value. If I build extra ships, upkeep cost should be increased to higher % value.

Research increasing % upkeep cost value is fine, but is should define MAXIMUM available upkeep cost (and fleet size), not increase upkeep cost no matter of fleet size.

I haven't read above posts so it may have been mentioned, but if you paid a fixed amount per supply research and you got stripped of half of the planets by some treacherous used-to-be ally, you would end up with -20 credits/sec income. Good night, you've lost - with no credits and no way to reduce your costs. How is that sensible? Even if you've lost all your fleet, your fleet research is still there, draining money.
NOW, we can not make it a per ship cost (so each ship costs upkeep, not some arbitrary cap you're far away from) because the devs said outright that they want increasing fleet supply to be a permanent decision for the player to make, where he has to weigh increased number of available ships against income.

The percentage is a must. The only thing that could change is a compromise between a fixed percentage and a percentage per ship you have.

For example, inctead of a fixed 9% on the first level, you would pay 4% fixed and the counter would linearily increase according to how much supply you're actually using up. With the second level of research you would pay 9% (the previous threshold, so that increasing supply could not reduce overall costs) and, again, the rest would be based on how much of the fleet supply you are using up.

So, a player with 200 out of 400 fleet supply used (second level fo supply upgrade) would pay 9% (level 1 upgrade max) plus 200/400 = 0.5 of the remaining difference between 9% and 15% (the second max), which is 3%.
Total = 9% + 3% = 12% upkeep.

I believe that would make most sense. You can both regain some income if you've lost half of your fleet (so you have fewer ships to maintain and so you can make a comeback a little more easily, which makes for a cooler game) but you will always pay more if you do the supply research, which goes along the line the devs wanted.

If you really read that wall of text, you have my respect.

Upkeep cost should be function of fleet size, not fleet reseach level (large fleet = large cost, small fleet = small cost - no matter of fleet research level).

Fleet research should increase max available number of fleet size only, not upkeep cost (higher level = larger fleet availabe, nothing more).

Actually I agree with N3rull

Consider that some of the cost is also in infrastructure that would be permanent (refueling bays, and other such things) so some cost would have to be permanent. But the maintance and usage of said facilities would be the cost that is every changing in proportion to the size of the fleet.

@ N3rull- I always enjoy reading your wall of text. You always lay out good arguments, even if I don't agree.

idk if it was mentioned, but the middle ground here seems like the best solution

when you reasearch fleet upgrades, instead of the percentage instantly jumping from one thing to the next, how about as you build more ships, it makes its way from the max percentage of the level before it to the max percentage of the current level; and as you lose/gain ships, your upkeep rises, but as you lose ships it never falls below the max of the level before it.

Fleet research already cost SOMETHING... Balance-wise two players with X ships shoul have same maitance costs. ATM player with higher fleet research is in double-worse situation: he not only have higher fleet ukpeep % cost, but he also spent more money on researches. Note we have no option to lowel our fleet research level...

I still prefer Fleet Upgrade doing nothing but increasing max number of slots and upkeep cost being function of fleet size (only).

yes, fleet reseach cost something, you have to spend to build facilities to maintian the fleet (refueling, maintence, refit bays) and then you have to maintain and pay for said facilities (hence the small increase in fleet spending) then when ships are built their cost are factored in and that increase is worked out until its time to build new facilities and that should be the area the vacillates (say max out fleet supply should be 37% minimum at all times then increase and decrease between that and 75% based off how many ships you have)

Okay.  But all of that infrastructure can be repurposed for civilian uses if there are no military ships for them to support.  Sure, your empire may have a lot of infrastructure built up to maintain a massive naval fleet, but what sane empire would keep that expensive infrastructure in place if they don't have the massive fleet it was built for?  Wouldn't you try and get some of that sold to civilians so you aren't paying upkeep costs on things you aren't using?

Of  course these "military facilitiers cossting you money to work even If you don't have fleet" lore-wise should be deactivated when you don't have fleet... Or at least operate at minimal cost (like 1% upkeep per level).

Devs have said no. Dead horse topic.

Here's another issue to consider.  If there weren't a fleet supply tax, people would be able to construct huge fleets worth 2000 supply points, which would bring most online mulitplayer games to a screeching, lagging halt; they would freeze.  It would probably do the same thing for single player games since the AIs would also be able to spam out large fleets.

I'm ok with large upkep cost of large fleets. I'm not ok with huge upkeep cost of small fleets just because I wasted resources for Fleet researches.

What about a flat rate per ship?

My problem with percentages is that your fleet could still be taking up a disproportionately large amount of your income.

It's possible that you may have researched just the first fleet upgrade, but because you're empire is big, you're paying say 70 cr/s when all you have is a handful of LRMs & Cobalts.

If maybe it was modified to 5 cr/s for this ship, 7 cr/s for that ship (ect) & a base rate of this many cr/s per fleet upgrade, do you think that might be better?

As I said: Upkeep cost should be function of actual fleet size. Fleet research should determine maximum fleet size only.

Damm, that is what I do usually but at least it is a fodder fleet.

My typical fodder fleet, by the way I usually play with a 1000+ ships per team

100 scout
50 ligths
50 heavy (acutally this can get quite expensive)

and so when every I go into a new planet where I suspect enemies I usually send in the fodder fleet early so the enemy gets a head start on attacking the fodder and then I send in my main fleet which mostly does the mop up and onto the next planet, but usually, I use fodder fleet to hold off attack as I jump from planet to planet, or goes a head of the main fleet to another planet

I agree that the flat rate fleet costs are a bit much, especially when you lose a sizable chunk of your fleet. But I don't think it should be removed, instead I would prefer a small bonus in the speed of ship building (Like a 1-2% per research level).

Yeah Ive been discussed and new ideas have be brought up...well thought of ideas btw...and the devs have said no everytime. In case you didnt know why its the way it is:

Devs said they wanted it to a choice. Do I suffer the higher income percentage or do I keep my fleet smaller so I can rebuild faster. Another thing the noted is its like this to prevent people from building end game fleets, and using the clog the meat grinder mentality. It makes your large fleet invaulable. As its been said, play smart. Dont waste your assets.