Wasted Production/Research due to limit of 1 "thing" per turn

Why are planets / shipyards / research projects limited to producing one thing per turn?

Eg:

- A shipyard has production capacity of say 2,000 but I can only build a single 200 point ship per turn - that's 90% inefficient. Why can't I put 10x ships in the que have have all 10 pop out next turn?

- My empire can generate 10,000 research points per turn. But it takes me 10x turns to research 10x low level techs (eg Defense systems ~800 points). Why can't I also que research? In fact that's already in the game! If you buy a tech point bonus from the ideological traits menu, you can sometimes buy two techs with the accrued points, one right after the other.

- My production planets have lots of factories. Why does it take 1 turn to upgrade a Xeno factory to a Mega factory (67 points) when my planet has a production of 1131 per turn? I should be able to upgrade 16 factories in a single turn. Instead it takes 16 turns - 94% of my production is going to waste!

Now I'm sure some will say you can just assign your wasted production to something else like research. Well you'd have to so that every turn to every planet as production changed due to new/upgraded facilities. I'm already in micromanagement hell with 100 colonies just dealing with building placement and planet improvement every turn. Adding more would just suck more fun out of the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

38,444 views 19 replies
Reply #1 Top

Actually its not wasted there is production ovdrflow but there is a limit of 1 per turn

what this means if you send 2000 production to a shipyard and are building ships that cost 200 a piece on the next turn you could shut off production to the shipyard and it will continue to build ships with the ramining 1800 points the same should work for research and social manufacturing

Reply #2 Top

true but it is pretty easy to reach a point where you can build 1 building+ 1 ship per planet per turn and research 1 tech per turn.

at this point all production that gets into overflow will never be usable.

 

(this was the case in b5, didnt have enough time to test this in b6)

Reply #3 Top

Survey ships also only survey 1 thing per turn, even if they have moves left and could easily reach another anomaly.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 1

Actually its not wasted there is production overflow but there is a limit of 1 per turn
End of androshalforc's quote

But it is wasted because the next turn I have another 2000 points of production to send to the shipyard. So now it's 3800 points of "saved" production (2000+1800) but I can still only build a single 200 point ship.

So am I to change the production to something else on the planet while this excess production is used up? I have 100+ colonies, each with a shipyard. That's a lot of micromanagement to keep track off every turn. Is there any display of this "saved" production in game? Or do I need a notepad to keep track of it? Hmm let see, I sent 1000 production to my shipyard 4 turns ago and I build 1x 250 point ship and a 233 point ship, so I have 517 points left, so I can build my 324 point cruiser, but I'll have to remember to send more production the turn after next... now planet 2 of 100...

If there's a gameplay reason for this (eg a single shipyard only has room for 1 ship) then fine, let me build 10 shipyards around my planet and let me split my planet's military production amongst the 10 shipyards. Something you can't do currently. Or say treat shipyards like star bases and let me send a new construction ship to add another "yard" to the base to allow two ships at once, and so on.

Yes, I could build my planets to have lower military productions. Make every planet do everything - influence, food, population, approval, income, research, manufacturing. That way I wouldn't have so much wasted military production. But then it turns every planet into a carbon copy of bland. Why bother with a hyperion shrinker, death furnace, manufacturing capital, or any limited use high quality building at all, if the bonuses they give can't be used?

Isn't part of the fun finding that planet with a base 19 quality. Then researching planetary improvements to increase it to 25. Then getting the perfect adjacency bonuses for your building. Then ringing out every drop of production you can get out of it to turn it into a starship making super machine? It sort of defeats the purpose of specialising planets if you can't actually put all that production to use.

 

 

Reply #5 Top

I never understood why there is a limit of building 1 thing per turn, it generally means its not worth building smaller ships later game its wasted manufacturing when say a new tile is opened on a built up planet building a factory wastes a lot of manufacturing over several turns.  Why can't I just build the final improvement to start?  Its useful to build up slowly when starting a new colony but once some capability is built up its redundant.  

 

I mean why build the system so you can only complete one item per turn at any point of production?  Its an artificial restriction, makes no sense and kills immersion.  

Reply #6 Top

I sware I heard a dev like frogboy say that building multiple things a turn was planned for the game last year when shipyards were revolutionary. Have not heard anything about that brilliant idea since then. I'll wait for it eagerly though. :)

Reply #7 Top

Quoting mortili, reply 2

pretty easy to reach a point where you can build 1 building+ 1 ship per planet per turn and research 1 tech per turn
End of mortili's quote

Yep I get there pretty early in my games. I always research production boosting and planet improvements first. If the AI was more aggressive, I'd need to slow down and grab weapons, but I find a few influence techs and 1 embassy on every planet means everyone loves me. I'm at turn 200 and haven't needed to research a single weapon or defensive tech.

It seems to work quite well. My gimp empire is practically unassailable. 

 

Reply #8 Top

yeah changing this, at least for ships would be really nice. i want to set up fleet templates, e.g. lots of small ships + one "buff" ship = fleet and order that fleet. instead i have to build every ship at a time merging them when they are ready and so on.

Reply #9 Top

Making more than one thing at once ain't gonna happen, mostly for game balance reasons.  And with Production Overflow properly working, it is far less of a deal than it was.

Besides it is VERY rare for a TBS 4x game to have multiple units being built per turn.  As in, almost unheard of.  Yes, there are a couple out there.  But, well, the granddaddy of them all (Civ) gets along without it just fine.  I think GC will as well. ;)

Quoting RSharaE, reply 3

Survey ships also only survey 1 thing per turn, even if they have moves left and could easily reach another anomaly.

End of RSharaE's quote

All of my survey ships can survey multiple anomalies in a single turn and have been able to as long as I have played GC II and III.  Not sure why you think suurvey ships can only survey one thing at a time, tbh. 

Reply #10 Top

Quoting RSharaE, reply 3

Survey ships also only survey 1 thing per turn, even if they have moves left and could easily reach another anomaly.
End of RSharaE's quote

 

It takes time to survey.  An entire week apparently.

Reply #11 Top

Most games simply dump overflow and you completely lose it. They allow you to "stock" it. Sure if you play long enough you can cut everything to 1 turn anyways but thats late game and at that point you already better have won ;) Before that point you could cut down production on military manufacturing to focus it elsewhere and use that stockpiled build up. It's far better mechanics then most games will give you. I like the system as it is. If you can pop out a dozen ships from 1 shipyard per turn the balancing would be way off and it would just lead to insanity for me.

Reply #12 Top

I've been watching it stop on anomalies all evening (last night).

Reply #13 Top

Quoting RSharaE, reply 12

I've been watching it stop on anomalies all evening (last night).
End of RSharaE's quote

Is there a new opt-in patch out?  If so, that's when it changed because I haven't started a new game since Sunday (starting over after all of these patches is making it hard to properly judge midgame play, never mind late).

If this is a new mechanic, I am.... displeased as it was central to my long standing playstyle dating back to years of play in GC II. :)

I'll figure out a way around it, but, yes, mark me as unimpressed by this change.  If change it is.

Reply #14 Top

Here is where I first noticed it.  Sorry to derail this thread!

 

https://forums.galciv3.com/464254/page/1/#3543193

Reply #15 Top

Sorry to continue the derail, but.... ;)

Quoting RSharaE, reply 14

https://forums.galciv3.com/464254/page/1/#3543193
End of RSharaE's quote

I've seen the same behavior with the "skipping" in out of range areas.  It was only with one ship I desgined, though.  But the anomaly thing isn't happening for me.  Sounds like it might be a bug on your end.  I'd submit a ticket on that if I were you. :)

Reply #16 Top

In my opinion, what we really need is exponentially more expensive ships and buildings.  Techs, too.  It should never be possible to have a maximum ship in one turn.  It could be so big and powerful that it isn't practical to use it, but it should be possible to make yet another behemoth.  Just maybe only slightly better than the last.  Set it up with a system of diminishing returns from improvements and let the optimizers in the crowd have at it. It's fun to watch what happens!

There should be soft and fuzzy boundaries in all the systems, and different ways of addressing those boundaries.  As far as I understand, one of the points of the game is to actually let you do all this stuff, making it a challenge but letting it happen.  The devs seem to admire crazy tactics.  I am sure they are actively scheming against such things actually breaking the game, but they want to let you get away with whatever you can think of,  It is an attempt to not only make a sandbox, but a magic sandbox where the impossible happens, often.

I am also convinced that Brad is watching and taking notes.  Many of the things people are getting away with will be a lot less practical as the AI becomes more and more a factor.  It's not just military stuff I expect to worry about, but all the other factors, too.  I also expect much whining about all this, but that is a different discussion.  I am fully expecting Brad and company to live up to their self-assigned role of evil AI master.  I am, as a Founder, insisting on it as the main reason I signed up for this ride.  ;)

Reply #17 Top

Quoting erischild, reply 16

In my opinion, what we really need is exponentially more expensive ships and buildings.  Techs, too. 
End of erischild's quote

I had been meaning to make my own thread about this, I too feel that ships are pretty cheap, even without specializing in cheaper components (I normally focus on capacity, so theoretically my ships are the most expensive).

 

Its easy to have 1 planet with the manufacturing capital just crank out big ships, too easy imo.

Reply #18 Top

There is a great inconsistency here, since a survey ship running in auto-survey mode will quit after surveying an anomaly until the next turn an a survey ship in manual mode can be directed to analyze several anomalies in one turn.

If nothing else, I think Stardock should correct this inconsistency by having the ship continue in auto-survey mode until all move points are expended.

 

Reply #19 Top

Quoting Lucky, reply 18

There is a great inconsistency here, since a survey ship running in auto-survey mode will quit after surveying an anomaly until the next turn an a survey ship in manual mode can be directed to analyze several anomalies in one turn.

If nothing else, I think Stardock should correct this inconsistency by having the ship continue in auto-survey mode until all move points are expended.

 
End of Lucky's quote

Oh is that what it is.  I almost never set my ships to autosurvey. :D