Does anyone understand Administrators? [2.3.3]

2.3.3 base game, right?

Basicly, you need an administrator for each Starbase.

You start with a base number than can be increased with various techs.  So what nonsensical is that you have the same number of administrators with 1 planet as 100 planets. 

It ended the tactic of building 4 economic Starbase around every planet, and throwing them up all over the universe to expand your range and ZOC. In 2.33 you have to really make those limited starbases worthwhile. 

2.5 still has them, but the limit is a good bit higher.  And the mining starbases seem to generate more resources.  So economic & culture starbases have made a comeback. 

Ok in Crusade in order to build a starbase or colony ship or survey ship you need an administrator. 

Now on a Ludicrous map I think you get 6 or 9 to start with. I mod it to 48. This means I can have any combination of Colony ships, Constructors or Survey ships up to 48.

Once I use up all my 'free' pool I need to either get a citizen as an admin or research government or culture tech lines to get 'more admins'. If you look at the tech lines the tech that unlocks 'leaders' also grants you 4 admins. Look at the specialization tree 'prior' to this.. one of them also grants 4 admins! 

Admins was a way to limit the size of your empire and gave some races an edge by starting with more admins. 

Again, this is 2.3.3 BASE GAME.

I am still most curious about how one loses Administrators without using them.  Does planetary morale have any effect?

"Does planetary morale have any effect"

Nope

I'm afraid that many of us haven't played the base game since Crusade came out.   So it might be hard to get help with the latest version of the base game.   Sorry. 

I would guess that taking the pragmatic ideology option that grants 3 constructors would require 3 administrators immediately.  And someone said in another thread that building constructors with more than one module required one admin for each module.

If the one Admin per constructor theory were true, that would explain it because I did that very thing - took the three constructors.  But the theory is completely bogus.  Taking them did not cost Admins, and the dozens of multi-point constructors in the game did not cost any Admins.  Only the construction of a Starbase costs Admins.  (at least, that's what I thought.) 

Whatever it was that cost the Admins, it was after I had spent the "last" Admin, which was quite late in the game and all the Pragma ctors had been used.  Maybe I saved a game point around that time...

Well, I can't speak authoritatively since I have Crusade and my memory of the base game are fading.  Crusade deducts the admins as soon as you build a constructor.  Sorry for the incorrect guess.

I haven't played base game since Crusade came out, but I do seem to remember a bug with counting the Admins.  It might show -3, but you are not really negative.  Still, you cannot build more starbases until you get more admins.

I fully agree with you on the need for an up-to-date manual.  For new players it is absolutely crucial.  For old players that think they know how everything works, it may hold a few extra points that we hadn't thought of before.  A manual is not polish, it is an important part of the game.

The catch-22 is, all too often people won't read it.  You can spend a lot of time maintaining something people won't read. 

So you build two ctors, they get blown up, and you lose two Admins?  I don't like that at all!

You think the negative count isn't real?  Hmm.  I didn't test that.  I offset the deficit (by destroying SBs) and am back to (displayed) zero.  If you're right, I should still be able to build a starbase.  I'll give it a try.  Thanks.

It takes an administrator to build a constructor, colony ship, or surveyor ship. Administrators are assigned when construction of a ship begins. If the construction of a ship is canceled the administrator is returned to the administrator pool. When a constructor is used to build a starbase, the constructor's administrator is transferred to the starbase. When a colony ship is used to build a colony the ship's administrator is transferred to the colony. When any of these ships is destroyed by an enemy ship, I believe (not certain) the administrator is lost with the ship. I do not know what happens to administrators when a ship is decommissioned.

NO.  Not in the 2.3.3 base game. 

Admins are used only on the construction of a SB, and are released when (voluntarily) decommissioned.  Not sure about destroyed by enemy action. 

Nope, the deficit is real.  I decommissioned a SB which if the displayed total were illusory would have taken me back above 0.  No dice.

Unfortunately, I don't have a save game with more than -3 Administrators.  So there's nothing I can do to explore how it got there.

  Ships gained by way of ideology traits don't cost administrators in Crusade, AFAIK. I'm not sure whether they get special handling in the base game since the mechanic works a bit differently there.