• Party change, going hand in hand with forced policy changes. -> There should be a transition period to policy changes, with decreasing effects for the old policy and increasing effects for the new policy.
• Get war declared on me or declare war. I dont know what exactly happens, but as soon as war is there, my fleet maintenance is up the roof, for the same amount and type of ships as before the declaration of war.
• Building a new colony. Especially in the first 30-40 turns, when the economy is generally weak because of few systems and population this is a real drainer on economy.
• Hero levels too fast. If my starting Hero levels to fast, the hero maintenance breaks the economy too.

Same with approval:

• Declaration of war and i am in deep approval problems. Though this could be explained by having a really solid pacifist party (that is until i build my first full fleet and the militarist party shows up) 
• Expansion and overpopulation also seem to have grave influence on approval and i cannot find means to sufficiently address these.

The dust situation improves in era II when teching for companies and trade routes. But this is soon negated when expanding to 3 full fleets (aka 4 command points)

This is by focusing on myself, no diplo techs to exit cold war state with competitors.

As it is the party/policy system seems rather unstable and unpredictable, as the party affinities for improvements, ships, specializations seem totaly out of balance for the different parties. Also every election i get the trends for my science party to have broad support, but no, the prediction is always off by at least one order of magnitude, netting me a normal support at most. The options to influence the outcome dont seem to work at all.

In addition it is very difficult to adept to an abprupt change in policy due to imediate full effect loss/gain.

Thats all folks!

Best Regards, Narrisch.

narrisch wrote:
Hi folks!

I am not sure if the following should be posted in game help, bugs, or game design. Feel free to adjust the forum :)

I started several games on normal difficulty as sophons and ran into serious dust problems from the begining.

Even with a light expansion rate (a new colony every 15-20 turns), focusing on money improvements and specialisations and keeping only a single fleet and assigning all heros i have access to, i cannot seem to get to a stable cash flow.
As soon as one of the following events occur, my previously positiv cashflow turns on me and threatens to drain my funds in like 5-10 turns:

I'll try and help.

• Party change, going hand in hand with forced policy changes. -> There should be a transition period to policy changes, with decreasing effects for the old policy and increasing effects for the new policy.

Agree with that, it feels frustrating.

• Get war declared on me or declare war. I dont know what exactly happens, but as soon as war is there, my fleet maintenance is up the roof, for the same amount and type of ships as before the declaration of war.

That's working as designed I believe. I noticed it too, and it makes sense. It doesn't cost much to store a hanger full of jets. But it costs a phenomenal amount to keep those jets up in the air and supplied.

• Building a new colony. Especially in the first 30-40 turns, when the economy is generally weak because of few systems and population this is a real drainer on economy.

Again, I'm sure this is working as designed. It makes colonizing a more conscious decision. Best advice I can give is to manage how rapidly you expand. If your economy is on the ragged edge, popping in to a couple new systems is a bad idea.

• Hero levels too fast. If my starting Hero levels to fast, the hero maintenance breaks the economy too.

Few bits of advice: I can't remember if it's a system upgrade, or a hero pick, but there's a way to ignore that cost. If you're really desperate, pick that. Also, picking the hero perks that provide +Dust per population will massively exceed the cost of the hero on a system. Last, if neither of those are bailing you out, and you're stuck in a war: Put the hero in a fleet. They'll stopping leveling so fast, and can help finish the war quicker.

Same with approval:

• Declaration of war and i am in deep approval problems. Though this could be explained by having a really solid pacifist party (that is until i build my first full fleet and the militarist party shows up) 

Again, I am certain this is working as designed. If Canada suddenly declared war on someone unprovoked, yeah, I'd be choked at the decision. However, if America suddenly showed up on our doorstep with guns tomorrow, I'd still be mad about that.

• Expansion and overpopulation also seem to have grave influence on approval and i cannot find means to sufficiently address these.

Yes, those two really suck at the moment. As a Sophon, you can pretty rapidly research Happiness-boosting upgrades, which will massively help you (And also help your Dust production). Be thankful: As a Craver player, they have to expand to ensure they don't deplete their planets, but once they do, they still kill their economy through Expansion penalties.

The dust situation improves in era II when teching for companies and trade routes. But this is soon negated when expanding to 3 full fleets (aka 4 command points)

This is a fault of the damned tech system they shoe-horned more than anything. The economy is fairly manageable, but it means focusing on everything except the military upgrades.

This is by focusing on myself, no diplo techs to exit cold war state with competitors.

As it is the party/policy system seems rather unstable and unpredictable, as the party affinities for improvements, ships, specializations seem totaly out of balance for the different parties. Also every election i get the trends for my science party to have broad support, but no, the prediction is always off by at least one order of magnitude, netting me a normal support at most. The options to influence the outcome dont seem to work at all.

In addition it is very difficult to adept to an abprupt change in policy due to imediate full effect loss/gain.

These two are kind of a result of being Early Access. Neither is properly implemented yet.

Thats all folks!

Best Regards, Narrisch.

Best of luck, buddy.