"The only thing I have to decide now is what to do with all that dust" says our favourite Lumeris matriarch after taking over the galaxy. And it is a difficult question, but unfortunately mostly because the magical, all-powerful substance defining the endless universe is extremely limited in its actual power.

The game seems to think dust is as at least as powerful as the other parts of FIDSI. Moderate gas planets give the same amount of dust as frozen ones science and scorching ones production. The intergalactic supermarket gives as much dust as the Intensive Cultivation gives food, but is actually twice as expensive in tech and production cost. Same thing for Xenotourism agencies vs Interplanetary network, similar effect (+1, +3 on ressource) for twice the cost in tech and production. We have a ressource dedicated just to buyout cost reduction (spuds), and a T3 building that reduces buyout by 10% and gives 2 dust per pop, at the same price as a building that gives +20 production per planet.

The problem is that dust buyout, and any investment in it, is really, really inefficient.

As an example, in my current game at turn 79, I need to pay 4.87 dust to buy out one production -- with two buyout system improvements. 

With one, this is increased to 5.92, and with zero I assume it will be 4.87/0.7=6.95 dust for any one production. Galactic inflation is at a moderate 1.77, so we can assume without any the multiplier would be 6.95/1.77=3.93 ~ 4 dust per production. In other words, upgrading all my systems with superspuds gives me the ability to pay "only" about six dust per production instead of seven, while upgrading all with jadonyx gives me the equivalent of at least 7*60=420 dust per system, per turn.

Since the use of dust is limited otherwise, any empire that heavily invests in dust production will probably want to use it for buyout. This means that any empire that invests in dust instead of production effectively quarters its production, at least.

I would propose two simple changes:

• Kill inflation: As long you can sell ressources on the marketplace, inflation will always hurt empires investing in dust far more than those investing in ressources, e.g. by conquest. It also further nerfs dust system improvements over time that are not exactly strong to begin is, while serving no discernible purpose to me.
• Halve standard buyout costs multiplier from 4 to 2 dust per production. Double the price for the ability to build anywhere instantaneously seems somewhat fair, consider you need to research an extra tech for it; With this an empire that heavily invests into spuds and other reductions can at some point achieve the 1:1 ratio that is actually present in dust production.

I agree with your proposals. While I like inflation as mechanic, it doesn't take into account amount of empires playing. Inflation in a 12-players galaxy will be far stronger then in 2-player, simply because 12 players should produce ~6x times more dust. It gets out of control way too fast. And yes, buyout costs are abyssmal, especially early game.

You make some excellent points. The community agrees with you if our past discussions of trade routes, resource-selling, inflation and the Lumeris are any indication, and it's nice to see such a concise analysis of the problems with dust. Hopefully Amplitude will take notice. I'm not sure that your proposed changes are quite enough, though.

The main issue with your solution is that dust is easier to get than industry, as long as you don't focus on the weaker dust-producing improvements. First, trade companies are a much better source of dust than other system improvements. Increasing dust's value might overpower trade companies, but it would still leave most dust improvements not worth researching and low priority to build, as focusing on trade companies gives higher return for the investment. Second, there are multipliers that apply to dust for which there's no equivalent to industry, with the bonus for empire-wide approval being the main one. If you lower the buyout cost multiplier to two, you're making two points of pre-multiplier dust much more valuable than one point of pre-multiplier industry that you can spend anyywhere, which is likely too strong.

I'd like to have inflation eliminated just as you propose, but a buyout cost multiplier of three (with the cost of retrofitting ships raised so it's equally expensive to "buy" production that way) seems a more reasonable choice. Either way, though, the issue of dust system improvements can't be adressed just by changing the value of dust as long as they're in competition with trade-boosting system improvements.

mamarider wrote:

How come that the original poster finds no use for dust? When the interior core of your empire is set and your main systems produce a lot of FIDSI and Dust in particular, you can use it to broaden your empire by simply buying out core industry focused improvements on any new system you settle on. Or do you really w8 for xii and Predictive Logistics being built on every new planet?

My point was more about the choice of investing in dust production/buyout cost reduction vs investing in industry/anything else. Currently the right side of the tech tree is split into dust and industry focus, as are system upgrades, planets, and to some degree races, and it appears the two are meant to be roughly equally powerful choices -- when in practice they are really, really not.

For example, I find it extremely difficult to even construct a theoretical scenario in which you would rather want to invest in Pulvis Production (+2 dust per pop, 10% buyout reduction) instead of predictive logistics (+20 industry per planet) even though they are on the same tech level and have the exact same cost.

I got your point, and you can be true if looking at the resource value only. But there is more to those technologies than just dust production. You mentioned Pulvis Production, ofc with already positive economy (0+ dust per turn) and having Predictive Logistics  as an option there is not much sense in picking it. But I don't care about dust it gives when I grab it nor do I care about the buyout cost reduction. Those things wil come into place later (as I said) to boost your new colonies. What I grab it for is that juicy hero market and system razing and I actually think this tech is essential for federations because it allows you to surpass the colonization cap without investing into any technology. And xenotourism for example can save you if you fall negative with dust production early and just want to keep it around zero lvls and go all production. Techs that affect trading via trade companies are completely different and again dust is not their main use a lot of the time! When you are playing anything but federation you need those extra luxuries from trade routs to reliably upgrade systems to lvl4. Yes you earn dust from routes but for me it is only to invest into those luxury+science ships asap. Unless I am aiming for economy victory ofc. So my point is those dust techs are really well balanced and I like them a lot. But I can agree that there are few late game ones that give only raw dust and they have such a limited use, like mb only for economy victory or if you went crazy with that buyout.. Never tried to go crazy with potatoes right from the start and I think its pretty inefficient as your lvl2 systen upgrade.

mamarider wrote:

I got your point, and you can be true if looking at the resource value only. But there is more to those technologies than just dust production. You mentioned Pulvis Production, ofc with already positive economy (0+ dust per turn) and having Predictive Logistics  as an option there is not much sense in picking it. But I don't care about dust it gives when I grab it nor do I care about the buyout cost reduction. Those things wil come into place later (as I said) to boost your new colonies... And xenotourism for example can save you if you fall negative with dust production early and just want to keep it around zero lvls and go all production. Techs that affect trading via trade companies are completely different and again dust is not their main use a lot of the time! When you are playing anything but federation you need those extra luxuries from trade routs to reliably upgrade systems to lvl4. Yes you earn dust from routes but for me it is only to invest into those luxury+science ships asap. Unless I am aiming for economy victory ofc. So my point is those dust techs are really well balanced and I like them a lot. But I can agree that there are few late game ones that give only raw dust and they have such a limited use, like mb only for economy victory or if you went crazy with that buyout.. Never tried to go crazy with potatoes right from the start and I think its pretty inefficient as your lvl2 systen upgrade.

You're arguing for how these techs, and Dust in general, aren't actually that bad, but all of your examples are reinforcing that they're pretty bad.

You say you don't care to research Pulvis Production, you're just there for the Marketplace and razing systems. That goes to show that Pulvis Production isn't good. You talk about just trying to stay around +0 Dust, and Xenotourism being good for that early game, and that you only go for Dust production if you want an Economic Victory. That all goes to show that stocked Dust isn't worth much. You even say that you want Trade Routes for the Science and Luxuries, not the Dust, further highlighting that Dust can't be that good if you consistently avoid collecting it.

That kind of highlights the problems with Dust improvements and Bullion Freighters, that the more Dust you produce the worse it gets for buying anything instead of just paying Upkeep. So why use it if you're not filling the bucket for an Economic Victory?

I agree whit some points listed here. To me, the best way to currently get dust, is either selling luxuries or strategics, finding minor faction traits that yields vasts dust bonueses (such as emblyr or Eyder one) increasing pop on systems whit sterile planets and... well, these are basically the only ways i know to increase dust. 

What always bothered me in-game is that most dust production improvements, and even other late game improvements i saw in the tech tree... din't really felt like they where compensating to build, as i can spend my industry elswhere, and reap much more rewards from it. Why build a infraestructure that gives me 25 + dust per system level if i can either build Predictive Logistics instead  or go trough the Infleunce outcome, that is also very necessary for my empire? 

Instead of focusing on dust improvements, there are many other branches i can upgrade my empire upon that are, in the end, much more compensating than spending time and industry on dust-related improvements, because they are not that much usefull yet, and some dust related improvements feel... Stupendously pricefull to build while yielding very little rewards (most late game improvements feel like that for me)

Problem is, i feel like some dust building improvement are relatively obsolete if compared to their other dust counter parts. If i have a galaxy filled whit hot planets but few in pop, i will have terribly low dust income, because i will produce alot of system improvements but i will have few pop to increase dust income, and as one of the best ways to generate dust is having a lot of pop well... 

I sometimes feel like dust improvements are relatively useless if compared to other methods. And that, for me, needs to change. It makes me believe that dust income is not only a matter of having trade companies or not, but a matter of luck, as having the right traits to increase your dust income can appear, or not for your empire, and having a bunch of systems filled whit hot planets is not... really a choice after all. 

I'd like to have more consistent methods of increasing dust income besides simply having to rely on Trade Routes. Maybe that would be a good idea for the game after all?

I wonder if a buff on these structures would do good for them... what y'all think? :)

I didn't make any suggestions, I was adressing my thoughts only to the original poster in the first place and we were talking only about the value of Dust. YertyL told that dust is not as powerfull as other FIDSI and I tried to prove him wrong showing some examples where dust can be useful and highlighted its flexibility. I am against the enormous level of inflation growth as well, btw.