If you have a way to research 2 old unconnected techs, I would love to hear it. I like having choice in the tech tree and being able to skip some techs, but it does get annoying when you have to take a whole turn to go back and research them.



However, I think a tech queue is already being looked at and I guess that is what tech trading is for.

Tredecim wrote:
Well money can't buy happiness, but it can buy food

As long as there is food to buy, that is true, although in ES, you have to admit that it's probably not a good idea to try and eat dust. XD

buffyD wrote:
You had a point. Definitely, money can not answer all our questions. It may somehow increase ones quality of life and ability to appreciate it. But it may only be true up to a point.

Well money can't buy happiness, but it can buy food

You had a point. Definitely, money can not answer all our questions. It may somehow increase ones quality of life and ability to appreciate it. But it may only be true up to a point.

I think it depends on your definition of happiness. One aspect of happiness for me, is enough money to not have to worry about money. Money can buy a degree of freedom - which is another aspect of happiness for me. One should not view money as the answer to everything.



However, a brand new study contradicts the old saw that cash cannot buy happiness. In reality, the poll states, it can greatly improve an individual's standard of living, and therefore, their ability to appreciate it. But it is true only up to a point. Read more here: Money may buy happiness after all

Other uses for dust include hero abilities, healing, and upgrading ships. The latter especially is useful to me since I can queue up ships regardless of how old the design is and upgrade them to the latest as needed rather than worrying about managing queues. This also allows me to make ships more often - I can build many more ships faster and then design & retro fit them on the outset of war since I don't need to constantly create new designs to stay competitive.



The drawback, of course, is that dust can eventually run out unlike production so if you're not geared up for dust and/or don't have a sizeable bank account to start, how fast and fast you can push may be limited.



Dust is also useful when waging war, not just for retro fits but also 'building' ships on the frontline for one reason for another. I've started to keep the starting scout design simply because it's so cheap - I can send it off into enemy space like an expendable UAV. On top of this, I can annoy the crap out of the AI by sending such UAVs to invade planets - given the (usually) slow rate of invasion recovery, even the effects of one turn of invasion can end up lasting for many. I can also convert dust into industry by buying warships on the front - this being an alternative method of keeping the war progressing. In some ways, this can be faster since you don't need to wait for ships to be built and/or moved to the front lines. This also allows for multiple productions to occur at once.



In effect, dust is transportable - you can apply the output of one system towards the output of another system. If a system is making 500 a turn, I can use that 500 dust to buy improvements in another system, something impossible to do with industry. More than that, I can allow a system to produce negative dust (perhaps a system that's heavily favored towards industry) and subsidize that cost through another system. Through this, I can turn dust into practically anything - I can subsidize food improvements, science improvements, and industry improvements.



To use an extreme example, imagine you never spent any dust at all but you were shooting for an economic victory (300K). Given 300K, how many ships could you buy in one turn versus how many ships you could built using pure industry. You'd effectively be able to summon fleets of dreadnaughts anywhere in your empire within a single turn. How many improvements could you built even in systems that are only producing 10 industry?

Perhaps I was underestimating dust...



I suppose it is because if you focus on a dust strategy, you keep your taxes high which lowers your other resources but compounds your dust production (which is most of what you are making) so you gain much more than you loose...



There are 3 possible solutions to this:

(1) Keep the conversion of dust into other resources very inefficient.

(2) Lower the amount of dust gained by raising taxes, so that a dust centered build gives you less dust but you can use it more efficiently.

(3) Expand the benefit of high taxes to include industry, but make it a simple 1 to 1 ratio. Then you must choose between food and science or industry and dust. Like how with heroes you have the choice between food and industry or dust and science, and with tech you have the choice of food and dust or industry and science.

A lot of people seem to underestimate dust a lot. Buyout is your friend, particularly when colonizing new planets. As Hissho (using an aggressive expansionist playstyle) I was making 5k dust per turn by round 80 on hard. Every time I colonise a new system I buyout all the planetary exploitations + most of the system improvements and press on.



Would be cool to be able to buy your own ships from other manufacturers as a substitute to building up your military tech (although to balance the cost of ships would have to be a bit more.) The quality of the ships could be determined by your score or something?

There is an endgame tech (for the UE at least) that converts your surpluss food into production.

The tech that converts food into production doesn't work I don't believe (at least it didn't for me). My best production system was pumping at 1400 production per turn prior to getting it, and it was producing 900 food surplus per turn. I get the tech, my food is listed as 0 but my production didn't go up (should have been able to build 3 of my Dreads per turn, with 2300 production, which wasn't the case. Known bug?

Platescale wrote:
It is a little odd that food becomes so worthless when the colony is full. It seems to me that if the colony has excess food production, once the food is no longer needed for growth the excess should switch over to production based on the demands of the market. What the market demands might be a good faction affinity: Sophons use excess food production to produce research chemicals and industrial materials (hello, bioplastics), United Empire produces Industry and Dust, Horatio produces research and dust... Not sure what the Hissho or Cravers would produce with excessive food production. Perhaps the Cravers should produce nothing at all with the excess, but each additional unit of food production produces a tiny, tiny reduction in Locust Points every turn, so that extremely food-productive planets could eventually undeplete themselves as the Hive finds something like stability.

There is an endgame tech (for the UE at least) that converts your surpluss food into production.

Thanks for the pointer, I did not know that.

Shift-click to queue up techs. Queue up all the random holes in your tech tree at once. Your empire will power through them several per turn. Just be sure you end your queue on something that takes at least 2 turns, or you might waste part of your research output.

Dust at the moment is a strange resource. The main reason to generate it seems to be to allow you to lower your tax rate to produce more of the other resources as it has limited value in and of itself. Hurrying production is so expensive (usually at about 3-4 times the industry cost) that you only ever want to do that when starting a new colony. You can retrofit your ships, but really only so often. More than anything, it just feels incomplete. And that leaves the United Empire in a strange position.



I propose that Amplitude add more functionality to dust (and by extension diplomacy) by:



(1) Lowering the cost of hurrying production to 2 times the industry cost. That way you can convert dust to industry at the same rate as the reverse.



a. If you are thinking about requiring the project to be x% done or you get charged more, I don’t think that is necessary. It is already an inefficient conversion and you should be able to pump out the stuff if you have the money.



(2) [Removed] Allowing dust to hurry research at the same rate. You heard of the X Prize, I present the Xeno Prize!



(3) Possibly allowing dust to hurry population growth, again for 2 times the remaining food cost. Many, if not most, governments pay people to have kids to varying degrees.





(4) Allowing the trading of ships in diplomacy. Think of them as mercenaries who, if technically feasible, would be cool and add to the story.



a. They would retain their look if traded to another race, and perhaps even their bonuses. So a Hissho ship traded to the UE would retain its Hessho damage and accuracy bonuses, but not gain the UE’s health bonus. The only thing is that in order to be retrofitted, they would have to be returned to the original empire.



(5) This is off topic, but possibly allow the conversion of industry to food at a rate of 2 to 1. Think of it as nutrient paste… O_o



This would allow the conversion of dust into any of the other resources at a 2 to 1 rate. This makes dust the resource for those who want to be flexible and those who want to do diplomacy.



If combined with my recommendations at https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13504-composite-suggestion-food-the-ugly-duckling-2-0-industry it would allow the trading of science (through technologies), population (through colonies or colony ships), industry (through colonies, supply ships, or other ships), and of course dust itself.

Zougkla wrote:
I know that lowering taxes can increase productivity, but I think that you should be able to perchance techs directly. It would definitely help deal with those old techs that take way less than 1 turn.



At any rate it is not very important because tech trading already facilitates the conversion of dust into science, if indirectly.



As to population, I agree that it is the ultimate resource at the moment and in the linked post I detail a way to bring it back to earth.

Research is not wasted, it is possible to research multiple techs in a single turn if your research is high enough such that they take less than 1 turn. The UI always rounds up to whole turn numbers though.



This applies to production from planets as well.

i like the use of dust. as UE if you focus the techs that boost approval you can maintain 60% tax rate+, and have extatic approval bonuses to industry on all planets. in my current big map, i make about 1000 dust at every turn. i can easily completely upgrade solar systems i capture with dust/ buy dreadnoughts, retrofit fleets, build every improvement on every planet, pay off my opponents for good relations. dust gives me the freedom to focus industry on scientific advancement to stay viable technologicly. dust makes loses in war less painful and its production pushes you toward economic victory.

It is a little odd that food becomes so worthless when the colony is full. It seems to me that if the colony has excess food production, once the food is no longer needed for growth the excess should switch over to production based on the demands of the market. What the market demands might be a good faction affinity: Sophons use excess food production to produce research chemicals and industrial materials (hello, bioplastics), United Empire produces Industry and Dust, Horatio produces research and dust... Not sure what the Hissho or Cravers would produce with excessive food production. Perhaps the Cravers should produce nothing at all with the excess, but each additional unit of food production produces a tiny, tiny reduction in Locust Points every turn, so that extremely food-productive planets could eventually undeplete themselves as the Hive finds something like stability.

Still, its bad game design to have one resource that dominates the others.



It only works now because food goes from being the most important to being worthless the moment your colony maxes out.



PS: Why are there so many expensive buildings that give extra food or increase its production? By the time a colony can get those built, it will already be mostly full!

China's economy is on track to do exactly that.

Population does, in fact, equal productivity in general terms.



EDIT: Correction, population * productivity = production

Perhaps hurrying research is not needed, because you don't loose anything by trading away tech.



Converting industry into food would basically be building population so I don't see the need for robot citizens.



Population does not and should not equal productivity. Otherwise China's and India's economies would dwarf ours. The system as it is is workable, but I would prefer maxed out populations to be somewhat less important or for there to be alternatives. I want you to be able to choose whether to farm that world or build something else because as it is you really just want to farm worlds until the system population is maxed then do something else. If we allow food or population to be moved between systems then, as it stands, all we will ever do is farm!



Edit: I suppose it is good that I am starting to run out of good ideas, the well of things that could use improving is starting to run dry

Why does it need to be brought back to earth? The current position of population makes perfect sense to me. Economic growth has always been gated on population numbers, because the sole real driver of economic growth is people's disparate individual attempts to improve the shape of their own lives. This may change in the future... but that's why I want to see the AI Labor improvement (or something) permit industrial construction of population points once artificial intelligences and associated technologies advance enough. The fluff on the west side of the tech tree already talks about the obsolescence of mortal labor to just such factors.



I don't really think Dust should have such power as you want it to have, either, though I do see some diamonds in the rough. I don't think Dust should be able to just hurry technology. All the money in the world won't make answers to life's questions appear out of thin air... but it can be used as an incentive. Perhaps in the field of research it should be possible to put down stochastic 'bounties' on technologies. Once you spend Dust on a bounty the Dust is gone immediately (no backsies). Every turn you have a chance (based on how much Dust you put down relative to the research cost of the technology) that private industry will provide you the answers you seek. You can increase the bounty after you initially place it with diminishing returns on success chances (perhaps leveling off around 35% or so). If you research the technology yourself before anyone provides you the answers you sought, you get its bounty back immediately, minus some administrative percentage.

I know that lowering taxes can increase productivity, but I think that you should be able to perchance techs directly. It would definitely help deal with those old techs that take way less than 1 turn.



At any rate it is not very important because tech trading already facilitates the conversion of dust into science, if indirectly.



As to population, I agree that it is the ultimate resource at the moment and in the linked post I detail a way to bring it back to earth.

Population is the ultimate resource in this game. I personally think that the power of the AI Labor improvement should be permitting you to 'build' population points with industry (mechanical citizenry). That would be hurryable, but I don't think Dust should be able to convert into population in any other way.



Meanwhile, Dust can already be dedicated to research. Pay attention next time you adjust your tax rate. You get a bonus (or penalty) to research based on how far below (or above) 50% you are. If you want to put your Dust into science, lower your tax rate. If you want to put it into your treasury instead, raise your tax rate.