Very well written Ghost...but to actually answer you question of why they would build this system. I think it has something to do with the UE's production bonus at high "taxation" levels. Under UE's affinity bonus it explains a production benefit scaling at high level taxation which is risky to do because happiness is tied to so many other production things...they had to come up with a reason to have high taxes when late game you could care less that you are only getting 10% of 100,000 a turn.



I like the system proposed by you two, but I thinking more of the tax they are suggesting as a cut to the federal government. If you are looking at it as system being state and empire as being federal. The state calculates some dust costs ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run) then the federal government wants its share it takes whatever percent is asked by taxation or maybe tribute would be a better phrase. We aren't used to this now in days because both cuts are done at the same time to prevent the states from going no...or change numbers. In feudal times this is how taxation was done. Some poor soul had to collect the money from the lords and ladies for the king or queen after the lord/lady had collected said stuff.



What I'm thinking is the summation of ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run)*Empire Cut if ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run)>=0 per planet. I'm not sure what I would do with a planet that has a negative balance on it. Maybe a flat fee that scales with empire efficiency, or an underdevelopment interest. I hardly believe that a an empire would let a planet out of paying something because it didn't "have" the money.

What i would like is to be able to tax by system, and perhaps low tax leading to faster population growth.

WellyCollins wrote:
What i would like is to be able to tax by system, and perhaps low tax leading to faster population growth.

I fully agree and having just read through some of the math already employed I am quite sure that they have the brains on board to be able to implement it.

Spaceball_Harry wrote:
I fully agree and having just read through some of the math already employed I am quite sure that they have the brains on board to be able to implement it.

It's been implemented in games before. Can't recall offhand what game I've seen it in, though.

Perhap everyone is viewing the "tax" and "production" values incorrectly. The system production values are the taxes you collect at the nominal 50% tax rate. IE., the values are not what the system actually produces but only the relevant numbers that you as the government cares about for income.



Then the tax slider is merely affects the multiplier; ie., 1/2 of optimal taxes gives 1/2 income, but the happiness increase leads to better and production. Following this train of thought, double optimal tax rate should give double income.



From a processor efficiency point of view, its faster to do addition and subtraction than a multiplication; so this simple abstraction prevents you from lagging when you go to town with your tax slider every turn.

I wouldn't mind having two tax rates: The first being the Empires rate of taxation. The other being a systems individual tax. This is akin to how things work in America where I'm from. The federal government sets a tax rate and the state also has a rate. The system tax rate could be placed higher or lower depending on the wealth of that specific solar system. Just like in the US where the government subsidizes or gives tax breaks to people who live in impoverished or harsher living conditions. If you live in a solar system with 2 lava planets you shouldn't have to pay as high a tax rate as someone who was born and raised in the capital, or even a Garden of Eden planet. What would be the real world motivation to pick up and move from a lush planet full of what you want to a planet overflowing with lava or frozen solid?

Wow, that explains my futile attempts at backtracking the income factors in order to determine which improvement I should scrap.

I agree with everything said here, but let me try to rehash it a little.



1)

Tax shouldn't affect Food, Industry, and Science production (unless it's an indirect bonus/penalty from Approval, but that's something else). It should only affect Dust income in a transparent way.

A deficit cannot be taxed.

Or perhaps you can tax a deficit in RL I dunno, but in a closed economic system (such as a galactic empire; or currently the Earth) that's a false economy, based on potentially disasterous estimations, not hard facts (resulting in devaluation of Dust / overall inflation).

Finally, it's not intuitive.



2)

In game tax serves as a trade-off between the empire-wide budget profit and the empire-wide + system-wide population approval.

Why is there only an empire-wide tax? (In a way, I agree with Kingherod above.)

Why is there only an empire-wide budget?

It is understandable that the empire-wide budget is in fact the player's wallet, intended for the empire-scale decisions and upkeep, but to model it properly, it needs to aggregate the lesser parts in a convenient and crystal clear fashion.



What's really needed is a system-wide tax-free production per turn, which would represent the absolute and unskewed efficiency of the system Dust income.

That way we'd immediately see whether or not Xenotourism will be beneficial if built, and/or whether or not any of the other existing improvements should be scrapped.



So it's really the star system scope where we should set the tax and determine how much % is skimmed off for the empire-wide budget, and how much % is left for the locals to use, spend and enjoy.

This is where the local approval/happiness becomes transparent, because it is a direct consequence of this ratio.



However, I understand why the original concept simplifies this part, as it can surely get tedious very fast after expanding into a large empire.







****

So here's my suggestion:



There are three different settings per star system: Frontier tax | Outer tax | Core tax

An outpost would receive the Frontier tax automatically and that would be set in stone until the said outpost earns a Colony status.



From that point onward, player can change between the other two tax settings at will.

Not only this could also serve as a reminder of what we think of the solar system at hand, but this information could also be displayed and changed from the Empire Management screen through the additional single-icon column.



Also, as a sidenote, I'd expect from a grand strategy title to allow me to filter the list based on categories such as this. For example, "I'd like to see the systems where the Outer tax is applied." That way I know what figures I expect to see in this list, and tweak the factors accordingly, liberated from data noise.



Then we get to set these three major taxes in the Empire Management screen (instead of just one empire-wide tax). So the tax ratios can still be set globally, without any local intervention.





Here's the math:



system wide balance (SBal): (dust_income - system_improvements_upkeep - system_hero_upkeep - any_other_upkeep)

system wide tax (STax): max(0, (SBal * local_tax_percent)) + tax_high_approval_bonus (max will yield 0 for negative numbers)

system wide approval (SApr; in %): ((SBal - STax) / system_population) - planetary_penalties - overpopulation_penalties - any_other_penalties + improvement_bonuses + any_other_bonuses

empire wide income (EInc): sum(all STax)

empire wide approval (EApr): median(all SApr)



I think it is really straightforward, as it simulates the economy much more intuitively, and still provides an ample room for strikes, rebellions, and unplanned disasters in general.



As for the median, it is really simple: 1 very rich system (i.e. worth 10), 3 mediocre (worth 5), and 7 poor ones (worth 1) can be written down as [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,5,5,5,10].

The median in this case would be 1, because that's the value in the middle of a sorted list. In game, though, the actual values would be much more varied, so it would adapt more smoothly.

Median is much better than the arithmetic mean in these cases, because it takes into account the weight (or the volume) of the population.

Arithmetic mean would show that [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,100] is the same as [9,11], while in reality that's far from truth. Median would appropriately show 1 and 10, respectively.





So, for example, in a system with three worlds -- Arid, Arctic, and Jungle -- populating the Arctic world, after the Arid was fully settled, would decrease the approval (unless this is negated by some positive effects) because these new colonists don't contribute to Dust production as much as those on the Arid world. In other words: the approval is averaged per capita. Every 1 Pop desires 1 Dust to provide a 100% Approval. Therefore, this 1 Dust acts as a collateral, an investment into social and economical stability. Or, in essence, it is a growth insurance. More populated systems require more maintenance, and self-sustainability basically emerges as an efficiency indicator of sort. A Dust-inefficient system must be specialized at producing something else, otherwise it should be considered as underdeveloped or, much worse, ill-developed.





At one point there are 5 (billion?) people on a Medium Arid planet (there aren't any improvements in the system):

SBal: 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 25 Dust

STax: max(0, 25 Dust * .3) = 7.5 Dust

SApr: ((25 Dust - 7.5 Dust) / 5 Pop) - .5 Dust = 300% Approval (let's say that the approval penalty for Arid planets is now -.5 Dust, not -5; think of it more like a permanent Dust expense for the colony maintenance)





After some time the Large Arctic planet is fully colonized (5 Pop):

SBal: 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 30 Dust

STax: max(0, 30 Dust * .3) = 9 Dust (we can see the tax income has increased by 1.5 Dust)

SApr: ((30 Dust - 9 Dust) / 10 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 60% Approval (but the approval has dwindled because half of the system pop is relatively poor; too much of this, even if there are very rich systems in the empire, would severely impact the global approval, because of the median; also, same as above, the Arctic approval penalty is now -1, not -10)





However, if we lower the tax from 30% to, let's say, 15%:

SBal: 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 30 Dust

STax: max(0, 30 Dust * .15) = 4.5 Dust (the tax income is halved)

SApr: ((30 Dust - 4.5 Dust) / 10 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 105% Approval (but this is much better for the colonists)





This leaves some room for colonizing a Small Jungle planet (5 Pop), in order to capitalize on industry, for example, and after it's populated we may even raise the tax to 25%:

SBal: 5 Pop * 2 Dust + 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 40 Dust

STax: max(0, 40 Dust * .25) = 10 Dust

SApr: ((40 Dust - 10 Dust) / 15 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 50% Approval (not too shabby for a fully populated three-planet system clean of improvements)







Note that the excess approval could or should yield some small bonuses for the FIDS production (depending on the planets' exploitations), including Dust. However, this extra Dust should be automatically taxed (and would show up as a tax bonus or something similar). These are very small % bonuses that serve really just as an incentive for the player to keep productive systems in a mood above 100% (note that this is better than ecstatic) -- to allow player to be generous if (s)he feels to, as well as to add some depth to the fact that the countless invisible souls live, work, and die for the player (in case of the souless races, though, disregard what I've just said, including the bonuses, unless they work better after infusing Dust).



Also, it is possible with this model to get a negative local approval, reflecting the situation in which the colony is not self-sustainable (i.e. a Methane giant colony would cost 2 Dust per turn, yet 1 Pop can produce only 1 Dust per turn, which is clearly a bad situation). To compensate, player should improve the system using the Empire-wide budget immediately, or the colony will collapse on its own. These situations are relatively rare, and could be easily avoided.





This is only a rough sketch, I apologize if I'm missing something important, but I hope you get the idea.

It is very simple to grasp (I think), and it shouldn't deviate much from what's currently in the game.

Also, I think I've repeated the basic math mentioned before (tax applies to balance, not income) -- that's clearly a key component of this much-needed overhaul.

Tax shouldn't affect food, industry, and science production (unless it's an indirect bonus/penalty from Approval, but that's something else).

That's the way it works. Lower taxes will get you an approval boost, thus leading to a boost in FID.

VieuxChat wrote:
That's the way it works. Lower taxes will get you an approval boost, thus leading to a boost in FID.

I see.



But how does this apply then?

There are 2 problems with the tax system in game right now:

1) Taxation before upkeep

and the solution is

{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures

Clearly, it is the other way around in the game: taxes apply before upkeep.



But anyway, if we're both right on some terms, that means that the display information is the main culprit.

Because there is nothing inherently wrong with having tax-induced-approval-related bonuses on production, but it is wrong not to have the system base production values visible at all times.

Perhaps all approval-related modifiers should be displayed as modifiers, like this: Food 142 +36

The approval bonus can be seen in the empire bonuses when in the empire management window, or in the tooltips.

And at the moment the taxes are applied before upkeep.

Then I must suggest that you read my post in entirety, even if it appears as an enormous wall of text.



Those two points are just quick observations of the game goals. I wanted to be sure I'm on the right track, before I've started solving the problems OP suggested, by combining the ideas of others in this topic with my own.



In short:

- Taxes are applied after upkeep (extremely important, because that's how taxes work as you can't tax non-profit nor deficit).



- The remainder from the base production is what determines the local approval, and it is based on total system population. This aspect isn't covered by the game at all, that explains the exponential rise of Dust in mid/late game. The Dust income is directly proportional to the empire research results and the always-accelerating expansion -- combined -- without any matching maintenance costs (because 1 Pop costs the same as 17 Pop, kind of ridiculous), which is why all fixed prices become rather trivial after some time.



- FIDS high-approval-based bonuses still work, however any bonus Dust is automatically transferred to the Empire (extremely important, because that way the base Dust production isn't obfuscated and it can't be reused by the system that produced it). Science is global so it essentially follows the same rule (skips the system), excess Food will vanish, and Industry might be used for brute conversions as normal (however, I don't think that should allow the player to artificially support the economy, it should be more like an amortization for not building anything -- it's a strategic fail to own a system specialized for building, and not building anything -- it surely has to be much less efficient to make Dust out from nothing than to harvest it, don't you think?).



- There are three global tax categories, which can be used to track and list systems by economy type and current phase of development, as well as to simply tag the systems for more depth in the player lore (there is always a clear distinction between the core worlds and the outer colonies, however this is not emphasized in the game).



- The three global tax categories actually simplify what Kingherod proposed (star system tax setting), and streamline that approach in design, while not deviating much from the actual state of the game. The tax bars are still configurable via the global management screen, and the system scope isn't cluttered with an additional tax bar.

Another solution would be to remove dust upkeep cost from dust enhancements buildings. This way, it is always at least somewhat profitable and pretty easy to figure out if it is worth to build or not without complicated calculation.

I agree with the newly proposed taxation system, if I were some sort of intergalactic leader, that is likely how I'd run it.

Agree.



It is a GOOD thing that player can so easily manipulate tax rate, i.e. if he wants to keep his production/growth rates as high as possible, and immediately see what impact it would have planet- and empire-wise. A tool clearly meant to be used extensively.



And with that - yes, it is a BAD thing that this makes some other decisions so unclear. Effectively, you can adequately decide whether an improvement is of any good or not only if you keep your tax rate fixed - and even then you will need some counter-intuitive calculations (is the system self-sustainable or not), as is already said in this topic.

Topic starter speaks about dust-related improvements, but is is so for all other buildings as well. When I think whether or not I should place an improvement, I decide it based on that this system can basically support. The inability to compare a positive impact with the reduction in dust production on the planet makes me just make some wild guesses.



And that goes for governor AI, too. Clearly, it has no means to calculate whether it is sane or not to put a building - so he just builds them all! And, for that matter, there is no way a player could tune this behaviour - he does not know it himself

What I would like, for instance, is to allow or to forbid the governor to make a system individually unprofitable, and this could only be possible if the suggested changes were made.

By the way, the "morale" boost mechanics may be changed to support this as well - for instance, tax rate may have no impact at all on non-profitable systems (always slightly poor ), and the impact could to some extent be a function of untaxed part of the income - that is, the more money empire "wasted", the more happy people on that system are

Here, read my post on the previous page (or don't lol, it doesn't matter really, although I did spend some time). The only thing I haven't tackled with is population growth, but otherwise I'm confident that this solution covers every wish/suggestion mentioned in this topic.

+1 I agree on an overhaul of the slightly confusing taxation system

This system makes more sense to me than most. I mean if I bought something I'd pay the full price. If I started a tourism company by myself I'd pay 100% of the cost. If me and 15 others did so we could do so by spreading the cost and I'd pay about 7%. If 6 of us did so we'd pay about 17% each if we spread the costs evenly. I think this tax system is taking that into consideration. Raising taxes lowers profits, lowering profits deminishes gains. Deminished gains sometimes lead to losses. You can't take a loss and be more productive at the same time. I think there is a fine line that determines when a government can gain from taxes and when it starts to lose from taxes.

I don't think this system needs an overhaul. I think a simplified explaination, that doesn't have opinions in it, would be helpful.

From what I've been able to gather, there is a very simplified explanation listed in the first post, via a link to another thread that describes how the system works. As it is, the system actually works in a way that is very confusing, to the point that certain bonuses to Dust gain are not actual bonuses at all, but rather just a drain on production. If you build a system improvement to generate more Dust, there should never be a point in which it nets you less.

orionsyndrome wrote:
Wow, that explains my futile attempts at backtracking the income factors in order to determine which improvement I should scrap.

So here's my suggestion:



There are three different settings per star system: Frontier tax | Outer tax | Core tax

An outpost would receive the Frontier tax automatically and that would be set in stone until the said outpost earns a Colony status.



From that point onward, player can change between the other two tax settings at will.

This is utterly, completely, totally brilliant, with one caveat.



Don't let the player change between tax settings. A system is taxed at the Outer tax rate if it's a Colony and less than some specific population level (50/75/80/90%, depending on what works best for balance).



I literally can't count the number of science fiction stories I've read where the political tension is generated because the highly populated worlds (having a majority in the equivalent of Congress) are taxing frontier and outer rim worlds to death.



This would at least be a nod to that. Have the unhappiness generated be a factor of the population affected. Initially, the inner colonies would be outnumbered by the outer colonies and outposts. Then, as more outer colonies reached the threshold for inner colonies, and outposts became outer colonies, the balance would shift. It might shift back and forth several times, in fact, depending on exactly how a game went -- for example, if an empire was blocked in because of a bottleneck for a while, it would have more inner colonies than outer and frontier colonies. If it then took over a system that allowed it to expand again, it might undergo a period of expansion which changed the balance... and thus the level of happiness.



Happiness/unhappiness shouldn't change instantly. It should take time, unless the change in taxation is truly dramatic (say, have a set time factor of e.g. 10 turns, modified by the _reciprocal_ of the change -- so a change of 10% taxes 9 turns (10 * (100% - 10%))to reach the happiness of the new tax rate, and a change of 66% takes 3 turns (10 * (100% - 66%))), thus encouraging the player to think ahead.



Having per-system tax rates is, I think, too much micro-management -- but three tax rates is perfectly reasonable, and likely to keep the player from just picking a tax rate and sticking with it.

I think better in-game guide and balancing are good enough for now (A better rework always welcome)

Maybe add a number in the tooltip, read: "under current tax rate"



For example, Careful Swee...

Okey I know 15% tax rate of people before me mentioned this before...

I have to agree with the OP - this is exactly the type of less-than-intuitive subtle spreadsheet trick that we, as alpha testers, are supposed to be investigating. Players will cry "foul" until the end of time if a dust-only improvement actually causes them to lose income based on tax settings.



The problem here seems to revolve around the lumping of all costs together, so to provide good game-play treatment to say, xenotourism, would require cost reductions applied to warships. Perhaps the only solution would be to make dust-only improvements more difficult to build but have a lower per turn cost.



A better way, in my opinion, would be to create a two-staged economy where

- each system's internal economy has a calculated gain/loss based on its dust production + trade - costs of civilian infrastructure

- the tax rate is applied only to gains - any loss from above is passed on fully

- at the imperial level all of these gains and losses are aggregated and modified for inefficiency / empire size

- from this total the costs of all military + imperial improvements + diplomacy + heroes are subtracted



So in abbreviated and somewhat simplified terms:



{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures

Ghost73 wrote:
On a side note: I also think that dust production improvements should not have an upkeep simply because they are meant to boost dust production, not reduce it.

I disagree. Having a dust requirement makes it more tactical. Some systems will make a net loss off of the improvement, some systems will turn into a net profit. Everything else is good.

Let me explain what I mean when I say the tax system is convoluted:

Suppose you are thinking of building the Xenotourism improvement. Xenotourism boosts Dust by 1 per pop on certain planet types for an upkeep of 3 dust. Intuitively, a person would think that they need just 3 pop on the correct planet type to break even. However, this is not the case: It depends entirely on your tax level as to how many pop are required to break even.



With a tax level of 10%, the dust multiplier is x0.2, so the dust bonus that Xenotourism would provide is multiplied x0.2.

Since it requires an upkeep of 3 Dust, at 10% tax you would need a minimum 15 pop to break even (3 upkeep/0.2 = 15). (The 0.2 is how much each pop gains from Xenotourism at 10% tax)



However, if you raise the tax level to say 25%, the bonus becomes x0.5, and then you would only need 6 pop (3 upkeep/0.5 = 6) on the correct planet type to break even with Xenotourism, which is just one reason why I think this system needs an overhaul.



More information here: Dust Production

i agree it really does need an overhaul like that suggested in the OP, the current system is just not intuitive.

25% tax rate isn't 25% "dust to empire." It's 50%. Any tax rate about 50% is a bonus to dust production.



You also forgot about all the positive modifiers (e.g. Hero +25% dust ability). Which is after taxes. And negative modifiers, such as an outpost adjacent to or being covered by the influence from an enemy colony. (a -25% modifier that is also after taxes).

In fact the %age should be remove and replaced by the exact thing you need to know : what percentage of what you're creating is really earned ?

So instead of 50% you would have 100%

VieuxChat wrote:
In fact the %age should be remove and replaced by the exact thing you need to know : what percentage of what you're creating is really earned ?

So instead of 50% you would have 100%

Yes, that too.

Draco18s wrote:
25% tax rate isn't 25% "dust to empire." It's 50%. Any tax rate about 50% is a bonus to dust production.



You also forgot about all the positive modifiers (e.g. Hero +25% dust ability). Which is after taxes. And negative modifiers, such as an outpost adjacent to or being covered by the influence from an enemy colony. (a -25% modifier that is also after taxes).

Good point, which makes it even more difficult to try and figure out if an improvement is beneficial or if changing the tax level will make improvements less useful.

The current system is just too complicated.

If they would list what they consider the base and what the percentages for bonuses are it would be much less confusing,

VieuxChat wrote:
In fact the %age should be remove and replaced by the exact thing you need to know : what percentage of what you're creating is really earned ?

So instead of 50% you would have 100%

Exactly, trying to calculate dust production in a system shouldn't require inside knowledge.

I like the complexities of dust production. It's mentally challenging in a way that economic optimizing rarely is in these games, and it leads to unexpected results that wouldn't occur otherwise. With enough Dust bonuses, Careful Sweeping becomes profitable to build on systems with ONE moon!

Platescale wrote:
I like the complexities of dust production. It's mentally challenging in a way that economic optimizing rarely is in these games, and it leads to unexpected results that wouldn't occur otherwise. With enough Dust bonuses, Careful Sweeping becomes profitable to build on systems with ONE moon!

How? Hero bonus on dust production maxes out at about 40% and you'd need 50% taxes AND a 50% hero bonus to break even.

Draco18s wrote:
How? Hero bonus on dust production maxes out at about 40% and you'd need 50% taxes AND a 50% hero bonus to break even.

65% taxes - quite sustainable on ecstatic with morale-boosting technologies. +20% Dust production from Automated Investment Intelligence. Miscellaneous Dust bonuses from resources. +10% dust production from Colonial Rights. I don't believe this needs a hero.

The taxation system as it is now is extremely confusing and actually affects the production of dust in your systems as opposed to taking a portion like a regular tax.



Please read this thread outlining Dust Production before continuing: Understanding Dust Production and Income in a System



There are 2 problems with the tax system in game right now:

1) Taxation before upkeep

This means a system's dust improvements produce less dust at lower tax levels. If an improvement turns a profit at 50% tax, why should it have a deficit at a lower tax?



2) The Tax is a Multiplier

The tax slider is not what it claims to be. It is nothing at all like a tax. Unlike a regular tax, it directly affects what the system produces, not the amount the government takes like a regular tax. Compounding this problem is that the tax slider is non-linear and that the game does not explain at all how it works. So even if players knew the tax was a multiplier, they would assume 50% means a 0.5 multiplier, but it doesn't. Confusion and frustration ensues.



Instead of the tax level acting as a multiplier on the production of dust in a system before upkeep, have it be exactly like a regular tax, but after the upkeep.



So a system producing 150 dust and 50 upkeep in an empire with 25% tax would give 25 dust to the empire: (150 - 50) x 0.25 = 25

(Production - Upkeep) x tax rate = dust for empire



Much more intuitive than how it is now: (150 x 0.5) - 50 = 25

(Production x tax multiplier) - Upkeep = dust for empire



This would also have the added benefit of make it much easier for players to know if a dust boosting improvement is a net gain or not on their system AND not having to worry about the tax level when building them (see The Multiplier vs. Improvements section in linked thread).



On a side note: I also think that dust production improvements should not have an upkeep simply because they are meant to boost dust production, not reduce it.



Edit:

OthobRithol provides a better explanation of my idea here: (see below)

OthobRithol wrote:
A better way, in my opinion, would be to create a two-staged economy where

- each system's internal economy has a calculated gain/loss based on its dust production + trade - costs of civilian infrastructure

- the tax rate is applied only to gains - any loss from above is passed on fully

- at the imperial level all of these gains and losses are aggregated and modified for inefficiency / empire size

- from this total the costs of all military + imperial improvements + diplomacy + heroes are subtracted



So in abbreviated and somewhat simplified terms:



{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures

Platescale wrote:
65% taxes - quite sustainable on ecstatic with morale-boosting technologies. +20% Dust production from Automated Investment Intelligence. Miscellaneous Dust bonuses from resources. +10% dust production from Colonial Rights. I don't believe this needs a hero.

Its true that you can eventually boost dust production with enough bonuses, however in early game dust boosting buildings are still useless until you can get the resources and pop to support their upkeep. Also, if for some reason you need to lower your tax level, the improvement that used to be giving you dust, is now draining it. The system that is in place now is counterintuitive and extremely confusing for new players, and just look at how many people did not even realize the ridiculous intricacies this system has even now after playing for weeks.



I am a believer in Occam's Razor, and the fact that people will simply have more fun if they are able to understand it. The way taxes work needs to be simplified.

OthobRithol wrote:
IThe problem here seems to revolve around the lumping of all costs together, so to provide good game-play treatment to say, xenotourism, would require cost reductions applied to warships. Perhaps the only solution would be to make dust-only improvements more difficult to build but have a lower per turn cost.



A better way, in my opinion, would be to create a two-staged economy where

- each system's internal economy has a calculated gain/loss based on its dust production + trade - costs of civilian infrastructure

- the tax rate is applied only to gains - any loss from above is passed on fully

- at the imperial level all of these gains and losses are aggregated and modified for inefficiency / empire size

- from this total the costs of all military + imperial improvements + diplomacy + heroes are subtracted



So in abbreviated and somewhat simplified terms:



{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures

Yes, this is something that is much easier to understand for everyone. This is exactly what we need, thanks for clarifying my idea.

I agree with the simplification based upon the explanation of how the tax system works in another thread that was linked to this one.

/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14057-understanding-dust-production-and-income-in-a-system



A dust improvement should actually be an improvement is essentially the reasoning; it should not drag down dust production because a player does not understand the finer mathematical details of how taxes operate. The simpler a tax system, the more a player can understand the direct implications of his or her actions. Taxes and improvements should not have to be studied in order to be understood for the purposes of playing a game.

I've played for close to 30 hours now, and never realized this. Granted, I haven't really tried to maximize Dust, because I haven't been using much (actually just realized last night that you could hurry production... as a long-time Civ player, I am a little disappointed with myself). The system as it stands seems really silly, and a more intuitive system would be nice. Here I was thinking that I would benefit from using Careful Sweeping in a system with 3 moons...



The 2-stage system detailed above makes a TON of sense, should go with that!

{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures



This equation implies that raising taxes won't ever produce income on systems that aren't covering the costs of their structures, if tax rates are only applied after maintenance costs are fully deducted. This results in systems having the same (negative) dust production at 0% and 100% taxes. The exact same. Tax raises won't affect anything for systems that are spending more on civilian infrastructure than they're raising in income. That's counterintuitive. Shouldn't tax rates adjust the income before costs are subtracted?

Platescale wrote:
{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures



This equation implies that raising taxes won't ever produce income on systems that aren't covering the costs of their structures, if tax rates are only applied after maintenance costs are fully deducted. This results in systems having the same (negative) dust production at 0% and 100% taxes. The exact same. Tax raises won't affect anything for systems that are spending more on civilian infrastructure than they're raising in income. That's counterintuitive. Shouldn't tax rates adjust the income before costs are subtracted?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: The tax takes what a system produces, so if a system has a deficit, then what can the tax take? If income is taxed before upkeep, the system won't have enough to cover its operating costs at a low tax value. This causes improvements that turn a profit at 50% tax, to have a deficit at a lower tax.



There are 2 problems with the tax system in game right now:

1) Taxation before upkeep

This means a system's dust improvements produce less dust at lower tax levels. If an improvement turns a profit at 50% tax, why should it have a deficit at a lower tax?



2) The Tax is a Multiplier

The tax slider is not what it claims to be. It is nothing at all like a tax. Unlike a regular tax, it directly affects what the system produces, not the amount the government takes like a regular tax. Compounding this problem is that the tax slider is non-linear and that the game does not explain at all how it works. So even if players knew the tax was a multiplier, they would assume 50% means a 0.5 multiplier, but it doesn't. Confusion and frustration ensues.



Note: Changed first post for clarification.

I agree, the taxation system is unnecessarily brain-bending and obtuse. It really needs to be simplified, and the player needs more resources to break down what the economy is doing. I'd have to alt-tab to Excel to figure out whether my xenotourism is turning a profit right now. Built structures should indicate how much income they're generating or sucking out of the economy.

I think it'd be interesting to listen to what the devs have to say.



Though I agree with the fact that the dust system is very convoluted, I think the reason the devs designed it in this way was because a % tax on the net operating income of a system results in INCREDIBLE dust income in mid->late game when the dust income is way higher than the cost of improvements. So maybe the multiplier method was an effort to ease out the dust effect throughout the game.



If this is indeed their concern, maybe they can still change the tax system to make it more intuitive and have upkeep cost scale up depending on some factor (such as the number of population affected by).



Just a thought.

Something needs to change, either the current system needs to present more info as to whether it is beneficial or not and the tax slider needs to more accurately reflect what it dose

or

Change the tax system to something less complicated.



I like parts of the current tax system it is more realistic at times. You can give out money to your citzens to make them happy and it has and high and low taxes have negative impacts on your economy its the Laffer curve in Spaceeee.

I agree. I just bought the game and I would hate to have to spreadsheet every system every time I want to make an improvement (to see if the improvement is worth while and to see if it remains so on different tax rates) just because the current tax system is counter intuitive.

ArchDuke wrote:
I agree. I just bought the game and I would hate to have to spreadsheet every system every time I want to make an improvement (to see if the improvement is worth while and to see if it remains so on different tax rates) just because the current tax system is counter intuitive.

My point exactly. It should be easier for players to build a stable empire. You shouldn't have to reevaluate your improvements on the fly just because you changed the tax level.