Please use steam to update your game to 1.0.14. Then you will see this.

Sowers can colonize gas giants from turn 1. The PI improvement can be a bit debateable, but I tend to beeline for it after I have my early game techs, so it is somewhere inbetween early and mid game for me.

3ntf4k3d wrote:
If you are really running into dust problems during the early game there are two easy ways to circumvent this:

(1) Focus your home world on indutry and switch to dust conversion for a few turns, then build some stuff, convert again, etc. This should allow you to continue expanding until your first colonies can get up Xeno-Tourism and your trade routes are established. Sowers are naturally better for this, thanks to their industry bias. They can also effectively use gas giants with +10 prod to great effect early on.

(2) Get the +6 FIDS improvement. It is ridiculously cheap to build or rush and makes all system self-sustainable in regards to dust. Build it right after your Refinery and Exploitation improvements when you settle a new system.

You have an odd definition of early game, as by the time you should be colonize gas giants and getting the +6 FIDS improvment should be mid-game.

3ntf4k3d wrote:
If you are really running into dust problems during the early game there are two easy ways to circumvent this:

(1) Focus your home world on indutry and switch to dust conversion for a few turns, then build some stuff, convert again, etc. This should allow you to continue expanding until your first colonies can get up Xeno-Tourism and your trade routes are established. Sowers are naturally better for this, thanks to their industry bias. They can also effectively use gas giants with +10 prod to great effect early on.

(2) Get the +6 FIDS improvement. It is ridiculously cheap to build or rush and makes all system self-sustainable in regards to dust. Build it right after your Refinery and Exploitation improvements when you settle a new system.

The dust from the PI helps of course - but its also subject to Empire Tax modifier ... For outposts with very low empire tax levels the PI maintenance cost can exceed the dust added ...

If you are really running into dust problems during the early game there are two easy ways to circumvent this:

(1) Focus your home world on indutry and switch to dust conversion for a few turns, then build some stuff, convert again, etc. This should allow you to continue expanding until your first colonies can get up Xeno-Tourism and your trade routes are established. Sowers are naturally better for this, thanks to their industry bias. They can also effectively use gas giants with +10 prod to great effect early on.

(2) Get the +6 FIDS improvement. It is ridiculously cheap to build or rush and makes all system self-sustainable in regards to dust. Build it right after your Refinery and Exploitation improvements when you settle a new system.

Ok - tried this last night. Liked it, but screwed up. I got too involved in my planets and forgot about the rest of the galaxy until it was too late.



I had no problems with dust, if I started going negative, I just turned a system over to production>dust, and had no worries.



I gotta say, I think the Sowers are awesome as a custom race.

Argh, that was painful to read.



Great idea though.



But after about 30 minutes of painstakingly reading and re-reading sentences and run-on sentences with awful grammar, I appreciate my English teacher so much more. Someone needs to learn how to effectively communicate via forums.



My take on this thread is a strategy as follows (TLDR version):



1 - Initial planet - food planet. As much growth as possible, and a little industry along the way.

2 - Outposts: go for production planets, build production. If there are Terran planets, go for another food planet to grow more people.

3 - Once your initial planet starts getting crazy pop growth, export it's population to other systems via colony ships (with 2x colony mods) and landing them on outpost planets. You can max out the population of your outposts this way, instead of painstaking low-food growth on those production planets, or trying to make a no-food planet grow population without food growth.

4 - If you need dust - go for production-to-dust on some of your production planets that you have filled up with people exported from your food planet(s).

5 - Jump start planets production by moving around your hero(s) with his(their) bonuses. (Horatio Clone anyone?)



I think I'm going to try this tonight with a custom built race similar to Neopara's.

I agree on both points. I hate taking them for the sake of getting free points.

I agree dust impaired, and also sloppy sawbones, are pretty much free points. For dust impaired, I thought that it should greatly increase the per-turn maintenance cost of the hero, like to -4/turn instead of -2/turn. That gives it some "teeth". What do you think? For sloppy sawbones, I use dust to heal so rarely, I am not sure that simply increasing the effect helps. I have deleted it in my community balance mod:



/#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15801-released-community-bug-fix-balance-mod

Ohh wow, they just release a patch today. That is fine, the custom faction main points are:



Sower (Starts on tundra which benefit the most from early production improvements and helps with early research)

3x Scientist (To get your early tech faster and works great with tundras)

2x Legendary Heroes (Early +15 production is crazy good for growth/"Production to Empire Dust Conversion")

1x Mineral Rich (Get the starting planet growth going early as it will be supporting your empire)

2x Optimistic (This helps your colonies continue growing as you will not have happiness issues)



So far to get these to fit I am using:

1x Feeble Warriors (Free points, but a lot stronger negative now; but needed it to fit)

2x Dust Impaired (Free points)



I want to add:

1x Dust Archaeology (first turn civ hero seems really good)

1-3x SpendThrift (For something else good)



but I can't seem to get them to fit nicely.

I will try to stick to general guildelines - execution will of course vary mostly according to faction picked and map position(geopolitical factors)..



Goal:

The starting goal is to settle and populate to capacity as many systems as possible ... On the huge twin elliptical maps I tend to play that means about 10+ systems ... (Simple reasoning - more population->more FIDS, more systems - more luxuries/strategic resources(again FIDS), and not the least more of everything for you is less for your neighbours)



Problem: (DUST)

I would expect approval to be the worst problem for such reckless early expansion (and indirectly it is) but what you will experince first will be DUST shortage ...No matter how you'll try to swing it - the dust problem cannot be fixed during the mass outpost spam ... You could just trust me when I say that outposts are terrible for planetary dust generation and skip the lenghty paranthesis I'm about to open to explain why ...



{Why you will NEVER be able get meaninfull dust output from outposts .. AVOID settling first planet in system on DUST planet arid , barren or Hydrogen if you have a choice (as long as the system is in outpost stage it will waste most of its dust ..)



Lets Start With the System Level Dust output formula ...



SD = Sum(dust_from_trade_routes) + INDUSTRY_TO_DUST_CONVERSION - Hero_Upkeep - Sum(Improvements_Upkeep) + (Sum(planetary_D)+Sum(flat_+dust_bonuses)) * (TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD - DFE_TAX_MOD)* (1+ Sum(percent_%dust_bonuses))



Quite a mouth full but since we're talking early game we can simplify it to keep the relevant parts (no trade routes, no hero on most outposts, no industry to dust conversion if we can help it - we want to develop our colonies not stagnate them .. )



So simplified version



SD = - Sum(Improvements_Upkeep) + (Sum(planetary_D)+Sum(flat_+dust_bonuses)) * (1+ Sum(percent_%dust_bonuses)) * TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2



You always pay the Upkeep of improvements in full (you must make judgement calls on adding improvements - when early outpost spamming dust shortage will be the main issue )



So on our outposts the Dust generated from our planets (https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14011-planetary-level-fids-output-guide) will be multiplied by * TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2 ...



TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD is a coeficient derived from the current setting of empire tax (faction dependent) representing how much of your planetary level dust you get to keep (at low empire tax level - not much).. Here is are some tables with its values at low imperial taxes values for outposts ...





[CODE]

TAX_RATE(%) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(1) 0 7.5 15 22.5 30 35 40 42.5

TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(2) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

[/CODE]



TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(1) is for UE faction , TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(2) is for the other factions ...



Why low taxes you ask ? See what happens when you try to raise them during the mass outpost spam era .. You gain roughfully 5% more effective dust output per 5% tax level increase from your outposts (10% main colony) BUT you lose 10-30% food AND industry AND science output due to approval hits ... Not worth it ...

As long as you still have many outposts out there is little reason to raise taxes if it drops approval levels ...(and without approval techs/improvements it will drop fast)



Lets take a look now at TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD with decent empire TAX_RATE (above 40%)..



[CODE]

TAX_RATE(%) 40 45 50 55 60

TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD(1) 90 95 100 105 110

TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD(2) 80 90 100 109 117

[/CODE]



TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(1) is for UE faction , TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD/2(2) is for sophons and amoebas .. Will update with the other races ...Notice at this point you get to keep most of your planetary dust and thus Arid planets with finnanciar exploitation become very very attractive ...This is also the point then the finnanciar improvements (xenotourism & careful sweeping) become worth building (https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14013-solar-system-level-fids-guide) ...

}





Guilde lines



1 Keep empire population growth rate high ...

2 Have all(most of) your systems reach enough industry to build the planetary improvements, military or transport ships in a timeley fashion ...Administrator heroes with Civil Engineering are extremely helpfull at this stage - especially on systems with currenly low production capability ...

3 About exploitation settings (during the outpost spam stage)

- production - if system has critically low production and you won't starve (you can always import population - you cannot import industy). If its a production planet (jungle, tundra , lava )...If there is not enough industry in a system ...

- food - unless sower you will need a few planets focused on food - however anomalies and apropriate food boosting improvements or heroes will allow you to eventually swich to something else...Monitor when you can generate enough food without food exploitaion and switch it out ...

- science - Try to avoid arctics during outpost stage ... If you have to settle one early chances are you will need to focus food/industry on it until later. Later I try to keep oceans, arctics and barrens on science exloitation ...

- finnaciar - NEVER during outpost stage (set a system on production on industry to dust conversion if you need the cash) - When they turn into colony on all arid & desert planets (unless the system has critically low industry and you need industry focus)

4 When production que is empty and planet is far enough from full population and no other crucially important improvement is available build:

- military ships to prevent pirates spawn (you will retrofit them later), as you settle systems converge them on choke points and have them shutdown cold war scouts//transport ships

- convert indusry to dust (to keep from bankrupcy, buy/clone heroes , retrofit some fleets ..)

5 Delay settling dust planets (arid, barren) during the outpost phase if you can help it...Arctic (science planets aren't too hot :P either at this stage (10+ Magnetic Field Generators should take care of the early games teching needs) -still way better than arid or barren) ...What you need are the good production planets - jungles, tundra (slow start - use administrator hero to kickstart), deserts , lava or VERY good food(population growth) planets ...

6 Get a Magnetic Field Generator on each system in a timely fashion

7 With Magnetic Field Generators researched and building -> Go for wormholes (trough destroyers) to see if you can grab some more systems then tech and implement approval boosters (there are some good food increasing techs along the way)

8 Check each turn if a System is at/near full population capacity - if so you have 2 options

- colonise another good (production/food) planet in the same solar system (cheaper production wise)

- export the last population unit to another system that has better production planets but lacks capacity to grow population locally (desert, lava, methane, asteroid) - try and sync the turn of the last population unit growth with building the transport ship so you don't waste any food staying at full population ... (you migh have an alternative transport ship version with engine - more expensive to build but sometimes you need to shift population over long distances ... build the slow cheaper one if targeted system is close)

9 Build up enough approval to be able to raise EMPIRE TAXES to at least 40 as soon as possible ...(when your outposts start turning into colonies)

At that point you will start generating enough DPT to retrofit your fleets with the latest technological advancements ... (its useless to have military tech lead if you cannot build new ships quickly or have the cash to retrofit the old ones)...And not fielding adequate military means death ...

Really? I am running 1.09 and I am still able to select Black Thumbs with a Sower custom faction.

Neopara, black thumbs is now blocked by Sower Affinity

Man, I am really digging this thread and sorry for the wall of text. It totally makes me rethink the early stage. I was always focused on food when expanding, but that is really incorrect.



For people disagreeing with his explanation, please take a look at his other threads about the game mechanics:



/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14013-solar-system-level-fids-guide

/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14014-empire-level-fids-guide



There are a few general rules you can come out of it:

1) Early dust is not possible from outpost due to outpost dust penalty (ie. -50%) that is multiplied to your tax rate

2) Upkeep is payed after penalty/tax (This means dust improvement suck until you can support higher tax rate)

3) Positive dust modifiers are multiplied by tax and outpost penalty (This means postive dust improvements/traits are not that good unless you have high tax rate)

4) Tax is not applied to "Production to Empire Dust Conversion" (This means high production can make you money with low taxes)

4) Tax is not applied to trade routes (This could also be exploited with the right faction traits without going production heavy)

6) Unhappiness/Strikes in a system is -20%/-50% to the system FIDS output except dust

7) Happy/Ecstatic in a system is 10%/20% to your system FIDS output including dust



So if you look at the early game, you are going to have a hard time making dust. Increasing taxes is pointless as most of your system are outpost and will have a -50% modifier on top of it. The only systems that will be making dust for you are the ones that are colonies. The problem is you are going to have a hard time making sure they are not unhappy or going on strike because of expansion and over population penalties once they turn into colonies. It usually takes a while to get to approval improvements in your system and you still need to figure out how to pay for them without increasing your tax rate which negates their affect. So an efficient way to make dust in the early stage is through "Production to Empire Dust Conversion", which requires production, which is synergistic will your expansion goals and early civil hero (ie. + 20 production).



So the general plan is to only build production and science in your new systems. If you don't have anything to build then generate dust though "Production to Empire Dust Conversion. Try not to spend this dust, as you will need to handle times when you are losing it because all your systems are building stuff. If you have no dust then try to rotate your systems to "Production to Empire Dust Conversion" so other system can build improvements.



What about food?



This is where his plan works so great. Have you noticed in the early stages your system seem to stall in growth.



Well, there are a number of reasons for this:

1) Growth is exponential

2) Your food output is linear

3) Each pop consumes 2 food

4) Unhappiness/strikes penalties due to expansion and overpopulation



You are going to reach a point where the exponential growth requirement and approval become too much of a factor. Getting the tech to alleviate this is hard when expanding because you are focused on the other stuff to research (ie. science, expansion and production). So what do you? Try not to grow your system to large, and instead try to distribute your population to other systems through colonization or increasing the pop of existing ones.



Generally, make a few growth systems with tier-1 or food bonus planets and distribute your population when they start hitting the limit. Most of the time this limit is the first planet cap size, but this is not always the case.



After trying this guide out, I created a custom faction which I think is pretty insane with this strategy.

Sower (Starts on tundra which benefit the most from early production improvements and helps with early research)

Sower Affinity (Crazy good with this strategy)

2x Feeble Warriors (Free points)

2x Dust Impaired (Free points)

3x Black thumb (Free points as you are getting your growth from production) (Sowers -50% modifier is multiplied to the sum of food growth modifiers, so this is really only -15% to food)

3x Spend Thrift (You are going to be making your dust from "Production to Empire Dust Conversion" in the early stages and there is enough improvements in late stage where this isn't a issue) (Also multiplied by tax so usually only -15%)

3x Scientist (To get your early tech faster and works great with tundras)

2x Legendary Heroes (Early +20 production is crazy good for growth/"Production to Empire Dust Conversion")

1x Mineral Rich (Get the starting planet growth going early as it will be supporting your empire)

2x Optimistic (This helps your colonies continue growing as you will not have happiness issues)

2x Optimal Structures (With high production, you can support building better ships) (Also helps with 2 colony pods ships or faster colony ships)

3x Builders (Get stuff built even faster, so you can be running "Production to Empire Dust Conversion" more often) (You might want to trade this for military traits depending on style)



Settle your first colony ship on your existing planet, do one turn of "Production to Empire Dust Conversion" to get your civil hero. Focus your research on the first two production techs while scouting out other systems. Otherwise, follow peddroelm guide.

Apheirox wrote:
There is a very easy way: All he is really saying is 'when you are expanding, you will be using a low tax rate and hence have low tax income which will make it difficult to pay upkeep for improvements/ships.'



There you go. Thread vastly overcomplicates matters IMO.

peddroelm wrote:


You could just trust me when I say that outposts are terrible for planetary dust generation and skip the lenghty paranthesis I'm about to open to explain why ...

That explaination easily makes for about 50% of the first post volume ... Had this forum allowed for hide/show paragraph tags - that paharanthesis would not had been visible but for the ones that wanted the gory details ...

Apheirox wrote:


I don't even agree with the conclusion that you should necessarily avoid dust-producing planets since doing so will only further compound the issue. Of course, going as low as 10% tax is also more extreme than I would go. It's true enough that Food and Industry is really what you want so you can get stuff (particularly the OP Magnetic Field Generator) built, but if you completely avoid dust planets and stay on minimal tax that too will halt your expansion - no point in being able to build those if you can't afford to pay their upkeep.

Reread the thread and see why an empire TAX level between 15% - 20% is probably where your empire tax level will need to be during the early outpost spam stage ...



Your empire dust upkeep costs will keep increasing (system improvements, ships, heroes) ..You will NEED to generate at least enough dust to balance the upkeep costs (ideally save a bit for emergency fleet retrofits or buyouts ..)



Two ways you can go about generating dust at this stage - > planetary industry converted to dust or planetary dust nerfed by the TAX_RATE_DUST_MOD ...



Lets compare efficiency



X - Industry or Dust coming from the planets (usually only one planet at this stage)



Industry can be boosted by approval by 30%



X * 1.3 * 0.25 = X * 1.3 * 0.25 = X * 0.325

32.5 % Planetary Industry to Empire Dust conversion rate



Outpost dust at empire tax 15% (no UE faction)



X * 30 *0.5 = X* 0.15

15% Planetary Dust to Empire Dust Conversion rate



Outpost dust at empire tax 20% (no UE faction)



X * 40 *0.5 = X* 0.2

20% Planetary Dust to Empire Dust Conversion rate



Early game heroes (administrators) will generate more industry (flat and % via Labor stat) than dust ...



Of course you cannot use that industry to build stuff while the system is converting it to dust ...



Dust buyout formula Dust_BuyoutCost = (0.75*RemainingIndustryCost) ^1.25 (from endless space WIKI)





X axis is industry cost of the item to rush buy





X axis is remaining industry cost of the item to rush buy

Y axis is dust cost to rush buy per remaining industry cost ratio



Ex.

pay ~4000 dust to rush buy a 1000 industry cost remaining item



As soon as industry cost is above 4.4 [allitemsinthegamecostmorethan4.4industrytobuild] Industry becomes more valuable than dust when building ships//improvements - another reason to focus on industry early instead of dust ...(it becomes increasingly more wasteful to buyout as industry costs go up)





========

I will typically settle one planet per system in the outpost spamming era ... (best food // production option) ... Anomaly , luxury & strategic resource randomness might even make the winner by those criteria , in some systems to be an arid planet - but in that case the extra planetary dust production is just a tiny bonus (exploitation will be food or production) ... When the system turns into a colony and other planets can provide the food & industry - arid planets get colonized & focused on dust ...

Nodor wrote:
GAH!



Wall of text/math.



I agree with your conclusions, but there has to be a way to truncate this.



I also think that the different tax/dust math for United Empire makes a HUGE difference here.

There is a very easy way: All he is really saying is 'when you are expanding, you will be using a low tax rate and hence have low tax income which will make it difficult to pay upkeep for improvements/ships.'



There you go. Thread vastly overcomplicates matters IMO. I don't even agree with the conclusion that you should necessarily avoid dust-producing planets since doing so will only further compound the issue. Of course, going as low as 10% tax is also more extreme than I would go. It's true enough that Food and Industry is really what you want so you can get stuff (particularly the OP Magnetic Field Generator) built, but if you completely avoid dust planets and stay on minimal tax that too will halt your expansion - no point in being able to build those if you can't afford to pay their upkeep.

GAH!



Wall of text/math.



I agree with your conclusions, but there has to be a way to truncate this.



I also think that the different tax/dust math for United Empire makes a HUGE difference here.

Hawat wrote:
Thank you for this, it was very interesting and helpful.



The heavy industry focus is not what I would have guessed - I had been going with every planet (excepting systems that really, really needed industry and had decent food production) set to food exploitation until max pop is reached (you can grow pop on high industry worlds by farming high food worlds, but you can't build pop from industry). I'm guessing you've tried that approach and found it less effective? Also, is this intended for single player, multi-player or both? Has this approach been effective for you on Endless difficulty, and if so, with which factions?

This is a general guide aimed at SP and should be successful against endless AIs using any the stock factions ... (the bigger the map - the more room/time you will get expand and tech to recuperate AI advantages) .. You will soon recognize MP guides - by contrast they typically are very very specific - you MUST use this and that and trait with this custom race ... Specific build/tech orders designed to maximize early aggression potential ... And that hero type brought on turn 2 .. Or else you already lost the game ...



Its not that I don't use food exploitation - I will use it on most new systems to bring the first planet to max food ...Terran planets I will mostly always keep on food exploitation if there are other planets to handle production in system ...You will need production to build improvements.. You will need production to build warships ..



" but you can't build pop from industry" .. But you can always import population from systems that have massive amounts of food excess and can grow it quickly ...

A few systems with Terran planets on food exploitation with some good food anomalies and administrator hero (+50 food + 20% food) can keep growing and exporting 1 pop per 1-2 turn and help quickly populate other systems filled with nasty stuff (low food - but good Industry or Science Or Dust) like asteroids , gas giants , barrens ... Late game you can even export 2 population units at a time (transport ship with engines & 2 colony pods) if the surplus food is high enough to regrow the pop fast enough

It requires a ton of tech or dust to make a system filled with only class V planets grow population by itself ...





Have not played endless difficulty yet... Currently mopping up a impossible level (twin elliptical huge map) craver game ... Had lost of room to expand .. no challenge from the AI .. When this is done I will switch to endless difficulty with another stock faction ...

Thank you for this, it was very interesting and helpful.



The heavy industry focus is not what I would have guessed - I had been going with every planet (excepting systems that really, really needed industry and had decent food production) set to food exploitation until max pop is reached (you can grow pop on high industry worlds by farming high food worlds, but you can't build pop from industry). I'm guessing you've tried that approach and found it less effective? Also, is this intended for single player, multi-player or both? Has this approach been effective for you on Endless difficulty, and if so, with which factions?

reserved for eventual updates