I regularly run midgame amoeba positions at 75% taxes. With a few alliances and the galactic brotherhood building, you can get +100 happiness without too much trouble.

I get the explanation but am I the only one to feel that the penalties should be adjusted? I mean it is tremendously difficult to have your tax rate at or beyond 50% due to happiness penalties...even for factions who are militaristic and expansionary...one would figure those populations would not be so gloomy...

MDA wrote:
I created this table for myself using the information in this thread. Numbers listed on the table are the required populations to cover maintenance of the improvement. I rounded them up for my own convenience. I also cut off a couple of columns, but you get the idea, and it's smaller this way. Tax rates went from 10 to 60 because I've never had cause to leave those brackets. YMMV, particularly with UE players. Apologies if someone's already put one of these together.



I do wonder a lot about Careful Sweeping. It seems terrible as it is, and I'm also leaning toward it actually returning 2 dust per person on each planet with a moon.



Submitted for your feedback and/or use.

I played around with Careful Sweeping... the description is misleading. It's actually 2/pop on planets with an explored moon, not just 2 per explored moon. This makes it a lot better than it otherwise would be.



Other than that, unless they bumped the upkeeps back up in the latest patch, all of your upkeeps are 1 more than their current costs.

MDA wrote:
I do wonder a lot about Careful Sweeping. It seems terrible as it is, and I'm also leaning toward it actually returning 2 dust per person on each planet with a moon.

I also noticed Careful Sweeping giving strange numbers. The idea of it using the population of the planet(s) with a moon makes a lot of sense. It's only anecdotal evidence at best, but in my last game systems with 2 or more moons got a heavy profit from building Careful Sweeping (as much as 10 dust on average, with 25% tax). I tested it briefly with some single moon systems as well, and they generally broke even. This was fairly late game, so all my systems were near or at max population at the time. The food equivalent (I don't recall what it's called) also gave bonuses much too large to only take the number of moons in account.



Nice chart by the way.

Iceciro wrote:
Well, ouch. That explains why I didn't seem to be able to dig myself out of economic holes with lower tax rates and more economic structures.

I do not like this; at the very least it should come out of profit after upkeep, so that you cannot bankrupt yourself by producing money-generating improvements. That's very counter-intuitive.

But that is exactly why it should work like this. If it was a good solution to lower taxes and instead build Ecnomoy improvements, there would be no drawbacks at all; you'd simply lower taxes all the time since it is very beneficial to do so. I'm all for choice, so I don't want it to boil down to a no brainer choice like that. If taxes didn't have a huge impact on dust production, approval would just be a wasted stat in the game. This is why it currently makes sense to build the approval buildings, so that you can actually maintain a good tax rate; the problem is that all the other values (Food, Industry, Science) are boosted by a low tax rate; which is a very bad balancing design in my eyes. This leads to the strategy many people have adopted (because it works so well), namely lowering taxes all the time and instead producing dust via the "conversion projects". The other "problem" if you can call it that way is that both local approval and global approval boost all the other stats but dust generation, so there are many incentives to lower taxes already. I'm quite sure that they either need to be toned down or even removed in order to present a player with meaningful choices on the economic side of things. Right now, production is king all the time and you should lower tax rates as much as possible and produce dust via Industry.



Since you have a tax rate in game, you'll never be able to decouple dust gain and show it as a static stat; for this to work you'd need to redesign the system (which would basically mean that the tax rate is fixed and no longer exists in the game). The only thing they could do is display an accurate profit/cost popup at the current tax settings for the player to judge. That would probably be a very good thing, so you do not have to do the math yourself .



Also, someone mentioned that the Clean Sweeping Improvement is actually per pop on the planet which belongs to the moon - I've not been able to verfiy this though . If it is not, the improvement is bascially worthless since you'd need very high tax rates for it to even matter slightly, since the usual system probably has two moons if not less on average.

Thank you for the great explanation of how dust production and income works! I am going to link to it from my noobs group!

Do anyone think that isn't a good thing ?

Taxes should be applied to the overall gain, not revenue as it's easier to tracks and doesn't create counterintuitive situations where a dust improvement will drag dust instead of getting some.

Chuck_Norris wrote:
I just roundhouse a few moons when ever i need dust.

^^^ ultimate troll.

Admiral_Tolwyn wrote:
lol I need the Chuck Norris version, Im not a physics professor.

^^^ ultimate troll follower.



<<<< +1

Porksmuggler wrote:
This. With every game I've played to date, I've left the tax rate at zero, and built no dust improvements. I've focused on a few high industry systems, and use them in-between fleet production for ind-dust conversion.

I have heard this suggestion several times. Worth a try. Probably take less time to build up a system. I always thought the system improvements provided a flat add outside of the tax rate. but now with the math given to me, I am convinced.



EDIT: For those wannabe, soon-to-be, and actual accountants/economists: think personal income tax--tax on revenue, not profit.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:


Considering the powerful effect Approval has on Food, Industry, and Science, maybe it is often better to keep taxes low, and use Ind-Dust conversion instead of Taxes to fund your empire? Although with enough Happiness bonuses you could probably support a decent tax rate even at 100% approval (except for newly annexed systems).

This. With every game I've played to date, I've left the tax rate at zero, and built no dust improvements. I've focused on a few high industry systems, and use them in-between fleet production for ind-dust conversion.

Chuck_Norris wrote:
I just roundhouse a few moons when ever i need dust.

lol I need the Chuck Norris version, Im not a physics professor.

Ghost73 wrote:
Not quite, it depends 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). 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.

Yep nevermind. math boo. boo.



Improvement upkeep does not scale with tax rate.

So with 10% tax => x0.2 my formula would be x*0.2 - 3 >= 1

which means x >= 4 * 5 =20



So, 20 pop on appropriate planets in system to get atleast 1 dust at 10% tax ewwwww.



I normally set taxes at or below 25% => x0.5 meaning 8 pop minimum to get at least 1 dust out of building improvements. Ewwww! I have been doing it wrong.



I need to scrap some system improvements. Lots of system improvements.

I just roundhouse a few moons when ever i need dust.

bleh,. way to much mathematical gobbledygook. that chart made me more confused, I need the idiot version

How does Money Leech influence a system? I noticed that once you capture a system with a hero that has Inside Informant, that system seems to retain the Leech modifier even though that Dust is being drained by my hero.

supersoaker9 wrote:
Are you saying having 3 pop on the appropriate planet types does not offset the -3 upkeep for building xenotourism??? Or do you just mean +1 whole dust more than break even?

Not quite, it depends 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). 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.

After reading through this thread, I finally understand in-game tax system. Thanks.



Basically, instead of fudging with the dust production of every planet every time tax changes, the base production rate show on planets are for 50% tax. Then they fudge with a global multiplier. (This is VERY smart and EFFICIENT!)

Photon_Ventdesdunes wrote:
... With the calculs above, and if I take 0.2 as a multiplier for 10% tax rate. If I remember correctly xenotourism has an upkeep of 2 Dust, You need 11 pop in a system to gain dust ?

Are you saying having 3 pop on the appropriate planet types does not offset the -3 upkeep for building xenotourism??? Or do you just mean +1 whole dust more than break even?



EDIT: Xeno has -3 upkeep shouldn't this mean pop > 9 to get 1 whole dust from Photon's example ?

ie., (pop - 3) * 0.2 > 1 => pop - 3 > 5 => pop > 8 .

VieuxChat wrote:
Do anyone think that isn't a good thing ?

Taxes should be applied to the overall gain, not revenue as it's easier to tracks and doesn't create counterintuitive situations where a dust improvement will drag dust instead of getting some.

I definitely agree, check my suggestion thread outlining changes to the tax system, it's simple, really: Simplify Taxation System

Hm, says -3 in game

davea wrote:
This is a very interesting observation. I did not quite understand the middle part.

The middle part explains the tax multiplier and how it is applied before upkeep. I gave two examples of a system at 25% and 35% and then showed how it is calculated in game.

The Wiki is outdated on this point, it's -3 in my game. I remember reading they increased upkeep costs in the latest patch.

I checked, It's -2 in the wiki. And I saw the 11 people have to be on Planets type I or II : Terran, Ocean, Jungle, Arid, Tundra.



Here