I am just wondering.....do you spam system improvement?



I have been trying to be very efficient with my improvements, and to add ones that will only be really beneficial for a certain system. I try to put as few on as possible to keep the improvement dust cost down, and systems as efficient as possible.



Is this wrong...should I just spam system improvements? Obviously I don't mean using improvements that don't affect any planet types in the system, but rather within reason.

If you can have 25+% tax rate and high approval(and not play sophones), most of the economic star system improvements are worthy of constructing.



Some, like Heavy isotope refinery, Public-private partnership, magnetic field generator, planetery institute, improvements that boost FIDS per pop or provide a % bonus, ex.



The only things you should really consider not spamming are military improvements, since not all planets are on the frontier or huge shipyards.

Most of the Dust improvements seem to actually cause you to lose Dust if you build them because Approval penalties force you to keep taxes low, so I tend to avoid those until very late in the game. The only worthwhile ones are the trade ones, and only then on high Pop systems where you can get decent trade income (if you have a reliable trade partner).



Food is king, but most of the Food improvements are also not worth building until the endgame when you can convert Food to Industry. The important thing is to balance the actual gain in food with the population gain that it will offer. I mean, a system with two medium Lava worlds doesn't need much Improvement because it's not going to need much Food to max out and can't benefit from most Food improvements anyway.



Sensor improvements are just lame since you almost always can see the enemy anyway, and influence improvements don't seem to actually do anything of consequence.



Stick to industry improvements, research improvements, and Food improvements that provide increases to Food that will increase Pop growth quickly. In the endgame, population expansion improvements and terraforming into better planets can be worth it because you can take good worlds and make them better and turn a few bad worlds into good worlds.



Once I started doing these things, I stopped going broke all the time.

I tend to build anything that boosts Science or Industry without question on all systems.



Food improvements on systems that I either want to get up to speed quickly or which have bad planets for natural food production



Dust improvements almost never (I tend to play Sophon so pushing for low tax rates)



Sensor/influence upgrades, and defensive military upgrades on border worlds; this means they don't get built until I have a relatively stable border.



Ship-building upgrades on systems that have good industry, as these are likely to be my major ship production systems.

If you are a new player, learn buy building only the improvements that your system will benefit from. Generally speaking, if you are a newer player playing on an easier setting, build as many as you can as these lay the foundation for a solid mid-late game experience. The vast majority of the improvements are worth having.



For a slightly more advanced player: Now that certain improvements are no longer present to be built if you cant even use them (horray), consider how many planets (and the size of the planets - ie population) will benefit from those improvements and compare the relative cost of the improvement to your overall income and try to decide if its worth it.



After several games you will start to see how some improvements are important and others less important. Of course, war interrupts most production forcing you to convert production to warships.



Some players scrap food improvements once their systems are at full population - a valid strategy. I like to keep these improvements if I think the food to industry conversion in coming soon and can afford the upkeep costs. However, I rarely build defensives as I try and use ships to prevent planet takeovers and I never buy anything that increases your view around planets.