Colony questions

[Fleshbits]

1) After reading F1, I still don't understand development level. What does it effect? How much? According to the read, it isn't in the population growth formula, is it?

2) I see a lot of worlds with ruins giving development bonus. But they are under 50% quality. Leave them alone?

3) I am playing the Sluken, and their descritpion says I get a bonus to colony growth if I have exterminate policy. I changed the policy on my homeworld to exterminate for same family and for other races. I see no difference in my growth rate. Does it only apply to colonies whom actually have someone to exterminate and only until they are exterminated? If so, it might not be worth it eh?

[Bingeling]

1: I never remember the finer details, but development is good or you. I think it rather directly buff the revenue, which is what you tax. And possibly more. That is why having a store of ultra rares is so nice for your colonies, +30 or something development bonus.

2: The under 50% colonies is something I would only consider if they got one of the "super ruins" with empire wide bonuses, or if colonizing it could put a really valuable planet/moon in my zone of influence. Like the source of an ultra rare, or a "super ruin" that I can not yet colonize.

I would probably but "sub 70%" as a limit here.

For existing colonies, a low quality colony could still give you the ability to colonize a good target otherwise inaccessible, by use of its alien population. Something to consider in the early-ish game with independents.

3: Not sure, but it stopping you from exterminating your homeworld population seems a good idea.

[OzoneGrif_slith]

1) Development (the little red music note) affects two things : The Strategic value (which itself affects GDP and then your Revenues), and the size of your Frontier.
50% of the development is based on your population, where 500M = 50% (the max).
50% is based on your luxury resources, with 5% per luxury, up to 50%.
30% if you have at least one super luxury resource.
Then other bonuses (ruins, facilities, ...)

2) Yeah, colonizing planets with a Quality under 70% is worthless (and 70% is already a very poor quality)

3) Not sure but I guess it works when they are actively exterminating other species. (?)

[Kantay]

ORIGINAL: OzoneGrif
2) Yeah, colonizing planets with a Quality under 70% is worthless (and 70% is already a very poor quality)

Why would it be worthless? Planet is not only about the quality. A 70% quality planet of your race type that is say 30k large can still house over 12 bilion inhabitants. Other factors, like nearby resources and the planet location also play a role in colonization.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: Kantay

ORIGINAL: OzoneGrif
2) Yeah, colonizing planets with a Quality under 70% is worthless (and 70% is already a very poor quality)

Why would it be worthless? Planet is not only about the quality. A 70% quality planet of your race type that is say 30k large can still house over 12 bilion inhabitants. Other factors, like nearby resources and the planet location also play a role in colonization.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Even a 50% quality planet of max size (40k) can support 11 billion pop, although it won't have an income. My only hard and fast rule is that I won't go below 50% quality unless I need the planet for strategic reasons (such as taking control of the system to prevent another empire colonising it). But otherwise, I'll look at quality, planet size, location, resources etc., in making a decision.

[Bingeling]

A giant colony of poor quality can be useful if it sends away migrants and such. An "grabbing territory" is of course value in itself. But I guess for a colony being valuable in itself, the limit is in its 70s, somewhere.

Apart form that, if you want to protect and area in war, many colonies make it harder o make a dent in your territory...

This screenshot is from my Yor AAR played during legends. We can see that the 69% Kyphar colony is not without value, but the better quality Haroon Cal 1 is catching up fast in revenue, with 1/3rd or less of the population.



A good advice is to not colonize the 60-70% targets that give no new systems under control until your other colonies are pretty much full.

[Spacecadet]

1 - Development level is part of the formula for determining the Colony Happiness level (which affects how high you can Tax without issues and also affects Population growth rate).

Also as mentioned, Development level impacts the the size of the Colony Influence radius.

2 - Some of those Ruins on <50% planets are unique, and you do want to grab them (3 Research related, Merchantile Guild, Garden of Acacia (?), possibly Unity Forum - and maybe another).

3 - I would think you would want to Exterminate other Races, not your own.

[OzoneGrif_slith]

Why would it be worthless?

If you can find better, then it's worthless, except for strategical reasons and if you really have no other choice.

Quality has an exponential impact on your revenues. And it scales from 50% to 100%.

For exemple, if my math is correct, for a size 40k planet at max population :
- quality 100% => ~1200K GDP
- quality 90% => ~780K GDP
- quality 80% => ~460K GDP
- quality 70% => ~240K GDP
- quality 60% => ~90K GDP

This is why I usually try to go above 80% and never under 70%.

It won't be obvious how important Quality is before you reach a very high level of population. For small colonies, it only makes a raw difference (50%=0 | 60%=0.2 | 70%=0.4 | etc)

[Zilkin]

At what point does the colony actually start costing you money?

[Aeson]

If the planet quality is less than 50%, it will cost you money to maintain a colony on that world. A planet whose quality is exactly 50% will neither provide nor cost money, however. Planets with less than 50% quality will cost you variable amounts of money, with the most expensive planets being those with qualities in the 20-40% range (roughly), due to the way the population caps work out.

[OzoneGrif_slith]

I made two quick graphs to show the effects of Quality on Population and GDP :





It's an estimation of course since I don't have all the exact formulas, but only approximations. It should be close to reality though.
This is assumed to be a non-native planet, with no special bonuses. So these numbers can actually go higher. (+10% for the population, and much more for GDP based on your Development).