What effects does these settings have?

[Novaliz]

What exactly do the different percentages mean here under the expenses settings?

[StormingKiwi]

As far as I can tell, it influences the automation

[Nilserich7]

There you set how much money you spend on these three areas. All three must add up to 100%. So you could, for example, cut the ship maintenance and increase the troop maintenance. But this has consequences. (I'm not sure exactly what happens) Keep in mind that these three settings only serve to adjust the ratio of these expenses to each other. Not the expenses themselves. You set them somewhere else.

[Emperor0Akim]

I am not sure how much sense these setting make, since the accumulated costs are created by existing entities in your empire.
*flipping pages*

Yup. The Manual states : "Maintenance will always be funded, so over-building will quickly hurt your ability to fund bonus spending Similarly, overexpending to world with low suitability ".." or conquered worlds with unassimilated population can also decrease your Cashflow"

So, if you spend less money than you have assigned it goes into Bonus funding,
If you need more money, than you collect you will spend it anyway, no bonus funding

so IMHO the percentages do Nothing at all

[StormingKiwi]

I am not sure how much sense these setting make, since the accumulated costs are created by existing entities in your empire.
*flipping pages*

Yup. The Manual states : "Maintenance will always be funded, so over-building will quickly hurt your ability to fund bonus spending Similarly, overexpending to world with low suitability ".." or conquered worlds with unassimilated population can also decrease your Cashflow"

So, if you spend less money than you have assigned it goes into Bonus funding,
If you need more money, than you collect you will spend it anyway, no bonus funding

so IMHO the percentages do Nothing at all

As far as I can tell, the setting ensures that the automation won't spend all your revenue on troop maintenance, for example.

So say you are earning 100,000 p.a. the automation won't over recruit troops or overbuild ships.

[zgrssd]

I am not sure how much sense these setting make, since the accumulated costs are created by existing entities in your empire.
*flipping pages*

Yup. The Manual states : "Maintenance will always be funded, so over-building will quickly hurt your ability to fund bonus spending Similarly, overexpending to world with low suitability ".." or conquered worlds with unassimilated population can also decrease your Cashflow"

So, if you spend less money than you have assigned it goes into Bonus funding,
If you need more money, than you collect you will spend it anyway, no bonus funding

so IMHO the percentages do Nothing at all

As far as I can tell, the setting ensures that the automation won't spend all your revenue on troop maintenance, for example.

So say you are earning 100,000 p.a. the automation won't over recruit troops or overbuild ships.

That^^

It is just the advice to the other Automation systems, how much they should build/suggest to build.

Those values can adapt. For example, during a war you propably want to spend more on Military Ships and Troops then normally.

[Novaliz]

I am not sure how much sense these setting make, since the accumulated costs are created by existing entities in your empire.
*flipping pages*

Yup. The Manual states : "Maintenance will always be funded, so over-building will quickly hurt your ability to fund bonus spending Similarly, overexpending to world with low suitability ".." or conquered worlds with unassimilated population can also decrease your Cashflow"

So, if you spend less money than you have assigned it goes into Bonus funding,
If you need more money, than you collect you will spend it anyway, no bonus funding

so IMHO the percentages do Nothing at all

As far as I can tell, the setting ensures that the automation won't spend all your revenue on troop maintenance, for example.

So say you are earning 100,000 p.a. the automation won't over recruit troops or overbuild ships.

That^^

It is just the advice to the other Automation systems, how much they should build/suggest to build.

Those values can adapt. For example, during a war you propably want to spend more on Military Ships and Troops then normally.

As far as I can tell, it influences the automation

Ah, nice. Thank you guys!

[baldamundo]

I am not sure how much sense these setting make, since the accumulated costs are created by existing entities in your empire.
*flipping pages*

Yup. The Manual states : "Maintenance will always be funded, so over-building will quickly hurt your ability to fund bonus spending Similarly, overexpending to world with low suitability ".." or conquered worlds with unassimilated population can also decrease your Cashflow"

So, if you spend less money than you have assigned it goes into Bonus funding,
If you need more money, than you collect you will spend it anyway, no bonus funding

so IMHO the percentages do Nothing at all

As far as I can tell, the setting ensures that the automation won't spend all your revenue on troop maintenance, for example.

So say you are earning 100,000 p.a. the automation won't over recruit troops or overbuild ships.

WTF!!! Is that right??? I never would have guessed. That's a really important and valuable setting! That really needs to be made clearer somewhere, because I would have had absolutely no idea but that's really important.

Although if that's true, how does it interact with e.g. the "Colony Garrison Level" and "Attack Troop Level" and the ship/base priority in the Automation Policy Settings? Are those just relative to each other?

So If I set "Troop Maintenance" to 20%, it will recruit up to 20% of my income's worth of maintenance of troops, but the ratio between garrisons and attack troops will be determined by the policy settings? so if both are set to high or both set to low, either one is still just a 50/50 split of the 20% budget allocation?

EDIT: My bad! This info is actually in the Galactopedia! You guys were right. Wish I'd realised that earlier!