Inside Scoop page 1

BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT FOR BEGINNERS

by Jezz

In my opinion there are few things in Federation Space more exciting or worrying than the opening of your very first planet. You wait with bated breath for reset after you receive the email from Alan telling you that your planet will be linked. At last! Weeks of sweating over the workbench and wracking your brain for creative descriptions are about to bear fruit and your genius will be seen by everyone in Fed. They will flock to your link in droves, anxious to explore.

Well OK, they might not exactly flock. Chances are you'll have a bunch of traders with descriptions set to "Brief" sitting in your exchange and a few brave explorers who will actually risk wandering around your planet with hopes of not getting stuck in a one-way room. But it's still exciting as you wander through the physical realization of your ideas.

Then, in a state of wonderment, you begin to look at your exchange displays. It seems like a vast amount of information to absorb all at once but if you are leaving your exchange alone for a day so that the traders can take advantage of the great futures contracts, you have a while to try out all the commands and get used to the displays.

So now what?... Well, if you haven't bookmarked the "Complete List of Builds by Type" page of the manual now is the time to do it! The next page is a List of Builds by Economic Level and is also a very useful tool. If you have some groats in your treasury, you can start building right away. But what should you build? When you look at the list of builds by economic level, you will see there are thirteen different types of build you can do at the agricultural level. The builds you choose should depend somewhat on your particular exchange and your style of planetary management but you also need to look to the future of your planet and construct a plan for development.

In order to formulate a development plan you will need to know what the various effects of the different builds are, and you can find this information by clicking on the name of the build from the build list. Effects can be sorted into a few different categories.

Efficiency Builds: These builds increase the rate at which the relevant commodities cycle in the exchange. That means the affected producers will produce, and deficits will empty, more quickly. If you consider that the only way to make groats on your exchange is to have movement in the stockpiles, then you will realize that greater efficiency vastly increases the potential for your exchange to make more groats. Of course, if there is no trading going on to create movement in the stockpiles, then no amount of efficiency is going to make groats for you.

Population Builds: Population builds will increase the number of workers on your planet and therefore the number of factories you are able to supply with workers. They have a side effect of increasing the consumption of consumer goods once you get over a certain amount, which could be good or bad depending on your exchange. You don't need to have factories on an agricultural planet but it would be wise to have some before you promote to Engineer. Unlike the Manufacturer rank, where you had a day to sort out any disaffection, it is possible to have a riot on your planet the same day you promote if your workers are unhappy about unemployment. Remember that the more workers you have, the more you will have to provide with employment to stave off that disaffection. There is no way to know how factory friendly later exchange rolls will be, so over building your population too early could land you in a tricky situation.

Production Builds: These builds will add a point of production to certain commodities and you must usually choose the commodity to be affected within a certain group. If you're anxious to turn a commodity with an equal amount of production and consumption into a producer by using these builds, perhaps you should think twice. You need to look at whether you will be able to recoup the groats you spend on these builds, and a producer is only worth something if it can be hauled out or be used for extra factories. If you can change a high priced but slow producer into something that can be hauled out on a regular basis, or support extra factories, it might be worth the cost to you.

Prerequisite Builds: These builds may have no effect by themselves but will allow you to build something very useful. For example, schools and clinics are not required at agricultural level unless you want to build an agricultural college or a hospital. The agricultural college will have a massive effect on the efficiency of your agri products and therefore the money making potential of your exchange. Incidentally, many prerequisite builds will also fall into the category of "Required" builds at ranks past agricultural.

Approval and Anti-Disaffection Builds: A variety of circumstances could cause disaffection on your planet once you progress beyond agricultural level. For instance, a number of factories could decide to cycle right at reset, giving you disaffection for not keeping enough workers employed, even though they are once again employed a minute after reset. Having a positive approval rating can counter-balance such an unfortunate happenstance and protect your planet from the riots that could ensue. Some anti-disaffection builds are designed to combat the negative effects of other builds such as coal mines. While you don't need any approval or anti-disaffection builds as a Founder, it would be wise to consider what you will need at the next level and build ahead of time.

Required Builds: I put this category last because there are no "required builds" for the agricultural level. BUT... you should always plan for the next level and get as many of the required builds done as you can before you even think about hitting that promote button. Failure to get the requirements built in advance may have a significant effect on your exchange once you've promoted. As you check through the list of builds, you'll notice that several builds have minimum requirements for each level. Make a list of the builds you'll need to have in place before you promote and get them done or you may find yourself with lots of disaffection or a sudden decrease in your population as a result. One notable required build is "Housing Estates". You are required to have three housing estates built at Resource level or your efficiency drops through the floor. But you can't build them until your planet is at resource level. Currently this means your exchange is likely to stall and barely move at all the first day of resource. Make sure that you build three housing estates on the first day after you promote so that your exchange will begin to move on the second day.

Some builds do have serious down-sides associated with them. You'll have to weigh the good against the bad in order to decide if the build is right for your planet.

Now... you may have noticed that I didn't write "At agricultural level build this, this and this." That's because you should RTFM and RTFM again until you understand how those builds will fit in with your plan for planetary development. Plan at least one rank ahead so that you don't promote and suddenly find yourself in trouble with not enough groats to put the situation right.

My own planetary development plan involves building all the required builds for the next rank, making sure I have a large enough approval rating to offset any possible negative effects, building as many prerequisites as I can plus having all the groats needed to maximize efficiency with builds on the first day at the new rank. You don't have to do what I do. Your own playing strategy should dictate your plan for planetary development. For me, population builds and production builds have been of secondary importance so far. You may look at this differently. The important thing is to have a plan to follow and know enough about your planned builds to make an informed decision.

Finally... there is a method of planetary management that doesn't involve any planning or work or RTFMing at all, but I'm afraid you'll have to ask Pugwash about that one. I hear she's an expert. :)

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