Economy Building Troubles

[killakan101]

Hey guys, new to ST4X but was a devoted STRPG fan. Having trouble building my economy to support my fleets. Is having a mining/factory economy more beneficial in terms of profit? Also, what is the best setup for prime worlds to become powerhouses for your economy? Anything would help! I look forward to reading your responses (if I manage to get any)

[fallen]

killakan101 - one easy thing to think about. Mines provide profit all of the time (as long as you are under the Mineral count).

Factories provide lots of provide if their CP are not being used by a project. So, if you build a big booming economy on Factories only, if you start building a lto of things or a new fleet, you can see a big drop in revenue. Mining is more stable.

I always advocate for a Mining backbone for your economy, especially as a starting player.

[acecow]

Don't forget TP which is good when you have no politics, great with positive politics and meager with negative politics!

Your Primes can normally be setup with everything. Prime colonies are special in that they get the maximum roll for a planet, try to settle them on yellow stars! (Maybe one exception being a red giant for Javat...but even that is debatable) When starting a "hard" difficulty game, I'll normally go for a hab unit, mine, then factory for my opening builds on my Primes. After that, it just depends on what's happening. Worlds with more TP can stave off on mines, worlds with more CP just build everything that much faster in the beginning. Eventually they become pretty homogeneous, and you'll end up doing a lot of upgrading/replacing/rebuilding.

[tenbsmith]

Good advice in the posts above about how to build your colonies to make money.

The other side of a good economy is controlling spending, which is especially important early in the game when your economy is not as strong.
--Keep your fleet of ships small early in the game. And try and build cost-effective ships--ships don't have to have all the most expensive upgrades to be effective. My fighters usually have no armor (I've got a good design for an inexpensive early game fighter if you're interested).
--New colonies often go through a phase where they are a net drain on your overall economy. So, pace the deployment of new colonies (do NOT indiscriminately produce colony ships and colonies).
--You you should only build the facilities you will use in your colony, extra facilities increase maintenance costs. Do NOT build more factories and spice dens than your population an use. Do keep one Hab Unit ahead of my population to avoid crowding, because crowding decreases morale.
--Low colony morale increases maintenance costs, so keep morale up by avoiding overcrowding and ensuring sufficient spice.
--Manage politics effectively. Start a Trade Meeting ASAP. This get's complicated so you may want to read here: startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/11991/st4x-faction-politics-guide

To temporarily improve cash flow:
--move all your ships to green sectors and keep them fully fueled and repaired.
--Allow your factories to idle--in other words, do not start new projects in your colonies. The idle CP in your factories will be converted into a nice income bump.

With these three posts, you have a good overview of the economy. If you want to post specifics, we could be more helpful.