Remaing Questions after playing the beta

from Sins Forums
I have played a few games now and have a few unresloved questions:

Q1. What are the effects of multiple broadcast centers at the same planet. Pre patch I found an ai planet that had 3 broadcast centers and a lot of culture. If you have 2 does the culture spread twice as fast? 3 broadcast centers does it spread 3X as fast?

Q2. What exactly does the Refinery do? Does it provide more credits or does it provide metal and crystals? It says it refines the traders raw materials but what is the outcome?

Q3. Are the effects of Trade centers cumulative? In other words does building one on two neighboring planets augument the benefits of each? Or do they have no effect on each other.

Q4. Is there anyway to quantify what benefits Trade centers provide? I am wondering how long it takes to recoup the intial credit cost.

Q5. Do existing ships upgrade from new technology automatically or do you need to do something? For example, when you research new armor do all your ships suddenly have this new armor?

I am sure I have more questions but those are the big ones.
21,908 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Q1. What are the effects of multiple broadcast centers at the same planet. Pre patch I found an ai planet that had 3 broadcast centers and a lot of culture. If you have 2 does the culture spread twice as fast? 3 broadcast centers does it spread 3X as fast?


I'm not 100% sure on how it adds up, but I do believe they add up. I also don't know if you can get a higher "cap" or if you just reach maximum culture quicker.

AKA: Devs, lets answer some questions here!


Q2. What exactly does the Refinery do? Does it provide more credits or does it provide metal and crystals? It says it refines the traders raw materials but what is the outcome?


Your asteroid mines have a limited amount of "free" resources, easily gotten at and used. After thats gone, you have to use a refinery to take the "raw" material and refine it into usable stuff.

AKA: They let you harvest resources off depleted asteroids.


Q3. Are the effects of Trade centers cumulative? In other words does building one on two neighboring planets augument the benefits of each? Or do they have no effect on each other.


You have to have multiple trade centers for them to work. Once you build a trade centers, they send out trade ships to other trade centers that bring in cash flow. The longer the route between centers, the more cash you get out of it. You can't trade interstellar, alas, though refinery ships do go interstellar. This vastly weakens the effects of trade agreements, which allows your trade ships to visit "friendly" trade centers in enemy empires.

Q4. Is there anyway to quantify what benefits Trade centers provide? I am wondering how long it takes to recoup the intial credit cost.


You can highlight a given resource, and it will tell you how much of that resource is currently in trade / refinery ships. Not really precise, but helpful. I can't tell you how long it takes for a given trade center to "pay off", but I will say that the more you build, the quicker they do so. And that they really increase your economy, to a huge degree.

Q5. Do existing ships upgrade from new technology automatically or do you need to do something? For example, when you research new armor do all your ships suddenly have this new armor?


Yes, all ships are upgraded once you research the technology, no retrofit needed (yet).
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Q4. Is there anyway to quantify what benefits Trade centers provide? I am wondering how long it takes to recoup the intial credit cost.


Mouse over your credits total. It'll display the amount you generate at the bottom of the list. I'm not certain how often that amount is generated however. A shot in the dark is the average over several seconds, or even average per minute. I haven't crunched any numbers so going purely by gut instinct.

Trade Centers semi-early to mid/late game is a necessity if you ask me. They have a considerable effect on the amount of credits you gain.

Beyond that I second what Ron Lugge already replied with. However I'm certain that Refineries works on Asteroids regardless whether they are depleted or not.

The Broadcast centers effect are definitly cumulative, to some degree. It however seems that the effect drops considerably over longer distances, even with multiple towers. The second last game I had, I had around 16-18 planets with a total of 35 towers. And was easily kept at bay over longer distances even though the AI had a considerable lesser amount of towers present in it's systems.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks RL for answering all the questions you could. So you would want to have trade centers at the farthest points of your empire.

How about two trade centers at the same planet? I wonder if that would do anything for you?

Prior to the game being finalized a "What should be in the game manual" thread should be started. Game manuals are usually high on mythology and very low on facts involving game elements.

These folks could be the exception as they really respond well to players.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks RL for answering all the questions you could. So you would want to have trade centers at the farthest points of your empire.


No, at every point in your empire.

How about two trade centers at the same planet? I wonder if that would do anything for you?


Trading between centers can't be intra-systemic, but multiple centers will produce more trade ships (and I think attract more)

Prior to the game being finalized a "What should be in the game manual" thread should be started. Game manuals are usually high on mythology and very low on facts involving game elements.


Lets hope for sooner rather than later
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, here is the question I forgot. Does increasing your population per planet do anything for you except survive a bombardment longer? That seems like quite a waste but I read that in the forum.

I was wondering if more population generated more taxes?
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I think more population generates more taxes... not sure where I got that, but I'm reasonably sure about it.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I think more population generates more taxes... not sure where I got that, but I'm reasonably sure about it.


Yep, the planet upgrade does do this, although it takes a while to take effect since your citizens on that planet have to produce the extra citizens. The tooltip for the planet upgrade doesn't say this, but it does say that it increases the population of the planet, and since taxes are based on the tax rate multiplied by your empires population, it has the end effect of increasing tax income, but not the overall tax rate on the planet.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
1. Culture also loses effect as its through planets, so for example (I don't know exactly how much loss there is but this shows the point), consider the following map.

1-------2-------3AAAAAAAAA4


One broadcast centre on planet 3 would have an equivalent effect on phase lane A as 2 culture centres on planet 2, which would have as much effect as 4 centres on planet 3. This leads to a most efficient empire having most broadcast centres on the periphery and fewer internally, and more other structures (eg. research stations) internally. Although, offensive culture isn't quite as effective in the current beta, which is another thing to keep in mind.

2. Upgrading a planet provides more taxes (through greater population) and increases amount of damage the planet can take. Also the research topics provide a empire-wide effect.