Hehe try culture as well. I always found culture a better investment early game when you couldnt do much econ betetr then trade ports since 1 culture towerd could boost 3-4 worlds quite rapidly if well positioned.

The problem is that culture's benefit is even more dependent on the layout of your empire than refineries are.  Trade ports not so much.  In any case, usually you want to balance your trade/refineries in such a way to minimize your use of the black market.  This is a huge black hole of your economy and you'd save tremendous amounts of wealth by avoiding using it.

Hmm..  Its nice that someone has done this.  Well, Amish, you are getting some much deserved  from this.  I don't give it out often and sort of keep a mental record in decimals...  Each thing someone does earns them +.09 Karma in my book..  I only deal with integers and don't round, so only once someone gives me 10-12 reasons will they get it.  In other words, you deserve it.

Woot Cykur. I miss ya bro. I will attempt use my Amish powers of prayer to bring you good fortune in the future.

bdgackle

I fail to see were you are getting at. Both trade ports and refineries use up 4 logistic slots. All civilian buildings use 4 slots. So their is no slot advanatge to be spoken ofve. Thus why it is not covered sicne it is irrelevent.

As for the advantages over time in short and long term it also doesn't matter. What the calculations take concideration ofve is how fast doe sthe building pay for it's self and how much income it will produce. For trade ports we can easily predict and increase the income each port will generate. With refineries predicting the income is more of a gamble and it will not increase like the income of ports will. So ports income will always be superior to refinery income because of the way it works with expending trade lines.

Now if refineries also had trade lines they would kick trade ports asses. But it does not.

In addition you need to calculate the trade in value of minerals vs credits. With the black market you need on average 5credits to buy 1mineral. How ever you will sell 1mineral for 2.5 credits. If you have credits you can buy the mineral you want/need directly, with a refinery you will be producing 1 mineral more most likely and selling that mineral to buy teh other. Thing is you will need sell 2x the ammounts of mineral that you buying. But refineries in general don't produce mineral in such an excest like trade ports can poduce. So you lose out on the black market.

It's hard to argue against tradeports because the longer the line gets, the stronger it gets. This is why when you're Advent and TEC, tradeports make the most sense first. Ok, Advent don't have "real" refineries, and TEC refineries are tier 4. 

With Vasari, it actually makes sense to build refineries first. Yeah. I said it. As Vasari you end up trading a LOT of your minerals away for creds, and while you only get a fraction back (1/2?) on the black market, it's worth noting that you can sell minerals at your own price. Go to the black market page. Look in the lower corners. You'll figure it out. Someone has to buy your minerals, however, so make sure you have time to wait for someone to do it.

The biggest deal with Vasari is that you need 4 labs for trade ports, but only 3 for refineries. If you're stuck on a small number of planets, or somewhere that you just can't get a decent 4 planet trade line going, get refineries. Really. You'll probably end up making more if you find the right spot to put them.

Your missing the biggest factor of all, refineries trump trade by the fallowing behavior.

You may have 200 creds per second coming it, but it's all null and void if I have the resource income to match it.  I put my resoucres up for sell, you buy like crazy and all the money goes into my account.  Resouce prices inflate (they fall back to default at too fast a rate IMO), and I get more and more credits for every 100 metal/crystal I sell you.  Remember this next time metal or crystal prices are hovering above 600 for long periods of time.

to me tradeports need to bring in alot more money then what they already are. unless 1 credit is like the equivilant of a 1,000 dollar bill.

That's silly. Reminds me of people who see foreign currency exchange rates and go something like: Wow 1 dolalr is 35 xxx. Like it even makes sense to have that kind of comparison.

I'm not sure if saying this swings the vote for people one way or another, but my take is this.

If you have the ability to make a 4+ (preferably 6+) trade port line, then that is the more sensible economic movie early, especially if you're TEC or Advent.

I build refineries first only when I have that crap set up where there is no chain of planets BUT there are a ton of neutrals that I can get resources from with my refineries. This is primarily with Vasari, because with TEC the odds are you're going to have some viable way (say by getting +4 logistic slots so dead asteroids aren't useless) to get a trade line.

It's in this wierd set-up that refineries are the more sensible economic investment.

To me, tradeports are NOT worth it if you can't get a decent chain going. This is why in 1v1 my technique tends to be to spot the longest trade line I can get early, and build 1 tradeport at each point in the chain. This is the fastest method to payoff tradeports. If you'd like to me to explain the math behind it, sure, I'll back it up, but I'm lazy.

Not at all. There's a pretty good rule of thumb. If I don't have good starting position, my enemy does. It's rare that there won't be at least ONE sensible place for refineries, but it's fairly common that your starting positon doesn't support a trade line....but your enemy's does. In this spot I gear everything for rushing. I want a knock out blow early against said opponent.

If you don't move early and "rush" when you have bad economic starting position, you will lose purely by macro. Your enemy will produce more than you if you don't move your ass. Once I kill the dude, THEN I start getting an ECO started.

So the takeaways, as I undertand them, are:

1. Culture is (usually) a better investment than either refineries or TPs.

2. If we price resources at their "buy" price--because we're cash rich/reource poor--refineries (usually) beat trading posts.  If we price at the "sell" price--because resource rich--TPs are (usually) better.  So build refineries if/when that will get you from cash rich to neutral.  Build TPs if needed to get from resource rich to neutral.  Note that, because in this case we price resources at the "sell" price we do not follow RA's calculation in the OP.  The TP costs 1256.25 and pays back in ~10.5 minutes.

3. If/when resource neutral, build refs and TPs in balance w/each other--or not at all to save slots for labs.

4. None of the above calculations, nor RA's, include the cost of the enabling tech, so the real payoffs are slower in all cases.

5. Value of resource enhancing techs depends on empire size and on whether you are short or rich in that resource.  In my (limited) experience, for about 6 planets one 7% bump is worth 0.2-0.3/second.  Take the example of the first Advent ore tech (level 2): 600+50+100. 

If ore poor, ore=4.5, crystal=2.25.  Cost = 600+225+225 = 1050.  Return = 0.9 (~20 mins) to 1.35 (~13 mins).  Not great.  If ore rich, cost = 600 + 112 + 450 = 1172.  Return = 0.45 (~43 mins) to 0.67 (~28 mins). 

Should you ever improve your rich resource?  Best case is ore for TEC.  1st level tech costs 512, returns 0.45 (~21 mins) to 0.67 (~14 mins).  So not quite never.

6.  Should one prefer resource tech or refieneries?  Whether to improve your poor resource depends on empire size, how good is your best refinery opportunity (if not Advent), and how many refs you would build.  Best case for refs, you are TEC and poor in both resources.  Refineries cost 2800 (tech) + 2850 each.  So 3 are way more efficient than 2 or 1.  Let's say 3 refineries x 8 extractors = 2.4/second (worth 10.8) vs total cost of 11250.  Pays off in 1040 seconds ~ 17 minutes.  But it is much worse if building 3 refs tips you over into being rich in one resource--in which case you probably don;t build all three.

If resource tech will produce 0.3/second/level, then level 1 and 2 resource techs--for the poor resource only--will almost always be a better bet than refineries, as well as saving slots.  Even level 3 and 4 could be better than refs barring a map especially favorable for refs.

Maximum what?