No it isn't...

I only build them when I've got, say, 10 or more extractors within one Phase Jump.

When that instance comes up, though, you only build one, right?

Each mine can service three refineries I believe so when conditions are right (12+ is actually the better number to search for) then you plop down 3 and cal it a day.

And neutral extractors can service up to 4 refineries, also, unlike the usual 3.

But due to planet arrangements, getting that last slot on the neutrals used is rarely useful given the opportunity cost (a trade port).

Boshimi is correct...if at a particular gravity well a refinery is more profitable than a tradeport, then you of course want to build as many refineries as possible, which is 3 for the reason pointed out...

A refinery gains .06 metal/crystal from each nearby extractor (.08 from neutrals)...a trade port however gives 1 credit per second...using the equivalency that 4.5 credits equals 1 metal/crystal, a refinery is more profitable than a trade port with just 4 nearby extractors...

However, the length of your longest trade route adds a bonus to all trade income (7.5% per node)...with a 6 node trade route, you would be looking at a 45% bonus, meaning you would need 6 nearby extractors to be more profitable...

However, that is just looking at the economic profit...it is also important to take into account the pay off time...since refineries are about twice as expensive, you essentially would need 11-12 nearby extractors to have a refinery payoff itself in the same time interval as a trade port...

There are other compounding factors, such as the length of your trade route, technologies that boost trade but not refinery output (such as the Vasari's), and neutrals (which help refineries be more profitable)....in general though, refineries take a lot longer to payoff, and my analysis used a trade route of 6 nodes...it is quite common for eco players in large games or any player on smaller maps to have much longer trade routes, which makes refineries even harder to justify...

This is why simply making refineries cost the same as trade ports would go to great lengths....the primary advantage of the trade port is not actually its profitability, but its short payoff time...furthermore, reducing the bonus received from your longest trade route would make the competitiveness of refineries less dependent on the length of your longest trade route...

I know I sound like a broken record, but these really are the only two changes you need to make refineries easily comparable to trade ports....

Hey, look at what Goa did by impersonating a broken record. Keep at it. Somebody's bound to notice it. Eventually.

I'm of the opinion that refineries need a serious buff, and trade needs a slight nerf in the multiplier department.

A part of the problem could be Allegiance. Maybe. It gets lower with each planet outward you take. I'm not sure that I like that...

Actually, I don't. I usually go to Gameplay.constants and eliminate the drop-off in allegiance. Gives me some more hectic games, and makes extractors (With and without refineries) more useful.

Then for the rest of us that don't mind allegiance we'll stick with a system related to it and you can adjust it yourself.

Nerf trade port = nerf tec and only advantage they got in late game

Refineries need slight boost but don't take them out of the game. And please do something with resource focus for advent.

I agree with that. They should make some sort of smart autocasting on Resource Focus for Advent Trade Ports.

If it were just passive, i think I would use it.

LOL at OP.  I build refineries all the time.  It's a matter of finding the right place and balancing your income loads.  If you find yourself constantly buying resources, it's often better to get a refinery or two so that you don't have to always click those buttons and focus on battle micro.  When I find the right planet, I build 3 refineries (12+ extractors within a jump).

One time, I had a desert surrounded by 12 neutral extractors, 3 other planet extractors and 3 extractors on the desert, that was a sweet spot.

I agree, which is why I don't think they need a whole lot of buffing...

TEC have development mandate and pervasive economy, I'd hardly say trade is their only late game advantage...I do think though they would need some compensation, but I'd rather see a military bonus (like an AoE Embolden on the cielo) than another economic bonus...

Given the limitations on the AI, I'm tempted to agree...I don't think the AI can use this ability smartly (if they even use it at all)...and it's pretty tedious for a human player to constantly have to calculate whether they should turn on resource focus or not...

However, a passive bonus wouldn't be quite as diverse or interesting...balancing resource focus would be quite easy, it's just a matter of calculation...

For simplicity, you could simply say the average planet has 3 asteroids (a bit of an overestimate but oh well)...that is 3 x .4 = 1.2 resources per second...a trade port gives 1 credit per second, which is equal to about .22 metal/crystal per second...so, basically resource focus would have to be around 18.5% for it to be useful...however, that's without any bonuses to trade (which easily can get to 50% or more)...so in reality you'd need at least a 30% bonus or so to generally make resource focus useful...

Like refineries, resource focus becomes weaker as your trade routes become longer or you're building on planets with less extractors....but, even a small tweak to the numbers would at least make the ability profitable...unlike refineries, which are simply not cost effective, resource focus actually hurts your economy more often than not...

I'd like an entirely different approach. Make refiners create refined versions of the metals and crystals that are necessary to build more advanced units and buildings. Don't make it competitive with trade, make it an entirely different metagame.

You don't explore your planets do you? I Find stuff from Spice to farms, Ionic gases, extra minerals, pure water, mega fauna ect ect, those all offer trade bonuses.

There are occasional bonuses but they're not often worth the amount it costs to explore planets.

I don't think planet bonuses are quite the same as resources...in games, "resources" generally have a special purpose....they are required to build certain things, they give you special abilities or powers, they do something interesting....planet bonuses just give a simple bonus to that one planet, and quite honestly those bonuses rarely guide one's strategy...

I mean, sure it's nice to have a small boost to population or metal income or culture or whatever...but generally the location of the planet and the needs of your empire are far more influential on decision making...you aren't going to build more trade ports than you would have otherwise just because a planet bonus gives planet XYZ a meager boost to trade income...likewise, you aren't going to fight super hard to defend a planet simply because it has "Spice" on it....

I think planet bonuses are fine to have, but you don't really explore planets to find planet bonuses...you explore planets in the hope that you find artifacts...now, if certain "resources" were comparable to artifacts in their power, then that would be an interesting game element...

A planet bonus that gives +30% trade income to that one planet is meh...an artifact that gives an empire wide trade bonus, now that is something...you might fight really hard to hold a dead asteroid with an artifact, but a desert planet is not going to be a whole lot more valuable even with a nice planet bonus...add resources that dramatically change your strategy and the importance of planets, and you've got a good element...planet bonuses simply don't fit that criteria, they are merely a "diversity" element that exist because they can....

I honestly dislike the idea of creating 'special' resources or 'limited resources' in Sins. What the game needs is what many mods have already done, more aggressive planet bonuses and MANY more of them.

Agreed.

yep, and/or make exploration cheaper overall.

Personally I'd favor cheaper exploration, as I have mixed feelings about planet bonuses...planets and starting positions are already enough of a crapshoot, making planet bonuses more powerful would just add to that...but on the other hand, making them more powerful at least would could make them more influential on decision making....

Artifacts can be enough of an incentive to justify exploring if it isn't so damn expensive...I don't have specific values in mind, but I'm sure a simple cost reduction would go to great lengths to get people playing competitively to consider exploration....

Refineries are a difficult prospect in my eyes. From a realistic point (and I know how everyone feels on that), refineries are expensive as hell and only really worth it in the long run. Then again, they're also necessary for a huge part of a country's trade, making one affect another immensely. The game doesn't make that connection, so a lot of these aspects go out of the window.

But refineries, in real life, can pump out an amazing amount of material. I do like that they need to be near a certain number of extractors to be worth it, though 12 might be a bit much, but I think they need a boost. Trade is fine, as credits easily convert to goods and trade is something even a caveman can do. Goods will exchange hands even in stone age societies.

The cost of building a refinery? I dunno. They are appropriately expensive, but inappropriately weak for their cost. So I think if they were buffed on output, the cost would not be such an issue.

This is a true statement, but I think this approach would be problematic...the output of refineries is already quite high (it takes only 6 extractors to make a refinery more profitable than a trade port with a 6 node trade length)...it's the tech cost and construction cost that really make them not competitive...

If games consistently went on for twice as long, refineries would actually be better than trade ports (as you stated, they are better in the long run, and by a fair amount)...

Making refineries more powerful I think is just going to make the situation equally bad in a different way...sure, the payoff time will be more comparable to that of a trade port, but after that payoff time refineries will be ridiculous sources of income (far worse than trade is now)...

Now, refineries do have a serious limit since extractors can only service 3-4 refineries (a limitation trade does not have)...but buffing the output of refineries is going to marginalize tax and extractor income even more (two things that already are overshadowed by trade)...that simply is not a change I'd favor, but that's just my opinion...

Both a cost reduction and an output boost would be effective changes in making refineries more competitive...but the other consequences in my mind make a cost reduction the preferable change...

After reading much of this thread (some parts got boring), would it make sense to just have trade port income more tied to current gravity well and connected gravity well's population? I mean what to your mind would do more trade, an asteroid with a population of 20, or a terran planet with a population of 340? I don't know if this would be a bad change or not, but it might open things up a bit more where refineries would in some places be a better choice. Of course planets in a trade chain would have larger income even if they have a lower population cap.

Sorry for kinda necroing a thread, but I don't believe I saw this idea, so just thought I'd throw it out there.

I personally think the way trade income works is just fine. Only at a point where one owns a real lot of planets you may start earning a lot of cash, but at that point the game is more or less decided anyway.

Not really... in a 1v1, if the game isn't completely combat, both players will often take about half of the map, plus or minus a bit, and will spam trade ports when they can. Both players can get up to ridiculously high levels of income while the game is still up in the air.

And in 5v5, the eco player (if they're good) can have 100 or 150 income (mainly from trade) by 30 minutes, and the other eco player (if there is one) will probably be catching up to that as well. Although those are HUGE sums of money, and although Pervasive Economy isn't even factored in, the game is still far from being decided.

So yes, I think that even after huge trade chains start popping up, balance is still important.

If trade was more powerful on planets with high population, then refineries would need to be more powerful on planets with low population...of course, that is a silly direct relationship, but for game balance it certainly is not unreasonable to make low population worlds (like asteroids and volcanics) have more resources and therefore refineries would be more powerful on them...then, you'd put refineries on high resource/low population worlds and trade on low resource/high population worlds...

Of course, then you'd have to limit the effect of refineries to just the local gravity well or make low population worlds (and therefore high resource worlds) more likely to spawn and connect to other low population worlds...

If we were building sins from scratch then you certainly could correlate higher trade with higher population and make refineries work appropriately to balance the two structures...but we certainly can't implement that much change ourselves...

Since there are easy ways to fix refineries that require no changes to the game engine, I'd favor those first...