Lorne Epp

Join Date 03/2006

How is per-planet spending calculated?

Hi all - I guess this is a newbie question. I searched the boards and the wiki and didn't find the answer there -

In the colony management screen, there is a section that shows the Income, Spending, and Maintenance cost for the colony. Maintenance is simple, it's just the sum of the maintenance cost of all of the buildings. Income is a little mysterious, but that's not what I'm asking about here. I can't figure out where the spending amount comes from.

I thought it should be the sum of the Military, Social, and Research output, but it isn't. For example, I have a planet where the production is:

Military: 2 (2 from factories, 0 from bonuses)

Social: 13

Research: 10

That adds up to 25, but the screen says "Spending: 39 bc". Where does the extra 14 come from? It's not the maintenance cost, because that is listed as 20.

The planet has focus on social. If I turn that off, production goes to M:6 S:8 R:14 and Spending:41, which still doesn't add up, but the difference is now 13.

I have the sliders at Tax:28% Spending:100% Military:30% Social:31% Research:39% if that matters.

So what goes into the spending calculation? This is just Dread Lords by the way.

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Spending counts your maintenance, so when you're "spending" 39bc, you're really only spending 19bc, and when you're spending 41bc, you're really only spending 21bc.

When you have a racial bonus, you only pay half of the bonus.
When you focus, 25% of the base (funded) value is transferred, except between social and military, it's 50%.

Something is odd about your numbers-are you not building a ship on the planet in question? What about planetary improvements? When you're not building something, you're not shown the actual value.

Without more information, it's difficult to show you that things add up, and I'm a little pressed for time at the moment.

It being DL doesn't matter; the model for all three is the same. But actual base numbers (regardless of funding or racial bonuses) for military/social/research would be helpful; it's been long enough since I played DL that I don't remember the initial colony numbers offhand, for instance.

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Thanks for looking at this -

I am building a ship and a building on the planet. To simplify things a bit, I turned off focus on the planet, and changed the domestic policy sliders to Mil:31% Soc:31% Res:38%

So now, on the planet, my production is:

Mil: 8 (6 from factories, 2 from bonuses)

Soc: 8

Res: 13

Spending is 41, maintenance is 20.

The summary screen says I have Industry: 20mp and Research: 26tp. The detail screen says I have a starbase bonus of +5% for production and research, and a planet bonus of +10% production.

So, since bonuses are only charged at half price, it looks like I should be spending 7 bc on military, 7 on soc (assuming it breaks down the same way as military - there's no tooltip for that one) and 13 on reasearch, and 20 on maintenance. That adds up to 47, but on the screen it says 41.

If I add 15% for my starbase and planet bonuses to that 41, it makes it 47, so maybe that's the answer, but the 10% planet bonus is supposed to apply to production only, not research, so I don't see how that can work.

There is also a 10% economic bonus, but I'm assuming that would show up in income, not spending.

Also I don't get where the 13 for research comes from either: 26tp * 38% + 5% bonus gets 10.3 (or 11.2, if the bonus adds to the slider % instead of compounding), but the listed value is 13.

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You also need to look at Civilization Manager - Stats & Graphs and look at your racial bonuses.

Social does break down roughly the same as military, yes; the production bonuses from SBs will give it a bonus equal to military, as will the production bonus of the planet itself.

Research is also getting a bonus from that SB, though, plus any racial bonuses shown in Stats & Graphs. I assume that isn't broken down for you, either, though...

41-20-7-7=7 spending for the research, which means...impossible, of course.

It's times like these I wish I had internet at home so I could fire up the game and answer your question. I suspect the answer may have something to do with the bonus production not being counted in your planet-level expenses, which would suggest 41-20-6-6=8 base research spending.

Provided you're not on a difficulty above Tough, you'd need a racial bonus (Stats & Graphs) of 58%, minimum (more likely 60%). On Suicidal, you'd only need a racial bonus of 19%, minimum (more likely 20%).

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It looks like my racial bonuses for Military and Social are 30% and 49% for Research, so perhaps that accounts for it. At this point I think I am willing to settle for the exact calculation being a mystery

Thanks SS!

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It's not quite a mystery-if it is the case (apologies, I haven't had the opportunity to check, even) that bonus production/research isn't shown on the planet proper, there is a place it is shown, albeit not per planet-on the domestic policy screen, under expenses, where bonus production/research is lumped together.

I take it that means you're playing-hmm-Painful?

I try

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Nope, I'm on one of the easier settings - this is only my second game.

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