Planetary Meltdown

[stoneage]

In the last few turns a few planets are starting to dismantel their infrastructure due to lack of maintenance.
I am trying to combat this by deactivating the planetary AI, emptying the queues, lowering taxation and balancing the income and out goings manaully via the normal economy slider.
Is this the proper way of handling this or is this a symptom of an underlying problem in my empires economy.
My theory is the empire is so large there are more deserving cases for the planetary support budget and certain planets are being left to whither on the vine. Can I stop the viceroy's from turbo charging development on planet which cant support this level of growth.

[NeutroniumDrgn]

The problem is simply that the planet is spending more money than it's bringing in. This is particularly prone to happening if the planet has a lot of research DEAs, but the sudden loss of grant money if it's no longer one of the 'top 10' of a category can sometimes cause it as well.

Reducing expenditures may help in the short term, but you'll need to have a look at just what DEAs are there - if there are too many unprofitable ones, strip a couple out (or change the dev plans a bit) and replace them with money-making ones instead - even if you don't really need the resources that they generate.

Neutronium Dragon

[StormHawk]

Don't lower (planetary) taxes! you need this income to pay for maintainance.

You need to lower Imperial and maybe System Taxes so your VR increases planetary taxes, which will pay for building maintainance. Make sure your spending setting is set to balanced ro savings, not spending. You don't need to empty build queues either, just stop overdriving your spending. If the bar isn't green you are spending more to get the same. You can also allocate less money to building new things and research. I never turn off the Vice Roy, it knows what it is doing.

[stoneage]

Ok, I will restore the viceroy and put the taxes up to the normal level. I will stop overdriving the econmy and let the queues fill out on one world and leave everything set to manual on the other world and see which is best.
PS. Both worlds are largely research and support DEA's because I have been removing mines and farms due to the fact the AI keeps building them even though they arent on any development plan anymore. Is it bad to have vast ammounts of food and minerals or do they actually help the economy.

[Beamup]

Well, they do produce money. And I can now see what caused your problem - taking out those DEAs and leaving yourself with just research and support. Research DEAs don't produce any money, but they consume a lot of it. Overloading on research DEAs on one planet is a very efficient way to destroy that planet's economy - as you have discovered. Mix them with money-producing DEAs (generally no more than half research at most) for best results. Bio is all right if you have good regions for it, Mining is good if you have decent regions/mineral richness, and Industry is great if you have enough population.

[hoof1]

Another cause of planetary meltdowns can be specials that increase maintenance (such as the "Rapid Rot" special). Check your planet to make sure it has none of these specials. If it does, then you need to replan your development of that plan with an idea to either maximizing income, or minimizing maintenance. Rapid rot alone can easily cause maintenance to consume most of your income, even with a well-run colony.

[CKHO2]

about tax setting

Pople count tax
(Gov Tax + sys Tax + planetary tax < max tollorence tax)

first of all, you can lower gov tax to lowest you can

then you should set you sys tax to 0 (sys tax are pretty much usless becasue all it do is pull money from planets to one planet in each system) It is better lower it to 0 and use that for planetary tax.

that way you can have higher planetary tax
since (max planetary tax you can have = max tax - you gov tax -0)

hope this help

[StormHawk]

Originally posted by hoof1
Another cause of planetary meltdowns can be specials that increase maintenance (such as the "Rapid Rot" special). Check your planet to make sure it has none of these specials. If it does, then you need to replan your development of that plan with an idea to either maximizing income, or minimizing maintenance. Rapid rot alone can easily cause maintenance to consume most of your income, even with a well-run colony.

Excellent point, that never occured to me. I usually only look at a few specials (magnate mostly).

I normally put 1 gov DEA and 2 industry DEAs on every planet. ALWAYS 2 industry DEAs. If it is a smaller planet, I sometimes leave out the gov DEA. I never noticed that I need more money, probably because I have been doing this since the beginning.

[teecee]

Originally posted by stoneage
<snip>.
PS. Both worlds are largely research and support DEA's because I have been removing mines and farms due to the fact the AI keeps building them even though they arent on any development plan anymore. Is it bad to have vast ammounts of food and minerals or do they actually help the economy.

Excess food and minerals get sold off for money. That money helps maintain research, military, government and recreation DEAs. I never sweat food and mineral extras. They help keep your economy robust.

It sounds like you got bit by the new Dev Plan bug. This glitch occurs when you edit a line in your Dev Plan. The AI doesn't recognize the change and continues to build according to the old entry in the Dev Plan. The fix is to save and then reload the Dev Plan.

tc

[siggi]

Another reason for economic meltdown on a planet can be a sudden dip in minerals production, or a general shortage in mineral production getting worse (for example, through a number of industry DEAs becoming active in one turn). I had this happen to me once, when a leader with a boost to mineral production died (old age, no assassination :)).

The shortage of minerals seems to be dumped into just a few planets instead of being spread around among all that cannot support themselves. In my specific case, the dip of production through loss of the leader wasn't properly anticipated regarding production spending, either. That drove the planet (just one, with few mineral DEAs, of course) deeply into debt the next turn and maintenance couldn't be paid any longer... You know the story.

This is one more reason to keep a healthy buffer in minerals production. And I'm tempted to suggest a 'feature request' for Renaux', er Blaze's bug list, for an improved distribution algorithm for resource shortages (you have the same story with food shortages). However, this could be a wanted feature, after all, nothing would go 'poof' with more sensible automatisms in place.

[dkass]

Originally posted by CKHO2
then you should set you sys tax to 0 (sys tax are pretty much usless becasue all it do is pull money from planets to one planet in each system) It is better lower it to 0 and use that for planetary tax. I have to disagree. There are many cases where system taxes are very useful. Think of it as a way to select one planet per system to receive a permanent grant. No worry about the grant disappearing suddenly, no limitations on how you use it...

I make regular use of them when playin Klackons (or other races that like tiny planets). With small planets, it is difficult to get good research going--DEA space is too precious on production planets to waste a couple on research DEAs. Instead, I'll make a farming/mining world the system seat and fill its unused space with research DEAs (since its rare for the planet to have more than one or two "good" regions). It can then fund the research off of its system tax funding (and the little bio/mining funding, of course). This without major impact on the industrial planets (sure they lose a few % of production, but one needs to do the research somewhere).

[Norfleet]

Yeah, but unless you guarantee that every starsystem has small planets for your Klackons, and some large planet that money is to be funneled to, you're going to get lots of starsystems where money is pointlessly funneled off to a planet which doesn't need more money.

[RobNelson]

Actually, I think dkass' point is that as Klackons, you rarely have large planets (they average around 4-5, I think). In that case, rather than funneling to a large planet, you're funneling to a small planet that will need more money than it can produce. This prevents one from taking up a precious DEA slot on a money making world for DEA.

That really is the best use of system taxes. Another (less useful, but still kinda good) use is to make sure your industry planets (of whatever size) get the system seat. Of course, that only helps in super-overdriving, since industry planets should be making enough money on their own, but you could use it to build a large reserve, so that when you need to go to war, the reserve money will hold out for more than a single turn.

[Sobriquet]

Most of the assumptions here are sound. However, I still feel like it is some sort of glitch in the matrix. I have seen a sitrep tell me that a planet had to dismantle buildings when the planet had NONE to dismantle. The only building was two industry DEA's in the planning phase. Yet, the maintainence was over 2k. I am having a hard time isolating this, but I believe it is a bug of some sort. Possibly tied to the overflow 'bug'.

[RobNelson]

If you see it again, maybe you can send a save file to QSI. They're pretty good about looking at reported bugs (as long as they can be reproduced). This may be of interest to them.

[cousLee]

Originally posted by Sobriquet
Most of the assumptions here are sound. However, I still feel like it is some sort of glitch in the matrix. I have seen a sitrep tell me that a planet had to dismantle buildings when the planet had NONE to dismantle. The only building was two industry DEA's in the planning phase. Yet, the maintainence was over 2k. I am having a hard time isolating this, but I believe it is a bug of some sort. Possibly tied to the overflow 'bug'.

I have seen this also (similar situation), where the maint is WAY above what it should be. Will isolate a save next time I see it.

[Norfleet]

A newly colonized planet that spends itself down into the negative bank will promptly dismantle nonexistent buildings. Also, if your empire starts accumulating too much money, at least pre-1.2.5, your money will roll over and go negative, and your empire explodes. It might still happen now, but the game so far hasn't run that far, with tech slowdown slowing down things in general. It got to the point where I had 1.8B credits to spend, empire taxes at 0, and was blowing money at the rate of over 400M per turn, with bankruptcy in in 5-6 turns, yet the money was still fluctuating wildly....and spending was totally yo-yo. One turn I'd burn some 800M credits, next turn I'd have a listed surplus, and back-and-forth. Crazy stuff.

[cousLee]

No, I am referring to a fairly new planet, game around turn 60 or so (don't remember the exact turn). One DEA built, 2 slated. And the econ panel showed 2k in maint. It didn't disassemble the DEA for a couple of turns. But the obvious problem, is the amount it showed being spent on maint. one dea causing 2k in maint? Not likely. seems more of a bug than anything else. But as I said, I will keep my open for it to hapen again, and have a save that I can give to whomever. (don't remember how to do a screen shot, and clueless on how to post it on the board. A save would be an easier thing to deal with anyway)

[RobNelson]

Waht hab ring? Red planet's require larger maintenance.

Any specials? Rapid Rot, in particular, is really nasty for maintenance costs, but I don't think it's the only one.