GROWING YOUR EMPIRE (CONT.)

Colonies produce one unit of production for each working factory and half a unit for each colonist. When the game starts, only two factories can be manned by each colonist. Any excess factories beyond the control of the population can not be operated and generate no production. Improved robotic controls will allow the colonists to control more factories, but they must first be researched.

The total planetary production is reduced by the amount of ship maintenance, trading, tribute, espionage, and sabotage that the player has allocated. Be careful not to allow the ship maintenance to grow to a point where colonies cannot afford to produce any new ships or missile bases.

Planetology technology increases the amount each worker produces. In the beginning, each worker produces only one-half a BC per year, but by the time the 50th level of planetology is reached, each worker is producing two BCs per year. This extra production bonus is particularly useful when forming new colonies.

Mineral rich planets have an abundance of heavy metals necessary for construction. Ship production, missile base construction and new factory construction is doubled on rich and tripled on ultra rich planets. However, ecology and technology spending are unaffected. Mineral poor planets, on the other hand, have constructions halved on poor and cut to one-third on ultra poor planets.

Factory Costs: Each factory costs a base of 10 BCs to build. In order for colonists to operate more than two factories, special controls must be built that dramatically increase the factory’s building costs. To take advantage of Robotic Controls, you must first REFIT your existing factories. The cost for refitting existing factories is the difference between the factory’s current cost and the cost of building new factories with the higher level of Robotic Controls.

Improved Factory Tech (construction technology) decreases the base costs of factories to as little as 2 BCs each. In general, without the factory improvements,it will be very expensive to build robotic factories.