Food and Energy probably should be a little more important, but the fact is that anyone can go big in Smithore, so I have no problem with its power over the 'lesser' resources.

It's not so much the issue of how much money each of the factory types brings in as where you're taking the money from and its relation to the colony itself.  The fact that you MAKE money for not just yourself, but the entire colony's score when you produce smithore, but if you produce food and energy, whether or not you sell it low to be nice, or sell it high to have some vague chance at keeping up with the players who were nabbing the three-mountain plots while you were nabbing rivers and deserts,  the fact is that either way you're still just taking money from another player and not positively influencing the colony score whatsoever.

A guy completely monopolizes the ore industry and he's the hero of the colony.  A guy monopolizes food and energy and it's HIS fault you're all taking a trip to the debtors prison. 


Even if Food and Energy are made to be worth more during the final auction phase, it would still only be for that phase, and even then they'd only be jumping up to the store's SELL value, probably.  (If it was any more, then everyone would just clean out the store on the second-to-last turn, if there was anything there, just to sell it themselves) During the rest of the game, they'd still sell as abysmally low to the store as they do currently, so Ore and Cristite will still be the real money-makers, as they are intended to be.

Only difference really if this change was made would be that people wouldn't scramble to convert all of their food factories into more smithore mines during the last couple rounds, and we might see less of the attitude of "I'd rather let all of mine spoil than allow the store to keep any in stock!" ... ... except of course for the people who don't give a darn about the colony's score and just want to jack up prices for the other players.  That'll still be an option, only now it won't be the only option.

It's really a shame that a person specializing in food and or energy accomplishes nothing except taking money from the other players for himself, never really contributing anything to said colony because they'll never bring in more than $15 per unit selling to the store...

That got me thinking. Sure, the STORE doesn't need too much food or energy in stock, but what about the space ship?  Considering it's not TOO much bigger than one whole plot, I find it hard to believe that it can manufacture much food or energy mid-voyage. Won't it need to stock up while it's planet-side?

So what if the value of both food and energy would suddenly jump up to a nice respectable amount for the final, end-of-game auction phase, since you're selling it to the ship for the voyage home instead of the planet-side store?

For that matter, do the stockpiles of food and energy the store keeps during the match (assuming you don't empty them early on, in order to gouge your competing players) contribute at all to the colony score?  If not, maybe they should.  That way, colony-minded players might actually be tempted to sell their excess to it, despite how little it is worth during all the other phases of the game. The store supply won't deteriorate, so filling it up ensures a nice little colony boost for the final tally.

Maybe that should be a topic for another thread in the suggestion forum.  Making energy production actually beneficial to the colony score.   As fun as it is to be a food or energy mogul, the fact that you're only taking money, rather than making it, won't make you many friends. 

At the least, they could have the amount the store pays for food and energy jump up considerably at the final auction phase of the entire game.  I mean, the ship that picks you up would surely have a much higher demand for the stuff than the on-planet store does, right?   You know what, I'm going to go start that thread now.

Also, being in the energy business does not pay well enough to begin with. Taking even more of that away would not allow even for the little amount of leeway you had with that strategy before.

Yeah, you guys have a good point there.  Sometimes I forget that people might actually try making money with energy production, rather than everyone just making two or three plants to support their personal ore-mining operation.

So nevermind. Carry on. 

How many times has this happened to you?  You're running a little short on Energy this month, and you only expect half of your factories to stay running.  The problem?  The cristite factory you have planted on the meteor crash site decides it wants to run out of power while that fourth food farm you were planning to convert into something else keeps chugging away.  Or the smithore factory you built on that valuable three-mountain plot goes out, while the smithore factory you built on the plains adjacent to it, that plops out just a couple extra smithore per month due to adjacency bonuses, stays in perfect working order.

D'OH!

This got me thinking.  What if there was a handy little kit you could buy at the store, take to any pre-existing factory (that YOU own, naturally)  and install, that would simply give that factory priority in your energy use?  IE, any factories with these gizmos installed on them will never run out of energy BEFORE the ones without them have, giving you the option to spend a little more money and a little more time for "productivity insurance", essentially.

If you're curious as to how that would work, well.. I'm basically just imagining you'd be installing extra power cables to form detours around one power grid to the next.

Actually, to simplify things this power diversion system could be some extra function of the MULEs. So, to upgrade your factory you'd simply buy a mule and lead it, without any factory kit installed, to a pre-existing factory and use it.  ~$100  seems like a fair price to ensure that, if even one of your factories stays active when you're out of juice, it'll be the one you value the most.  Don't you agree?