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[Morgan Rue]

On the topic of colony babysitting: You can keep market shares below 5% to avoid expeditions. I understand this makes colonies not incredibly profitable, but it is still good to know.
Perhaps that should be expanded on.

[Megas]

On the topic of colony babysitting: You can keep market shares below 5% to avoid expeditions. I understand this makes colonies not incredibly profitable, but it is still good to know.
Perhaps that should be expanded on.

I did not know that.  But that may be hard to do.  I remember building a few pop-up colonies with minimal industries, and still got expeditions (two fuel from ruins, and ore from an ore-rich planet).  It felt arbitrary and made expeditions look like something to send at the player X times per year no matter what.

Having said that, that applies only to major factions, which your colony defenses can eventually destroy reliably, not pirates and pathers.  Pirates and pathers are already a headache if I want to do fun stuff far from my colonies.  I have no problem letting my colony defenses do all of the work of making invasions from major factions go away without any input from me, if that means more time for my fleet to fun stuff I want to do (which is exploring more systems for loot and maybe a better colony location, and raiding core worlds for blueprints).

[Serenitis]

I have never thought that Industrial Planning was "too strong" on it's own.
It's when you combine it with everything else that the whole thing turns your colonies into a fountain of money.
But somehow this is the fault of a set of entirely optional skills.

Look at the things it gives you:
A -1 reduction in demand. Nothing really worth caring about except for your first colony before you have any production.
A +1 increase in production. This is nice as it makes planets with low resources viable.
A +30% to all income. This is the draw. Not because it makes your space money number bigger, but because it lets you eat more maint costs while staying in the black. Which is a huge deal if you are avoiding the other means of doing this as it gives you a lot more flexibility in where you can set up colonies. (Hence the tight shoes metaphor.)
It's effectively a global +25% to the hazard limit on which you can fully develop colonies. The extra money from already habitable worlds is inconsequential compared to this.
Industrial Planning 3 is also the only means of increasing your colony hazard tolerance that doesn't act as an attractant.

And the cost:
6 skill points.
You have 50 skill points available, so thats 12% of your total skills. Granted, depending on your playstyle 3 of those might already invested, but either way it is still not an insignificant cost.
For which I would say Industrial Planning feels more-or-less okay for cost vs benefit.


Compare with Free Port:
Extra growth. Nice but nothing spectactular.
Upto +50% access. Which is huge on its own, and has a noticeble effect even if your colony is right in the far corner of the sector.
Income from illegal trade. Again, huge. Drugs on thier own will bring in 20k+ easily on a size 3, and that number only gets bigger with growth.

The costs:
~1 second to push a button.
+2 factions sending mooks at you. Which is annoying as it means you have to play guard dog more, but only until your colony reaches size 6-7 where your defences have grown enough to take care of them so you can ignore it.

The abundant income from Free Port gives you an effective +75% to your hazard tolerance for a single colony, and the only cost it has is entirely mitigated once that colony grows large enough to defend itself.
And if it's used on an already low hazard world, it just creates a huge pile of money which is probably more than the player can spend without buying stuff just to dump it into space.

If you're looking for something that's "too strong", start with Free Port.
Or if you absolutely must mess with IP, have it give boosts to maint savings or hazard mitigation instead of income.
I'm more than a little concerned that if the extra colony flexibility given by Industrial Planning is removed entirely, that players will be railroaded into having to use boost items or face being locked out of developing all but the most habitable worlds.

[Megas]

@ Serenitis:  I agree with your general points.  Few comments.

For a player who gets Industry only for Industrial Planning and Colony Management, the actual cost is nine skills points, not six, because... dead Industry aptitude.  (Industry has few other gems I like to take, but those get passed over in favor of other skills in the other three aptitudes.)  That is 9/52.

Free Port is a no-brainer once stability is high enough.  It makes no difference if the game draws from five factions instead of three.  You still get your yearly quota of invasions.  Even better, Luddic Church is weak.  Hegemony is only about on par with the Diktat and League.  The only thing about Luddic Church and Hegemony is they always aim for Spaceport.  Luddic Church, no problem because they are weak.  Hegemony... if your colony defenses can eat Diktat and League without breaking a sweat, they can handle Hegemony.

A -1 reduction in demand. Nothing really worth caring about except for your first colony before you have any production.

It is a big deal if you do not want to use items to meet demand because of Pather Cells (most annoying babysitter threat).  Next release, when that perk gives -10% to upkeep, player will need items to meet demand for some industries, and that will mean Pather Cells.  Then again, once nanoforges are fixed and add to Pather Interest, player will get pathers if he wants pristine ships.

[Rap1d]

I'm on the other side of the spectrum - I never ever put any points into industry. The games losing conditions are always about failing combat, and the industry branch doesn't give you any combat benefits. So why put any points there? I feel like you can make your ship and your fleet stronger with spending the points elsewhere, rather than just getting more ships for the credits, and credits are not an issue lategame anyway.

[TaLaR]

Yeah, I also don't take any Industry skills. Money is plentiful late-game anyway and you can get Industrial planning for 2 colonies via hired administrators.

Plus economy will work quite differently in next release anyway - no profit from own demand, but you get to keep 1 pet faction (that you are commissioned with) who won't try to raid you. Since TT are the only faction who won't care about saturation bombing everybody else, the choice is obvious. Question is whether global market that small would be able to sustain any player colonies.

[Megas]

If I had no qualms with installing alpha cores as administrators, then I would not get Industry for colony skills because eventually, alphas will drop after grinding Remnants long enough.

The main lure for getting colony skills for me is more colonies and no need to rely on administrators if I have not yet found one good enough to hire.  For me, price for colony skills is Navigations gets ignored because I would sacrifice too much combat power if I get both Navigation and colony skills.  I think the colony skills offer more QoL for me than Navigation 3.

[Schwartz]

Compared to the easy buff that are AI cores, Industrial Planning is perfectly fine.

[Megas]

It occurred to me that getting Industrial Planning yourself does not make much sense unless the player personally governs many colonies.  That practically means Colony Management is a given if I already spent six for dead Industry aptitude plus Industrial Planning.  Similarly, if I get more than Colony Management 1 for more colonies under my control, then I need to get Industry Planning myself to exploit the extra colonies most.  Planetary Operations would be nice for extra colony/stability although getting that too cuts into combat power.  (I had trouble deciding whether to get Officer Management, Planetary Operations, Navigation.  I want them all, but there are not enough points... unless I abandon industry and grind for alphas.)

However, if alpha core administrators add to Pather interest, and the new limit to avoid active pather cells is only four, then having more colonies under human control can still be useful if player does not want to deal with Pathers.  (Dealing with Pathers is a royal pain and inconvenience that I like to ignore.)  Player can still have colonies on junk worlds for population centers and possibly waystations.  In other words, colonies under alpha control can simply have population and few minor industries or structures, while human colonies have the Pather aggro industries like fuel production and heavy industry.

@ TaLaR:  Are you sure unskilled character can hire two administrators?  Isn't the baseline two colonies governed by you and one administrator?  If so, that leaves one under hireling control without Colony Management.  Income generation with unskilled character is unremarkable, at least not without Free Port and items.

Since TT are the only faction who won't care about saturation bombing everybody else, the choice is obvious. Question is whether global market that small would be able to sustain any player colonies.

I think Diktat does not care about sat bombing either, although they are small too.

Also, if Free Port in 0.9.1 is not a huge money maker like now, then it could be useful mostly for the population boost since it seems incentives may not scale with colony size (i.e., no more hundreds with high size colonies).

Luddic Church and Hegemony do not raid colonies that do not have Free Port, although Hegemony has the pesky inspections for core users.

[TaLaR]

@ TaLaR:  Are you sure unskilled character can hire two administrators?  Isn't the baseline two colonies governed by you and one administrator?  If so, that leaves one under hireling control without Colony Management.  Income generation with unskilled character is unremarkable, at least not without Free Port and items.

Right, might this up, only one.

Though you can get 2 more for just 2 points - 1st to unlock Industry, 2nd for Colony Management 1. That's best bang for the buck, if going with minimal non-zero Industry investment.