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« on: July 26, 2019, 05:13:31 AM »
I decided to give the rebalanced colonies of the latest patch a try, and they felt rather anemic in my opinion. To start a colony, not to mention a profitable one, you have to spend a considerable amount of time and supplies to survey systems until you find a good one, and then buy a starliner or something similar so that you can pay a thousand crew, two hundred supplies and a hundred heavy machinery. That's not an inconsiderable expense, but a fairly minor one in comparison to the costs of the actual colony.
When you have your newly started colony you need an industry, for example mining. I colonised a planet (125 hazard) with abundant ore and rare ore in addition to plentiful volatiles. Sounds amazing, right? In the previous patch this kind of planet would be a goldmine, but the reward for the 100 000 credits is an income of a paltry 15 000. That would be acceptable, since roughly 10 months to make a profit is doable, but a colony needs more than that. A patrol hq is 300 000 for a defense which can't handle a raid, and the upgrades cost more and take one of the few industry slots you have. So you continue upgrading your colony, funneling millions into it hoping that it will be worthwhile, 300 000 for a megaport, 250 000 for a spacestation, 450 000 for commerce and so on and so forth. The reward is more than doubling my income, which is roughly 45 000, excluding the heavy industry (which provides benefits beyond money and excuses the negative income) and the refinery which gives a few thousand as it's income in return for 215 000 credits. I could go on, but I believe my view on things is fairly clear: Colonies seem like a massive moneysink for an income which is worse than a commission and far worse than regular bounties.
That being said, this could be because I use mod factions and nexerelin, so the market is perhaps harder to conquer than it usually is, so I would like to hear your thoughts on the profitability of colonies.
