First of all, I'd like to say you guys did a great job with this game. There are not nearly enough GOOD star trek games out there & since I'm a long time fan of the original BOTF, I'm really glad to see a sequel in the works!

I started playing today & I was wondering what Credits were used for in your game, aside from bribes & buyouts in diplomacy I wanted to know if I could use my credits to Accelerate building & starship construction?

Hey Satros, welcome to the forums!

You can't currently do this, but we do intend to add a system where you can spend credits to boost construction speed. But this won't be the instant-buy feature that BOTF had. It will simply increase construction speed by making your workers do double-shifts. This feature will be added as part of a future update, but I don't know when.

Aside from this, credits will have uses in other areas as you mentioned - Diplomacy, aka bribes will be one of them, but don't expect to be able to bribe your way to power. Your ability to bribe a race will vary on their nature - the Ferengi will love you for it, but the Vulcans would be offended. It will be up to players to discover these traits once diplomacy has been fully implemented.

Credits will also be used for the maintenence of your fleets, just as they were in BOTF. More credits mean you can maintain a bigger fleet. The ship stats - including the maintenance costs - are still a work in progress though, so this isn't immediately obvious.

Thanks for the quick response I'll be looking forward to each and every new things you add to the game, keep up the good work!

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We've already said that we would reduce the build costs for the ships by 90% to see what effect this would have on the balance. We could easily do something similar with the buildings.

Out of interest, what sort of construction speed do you think it should have? Or what would you think if it could be variable with a menu option? (IE "Development Speed", akin to the Civ 4 system with Quick vs Marathon games) I could actually try reducing the construction costs right now even without the editor, but doing so carries a risk of the resultant files being incompatible with any future updates or the future editor. Installing them would also trigger an update notification every time you play. Turning off the updater though would mean you could miss out on legitimate updates. This is why I haven't yet modded the game manually.

It's not just with industry. That's the one you notice the most because you have a lot of them in a system. Factories cost the same as labs. Labs will have the same problem if you invest a lot into research - which is what you'll do when you have nothing to build and you just don't want to go through the hassle of upgrading farms and power generators (on non-construction systems).

Ok then, i'll add this to my to-do list. You still haven't mentioned what sort of reduction would sound acceptable though. 1%? 50%?

Maybe the increase should reflect the species you play. The federation is a well organized society that care for it's workers, so instead of working 8 hours a day they work 16. The production could be doubled. The Klingons on the other hand tend to use forced labor, so an increase in production would be less because of workers riots & the like. Each species views work ethics differently so the increase bonuses should reflect that.

On the other hand, you could make all the species have the same increase bonus, but at different costs. The Romulans value secrecy so the cost of increasing production could be higher to cover up their projects. The Dominion have little trouble with loyalty so the cost of the increased production could be the lowest of all the races.

In general, I think double the standard production speed, give or take 20%, should be resonable

Well the Federation are usually described in the game as being very efficient - but they value quality over quantity, thus requiring high resource costs. Now I know if says resource costs, which doesn't necessarily mean high industrial costs. But the buildings don't (Yet) have any resource costs. Adding this in is always an option though as Mike has already provided the necessary requirement boxes in the editor for adding this in, should we one day decide that want to.

The Klingons on the other hand...would you really want to stage a riot against the Klingon work ethic?

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Wow, that is well thought out Sheva. It's really well balanced for each races too. I'm no programmer, but I'm sure they can work with an idea like this

I wonder if a similar process could be used for increasing research output. An increased research button would put on hold all construction & ship building to give a boost to scientific research.