murdick wrote:Heck, I have a layout that gives 132 spice WITHOUT spice salvant. And it's not unhappy. Ever. Nice layout for if you have spice salvant though.

I think I came across the method too.

Here's a small theory; I tried not to add planes to one of my T-2 planets, and had the colenys balenced, but they needed help, dispite the fact one coleny was at 3 green faces and the other was at 2 unhappy.

Warning! Useful Tip Alert!

Here's a good tip for players with the Spice Savant trait. Spice Savant means colonies and cities have a 50% higher production rate. 108 production becomes 162, for example.

Anyway, because of the 50% higher production rate, players with Spice Savant can use the layouts that give 5 happiness and will still have a reasonably high rate (to find out exactly how much, multiply the production score by 1.5).

In short, the bonus is that you can have 162 production rate on space colonies and also have 5 happinness points.

If you don't have Spice Savant, however, don't freak. Just follow the layout that gives 2 happiness points, this will give you 132 production (Note: Only applies to space colonies. For homeworld cities, you'll just have to make up your mind on what layout has the best production-happiness ratio). Not bad, but Spice Savant really gives you a huge boost in production.

PS: By "layout", I mean the ones in the original post

This really gave me a huge economical boost. I earned 10 million in an hour thanks to a good number of purple spice planets, some price comparisons, and the above tip.

Having high happiness is supposed to make colonies fight harder.


If you already knew this and feel offended, I apologize.

Here's the best way of placing building in a space stage colony (144 spice, 5 happiness):

X H E H F F H H E H F H

Never mind. This only works if finishing city stage on economic.

That need turrets. The Grox are coming.

If you want a higher population but still 0 happiness and the same production from space colony, 0 happiness, replace the final entertainment with a house.

I've discovered something. In the first post, at the end it explains how to get higher production by changing around happiness levels with the optimum layout. They concluded that the method with the highest production, using the best layouts, was one colony with +2 happiness and two colonies with -1 happiness.

The production for a +2 happiness is 132, and the production for a -1 happiness is 144. The total production is 420.

I fiddled around with it a bit and I realized something: there is a method with a higher production than that. It's crazy, so crazy, that it definitely will work. I've got it all worked out.

What you need is one colony with -5 happiness, one with +2 and one with +3. These will give productions of 180, 132, and 120, respectively, for a grand total of, bum buduh bum, 432!

So, slightly better.

BUT, if you're prepared to have a -1 net happiness, and perhaps use a happiness booster, then you will see that the production for a +2 happiness is more than +3, and if you use two colonies with +2 happiness and one with -5, you'll have a total production of 444! Anyway, I certainly plan to do it, at least sometimes.

ChocoDillPickles wrote:I've discovered something. In the first post, at the end it explains how to get higher production by changing around happiness levels with the optimum layout. They concluded that the method with the highest production, using the best layouts, was one colony with +2 happiness and two colonies with -1 happiness.

The production for a +2 happiness is 132, and the production for a -1 happiness is 144. The total production is 420.

I fiddled around with it a bit and I realized something: there is a method with a higher production than that. It's crazy, so crazy, that it definitely will work. I've got it all worked out.

What you need is one colony with -5 happiness, one with +2 and one with +3. These will give productions of 180, 132, and 120, respectively, for a grand total of, bum buduh bum, 432!

So, slightly better.

BUT, if you're prepared to have a -1 net happiness, and perhaps use a happiness booster, then you will see that the production for a +2 happiness is more than +3, and if you use two colonies with +2 happiness and one with -5, you'll have a total production of 444! Anyway, I certainly plan to do it, at least sometimes.

Brilliant! Freakin' brilliant!

I think using monoliths at planets then waiting for the new homeworlds and capturing them will help spice production
(If I had any mistakes sorry )

The homeworld one works best! I have a max spice planet that can hold 90 purple spice!