On a first glance, I would say that there has always been a balance to the game, between mining and ship building, with a merit that is good to observe and to consider.
For instance, there is already a very considerable strain to mining minerals when you want/need to build a fleet in the early stages of the game. In other words, it is often very hard to build an early fleet without a decisive impact to your global development. It is still possible to do it, but any additional strain is very likely to negatively tax it. In my opinion, this option to build early fleets (before researching mines) is a good thing to have in the game, and I would say that the current balance is in a good place.
As a meaningful example of this, I recall that there was a player (Jax, if I recall correctly), that would always attack everyone in his proximity from the start of the game (and mostly disappear from the map at mid game, as consequence). He had some skill to it, though, and I had to fight him quite a few times, while also developing my stuff for the decisive part of the galaxy. I can tell you that combining these two tasks was very hard for me, and mining the resources needed to answer to the threat was an important part of the strain.
Another aspect I would bring up is the rarity of exotics. Since we are on our way to make them rare again, I would tread lightly on increasing their demand. I recall that it was often the case that I would need to station several hundreds of troops on my only exotics planet, so that ore production could match ship production (especially so when commodities are high, because the quantity of ore does not scale up). There were also several games where I had to fight to hold or conquer an exotics planet, which would affect its development (the fight would kill citizens and buildings), and much had to be invested to have it ready to pump the goods in time. So, again, I would always carefully consider this equilibrium.
__________________ A Jedi's strength flows from the Force.
Yep agreed with that. Happy to just change exotic spawn if that's possible - wouldnt play around with mineral requirements then
(I only have mineral problems at early game, but seldom have them at higher levels recently even if I dont get robomines first.. maybe it's cause there's so many planets per galaxy in recent galaxies im in)
Oo or maybe the main reason is cause I havent met raf in a galaxy recently so I dont have much mineral problems :p
__________________ Reminder to self: Patience is a virtue
Check out my pet projects here: https://gotm.io/tingling
