I was going to rush a robo factory, until I see a 25% hit on morality? So it is not moral to pay for overtime to get the job done sooner?
It's there mainly as a mechanism to prevent hurry spam. Thematically, you can see it as the stress of working overtime. If we think it's too much of a penalty we can reduce that a bit as I don't usually rush much myself, so I'm not sure. What do you think?
I am ambivalent tbh. I had not run into this mechanic, so had an instant dislike. However, I do see your point. I had not done any rushing up to this time, but I do a lot in Moo2. It makes gold not as useful, to not be able to rush. I was rushing projects that were partially done. Maybe a scaling, where the first time is penalty free, but subsequent rushes cost. The cost does not have to be a moral penalty, but could be an increase in the cost of rushing.
I tend to not use it unless there is an emergency, the hit is not something I am willing to incur at this point in time, it's kind of steep.
No Cost would almost be gamey with the way you can amass credits in ISG, I would use it, but it would feel like a cheat. A Morale penalty that was lower would see me using it a bit more often but I wouldn't spam it The current penalty is pretty high, so I only use if there is an emergency. Realistically, a player is going to use this mostly on higher production worlds, meaning that it may not be worth to speed up a construction, and then watch one of your better worlds suffer such a penalty. It kind of feels like the trade off is not really worth it. Of course, that's just my personal tastes, I don't know how others feel about it, they may think the current trade off is worth it.
Honestly, I use it when I do need it. The moral penalty doesn't bother me and I see it as fine. Generally when I rock a strong economy, especially in Alpha I go with Wealth first in culture (it's my default play style), I use the surplus to keep the tax rate at low (0% so I only depend on base income), up my culture and science subsidies at high (90% spending combined), and generally hire leaders generously (I play humans and use the Prestige ability often). I also use a strong economy to go over my fleet cap. I generally keep a low surplus, usually just enough to deal with some events and the few times a rush build is necessary. End result, I think the penalty is fine and as Konstantine said, I do find the mechanic a little bit of a cheat so making it easier would make it worse. I probably wouldn't use it more as I try to avoid being dependent on that mechanic. I rather depend on building up strong industries and ship production infrastructure to cover my ship building needs, and use support ships to jump start new colonies.
First I would think your stronger production planets would not need a rush. It is the front lines that I would expect to do it. The only time I have till now was a new planet that was nearest the race I intended to attack. Wanted a base up. Second not sure how spending your gold on anything is a cheat. You can maybe make a case that there is too much gold, but it comes with a price tag. IOW you emphasize one of the three functions. You spend all on research or all on culture or dial it in any portion you wish. If you spend so that you pile up gold, you should be able to spend any place you want. Otherwise you have no reason to hold gold, since you won't be able to spend it. Yes I am ignoring deficit spending. I would image most are not piling up gold by running the sliders. Once you get a large empire, you will get it anyway.
The reason some people say it's a cheat is that in a real sense you can't just spend more money to get things finished instantly. Overtime can't turn a two year project into something finished in one month. Ergo the term "gamey" which implies it's a purely mechanical system inside a game to offer an alternative advantage to rocking a strong economy. Cheat may be too strong a word, but some people use that to just mean gamey or cheap instead of the literal definition of the word cheat. Obviously in the game allows such a mechanic to occur. The rush could be several things happening, overtime, several sectors being diverted, the civilian economy being appropriated temporarily, getting supplies and parts from the markets, and even doing this on other planets and then transporting the goods to their destination. The cost is how much wacky government actions and people that need to get paid to pull this stunt off. I never seen rush as merely over-timing a few factories but a massive restructuring of industries on the planet and even across your empire to an extent for a single purpose, so it's expensive and takes a toll on the populace. The morale penalty is there to make using the rush as an emergency tactic and discourage rush spam on a single planet (rush building something every turn for several turns). Thematically, overworking people drains them, even if they were paid you still feel it. My fat pay checks every February hasn't offset the fact I now hate Valentine's Day and flowers with a vile passion, even after I left that job. So the morale penalty makes sense. Personally, I don't even mind the penalty, as in it never deterred me from using it when I needed it. Removing or reducing it won't make me use it more often. The playstyle I described in my earlier post is intrinsic to me and I play the same way even in games where rushing is cheap and non-punitive. Actually, I do give credit to ISG in giving us a means to always spend your cash. Other games do have the problem you can have a massive surplus you have nothing to spend it on, not ISG. Nothing stops you from jacking your culture or science spending to 90%, or even to 100% (that will always generate a deficit no matter how large your empire is). Actually, you can buff your morale high enough that you can actually get away with a few rush builds in a row if you have to, so doing a single one on a planet is not really punitive even by the mid-game. So if you need to dump cash, you still can by rushing on separate planets.
Cheat is not just too strong, it is offensive. I can't speak to someones issue with working too hard. I recall that I had 3 days off in a nov and that I came home at 2pm thanksgiving day and had too go back to work after eating turkey. Most days were 12 hours as I was the last one at work coming at 6pm and leaving when all was done. My wife still bitches about that day from time to time. I was a relative newly wed (5 yrs) at the time and just had our first child. I was very tired, but I was glad top have the extra money. I was not mad at work and in fact was good friends with my boss. I still remember this well, though it was 1972. As too shortening long jobs by months, you may want to do some reading about WWII. Carriers that needed 4-6 months to be repair were done 1 month and so on. Anyway as I said, let's leave real life out of the game. My position is simple don't remove rush buying. It has been part of strategy games for a long time. Don't make it too painful to use. The current cost are not too stringent.
I think you are trying to generate offense where none was created. A lot people use the term "cheat" in the informal sense, two have so in this thread. No one actually believes anyone that does use it is a cheat. The fact a person feels like they personally are cheating doesn't mean it applies to everyone, it's that person's personal sentiment. So the term was never meant as an insult and I do apologies if it was precieved as such. Also, even without the examples my arguments still stand. Morale represents more than just a happiness meter but an overall well-being of the populace. Overtime work and the other measures used to pull off such rushed jobs can generate stress in the population, this is what the penalty represents. But I also made the gameplay arguments that it's in place to encourage its use for cases of emergency instead of a common practice as a cash dump, and the mechanics in the game to aid with both those issues. Now, if you never argued on it for the purposes of immersion or theme, then I apologize for making those arguments as they are irrelevant to the points you have raised. However, immersion arguments are made often on these forums, however as I said, if you didn't make them here then they were not needed by me either. Though I do stand by the gameplay arguments I made.
No Offense intended sir, I believe Edward explained it well, besides, even without my silly disclaimers, I speak on a how I feel, just for myself. I had the privilege to work with an elderly gentleman decades ago, who worked at the shipyards during WWII. The Brooklyn navy yard had 3, 8-hour shifts running, and was open around the clock, 15,000 workers per shift. They could complete a destroyer in a month in those days... but these were simpler ships, low tech and the bureaucracy we have today was un-heard of during those troubled times...
The idea of rush must mean there is a potential for more production available not normally used. In this game what is actually constructing the buildings? People or automation? I'd assume it was more of the latter given the time the game is set in. The morale hit could be a race thing too. Maybe some races like to work so there would be less of a hit.
