Research Project and Economic Stimulus - Not worth it in ANY way

Then I would say that you did a rather poor job testing things out. As long as the planet's research or income bonus is less than +890%, you will see a net benefit from using 1% of the planetary production to feed a project rather than directing all of the production into research or income. Accounting for rounding error in the allocation setting, it's only really safe to do this for a bonus to the desired output which is less than 567%. The net benefit you obtain is marginal, but using the project does produce a higher total output

Assuming you get only one output type out of the planet, a world's total output is given by

O(m) = (1 - m) * P * (1 + B + 0.1 * ceil(m * (1 + M) * P / 10))

where O(m) is the planet's output, m is the fraction of production given over to manufacturing, P is the planet's base production, B is the planet's bonus to the output type corresponding to the project used, M is the planet's bonus to manufacturing, and ceil(X) is the function which returns the smallest nonnegative integer N such that N >= X.

I agree that the benefits of the projects are too small, but to claim that they provide no benefit whatsoever under any circumstances is simply wrong.

the projects could be buffed to a level where you can just let your research worlds run at 50/50 manufacturing/research with the research project as the final item with minimal loss. would kill a lot of pointless micromanagement. i'm sick of moving those sliders back and forth every time there is some new building upgrade available.

tbh, it would be good enough for me if all the projects did was to (temporarily) set research/wealth to 100%. you'd lose the tiny bonus you can currently get for assigning 1 point of manufacturing, but that bonus feels like a broken mechanic anyway (shouldn't give the benefit of 10 manufacturing when you only assign 0.1 points). at least, you could run most planets on "full auto" without the tedious micro management.

I think you have a poor way of explaining yourself.  OK, let me use some real numbers, because I doubt anyone wants to follow your equation:

51.7 base research (if 100%), +400% research bonuses

52.0 base manufacturing (if 100%), +195% manf bonuses

If I put 100% into research I get 257 research

If I enable research project, and put 1% (and I had to spend a minute, trying to find a fraction of that percent as well), I get 260.3 max.  

So, to get a "gain" I have to put 99% manufacturing in (I save 1% manufacturing for a rediculously long build), and get 1% extra research out, and spend time fighting the sliders.  I think that would still qualify as "not worth it in any way".  

I thought they just gave a 10% bonus through being 'on', regardless of the amount of industry you put into it.

dansiegel30, you will note that I did not dispute that research and economic projects are not generally worthwhile, and in fact said that I agreed with that sentiment. You will note that what I took exception to is the demonstrably false claim that the use of economic and research projects is strictly inferior to directing planetary production into the desired output types.

The statement "I tried it on a planet where I had ALL Manufacturing (and yes Marigold, an approval building, as well as some farms), and I tried to see which was better, to put population points into Research or Economy, or use my awesome manufacturing capability with the Research Project or Economic Stimulus.  In all attempts, using population points won!  In every possible way." constitutes a claim that, under what are essentially the most favorable conditions for the use of projects, the use of economic and research projects is strictly inferior under any performance metric to directing all planetary production into the desired output type. In other words, you made the claim that there are no conditions under which you will see a net benefit to using a research or economic project as opposed to simply directing production into the desired output. Worse, this is the only support you provided in the original post for your claim that economic and research projects are not worthwhile. This is a demonstrably false statement, and it is the only support you provided for your case.

No, they don't. It isn't communicated that well within the game, but the bonus granted by the project is equal to

0.1 * ceil(m * s * (1 + M) * P / 10)

where m is the fraction of planetary production put towards manufacturing, s is the fraction of manufacturing allocated to social production, M is the planet's manufacturing bonus, P is the planet's production, and ceil(X) is the function which returns the smallest nonnegative integer N such that N >= X. You can see this in game by looking at the tool tip for the output type corresponding to the project; 0% manufacturing means that the project doesn't show up, while social manufacturing in the interval (0, 10] gives a bonus of 10%, social manufacturing in the interval (10, 20] gives a bonus of 20%, and so on.

The net bonus of an economic or research project is less than this, of course, being

P - m * (1 + B + P)

where m is the fraction of the planet's production given over to manufacturing instead of the desired output type, B is the planet's bonus to the output type corresponding to the project, and P is the bonus you expect to see from the project.

JFC

Which means?

There's also the minor point that you can use manufacturing to build ships to conquer your neighbors and/or protect yourself.  Research and economy buildings ONLY benefit research and economy (unless of course you're the type who likes to Rush Buy at 5x the cost).  

Furthermore, increasing manufacturing INCREASES THE RATE at which you can build more factories.  The growth is literally exponential.  In contrast, economy buildings do NOT increase the rate at which you can build more marketplaces. In other words, it's much faster to set up a world with full factories than it is to set up a world with full marketplaces. The value of research buildings is more complicated to measure, but my point remains that the vast majority of your worlds should be used for manufacturing with a couple of worlds with research centers.  

Furthermore, with Benevolence Level 5 Research and Hyperion Matrix you can skip building worlds with research centers and concentrate entirely on manufacturing, especially since you get the benefit of Hives and Gaia Vortex.  

very true Marigold.  I just fail to see the point of the mechanic, as it offers no value, except for the trivial 1% pointed out above.  

It would be a more useful mechanic to have Research Project simply put 100% manpower, except current economic, into research.  Cancelling this option puts it back the way it was before.  Same for economic stimulus, moving current manufacturing manpower all to economic.  I think we have all been in the situation where we were about to run out of money, or need to tech rush for a dozen turns or so, and need to max out a planet.  Fully agreed that long term, you never want to stop manufacturing, but desperate times can call for desperate measures.

The sliders are an arse pain, and I am sure the original intent was to reduce micromanagement, which it offers no value, except for the trivial 1% (which I'm sure was not design intent in the first place).

That's actually a really, really good idea.

Back at some point in beta, Research Project and Economic Project gave a flat +1 rather than 10%. If my understanding at the time was correct, the project bits were to aid non-specialized planets (ex. factories+labs or factories+markets), or possibly giving factory specialized worlds something to do when not building things. However, in effect they ended up making non-specialized planets more powerful than specialized ones based on pure research/credits produced, never mind the benefits from factories aiding how quickly one could build more improvements. As a result, they were changed to being a percentage value, like Birthing Subsidiaries, but were made functionally useless due to this, yet for whatever reason these two projects were left in this state.

Due to this, I second dansiegel30's suggestion and additionally propose that Economic Stimulus and Research Project are unlocked from the start if it were implemented.

+1 on this idea

If I understand you correctly, a planet that was manu 30% res 30% econ 40% that started building a research project would effectively become manu 0% res 60% econ 40%

This would be a phenomenal way to handle not having to micromanage sliders all of the time!

Based on my soak observations, the AI uses birthing subsidies almost exclusively. Note that I said almost.

Why bother researching anything, you can just trade with the AI to get anything you need LOL.

Sometimes the AI does not yet have the tech that you want. Plus if you play with tech trading disabled...

Tech trading disable in my opinion is flat out stupid.  There is a very limited interaction with the AI through diplomacy and this is one of the main methods of keeping AI happy/building relations. It isn't like there aren't gobs of techs and you can make some cash pretty easy with the AI through trade. Also since there are so many tech trees there are lots of techs you'll never have access too because they aren't on your tree if you disable tech trading. 

Nuff said on that. 

You are correct the AI sometimes does not have the tech you want, but then when you make a selection on your own tree you are doing so at the exclusion of other options which can be gained through trade again benefiting you. 

If you play in an immense galaxy with upwards of 20-40 races or more you will find tech trading to be a substantial part of the game. 

And certainly OP  On a game I accidentally disabled it, I was surrounded by the bad guys, and all 3 DOWed me by turn 75.  Fook that!