Some fun with ROI calculations

Trying as an html table:







Name
ROI





Frictionless Clothing
1% * planet count



Trade Monument
trade income / 2500



Ultra Spices
.8% * planet count



VR Modules
1% * planet count






Economic Capital
income / 200



Omega Power Planet
income / 1000



Political Capital
9.40%



Harmony Generator
0.40%






Name
ROI
Break even
20 income planet


Anti-Matter Power Planet
income / 6000 - 1.6%
100
-1.30%



Banking Center
income / 250

8%



Embassy
income / 2000 - .5%
10
0.50%



Entertainment Network
10%

10%



Fusion Power Planet
income / 500 - 6%
30
-2%



Info Net
income / 6000 - 1.3%
80
-1%



Medical Center
-0.50%

-0.50%



Multimedia Center
-0.30%

-0.30%



Neural Net
income / 5000 - .2%
10
0.20%



News Network
income / 5000 - .5%
25
-0.10%



Orbital Hospital
0%

0%



Propaganda Center
-1.60%

-1.60%



Re-education Center
-0.40%

-0.40%



Secret Police
-0.50%

-0.50%



Stadium
income / 2000 + 3.5%

4.50%



Stock Market
income / 800 + .8%

3.30%



Teleporters
income / 1300 + 3.5%

5%



Trade Center
income / 3300 + .8%

1.40%



Virtual Reality Center
1.40%

1.40%

Crud, that didn't work. Oh well.

The important thing I wanted to point out is that it appears to be theoretically impossible to make money on the high-cost morale improvement buildings. I guess if you're really, really desperate for extra influence from the population gain you can build them, but there's no economic reason to do so.

For buildings that give a negative rate of return, you can interpret that as the economic growth you have to forego to get whatever other benefit the building gives you (better research, whatever).

Thanks for posting the info, don't worry about layout

Sorry to be dense. Does this account for ongoing maintenance costs?

So could you sort them in terms of which seem to give the best ROI that could be very useful.

I just realized that I forgot to factor in the effects of econ bonuses on morale buildings - +20 morale always gives you 620 million people, but a really big +econ bonus on the planet could make it worth it.

I'll redo this all and post it in excel format later.

A few warnings...
While my own testing suggests that 1 morale is roughly 31 million pop (really 2 morale = 60+pop..morale is always even, and I think the value is somewhere around 2m=70pop), I don't think you can find such a simple relationship between population and money. Not only, as you've realized, does the econ bonus come into play, but also tax revenue is affected by PQ by some unknown factor. You could normalize to a particular PQ, but be aware when doing your testing that the PQ does matter. I think what you'd really find is that at certain PQs, the more expensive buildings are still worthwhile.
Also, to be fair, my initial investigations do not show that +1% morale = 1 morale point..it seems to be more complicated than that.

As long as you stick to a single tax rate, it's fine. Population income at the 50% rate is always just (millions pop / 110) for example. Total income is population income + the flat rate you get for the planet (1 for a class 15 planet, and 1 for each class above that - a class 20 is 6).

You're right about morale being wonky; an entertainment network on a class 15 and one a class 20 don't get you the same population increase, when Frogboy's previous post implies it should. Grr.