Are Industrial Sectors worth building?

I hadn't noticed this; I always move up to industrial sectors myself.

I suppose that from an efficiency standpoint, they are inferior. At the same time, the extra production that they provide helps. Beyond that, they provide upgrades for economy starbases and mining starbases, so I think it balances out.

What would be nice, however, is the option to add specific old technologies to the list of things you can build. It would be nice to be able to build several manufacturing centers on an underdeveloped world, and then replace them with industrial sectors once you have an industrial base on the planet. Same thing with farms, really -- I might want the extra production of a higher level farm. Yet I might not.

I hadn't noticed this; I always move up to industrial sectors myself.

With v1.31 it just seems that it takes way longer to do the upgrade and once you do you take a pretty big maintenance cost hit. I'm sure it's eventually worthwhile to make the upgrade but I think it would sure be nice to defer it until a bit later in the game.

they provide upgrades for economy starbases and mining starbases,

Yes they do, but in each of these cases it's the last upgrade in the chain. I'm 2 and 1/2 years into my first v1.31 game and I researched Industrial Sectors, got all of my planets auto upgrading and it's taking me 20 weeks to upgrade from manufacturing center. In general I have 4 factories per planet so it'll take me 80 weeks to finish. I am buying some of them but they're costing me close to 4000 bc to buy the upgrade so with my net income at around 17K per turn I can buy four of these.

Clearly, I will build Industrial Sectors in my next game but I'm definitely going to wait until much later in the game to do it.

When ever the issue of using old structures comes up, I can't help but htink what a headache it would cause.

To keep your srtuctures from auto upgrading, you would have to disable the govenor, whcih would mean that you then have to manually upgrade all of your structures. In light of this, I would say Industrial Centers are worth it. They may not be as efficiant, but it reduces the micro managment to just go ahead and get them.

In general I have 4 factories per planet so it'll take me 80 weeks to finish.

Not quite.
As you build each one your production goes up, so the next one will take less time to build. So it may only take 50-60 weeks to complete all of them.

And if you increase your Social spending slider they will build faster.

You *could* play the game without any factories at all, focus on economy and buy everything. However, in a big game, that would be logistically difficult. Consider the amount of stuff you'd have to buy, especially ships. It's a lot easier to dedicate some planets to building them so they just show up. In that case, you need the military production you get out of industrial sectors, expensive as they may be.

When ever the issue of using old structures comes up, I can't help but htink what a headache it would cause.

What would work best is a menu where you can individually select which ones remain available, selecting by tabs whether you're looking at industry, economy, etc.

As you build each one your production goes up, so the next one will take less time to build. So it may only take 50-60 weeks to complete all of them.

Yeah. I know. I just didn't want to do the math. I am also quite behind in both military ships and technology so I don't want to increase my social spending. I'm getting reasonable production out of my manufacturing centers so I'm not in that big a rush to get them converted over.

If I had it to do over I probably wouldn't have researched them as early as I did though.

but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to build Industrial Sectors in v1.31?

Short answer, No

build economy starbases instead -- do the math.

Of course it is still worthwhile for bonus tiles.

Actually the build cost ( 400 ) and maintenance cost ( 5bc ) for industrial centers did not change at all.
However Manufactoring centers build cost is less in 1.31 ( 150 ) vs 1.2 ( 200 ) so the upgrade cost from manufactoring centers to industrial centers went up. Also manufactoring centers maintenance cost went down to 3bc from 4 bc in 1.2.

However Manufactoring centers build cost is less in 1.31 ( 150 ) vs 1.2 ( 200 ) so the upgrade cost from manufactoring centers to industrial centers went up. Also manufactoring centers maintenance cost went down to 3bc from 4 bc in 1.2.

That explains it. Manufacturing Centers got relatively much better. You tend not to complain about the good things that happen. It did seem the upgrade to Manufacturing Centers went quicker than usual. Thanks.

I do use arrays of 16 economy starbases to optimize a research planet. There's always nearby planets that get partial benefit from them. I usually turn these into a manufacturing cluster.

Even though you only get a 33% production increase for a 66% maintenance increase, it's not really the money at issue. An extra 8 bc support for a planet making 500 bc per week is no big deal. But with the relative improvement in the manufacturing center, I think it makes sense to pause there for awhile. In v1.2 I'd research from manufacturing center immediately to industrial sector.