Automaton industry stacking mechanism

Question

There are 2 things I'd like to understand about the Automaton special ability.

This is what I read on Wikia and the Amplitude Studio Website, emphasising what I don't understand :

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1. At the end of the turn, if there is an overproduction, it's stacked instead of being reported [1].
2. At the beginning of a turn, an interest is applied to the stacked industry, allowing it to increase a bit.
3. The stacked industry is capped at 5 * system's industry.
4. If the overproduction cannot be stacked, it's conserved for the next turn like the current mechanism.
5. When the automatons build improvements & ships, the industry is used in the following order:
   • system's industry
   • overproduction [2]
   • stacked industry
6. When a system from the Automatons is invaded, the stacked industry is destroyed, reset to 0 even if the invader is an Automaton.

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[1] reported suggest to me that it could saved for the next turn, but only once. Like a phone subscription, for which unused credit is saved for the next-month (it only works for the next month and cannot be 'stacked' for the following ones). From what I know the unused industry is just lost. Is that correct?

[2] How can the overproduction be used after the system's industry? For me, the overproduction is what remains of the system industry after it was used. But the system's industry is consumed first, therefore it cannot remain anything. How can 'overproduction' be used? Is it just a mistake?

Thanks in advance to everyone having any answer for one of my two questions :)

Answer 1

From the Amplitude Studio Forums it is stated that each system can keep worth of one turn of industry as overproduction.

If you pass a turn with no construction on a system, it's production is hold as overproduction and can be used on the next turn. This can also happen if you queued a ship/improvement with no following task and it only required a part of the generated industry (ex: produced 100 cost 80, 20 industry is overproduction, reported on the next turn).

As stated on the forum, overproduction is limited to one turn and does not stack. So if you had 20 of overproduction and wasted a turn, you would have 100 of overproduction which is the overproduction generated by the last turn.

With automatons, you then have a special stack where overproduction is stored. This stack is capped at 5 times/turns the production of the system. When fully stacked, the overproduction standard mechanism become active again. This allow for a maximum of 6 times the industry production to be available on one turn. It is not stated, but I suspect the cap of 5 * industry is absolute and cannot be overpassed by the 5% interest rate. So, for our 100 industry system, the stored industry with no production will go :

Start       > End (of turn)
1. 0        > 100
2. 105      > 205
3. 215.25   > 315.25
4. 331.0125 > 431.0125
5. 452.5631 > 500 (cap)
6+. 500     > 500 + 100 stacked on overproduction.

With the +20% improvement

1. 0        > 100
2. 120      > 220
3. 264      > 364
4. 436.8    > 500 (cap) + 36.2 stacked on overproduction.
5. 500      > 500 + 100 stacked on overproduction.

Concerning the use of the industry, a total build queue worth less than 100 will not touch any stack (though it is not clear whether the overproduction stack would be reset to 0 on the next turn or not). If you have a cost less or equal than 200, you will use the system current turn production and deplete the overproduction stack. Should you build more, you will begin depleting the automatons stacked industry. After 7(6 with improvement) turns of unused production, you can then build anything worth 800 industry in one turn (100 from turn + 100 from overproduction + 500 from stack).

This order of consumption allow to keep the stack for as long as possible (thus maximising it's defence potential). By nature I would say one needs to use the resource with the nearest expiration date (i.e. the overproduction from last turn that would be lost if unused this turn), therefore using only 100 industry would consume the overproduction and the production of this turn would become an overproduction for the next turn. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that is what happen.

Note: Industry conversion negates any overproduction since it converts 4 industry to 1 science/dust. It would be interesting to know if this consume the automaton stack, but I doubt it.