FIDSI and Approval in Endless Space 2 Endless Space 2 Guide

FIDSI are the basic means needed to develop your empire. Many buildings provide bonuses to a certain branch, but only a few grant greater yields of all five resources (an example of an improvement in the bottom right corner).

The materials identified by the abbreviation FIDSI are the five basic resources needed for the development of your civilization. On every planet, your population contributes to the production of these resources. There is no distinction between farmers, miners or scientists. One unit of population produces a whole range of products. Their amount depends on the planet you colonized, e.g. lava planets provide greater amounts of Industry, while arctic world are better suited to the generation of Science points, but in both cases the yield of Food is marginal.

These modifiers may change if the planet contains anomalies, strategic or luxury resources, or when you place appropriate buildings that can improve the overall score. You can also assign populations that have special abilities (e.g. Sophons have a small +1 bonus and +3 in cold environments to the generation of Science points). Some structures (or events) can change the final yield by an extra/negative percentage value (e.g. + 10% Science for a system). Some specific structures increase the generation of several resources, e.g. Microwave Pipes (system improvement), adds 2 points to FIDSI, that is, to all 5 production areas, per one unit of population on the planet.

The FIDSI resources are:

Food - it is needed to feed the population in the system, to increase the population (in the system or in the colonies) and to replenish the manpower used by the army.

Industry - necessary for the purposes of construction of new buildings and ships. Over time, you will be able to "produce" projects that will turn your Industry Points into another FIDSI resource.

Dust - the currency in the universe of Endless Space. It is necessary, because you will use Dust to pay for the upkeep of buildings and fleets. It also serves to buy resources, ships and heroes on the marketplace. You can also use it to speed up production in a given system.

Science - you will use it to discover new technologies that will ensure the development of your civilization.

Influence - the production of this resource contributes to expanding the sphere of influence around the system. The greater the value per turn, the quicker the borders will expand. It is also the specific currency you will use for the purposes of diplomacy and negotiations.

Every inhabitant of the planet produces a whole range of resources.

For example, a small forest planet produces per a unit of human (or alien) inhabitants - 8 units of Food, 6 units of Industry (normally 4, but the additional 2 comes from the presence of the Jadonyx luxury resource), 4 units of Dust, 3 units of Science and 0 units of Influence (see the picture above). Since there are 3 units of population on the planet, you receive three times the value of the basic FIDSI yields, namely 24 units of Food, 18 units of Industry, 12 units of Dust, 12 units of Science (the planet only has Sophon population on it; they have a +1 to Science bonus, so you receive 4 per unit of population, not 3) and 0 units of Influence. The more population, the greater the profit. The result from each planet is summed up and you will receive a total revenue per system. Only this value is then changed by other improvements that affect the system. Next, bonuses for race, type of planet or climate are added up. Then, you get bonuses that are given as a result of other values that are based on the entire system such as number of planets in a system, System Development level, do you have strategic/luxury resources or is there a trade route. After all of that this value is changed by upgrades that have influence on the total FIDSI profit, e.g. a percentage bonus to the overall income of a given resource or additional income if your citizens are happy.

Approval

Approval is a very important factor in the game. Colonizing a system with a single planet, which has a quite unfriendly environment, is usually a bad idea.

This is a very crucial modifier, that can be placed alongside FIDSI. Approval dictates how effectively your people will do their jobs. Many buildings and improvements will give you extra bonuses if the residents are happy or euphoric (more than 90% approval). On the other hand, low approval or the lack of it leads to many obstacles, including revolts and rebellions. If one or more systems maintain very low levels of approval, this can lead to the creation of a separatist faction, which you will have to fight and put back in its place.

Citizen approval has 5 stages:

1. 0-10% Mutinous, minus 75% to Food and Influence generation.
2. 10-30% Unhappy, minus 50% to Food and Influence generation.
3. 30-70% Content
4. 70-90% Happy, extra 25% to Food and Influence generation.
5. 90-100% Ecstatic, extra 50% to Food and Influence generation.

Your empire also have an indicator that shows a global Approval. This number is the average of this value from all of your planets. Here, you can also get bonuses from population's Approval in the form of a percentage bonus +15% to Dust and Science across the empire and +30% if they are ecstatic. If the Approval lowers to similar percentage range you get penalty to Dust and Science production. As you can see keeping your population happy gives you only bonuses so it is worth to ensure your citizens' happiness.

There are many ways to improve the approval in the system and in the empire. First of all, choose planets that have friendly environments and are good to live on, e.g. the following types: Forest, Boreal, Atoll, Jungle, Terra or Oceanic. Also note the anomalies that occur there.

1. The first thing you can do is to build the appropriate buildings, e.g. the Infinite Supermarkets that gives +20 to Approval or the Obelisk of Remembrance, +10 to Approval and +6 to Influence (Unique structure; you receive it as a result of one of the random quests).
2. In addition, the heroes often have skills that affect the approval in the system ("green" general skill tree or race skill tree).
3. Some luxury resources also give you a bonus to approval, e.g. Transvine, +40 on the planet or Blucap Mold, +10 (additionally +1 to Food and Dust per unit of population). Remember, that you need to have control over the planet and it must be colonized by you, so that the effect is imposed on the system.
4. Some luxury resources can be added as a component to a higher level of System Development, which will also improve the approval of the population if you build a given System Development Level.
5. Additionally, some races have bonuses of their own, where e.g. the Kalgeros minor race gains +2 points of approval for each member and another +4 if the representative of that population resides on a fertile planet (up to +6 on the correct planet per a representative).

The ruling party also has an impact on the approval of the population.

When talking about population, if the favourite ideological group of the population is a part of or is leading the government, then the system also gets a bonus to approval (e.g. most of the population are Pacifists, and the Pacifists are also the Ruling Party). This bonus is scaled to the amount of population and the support for the ideology. The last group of positive effects are the characteristics of races (the Lumeris have the Optimistic II trait, they gain +20 to Approval in all systems) or the impacts from random events or race specific events.

On the other hand, there are a lot of negative factors, that will not affect your population's approval positively. You can easily avoid this, if you are wise in your plans to build and develop your empire. Avoid settling all systems at the beginning (if you have such an opportunity), especially those, that have only nasty, barely habitable planets, such as gas giants, ice, lava or barren planets. Pay attention to what anomalies are present on the planets. Mixed anomalies can be fairly quickly neutralized, however, to get rid of the negative ones, some of the highest level technologies will be necessary.

Overpopulated planets also subtract approval points. In this case, you can only emigrate population units elsewhere (to another planet in the system or to another system), expand the planet to be able to house more population or introduce pacifist rights, which will negate this problem (but it is difficult to get, because the party must be elected very often, in order to unlock this right). Over-colonization is also not a favourable factor for the approval of your population. The more systems you have over your limit, the bigger the penalty that your systems will receive. You may discover appropriate technologies that will increase this limit or abandon systems that you consider least useful. In addition, some events or quests can lower the approval in your colony or in your entire empire. The population of a given system may also feel dissatisfaction when their party is not a member of the Leading Political Parties in the system. A truce refusal, also results in negative approval throughout the empire for some time.

Approval status - Mutinous. If you allow for a situation, where the approval of your subjects falls to 0-10%, they will start to rebel (1). Next to the state of approval you will see a time counter until the outbreak of the rebellion. You now have two additional buttons (2): suppress, that adds extra turns until the outbreak at the expense of population, or seduce, which will allow you to spend a certain amount of luxury resources to please the locals. In addition, you can counteract the situation in the following ways: build additional buildings, bring a hero (who improves approval) or reduce the population in the system. On the main screen you will also see a counter above the system name (3). Apart from the number of remaining turns, you will also see a circular red indicator, that will remind you of the remaining time until the unpleasant event.

If the time until rebellion is up, a fleet will appear in orbit and will attempt to conquer the planet (4). The fleet will start a blockade and then invade the planet. If they are successful, the system will become hostile to all factions, though no negotiations can be started with it (the bar with the planet's name will become light grey, where other neutral planets have a dark grey label). Only the military solution remains valid. You must now send the fleet and conquer the system to regain control. To avoid having to invade the planet, you should send a strong fleet over the planet in advance. It will deal with the rebels in space before they can attack your system.