Planetary Production Queue

The Planetary Production Queue (PPQ) is the new Standard ship limit system used at Planets.nu (as of 2021). The 3 global ship limit systems at Nu are Classic, Production Queue (PQ) and Planetary Production Queue (PPQ). There is also a new format without a global ship limit, called Planets Limit Ships (PLS).

Features of PPQ

The PPQ was introduced to address some issues with the older PQ. It rewards players for having control of more planets by giving them a higher chance to build ships when a regular ship build slot is free. PPQ also introduces a new feature, the RBx friendly code for starbases. RBx allows players to pick which starbase will build their regular builds when a ship slot becomes free, instead of the random draw in the older PQ system. A player picks a starbase for regular builds by setting the friendly code of the starbase to RB1, RB2, RB3, etc. Another innovation of the PPQ system is that a minimum of 10 ships are built as soon as the global ship count goes below 500. This causes the ship count to temporarily go over 500. This makes relying on regular builds a more viable strategy, making players less reliant on priority builds to get out a ship they want.

Effect on Gameplay

PPQ makes a big difference in how players build starbases and handle logistics. Under the older PQ system, Nu players would try to maximize their builds by building as many starbases as possible, and having each starbase build a top-tier ship. In the late game, players would have a starbase over nearly every planet and waiting to build a top-tier ship. Since ship builds were assigned randomly, players would try to maximize the size of the ship they could build for every ship build slot assigned to them. This system of many of maxed-out starbases is no longer necessary with PPQ, because you can instead decide which ships get build with RBx friendly codes. In practice, this means a player can get full value of their assigned ship slot most of the time, because they are usually assigned only one or a few ship builds per turn, which can be easily filled with a few maxed-out starbases. This change tends to benefit torpedo races more, since heavy carriers could be easily build with poor engines, and required no torps.

The exact mechanics of how PPQ works is pretty complex. But for players, the important thing to know is that owning more planets = higher probability of being assigned a regular build. In this way, controlling more planets is incentivized since players with more planets will be rewarded with more builds.

External Links

Announcement of PPQ and description of mechanics by Joshua
Official documentation of how PPQ works
Planets Magazine article on PPQ