What you can spend your money on:
Colonization attempt $100 of abandoned or uninhabited world. Chance of 0-3 Enclaves added, tech rating at the average of your nation.
$100 investment in R&D earns a random 1-100 increase in tech points (influenced by your current average tech rating see table)
These Tech points can be assigned in any whole number portions to any specific world or worlds. ie, 100 points to 1 world, add 25/25,50 to 3 worlds, or 1 point to 100 worlds, etc.
Technology rating and manufacturing on an individual world:
0-74 rating manufacturing only periphery rated equipment (not implemented)
75-199 rating manufacturing is capable of Standard equipment.
200-299 rating is required for manufacturing of Star League equipment.
300-399 rating is required for manufacturing of Royal Star League equipment.
400-499 rating is required for manufacturing of Clan Second Line equipment.
500-599 rating is required for manufacturing of Clan Front Line equipment (Omnimech)
Note that in order to convert a factory from one level of tech to the next it costs 6 months downtime + $50*Tech level. ($100 to go to Star League, $150 to go to Royal, $200 to go to Clan, $250 to go to Omni). Note that the units are also more expensive to produce.
Technology points are subject to raiding as well, where instead of damaging the Garrison on a planet those damage CUR points can be taken as Technology points. (I will add a technology point bank on the Status tab for this)
If the world drops in technology rating below the threshold for fabrication of the above technology rating, subsequent production runs will revert back to the next technology rating below.
example, Faction Z, World Z has a Thug Line, technology rating of 201, upgraded factory to produce Tech 2 (Star League). Faction A raids taking away 2 technology points. Production after the raid is reduced to Level 1 Thugs until Faction Z spends 2 more technology points to build back up the infrastructure to reproduce the Level 2 variant. They do not have to upgrade the facility again, just need to relearn how to align the dilithium crystals, or reflux the flux capacitor or rebuild the heat sink freezing cubes, or repair the circuit board printing master or some such.
HPG R&D $100 earns a random 1-100 points towards HPG/Blackbox.
0-999 points = completely reliant on ComStar.
1000-1999 = able to send communications between worlds of technology rating of 200+ by building a black box $100 each
2000-2999 = able to send communications between worlds of technology rating of 150+ by building a black box $100 each
3000-3999 = able to send communications between worlds of technology rating of 100+ by building a black box $100 each
4000-4999 = able to send communications between worlds of technology rating of 75+ by building a black box $100 each.
5000+ = able to build a black box on any world $100 each.
Note that worlds containing a black box are subject to being raided for that black box. (preconditions, the raiding party must provide reasonable justification for knowledge of the world location of the black box, and perform a successful raid to earn a chance to obtain the black box.)
Build a new:
Factory $500 (world technology rating 75+)
Jumpship Yard $2500 (world technology rating 100+)
Warship Yard $5000 (world technology rating 200+)
Repair Yard $1250 (world technology rating 150+)
Warship repair point $5
Establish 1 EST $20
Add 1 Garrison $10
Move Factory $500
Training 1 EST from Green to Regular $10 (national average technology rating in percent chance of success)
Bidding for Mercenaries:
Allocate a certain amount of your income to mercenary bidding.
Indicate how much you are bidding per year and how many years the contract is for. If your bid is unsuccessful, you will be able to bid on another unit / same unit the following month with whatever funds are remaining in your Mercenary Bid allocation.
Bribe / send money to other players / GM / Comstar / Pirates
Save for bigger purchases (not necessary as you can pay incrementally for larger budget items).
Questions?
Clarifications?
Make sense?