Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

To paraphrase from Alpha Centauri:

We give more and more power to these... THINGS. Lumps of metal and paste we call nanorobots. What will happen when these homunculi awaken one day and realise that they have no further need of us?
-Sister Miriam, We Must Dissent

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then it'll be time for the Butlerian Jihad, and Frank Herbert's vision will have come true... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

Aren't you all making this more confusing by discussing rhetorics from sci-fi books?

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

Geo, I tried not to write that post to be confusing. I had first written "a factory that can produce anything", but then changed it to what it says now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Anyways, my point was not that we could not make an automated factory, but that we could not make an automated factory capable of producing whatever we needed it to at any particular moment in time. Even it the factory was capable of retooling itself, it would still need to do so to produce something different than what it was original set up to produce.

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Uh, again I think you are missing the symantic difference between being able to create an automated, single purpose factory that can produce ANYthing, and an automated multi-purpose factory that can produce EVERYthing.

A robotic factory that can build a finished product from prefabricated components can be done now, if we had the political will to do it. And the components can be created robotically as well. Given another couple decades of advancements in automation and we could build a factory that can produce a finished product from unpocessed raw materials coming in the door. Note I say, could, not that we would. Who wants to be the company known for building cars without hiring any people? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The hundred years would really only be needed to make the advancments in miniturization required to put such a factory in space out in the asteroid belt.

But again, this would be a single use facility, capable of building a specfic finished product. That wouldn't mean it would be capable of building another factory.

But even if it were, your assumption is wrong. Even if I had meant that in a hundred years we could create a factroy that could build EVERYthing, including copies of itself, why does that nessecarily result in the end of humanity? I don't see the correlation between the two.

Geoschmo

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

Sorry to dredge up this old thread, and PvK I know you're taking a break from modding, but something just occurred to me. Not sure how well it would work, but...

How about if you were to tweak the system generation files so that planets have (for example) 20 times more facilities on them. Then reduce the resource output and cost of all facilities by the same factor.

This might help address some of the concerns raised in this thread, many of which essentially revolve around tying up planetary queues with lengthy city constructions and upgrades.

This way, instead of spending 100 turns building a metropolis, you'd build 20 metropolises at 5 turns each for the same result. This means you could interrupt the process half way through without having to completely abandon a project which has already taken 50 turns.

The difficulty would come with (a) facilties which produce resources in a quantity not satisfactorily divided by whatever multiplication factor is chosen and (b) incorporating space ports & resupply bases into cities...

sorry if this has been suggested before...

Re: Proportions mod: So confusing!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, it was suggested before. PvK (me too) opposes this idea. The reason that it can kill the major point of Proportions: importance of the population. The key factor is SEIV planet can build only one facility per turn. Thus, if you make cheaper facilities, you will be able to ship some amount of people that will build one facility per turn. No more people on the planet will be requried. In "default" Proportions, the more people on planet, the better.