Space Settlements
 

Been tossing an idea around the Last couple of days for space settlements in SEIV. Making some components with the point generation ability will be the key feature of this. Also thinking of making "Habitation Domes/Areas" that are basically just cargo bays that hold population for RP reasons (also might be handy if you need a some extra population in a tight spot). Just wondering if anyone has any comments, suggestions or feedback for this idea?

Re: Space Settlements
 

I've often thought about a mod that would be a major re-write of the sphere/ringworld generators. I think they are way too unrealistic as currently written, but with a little tweaking could closely approximate L5 colonies in scale and workability.

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unrealistic is one way of putting it. Hopefully SEV will have construct worlds that are more true to their size and ability (i.e sphereworld taking up a large portion of the system ala Dyson Sphere style).

A brief idea for my space settlement plan is for a component that generates a small amount of organics and also a small amount of research, a bio-lab if you will. I'm thinking mineral generating components are rather unrealistic (Unless the settlement is in the same section as an asteriod field, but remote mining is better still). I'm thinking the research and intel would be a better direction to go in, i.e having space labs and listening Posts. Again organics will probably be a more likely direction as well in the form of space farms. Not sure about radioactives yet, maybe some kind of panel that harnesses energy from the sun and converts it.

Re: Space Settlements
 

If you can convert energy to radioactives, you can convert it to minerals too, most likely. The only way that wouldn't would be if you were using that energy to bombard metals and generate radioactive isotopes.

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was thinking of something along those lines, thats why I couldn't really see minerals fitting in RP wise.

Re: Space Settlements
 

Worthwhile ideas for SE5 - i wonder which if any of the directions mentioned on this thread that aaron will pursue for the game ?

Re: Space Settlements
 

Honestly, I think they should do away with ring and sphereworlds in SEV. The shere massive size we are talking about just won't work in a game like SE in my opinoin.

Re: Space Settlements
 

One more idea before I finally hit the sack for tonight: An ore smelter. Basically increases mineral production for a system. Not sure it'd work on a component so if anyone has tried this before please let me know.

Basically I'm looking to emulate anything space stations/bases/starbases have been pictured as being useful for. Zero-G research mostly comes to mind, as well as the other ideas I've posted.

As for SEV, thats over a year away to me and I hardly plan my gaming that far ahead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I'm just hoping a few small features are added to SEIV in the meantime even though I'm sure MM will be going full steam ahead with SEV

Anyways its time for some much needed sleep I think so I'll post some more ideas tommorow, hope to get some feedback even if its negative (more so actually).

Re: Space Settlements
 

Iron smelter could in fact be before the mineral miners.

Re: Space Settlements
 

Unfortunately, using the new point generation abilities is a huge pain for resources, as there is NO indication ANYWHERE that you are making them. They will be added to your stockpiles each turn, but they do not show up in the production for the current turn or anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Could be something for the next SEIV patch, if one is coming.

Re: Space Settlements
 

Unfornatley i dont think a SE4 patch is coming id like to see a Version 2 perhaps before SE5 comes out. That would fix remaining bugs if enough of us email aaron he might consider it as a low priority project.

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Who knows? I think Fyron posted something about this, but I'm not exactly sure. Maybe someone has an answer for this?

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Who knows? I think Fyron posted something about this, but I'm not exactly sure. Maybe someone has an answer for this? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, I feel dumb now. Fyron just said the game never stopped being pushed forward http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif So am I right to guess no new updates for SEIV Gold will be forthcoming now or ever? A year is a long time to wait for something new, even if they just put out a general bug fix it'd be enough. Does anyone know if its offically been said no more patches will be made by MM?

Re: Space Settlements
 

yeah, i believe that its official. the Last patch was advertised as the LAST patch, and all of MMs effort is being put towards other games and SE5. Or so I hope. we've really milked se4 for about all we can expect to get out of it, its been about five years now.

The problem with resource (or any kind of point) generation in space, is that its cascading. Normally, you are limited by what planets you can colonize and how many facilities you can put on each, and also by how close your neighbors are.

If you can start generating resources without expanding your borders and without needing to invest in planets, then you can grow exponentially as long as you have spaceyards free. the more you build, the more resources you have, so you dont have to worry about the investment cost. And if you have a 20K ship limit, you dont really have to worry about running out of ships.

Something like this might realistically represent some kind of new economy, but its only a playable idea if you have an artificial ship limit of a couple hundred. That way you have to trade off between warships and resource bases.

FYI, my resource generating components (when i was planning on doing something with them in a mod..) were designed back before the point generation ability existed, and we had to use negative maintenance. they looked something like this:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">of course i also had civilian base hulls with huge combat penalites and -75 maintenance, which acutally made these things profitable..

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This was in reference to the plethora of mods that are currently under development. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This was in reference to the plethora of mods that are currently under development. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I wasn't really awake when I read that and went over it again later and saw what exactly was being said. Dumb me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif Way too many late nights lately I think.

Re: Space Settlements
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, one thing i was seeing was where a player would just build tons of bases with resource components and could stay in one system. I can only see a few ways out of this, a small ship limit or making the resource generating components highly expensive, yet generate enough resources to make building one or two worthwhile.

One reason I think having a base as an "ore processing station" is due to the logistics involved taking minerals from one planet to the planet in a system that has a refinery/smelter/whathaveyou rather then having a processing station in space. Even though this has no real effect on things in SE4, I think it'd add to the feel of roleplaying.

Another thing that comes to mind is in that using such components it frees up slots on planets. I'm not sure if this would really change much myself, but I'm thinking I could be wrong.

Re: Space Settlements
 

well before the Last patch you could only generate resources in space, and not intel or research. this meant that resources in space freed up facility slots for research and intel facs.

of course, you could have used them for cargo or resource storage too...