Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

Is that possible? By that I mean - is it possible to deplete your 'parent' planet's population to a level so as to adversely affect production and/or research rates if you send out a 'sh-tload' of colony ships too quickly?

Has anyone done a test to determine the percentage population ratio to change in the rate of production/research?

The same question also pertains to transporting pop to newly established colonies. It seems to me that it would be possible to shoot one's self in the foot here.

[ September 14, 2002, 17:48: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

If you look for "Pop Modifier" in settings.txt, you will see the default percentage modifiers based on populaiton level.

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">#1 - colonizing - that doesn't happen too often, wars start, borders get defined, etc. Early on colonizers don't hold much population. Think about it, you've tweaked the design and your const. bonus to let you build a colonizer a turn (or 2 or 3). If you beat the population down, you'll notice it takes longer to build. And you'll stop building them there.

#2 - transports - that happens often, if you use the minister or leave a transport on automatic. You dont want to spread yourself too thin. But your first major research planet, intel planet, or a shipyard planet close to your border all need a performance boost. But your homeworld's production is important in the early game too. I would never empty it of population to the point that it didn't have (at least)a small bonus. Unless I found a larger, better world. Your mileage may vary.

[ September 14, 2002, 18:02: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

It is possible to deplete the population on your home world. I've found if you build a colony ship on like a LC hull, and put more then 1 cargo container. Then you slowly start losing population on your home planet. If, however, you only use 1 cargo pod then you shouldn't lose population. I was putting out colony ships every turn at one of my home worlds once and each one had 1 cargo pod on it and the population never really suffered that much. So it depends on if you have a bunch of cargo pods or are useing transports alot.

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This comment intrugues me - I've been building all normal atmosphere planets with a mix of resource and research facilities. The only time I've used 'all research' is on (rare) low resource planets.

Tell me what your philsophy is, plz.

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's the problem - I transport pop using a stuffed small transport (300kt) which holds a lot of pop. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

[ September 14, 2002, 19:23: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This comment intrugues me - I've been building all normal atmosphere planets with a mix of resource and research facilities. The only time I've used 'all research' is on (rare) low resource planets.

Tell me what your philsophy is, plz.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmmm ... well, if a breathable planet is below 90 % in all resources, then do you really build rescource extractors. I don't. Probably should, if I was running low, but I just build fewer ships. Or take someone else's planet.

I like to try to get at least 9 research or intel facilities on one planet when I build the computer complex 1 it can actually provide a benefit.

You can see the way the AI builds facilities on small planets, few resource facilities then one research or intel. There's something to be said for not putting all your eggs in one basket, so spreading out facilities is also a good idea. But then there's less benefit from Computers, at least early on.

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's the problem - I transport pop using a stuffed small transport (300kt) which holds a lot of pop. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In SJ's homecoming scenario, you can see his method. A frigate, with cargo bays, the School Bus class. Set that on automaticly schuffling population around, not the Large Transport with Cargo III's

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

Are you sure?

My Bus class ships are usually small transports with cargo I's. They are typically leftovers from the first year of play, and only upgraded with reduced maintenance components as tech improves.

When playing that Scenario, I built beastly Large transports with max cargo, and managed to pull out only about 4 billion of my population (out of a maxxed-out system full of breathables, IIRC) in the three years allotted.

I should try to make another scenario similar to that one in Gold P&N v3.1 sometime...

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

I thought i was able to pull out all of them (except 1 m per place to max production) i still haven't won yet though.

EDIT: I have an idea for doing a scenario. I have a game that is a medium galaxy but where the empire has expanded through the whole place except for 2 neutrals that are cut off with warp cutters, also one more in common space, i was thinking of building up the big empire (which has like 3 ring worlds and a sphere already) and then seeing if the little guys can take it down

Also have the big one be really dumb, like write the stupidest AI scripting ever that utilizes brute force and tries to mimic a dying empire (I would have to get some help with this). So yeah, im just working on it now, kinda expanding the big one.

An alternate idea would be to use a super large galaxy and have the super empire in the middle (probably use cluster or semi-cluster) and then do a Foundation and Empire (mod too, where Empire gets massive everything but is also super inefficent and then Foundation gets ****ty *** worlds but also gets more efficient everything) and then add in Gaia of course! and the 2nd Foundation (range 20 mind controllers! and the computer would be called like mind stopper dealio)

[ September 15, 2002, 04:44: Message edited by: Skulky ]

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

Well, when I played, I'm sure I wasn't going about the population movement in the most efficient way.

I ended up with 90% of my vehicles warping out in the Last 3 months. After that, I think I had no planets for a while, and pushed out the Psy guys to the south to make a home.

The economic struggles were great, though: I had 30 Powerful Dreadnoughts in mothballs, but I could only afford to maintain three for the longest time. I had to use cheap fighters and sats as my primary defense, and used the dreads to soften up the 10-20 baseship fleets the Psy guys were sending in.
I also had to glass the first few planets I was going to colonize, so their value was horrible (glassing damage was increased, I believe)
Eventually I got the value back up, and a few planet captures, and cleared out the rest of the aliens from the system.

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually - I patterned my build philosophy based on how my planets look when the game starts. I split the research on breathables 50-50 with resources and/or other facilities. That way - I'm less vulnerable if and when. Granted that - at first - I'm over-producing and 'wasting' resources until I build storage. On newer colonies - I'll build research before resources. That changes later if & when I need to boost resource production but by then I'm at III extractors or Monolith's etc.

I almost always build a RD and SY on each breathable (except 6 slot planets). I play Natural Merchant+ and on large planets leave 1-2 slots open for 'laters'.

The only time I build 'all research/intel/whatever - is if the planet lies within my heavily fortified core home system.

However - keep in mind that I only play against the AI (so far). I've too many things on my plate to do else.

[ September 15, 2002, 16:02: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Colonizing too rapidly ...
 

Elowan,
I doubt you could deplete a homeworld with < edit > Colony ships /edit with two Cargo IIIs. You would probably run out of Minerals first if you were producing that many ships.
I'm sure you check the "General" list under colonies each turn to check for these things.
In terms of the trade off of moving population, that is your call. It is a long term "Investment" for your race. Do you forgo the advantage of a highly populated homeworld for faster growth in your colonies? In the long run this will pay off. It would require a constantly updated spread sheet with the production on each of your planets to optimize your pop movement.

As the others mentioned, Loaded cargo ships put on Repeat can deplete a homeworld.

[ September 15, 2002, 16:56: Message edited by: Gryphin ]