Modding question...facilities
 

Is this a correct statement?

"A facility can be upgraded to one in the same family that has a higher roman numeral."

Is there anything more to it, or is that it for upgrading facilities?

Also, what happens if you have two facilities with the same family number and the same roman numeral? Will the game crash on that?

Geoschmo

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

upgrades occur on same Facility Family and the increase in Roman Numeral

but..
I have noticed that duplicates just overright themselves...
and the one that is further down the facilities.txt is shown as the latest. When there are dups.

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You mean if you assign the exact same identifier to two different variables, what will happen? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

My guess is that either the game says "What are you doing?" and crashes, or only uses one of the two.

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

My guess is that it will use the one that is further down the list.

Rollo

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

Ok, I confirmed that much. The game does not crash or anything. You can build any of the same family/numeral faciliites, but when you decide to upgrade them it will upgrade to the Last one in the list.

What I am trying to do is mod some way to make monolith facilities an option. They are great and all for resource production, but they are jsut so darned expensive that in the typical multiplayer game that Lasts 100-150 turns they jsut aren't practical. THey take so long to build that you would do way better jsut building the resource specific facility.

Anyway, I came up with a suggestion. I don't know if this a totally original idea. I don't recall anyone doing it exactly like this. But the idea is for a reto facility that costs around what a single resourse facility would, and only produces one resource, but is upgradable to a standard monilith facility.

Using these you can build whatever resource specific fac you need to have at the moment due to immediate empire needs. But for a slight decrease in production, and a sligth increase in construction costs, build it in such a way the it is convertable to a monolithe facility down the road when the planet is full and isn't doing anything else.

We do this sort of thing now when we build power plants. Modern coal, oil and nuclear plants are designed to make it easier to retrofit them down the road if neccesary due to shortages or environmental/political concerns. Makes sense to me resource facilities in teh future would be able to do something similer.

What do you think?

Geoschmo

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Name := Retrolith Facility - Min
Description := Universal tool which can harvest all of a planet's resources.
Facility Group := Resource Extraction
Facility Family := 4
Roman Numeral := 0
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 58
Cost Minerals := 2500
Cost Organics := 2500
Cost Radioactives := 2500
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Stellar Manipulation
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Resource Generation - Minerals
Ability 1 Descr := Mines 600 minerals each turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 600
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
|
Name := Retrolith Facility - Org
Description := Universal tool which can harvest all of a planet's resources.
Facility Group := Resource Extraction
Facility Family := 4
Roman Numeral := 0
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 58
Cost Minerals := 2500
Cost Organics := 2500
Cost Radioactives := 2500
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Stellar Manipulation
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Resource Generation - Organics
Ability 1 Descr := Mines 600 organics each turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 600
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
|
Name := Retrolith Facility - Rad
Description := Universal tool which can harvest all of a planet's resources.
Facility Group := Resource Extraction
Facility Family := 4
Roman Numeral := 0
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 58
Cost Minerals := 2500
Cost Organics := 2500
Cost Radioactives := 2500
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Stellar Manipulation
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Resource Generation - Radioactives
Ability 1 Descr := Mines 600 radioactives each turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 600
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[ September 30, 2002, 20:13: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

I like the idea. I always wished there was a way I could just push the upgrade button and have monoliths be built where they arn't already. Instead of having to do it all manually. Which, IMO is a pain in the butt. But yes, very good idea Geo.

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

Geo, I think you are wrong about the ineffectiveness of Monoliths in PBW games. Regardless of their high build costs, I have made very effective use of them in a number of games. They are most effective when you have a long period of peace, and so do not need to build a lot of ships in a short amount of time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

Well, this sounds like a good idea for a future patch (or feature for SEV).

An "Upgrade to different Family" field for components and facilities. Set to 0 for items that don't and set to the family number for items that do.

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

And that is why you see me building all those Space Yards... So I can convert the mineral fac's to monoliths and not miss out on much...

I have been converting to mono 3 in one of our pbw games.... While building ships from the Base space yards........

They only take 2 turns to do... So it is very easy to convert...And quick...

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

Geo your missing the other resources from the mono upgrades http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I haven't seen long periods of peace in very many of my PBW games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I can almost see it if as Tesco suggests you wait until you have SY3, but even then unless it is a heavily populated correct atmosphere world, it takes too long to build them.

I did some detailed mathematical analysis once and posted it in the forum and the break even point for Monolith over a single resource facility is something like 2 years. 20 turns is a long time in a game that only Lasts 150 turns. And it's hard to dedicate your planetary facilities to building monolith facilities when they are needed for ships much worse.

I am sorry guys. The math just doesn't add up. Aginst the AI sure, but against humans you are making a mistake spending the time needed to build these things.

In all the PBW games I have been in I have maybe built five. Of course I cannot count the number of monoliths I have captured from other players because they have spent the time and resources to build them, and I came along and took them before they started seeing a return on their investment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

It very much depends on the time you have to build up. A 4 billion world with SY3 can build a monolith in 2 turns. Backed up with a resource converter it will produce much more valuable resources then any other facility. In fact I have rebuild an empire economy in one game during war around the monolith, replacing all the standard facilities with them. It was the only way to increase my production without colonizing new worlds (which I couldn’t, all where already colonized).

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

I think you should consider what will happen when you build more than one of these on the same planet. Upgrading several of them at once is going to be incredibly expensive.

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Very true. If you have no available colonys to build facilities on, or if you have fully built up your colonies and have the resources to spare and nothing to build on them, then retooling your planets over to monoliths does make sense. There it's not a question of tradeoff between building a single resource fac now, or building a monolith now. It's a choice between a monolith now or nothing. It's just that I don't think they make sense until you reach that point, and I very rarely have games against other players that reach that point.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">True enough. But at least them you are getting the resources from the retrofacilities while you do the upgrade.

Basically you could do the same thing i am suggesting without a mod. Simply by filling the planet with single resource facilities and then one at a time scrapping them and building monoltihs. This idea would just save some micromanagment is all. But many people like the Micromanagment. I am just not one of them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[ October 01, 2002, 14:22: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Modding question...facilities
 

don't build them until level 3