Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Speak now or upgrade your organic shipyards. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

These are the few features I am thinking of posting as Proportions 2.5.2. The Last four are a set designed to restrict the exploitation of space yard ships to avoid the difficulty of moving colony ships long distances. However, I am thinking some players in existing games (especially those using Organic technology) would prefer that I not do this until the next major Version (3.0) because it would mean that they would need to upgrade their existing base space yards in order to be able to use them to build organic ships effectively. Just say so and I'll put these off until 3.0.

Version 2.5.2:

* Added restriction on remote miner components per unit to two, halved
structure, and doubled size of ship/base Versions. This prevents
massively productive mining bases, which were possible before but
were unintentionally overproductive. It also presents interesting
choices between ship, base and satellite miner designs. Pre-existing
bases in upgraded games will retain their former abilities (except
structure).
* Fixed crippling Sergetti design bug - thanks to Oleg again!

Unless someone in an existing game objects:
===========================================
* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.
* Added base spaceyards with higher organic construction rates, but
these have organics costs.
* Added Organic Space Yard under Organic Manipulation tech tree, with
higher organic build rate than is available under ordinary tech tree.
* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 5300. This
doesn't change their construction rate except on the new ship-based
spaceyards. This makes it impractical to use space-yard ships to
build colony ships at or near their destinations, instead of having
to send colony ships long distances under their own power.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Oh, there is another option, too, which is to implement the shipyard changes, but make it so that existing ships and bases in old upgraded games retain their abilities, as I am doing for the remote mining components.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Wouldn't the change make organic races more powerful, since they could still build colony ships on-site but no one else could?

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

The Organic Space Yard is a base-only component that requires organics to build, so it takes 2-3 years to build with a space yard ship. It's just a somewhat improved Version of the base space yards available to non-organic races. It is a minor compensating advantage, because the other changes are a net disadvantage to organic races, which suddenly can't effectively build their weapons and armor techs with space yard ships.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Good changes, but it can probably wait till next major Version: it will create confusion in existing games and in new games one can make a gentlemen agreement not to exploit space yard feature. BTW, forthcoming SE patch removes double tech by analizing carriers, so may be you should now dump "carrier ships" technology ?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Ya, I was thinking it might cause confusion or aggravation for some, so perhaps you're right. As for the carrier ship tech, since the next patch fixes the double-analysis bug, I might not have put it in, but now that I have, it'd be odd to remove it, also since some PBW games have been playing with it. Also, it seems to me to make sense - fighters and 800kT carrier ships are different sorts of technologies.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Hey PvK, I had a cool idea for proportions the other night, although I don't know how much work it would involve:

How about adding a "Hive community" racial trait for insectoid races? Races which choose this (The Xi-Chung and Taera for example) would get access to a set of cities which are slightly cheaper (hence quicker to build) than the regular "colonial development" ones. Maybe they could have enhanced organics output, too.

If there are none in the image mod already I'm sure someone could come up with some really cool looking "insect-hive city" pics. If it could be made so that their homeworlds were full of giant hives (equivalent to cultural centres), that would look so classy when you conquered them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Whaddya think?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Oh, I had another idea, too.

Say I have a homeworld with 4000 million ppl on it. If I send off a coloniser with 1 million ppl aboard, I am left with just 3999m and I lose my production & construction bonuses until the next population growth, which could be 10 turns away.

This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod.

Why not just move the 4000million bonus barrier down to 3990million or something like that? It would help balance the advanced storage trait and make it alot easier for the rest of us to balance our economies.

Or is this a stupid idea?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Nice idea, better solution would be to make an even population curve.

But:
"This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod."

Actually I think the real deal here is Advanced Storage Techniques races start with *more cultural centers*.

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can you say "retrofit"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif What is to stop me from building a normal BSY on site, then retrofitting it to a BSY with high organics rate, and building the colony ship there?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Yes, the main advantage of Advanced "Storage" Techniques is the extra cultural centers. The extra population and cargo space are also very helpful, though.

Adjusting the population effects around the usual starting population levels is a good idea. There are sixty entries in the Proportions mod population curve, so it is pretty smooth, but it would make sense to smooth out the parts near the starting homeworld population levels. I had rationalized it as an effect of mobilizing your homeworld population for colonial expansion, but perhaps the ~9% effect is too great.

The only problem is it's a nuisance to insert values in the sequence. Maybe I'll write a program to do it.

The insect idea is a nice one. My design for Foundations mod has a more developed insectoid tech tree with several groovy items, but I'm currently taking a break from working on major mods.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

I think PvK missed my post...

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

"What is to stop me from building a normal BSY on site, then retrofitting it to a BSY with high organics rate, and building the colony ship there? "

If the organics cost is different enough, that will stop it..

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It is indeed gives big bonus to advanced storage trait but remember that it costs 4K ! Pretty darn expensive.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wouldn't stop me.
You do realize that it is the TOTAL cost that has to be no more than 50% greater, not individual resource costs, right?

A 10000/100/2000 cost spaceyard can be retrofit to a 5000/8000/2000 cost spaceyard, no problem.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

"A 10000/100/2000 cost spaceyard can be retrofit to a 5000/8000/2000 cost spaceyard, no problem."

One turn per retrofit and suddenly you're looking at times longer than it would take normally http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif (Keep in mind I only play in simultanious)

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Yes, in one turn.

#1: $12.1k (10k +100 +2k)
#2: $15k (5k +8k +2k)

Total difference = 124%
Which is less than 150%, so you CAN do it.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Speaking of which, explain why the other costs went down again? IIRC he was talking about just raising the organics cost.

Phoenix-D

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

He was showing an extreme example where the organics cost of #2 is 80 times that of #1. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ December 05, 2002, 19:58: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, we were composing at the same time.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

I.F. makes a very good point about the retrofit loophole, I think. You guys talked me out of doing that change for 2.5.3 anyway, because of the existing PBW games that are so far along, so that change won't appear till 3.0.

However, I do have a solution, I think. Move all the high organic construction base abilities to vehicle abilities of a new type of base: the Major Construction Yard (better names, anyone?). Since you cannot change vehicle when retrofitting, you'll have to build it, and of course it will have a fairly large organics cost. I'll tinker with the other organics costs for 3.0 too, so for instance, you won't be able to built large amounts of infantry without one of these, and so on.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why not make high-organic producing/high organic cost SY base only component and low-organic SY ship only component ? Then you can not use retrofit trick.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

But then you can't build remote BSYs.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">With Oleg's suggestion of "low" organic rates on the ship-only components, it seems to me you could still build remote BSY's, but it would always take a long time to build the first one in a given sector. There would also be no BSY's with the low organic build rates.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Ok... you can't effeciently build BSYs. Trying to solve one problem is creating another (IMO, worse) problem.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

You can efficiently build them once you have one, or once you have a planetary shipyard. That's the whole idea. What's the problem?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">no.. its percent of total cost of the difference. not percent of each resource. the organic cost would have to be high enough to prohibit any retrofit, or organic yards would have to be significantly more expensive than normal yards.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But that takes forever in Proportions. And you can't get a PSY at a WP, or orbiting a star, or in a nebula, storm, empty space, etc.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Well, the point of the change is to make it so that you can only spread your production abilities about as efficiently as (or at least, not much more efficiently than) can by done via colony ships. Especially, your ability to build colony ships. Because, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be able to colonize much more quickly and efficiently by sending out a space yard ship to build a colony ship at the colony location, than by sending out a colony ship built at the homeworld.

Supposedly in Proportions, a colony ship includes a large amount of the things necessary to establish a new colony capable of supporting signifigant populations and industry and so on, on a completely alien and probably very inhospitable planet. Many of these things are only available in sufficient quantities, and/or buildable, at a homeworld or fairly established colony. These sorts of things would be represented by organic resources, and the ability to build with them at a location.

The requirements for building military equipment are considerably less diverse, and can mostly be covered by the kinds of things represented by mineral resources and mineral construction ability.

Moreover, one of the design ideas was that by making colony ships slow and expensive, the task of colonizing distant worlds would require planning, investment, escorts, and danger of attack. The fast SYS tactic tends to shortcut this.

Now, the maintenance costs of a spaceyard do abstractly acount for the expense of supplying construction materials to it (via those invisible small resource transports we have to assume exist). However, in the current state of the mod, it becomes both faster and more efficient to build colony ships at or near their destination using space yard ships, after a few systems' distance from planetary shipyards. I don't think the technique should be entirely prohibited, but I do think it should be made less efficient.

So some combination of the organics cost method we've been discussing, and/or adjusting the speed and cost of space yard ships, seems needed to restore the goal of making it more difficult to spread the production base and colonies into deep space.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

What if to add "engine" ability to SY with value 0 ? Then it will slow down SY ship to the speed of colony ship ! But then you will need another SY for bases only without "engine"...

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

What is more special about the colony ship than the population transports? There is this great expense and time to get 1 mil pop on an empty world, but then you can send many millions more to it much, much more quickly. Seems inconsistent to me. Yes, setting up the colony is expensive, time-consuming, difficult, etc. But, so is adding more room to the colony to house all those new people.

And why do colony ships always have move 2? Shouldn't they get a bit faster with better engines?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

They do, but with gravitic drives. Actually, it makes Propulsion experts trait quite usefull -colony ships move 50% faster ! (3 instead of 2)

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Ok then... why do they only increase in speed with only the most advanced technology? Why can't Contra Terrene engines, or Jacketed Photon Engines, or Quantum Engines make them move faster?

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Well, because PvK wants that way ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Technically speaking, it is because better engines do not provide bonus movements but give extra "movement points". They all add up and then diveded by hull's engines/per move number. It is very big for colony ship so the resulting number is rounding up back to 2 rather then 3 even for advanced engines. If you want to mod proportions in a way that better engines help colony ship, edit data data files and decrease max. number of engines and engines per move for colony ship hull. Personally, I would like it too. Itjust does not make sense that even most advanced engines can not push CS any faster then ancient ion engines I ! It is just like putting B-29 propellers on B-747 and expecting it to fly the same 500 mph !

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

I can see the "realism" argument that better engines ought to make the ship faster, but on the other hand I can see PvK's point about slowing down expansion by slowing down colony ships. I guess you could make up some technobabble about the colony component beiong too fragile or something, but it doesn't really matter.

Perhaps a compromise would be to research a seperate tech area (further research in colonisation, starliners, ship construction & propulsion?) to get a better, potentially faster colony hull.

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

Actually, you can also get 3 base movement by using Quantum engines. I had thought it was actually possible with J.P. engines, but no.

At any rate, it is reasonable to expect a sooner increase in speed with research into standard propulsion tech, and expense. The problem is that SE4 only supports integral speeds, so a 50% increase is the least possible above speed 2 (from 2 to 3). I think I'll add just enough to the max engines value that will make J.P. engines give speed 3, and Q engines speed 4, while ion and C.T. engines are stuck at 2 (if such a number exists). I'll fiddle with it. I might also add a "faster colony ships" specialized tech, not terribly expensive, that gives colony ship hulls that can mount more engines.

PvK

Re: Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As far as the population transport ability, nothing. The ability to transport population in a colony ship just makes sense. If I were to include a colony module without the population capacity (Does anyone want one? I guess it would be more efficient in some ways (less in others), but at the price of more management for the player. I don't mind adding it.), it would only reduce the cost by about the cost of a starliner module.

Returning to the question, I don't see a problem with building population transport ability in deep space. The problem is the colony module, which requires all the ingredients necessary to support a population on a hostile world. Sustainable large-scale food and atmosphere sources, housing, medicine, clothes, all sorts of factories, power sources, fuel, medicines, machinery, robots, vehicles, etc etc etc. That's a massive amount of stuff, and requires very diverse manufacturing sources, and also organic biological material in self-sustaining quantities (a colonial biosphere that can help keep a large growing colonial population alive and thriving). Even if you're mechanoid or claim you have the tech to colonize mostly with droids, they too require a lot of very diverse material to keep them going and multiplying. All that massive pile of diverse crud http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif essentially requires an established planetary industry to produce efficiently. Hence the organic cost idea to limit construction time deep in space. It could still be assembled slowly by trade and invisible transports, which would be represented by sitting out the long build time to create a colony ship or org-SY at a non-org-SY.

PvK