[gosho_mladenoff]

Something that has always bugged me about se 4 is the way the resources, production and supply has been handled by the game engine.I always felt that the one space yard per planet limitation was a bit weird. Why should a planet have only one factory but dozens of resource producing facilities. When I think of proportions with its massive megopolis's etc which produce massive resources but have no (zero nil) manufacturing capability. It hardly seems right. Historically it has been the center of an empire which supplies the manufacturing whereas the outscirts supply the resources. It would be nice to be able to build facilities which are like moo's robotic factories on a planet instead of having to build space yards.
Which brings me to a second point about ships and supplies.
why do ships need maintenace if they've got supplies, it's artificial. This was poorly done in SE (sorry Aaron, god of programming). What's the difference? Supplies should be manufactured goods for the maintenance of ships and have to be stockpiled. no more maintenance (ie how does it get to the ship? why does the ship not need to process the raw materials for replacement parts and food and medicins?). Plus when a ship runs out of supplies it doesn't blow up randomly from a fleet. If it's out of fuel it doesn't move. out of ammunition it doesnt fight.if its out of food the crew dies. If its out of parts then every component should have a percentage chance of breaking down per turn. It doesn't explode....
I also have a gripe about population. The population on non-atmospheric or hostile atmospheric planets and storage capacity of a planet should be determined by it's surface area, (or volume for you sauran sssla types). As long as you build domed facilities or habitats you should be constantly be able to increase your population. Given the right technology and caves the moon should be able to hold a enormuse amount of population. facilities should be able to mod for increases in pop in many circumstances. Hirise megopolises or subterranean coves should both increas the planetary limits.
Lastly would be nice to manufacture robot populations as a seperate population type. Like in moo1 population should give a small manufacturing component to the planet ( not a percentage). added with factories and planetary yards this would give a total manufacturing capability. Maybe add a requirement that each facilities have a minimum population to run them at full efficiency, then pro rate the manufacutring or resource production down for shortfalls in work force


just some more ideas

ggm