Not sure if this has been observed by others; it might be the SE4 code, it might be somethign else entirely.
But, I've just been fooling around with P&N (against overly-easy AI, 'cause I only wanted targets to test stuff on not real competition, lol). Mainly, I was tryign to see HOW high the productionr ate could be pushed for normal races in that mod.
So, here's the setup: the race has Temporal and Organic racial technologies, Hardy Industrialists, Advanced Storage techniques, and otherwise normal construction aptitude.
I built a Sphereworld, and packed people in --- Temporal Cloning center, and a -big- population transport "making the rounds" (at 1B population per visit).
For a while, nothing I did could push the population above 60B (the world showed a 77B maximum). Dropping 1B people two or three times a turn, still nothing. Oh well, the construction rate listed as 110K, net ... not bad, I thought, if 60B is just some hard-coded ceiling for population I can live with that ...
The problem truly is this: after a fewmore turns, *suddenly* the population shows as 77B ... and there's NO MORE BONUS CONSTRUCTION RATE. *poof* back down to under 6K consturction rate.
What gives?
FURTHERMORE ... moving a bigger transport (1.5B population capacity) there, and loading population up ... then off ... reduces the population to 60B again ... and, what's more, the construction boost showsup again (in P&N, an astounding +2,310% boost for a 60B population).
However, I've also noticed, at some earlier point, the -production- (as in resources) bonus went away. 60B lists nothing, neither a + nor a - for population levels, to production, at all.
The race is emotionless (less MM while fooling about), so it's not a matter of an unhappy population.
Most vexing; being able to build battle moons with triple core-mounted Null Space bems in slightly under 3 turns is nice; having it suddenly shift to almost SIXTY turns, isn't -- especially when it shifts because the population -grew-.
Is this a P&N issue, or might it be a code issue ... a difficulty with populations above 60B ... ?
[edit] And yes, I'm keeping the savegame file to hand, in case folks think I should send it to MM; momma didn' raise no fools. [/edit]
[ July 29, 2002, 11:39: Message edited by: Pax ]