PBW PvK Proportions Game #2

[PvK]

No reason. We're waiting. I'll set up the game after I do the new mod Version, and my deadline for the new mod Version is this coming Monday.

PvK

[AMF]

All of these sound like great ideas. Are you willing to go into more detail on your concepts for deep-space labs, organics farms, intel stations, etc...? the reason I ask is I wonder about a few things.

If I can build rad gathering stations in deep space, how many resources will they cost? Will they operate when cloaked (that woudl be weird, I think - how can I get the resources to my empire if they're cloaked, etc..) and stuff like that. It's just that this sounds like the first real implementation of the intrinsic resource/point generation capabilities that were added in Version 1.91, and as such I'm trying to get a handle on the full implications of them, especially in a generally resource-constrained enviroment that we find in Proportions...

thanks,

Alarik

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alneyan:
...
How important would be the changes brought by the new Version? Would it be a minor patch, or the next step for Proportions (or even the 3.0 Version)? If this new Version is indeed an important update, I would rather wait for it before beginning the game.

Somewhere in-between, probably. Depends on how much time I get to do it, and how smoothly it goes.

Things I will include:
* Reduced cost of armored plating.
* Added vehicles to use all of the neo-standard images.
* Some adjusted starting costs.
* Extension of some techs that tend to get fully researched, to higher levels, probably with diminishing or diverse returns.

Things I might include:
* Economic adjustments.
* New weapon types.
* Adjustments to existing weapons.
* Revision of fighters and PD.
* Space-born solar rad collectors.
* Space-born laboratories.
* Space-born organic farms.
* Space-born intel labs.
* Revision of mine warfare.
* Extension of cloaking technologies.
* Further adjustment of weapon mount values.
* Use of new damage types.

PvK

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[PvK]

I haven't figured out exactly what the values will be yet for the space facilities, which is why I haven't promised to include them.

The values will scale quite a bit depending on how much research you put into them. At first, they may mainly provide a way to invest mainly minerals (from construction and maintenance) in order to generate rads (solar generation) or organics (space greenhouses) or research and intel (space labs). The efficiency of this won't be very great until you invest enough research in it. The other trade-off is there will be no way to protect these with planetary shielding and the best arcs of weapon platforms, so such infrastructure will be harder to protect from raiders. On the other hand, it opens possibilities for doing things like hiding infrastructure in unexpected places, and even becoming less dependent on planets, but with significant research investment.

I think cloaking is possible, but not easy. Proportions requires scale mounts for cloaking components, so the cost scales with size, and these things are big and their main limiter is efficiency, even without expensive defenses added.

PvK

[Ragnarok-X]

keep in mind ressource generating ships / non-planet-based methods will not show up the right values in the empire screen !

[PvK]

Posting to update status here. I'm a bit behind schedule. I've made a bunch of new stuff, hopefully all likable. I have a bit more to do before it is ready to run, so I need to keep myself from doing more and more. I have too long a list of things I'd like to do, but it takes much longer than I'd like to actually get the right numbers figured out and entered.

To throw out a bone, here is what I've done so far:

code:

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Version 3.0:



  --------------

  New Additions:

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* Added a 250 kT warship hull, called Frigate. Old Frigate renamed Corvette.

* Added a 350 kT Heavy Destroyer.

* Added a 600 kT Heavy Cruiser.

* Added a 1300 kT Heavy Dreadnought.

* Added an Express Transport (uses Tiny Transport graphic).

* Added a Huge Troop.

* Added a Large Space Station (1000 kT).

* Added a 2500 kT Large Battle Station (uses War Station graphic).

* Added a Large Starbase (3000 kT).

* Added a Massive Starbase (5000 kT).

  -----------------

  Gameplay Changes:

  -----------------

* Reduced costs of armored plating.

* Added boarding defense strength to bridge components.

* Fleshed out Crew Quarters components with levels and abilities.

* Reduced combat penalties of computer control components.

* Extended Master Computers to tech level 10.

* Branched and extended Organic Armor technology into two types.

* Increased costs of higher-tech Gestation Vats, Medical Labs,

  Climate Control Facilities, Events Predictors, Temporal Vacation 

  Services, Training Facilities, Crystalline Restructuring Plants, 

  Energy Transmission Lenses, Resource Storage, Cargo Facilities, 

  Mineral Scanners, Eco - Farms, Radioactives Colliders, Robotoid 

  Factories, Computer Complexes, Citizen Databanks, Shrines, Resource 

  Converters, and Ultra - Recyclers.

* Increased unhappiness from Citizen Databanks.

* Reduced effect and massively increased costs of Replicant Centers.

* Added an unhappiness effect to Replicant Centers.

* Added five more levels of Planetary Gravitational Shield Facilities

  and four more levels of System Gravitational Shield Facilities and a 

  new tech area for them, making them available much earlier but at a 

  steep price.

* Massively increased costs of Value Improvement Plants and Atmospheric 

  Modification Plants.

* Slowed the effect of Atmospheric Modification Plants.

* Per Dogscoff's suggestion, made Resource Converters require Physics

  and Biology as well as Chemistry. Also made it a deeper tree that

  starts out less efficiently.

* Also per Dogscoff's suggestion, added Construction as a requirement

  for Ultra - Recyclers.

  --------------------------

  Construction Yard Changes:

  --------------------------

* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.

* Reduced radioactives construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by half.

* Added base spaceyards (Orbital Space Yard Facilities) with higher 

  organic construction rates, but these have high organics costs.

* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 6000. This

  doesn't change their construction rate much 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.

* Extended Ship Yard facilities and components to 15 levels each.

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  Economic Changes:

  -----------------

* Raised infantry and crewed unit organics costs from 0-10 to ~25-35.

* Added 1 rad cost per kT tonnage to mechanical ground units.

* Added org costs to crew quarters.

* Added rad costs to bridge components.

* Added rad and increased other costs to Weapon Platform Command Centers.

* Increased capacity of Resource Storage facilities.

  ---------

  Cosmetic:

  ---------

* Added some new system names.

* Removed all the now-unneeded Inaccessible Technology leftovers.

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Stuff I really wanted to do, but haven't gotten to yet, include:

* Adjusting the starting empire costs.
* Reworking fighters at least a bit.
* Reworking mines at least a bit.

PvK

[Fyron]

* Added an unhappiness effect to Replicant Centers.

What sort of unhappiness effect? Build a UPC with ability 1, and it completely cancels out a negative happiness ability in the system... EDIT: Ok scratch that... upon testing, it seems as the abilities are working correctly in 1.91. Been a while since I played around with them... They (two facilities with planet happiness ability) even seem to be stacking now! Just make sure to note that a negative value for Planet - Change Population Happiness decreases anger levels and a postive value increases anger levels, which is exactly opposite of the system happiness ability.

* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 6000. This
doesn't change their construction rate much 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.

Ah...

[ August 04, 2004, 00:33: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[AMF]

That all sounds sensible to me. Did you come to a decision on the space-borne resource generation ideas?

[PvK]

Thanks for the tip about the backwards happiness values, Fyron!

AlarikF, no, I have a sketch for the extraplanetary generators, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I figure I should do what I need to for a good stable Version to start the proposed game with, or else I'll be adding stuff for a long time without starting the game.

PvK

[Fyron]

Further info. A negative value for the ability Change Population Happiness - System never works. Only the planet one can cause anger to rise.

[AMF]

yeah, I agree that for a change that could have far-reaching consequences, stability & testing are important...yet they remain an intriguing idea, and one that would likely not be viable until one reaches moderate levels of tech. Might I humbly suggest then that you have whatever placeholders you need to allow the players in the game to upgrade to a new Proportions mod that has them implemented once they are stable and tested sufficiently? Ie: players probably won't have them available for a while *anyways* so make the game "upgradeable" so the mod with the extraplanetary generators and the game can dovetail? Did that make sense? (and, I hope this doesn't sound like "preaching" - heck, I wouldn't know my ar** end around modding, and nobody likes a smarta**, so please do take this as a suggestion from an ardent fan of the mod...)

Meeps!

Alarik

Originally posted by PvK:
AlarikF, no, I have a sketch for the extraplanetary generators, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I figure I should do what I need to for a good stable Version to start the proposed game with, or else I'll be adding stuff for a long time without starting the game.

PvK