Does population play any importance role in SE4?

[gamefan3001]

I used to play Master of Orion series and
I remember that the population of a planet
is crucial to your productivity (which is
quite reasonable). But in SE4, it seems
the population is only a minor
modifier to your productivity, even a newly
colonized planet can roughly match the
productivity of my homeworld (my homeworld
has 20% bonus due to the high population,
but compare with the huge difference on
their populations, this is really negligible)
Did I miss anything in the game? Is the
population in SE4 really of little
importance?

[Suicide Junkie]

It is quite easy to fix that, and there are already some mods that do change it.

I believe the settings.txt file contains the list of population modifiers, and adjusting that would give you what you want.

Speaking of MOO, I recall a trick I used to make population grow faster. I would ship one of every race to every system, then when I got the second split him off to the second world etc. Eventually I would have one of each race on each world with a rate 7+ times the normal.

Now my question is, would this work here ? Mixed atmospheres generate domed, but in my game I have lots of Oxygen breathers. So if I get more than one O2 race on an O2 world, will that grow 1/t for each race every turn ?

Also the moons would be useful population factories - one of every race since they are usually domed anyway...

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

---

Originally posted by gamefan3001:
I used to play Master of Orion series and
I remember that the population of a planet
is crucial to your productivity (which is
quite reasonable). But in SE4, it seems
the population is only a minor
modifier to your productivity, even a newly
colonized planet can roughly match the
productivity of my homeworld (my homeworld
has 20% bonus due to the high population,
but compare with the huge difference on
their populations, this is really negligible)
Did I miss anything in the game? Is the
population in SE4 really of little
importance?

---

You can change this in two ways. First, there are facilities in the game that will increase production. This is just like MOO where you could build factories and what not. So, the "development level" of a colony does affect production. Second, you can alter the production increase caused by larger population in the SETTINGS.TXT file. There were some problems in earlier Versions with limits on the number of steps you could have. It's been fixed now and the limit is something like 255 if I recall rightly. So, you could install a very large and elaborate scale of increasing productivity with whatever top level you want.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 25 May 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

I'm hoping that eventually the game can be set to have a minimum population needed PER facility. Then population would be very important.

[Kadste]

Have not played around with the settings.txt file much, but what effect do the "Population Required to Operate One Facility" and "Population Modifiers" settings have? Are they straight forward in what thay are saying?

"Population Required to Operate One Facility := 50"
(from settings.txt)

If I have a pop of 65 on a planet. Will only one facility produce? If only one, which one? Will two facilities produce? Will all facilities produce? Does it round the 65 down so one produces, round up or round off?

Pop Modifier 1 Population Amount := 99
Pop Modifier 1 Production Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 1 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 2 Population Amount := 499
Pop Modifier 2 Production Modifier Percent := 105
Pop Modifier 2 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 105
(again, from settings.txt)

Does the planet with a pop of 100 to 499 produce and build (SY rate) 5% more per turn than a planet with 1 to 99 pop?

My understanding is there is a correlation between these setings and the amount of production per planet

[rdouglass]

I agree with minimum pop for facilities. Also, I'd like to see a bigger difference for production / population bonuses.

I remember in SE3, a ShipYard would take 10 turns to build for a newly (minimally) populated large planet. The same planet fully loaded with pop could build the same SY in 2 turns. Now in SE4, I think it changes from 5 turns to 3 - not a very big difference. Yes, I'm aware of the mod's for pop bonus, but I haven't done much modding and it could be somewhat discouraging for someone running right 'outa the box'.

Also, if this could be race-specific and not 'global', that too could help with adding more features to the game. Maybe use Racial points or something???

[Krakenup]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kadste:
"Population Required to Operate One Facility := 50"
(from settings.txt)

---

This is not currently implemented. It would require a complete rebalancing of all population-related issues such as population growth, storage on transports, turn length, etc.

quote:

---

Does the planet with a pop of 100 to 499 produce and build (SY rate) 5% more per turn than a planet with 1 to 99 pop?

---

Yes.

[Possum]

Reproduction bonuses, when setting up your race characteristics at the start of the game, are CHEAP.

If nothing else, reduce your Tolerance to 91%, then use those points to boost Reproduction by 9%, and you will enjoy a net increase in population growth of 7%, ABSOLUTE.

There may be some limit, drawback, or hidden catch to this that I just haven't noted yet, but I'll leave that to you smart college boys to figure out

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Possum:
If nothing else, reduce your Tolerance to 91%, then use those points to boost Reproduction by 9%, and you will enjoy a net increase in population growth of 7%, ABSOLUTE.

There may be some limit, drawback, or hidden catch to this that I just haven't noted yet, but I'll leave that to you smart college boys to figure out

---

I recall an observation from DRAKE about this:

"From previous testing I've done, Env. Resist. has only shown to have an effect on growth rate, independant of
anything else.

Every 5 points in it raises growth by 1%. I tested this for Unpleasant and up, so if someone wants to double
check this for worse conditions, be my guest.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a case where it'd make sense for it to affect how well your population handled
poor conditions, people assumed that's what it did, and the misinformation spread...

FYI, I basically had several growth tables laid out with the percentage increase charted for variations in
condition, Env. Resist. values, and reproduction values. In every case across the board, the 5% to 1% ratio held
true. The border is between 0/1 and 5/6, so you can reduce your starting % to 96% with no ill effect. I'd
suggest making it 81% and using the points in reproduction to compensate - it's cheaper until you hit the
breakpoint for repro.
"
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/001919.html

I always reduce environmental resistance to 81% and respectively increase pop. growth for every race (the AI also) due to this observation.