Proportions mod: So confusing!

[PvK]

The phased shield ability of cultural centers isn't perfect. Ideally, I would just give the facilities large amounts of hit points, but that is not possible. I may experiment with re-adjusting the "damage per population" in settings.txt, as I believe this still affects the damage required to destroy any facility. However there still isn't a perfect way to express the difference between the damage required to destroy, say, a resupply depot, and the damage required to destroy an entire civilization.

It's true that shield-skipping weapons end up being powerful against cultural centers, but who's to say that a null space weapon would not in reality have a great effect against at atmosphere? At any rate, there are still other ways to vaporize a homeworld's shields, such as planetary weapons, anti-planet drones, fighter-bombers, and shield depleters.

This is one case where I didn't see many choices in what I could do, but there was a very important balance issue, which was that it is a major game event if a homeworld is destroyed or captured, so it should be possible to defend one, and take a major effort to destroy or conquer one.

As Mylon mentions, players can and should keep some potent defenses at a homeworld. The cargo capacity is huge, so the 20K intrinsic shields are just part of the difficulty in attacking one. Defense bases and weapon platforms and fighters and satellites and drones and troops can be amassed, and should be expected.

Consider too that major effects can be caused simply by blockading a homeworld. That in itself has caused some human players to concede defeat.

PvK

[ September 10, 2002, 07:04: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Mylon]

I'll email you those save files latter today. Meanwhile, a few suggestions for Proportions:

Cultural centers. I'd like to see them at least halved in price. It _should_ be reasonable that a homeworld could actually build 18 of them within a reasonable time before developing useful space flight. Yes, they may be massive in size, and 50 years may make sense for their size, but that is also 500 turns.

Along the same vein, perhaps population production bonuses should be increased significantly. Most colonies with about 100 M population can produce almost half of what a homeworld can. I would think a homeworld would be more productive. Also, the population growth should be bonus significantly increased in cost. A +10 bonus to population growth is fairly cheap and is actually added directly on despite other modifiers (bad planet conditions, angry, ect), thus allowing a population to double in say 4-5 years rather than 15.

Another thing I would like to see would be enhanced cities based on other tech advances. This would probably be a pain to impliment, as there could easily be 81 or so combinations for each level of city. The idea is that a level of applied research would not only improve the quality of research centers, but the research bonus given by cities as well. Likewise for organics extraction, mineral extraction, ect. If this is followed through, I would suggest removing the current upgrade-chains in the current city lineup to make this a bit easier to handle. Likewise, without the city chain cities should be made somewhat cheaper (where a metropolis used to cost 65k (minor city + upgrade), they would now cost 100k! Upgrading the cultural centers on the homeworld would probably never happen unless there is a dramatic reduction in cost (or production in bonus), but it would be nice to add upgraded Versions for other well developed planets.

Considering how most other techs double in usefulness with the second level of research, it would make sense that this would apply to starliner modules as well. And I keep buging you because paying for the life support, bridge, engines, and solar collectors (They don't go very far without them!) gets expensive if you have to pay for 20 rather than 10.

[dogscoff]

I'm a keen proportions player, and I would say that although Mylon's suggestions in the previous post are well thought out, I would vote against all of them except the increased range of cities. Sorry Mylon I like the economics as they are now. The new range of cities would be an utter nightmare to implement and upgrade, but would be cool. Maybe you should try to get a more flexible upgrade system into the next patch before attempting to implement them.

One thing I will suggest though is a set of combination bonus facilities - ie fleet+ship training, citizen databank+computer complex etc. Have it so you can upgrade to them from the singular Versions.

[DocShane]

Originally posted by Mylon:
[QB]It seems that a huge amount of the facilities are redundant, if not plain useless.

Settlements cannot be upgraded into cities, and seem in themselves pretty useless. Cultural Centers and Colony World Cultural Centers are duplicates of each other. Many of the buildings are replaced by higher tech Versions before they're even constructed (Ship training). There also seems to be parallel development of the same basic structures (Mineral miner facility, mineral miner complex, ect). The sheer number of facilities already promises to make finding the right one among the list a little bothersome, given how the mod tries to focus on upgrading facilities rather than building higher level ones.
QB]

This sounds like the real world, which is what I think PvK is trying to mirror with the proportions mod. After all, I bet your local post office is not a brand new building with the latest and greatest sorting technology. Heck, my post office in a town of 300 is nothing more than a shed with a space heater for the winter, quite literally. In the town nearby there is a larger brick postal building, a UPS agent, 2 internet providers, and a courier service. How many different ways do you need to send a message? They are redundant, but each has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. I use all of them at different times for different reasons. Proportions mimics this by giving you choices. Sometimes they are confusing choices, and sometimes you will make bad choices, but this real world.

Thanks PvK. I want to encourage you to continue making the mod more complex and more confusing. For a newby to the SEIV universe, the standard game has plenty of complexity. But for those of us more experienced with SEIV, the standard game is good, but has lost it's "Fog of War" appeal. IMHO a good wargame recreates the uncertainty of conflict and the ability to make bad choices. Standard SEIV has done a very good job of this for a wargame, but the proportions mod takes it even a step further.

[dogscoff]

IMHO a good wargame recreates the uncertainty of conflict and the ability to make bad choices. Standard SEIV has done a very good job of this for a wargame, but the proportions mod takes it even a step further.

Agreed. I would put it another way and say that Proportions takes SEIV and pushes it even further from being simply a wargame into the territory of "empire simulator".

[Puke]

Originally posted by PvK:
The phased shield ability of cultural centers isn't perfect. Ideally, I would just give the facilities large amounts of hit points, but that is not possible.

sorry that im dumb, but why not?

[capnq]

Ideally, I would just give the facilities large amounts of hit points, but that is not possible.

sorry that im dumb, but why not?

Facilities don't have "hit points"; they're destroyed collaterally with the planet's population.

[Puke]

hmm, thats right. why do smartbombs do 200 points of damage, then? does that need to be changed if the damage to kill a population unit is increased?

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Puke:
hmm, thats right. why do smartbombs do 200 points of damage, then? does that need to be changed if the damage to kill a population unit is increased?

IIRC, it doesn't. It also looks like one hit, regardless of damage, will kill at least one population unit. Though that was Last tested over a year ago, pre-Gold. Dunno if it's been changed or not.

Also, I think damage for neutron bombs is something the game reads to figure out how many people it kills per hit. Haven't really tested that, though.

[ September 10, 2002, 20:42: Message edited by: Sinapus ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Mylon:
I'll email you those save files latter today. Meanwhile, a few suggestions for Proportions:

Cultural centers. I'd like to see them at least halved in price. It _should_ be reasonable that a homeworld could actually build 18 of them within a reasonable time before developing useful space flight. Yes, they may be massive in size, and 50 years may make sense for their size, but that is also 500 turns.

18 of them? Well at 100 years a piece, that's only 1800 years. It took Earth more than twice that long to produce substantially fewer than that.

Also note that you can build a colony that is more productive than a cultural center, and produces exactly what you want it to, in far less time than it takes to build a cultural center. It won't be as compact and it won't have the exact same bonuses, but that's the difference between building heaps of infrastructure, and actually developing a culture. Or, at least, Proportions' representation of that difference in SE4 terms.

I do think though that I will probably, eventually, adjust the abilities and cost of the "Colony World Cultural Center" facility. Maybe even before anyone succeeds in actually building one in a game...

Along the same vein, perhaps population production bonuses should be increased significantly. Most colonies with about 100 M population can produce almost half of what a homeworld can. I would think a homeworld would be more productive. Also, the population growth should be bonus significantly increased in cost. A +10 bonus to population growth is fairly cheap and is actually added directly on despite other modifiers (bad planet conditions, angry, ect), thus allowing a population to double in say 4-5 years rather than 15.

I've considered this sort of idea before. Originally, cultural centers did have a construction ability, but that meant you could never build more than one on a planet, or replace one on a homeworld. It also resulted in the ability to produce very expensive items in a very short time, because of the single planetary build queue. There are rationalizations for how a homeworld should in fact be able to snap together a capital ship in one turn, but on reflection, I kind of like the existing system, in part because you can't build hugely expensive things in a short time.

What you can do (and most humans and AI seem to do this) is actually build a bunch of construction yards in space over a homeworld. This has a number of advantages (from a design/interestingness perspective) over giving a homeworld a huge construction ability. The advantages, as I see them, are:

* You can build as much as your actual infrastructure investment (in BSY's) lets you.
* You are still limited to long build times for expensive items.
* You have to consider the cost and maintenance cost of your production facilities.
* The enemy can raid your orbital bases without having to battle your homeworld to the death.
* If enemy blockaders can't get close enough to destroy your homeworld BSY's, they can still produce defense forces even if enemy blockade and/or ground troops are causing your homeworld to riot.

Another thing I would like to see would be enhanced cities based on other tech advances. This would probably be a pain to impliment, as there could easily be 81 or so combinations for each level of city. The idea is that a level of applied research would not only improve the quality of research centers, but the research bonus given by cities as well. Likewise for organics extraction, mineral extraction, ect. If this is followed through, I would suggest removing the current upgrade-chains in the current city lineup to make this a bit easier to handle. Likewise, without the city chain cities should be made somewhat cheaper (where a metropolis used to cost 65k (minor city + upgrade), they would now cost 100k! Upgrading the cultural centers on the homeworld would probably never happen unless there is a dramatic reduction in cost (or production in bonus), but it would be nice to add upgraded Versions for other well developed planets.

Not a bad idea, although I wish I had the time/energy to design and mod 81 city variants, not to mention the other stuff I would rather do first. Of course, what you can do is use the existing rate-modifying facilities already in the game to gain multipliers to standard facility abilities. See Robot Factory, Mineral Scanner, etc.

Considering how most other techs double in usefulness with the second level of research, it would make sense that this would apply to starliner modules as well. And I keep buging you because paying for the life support, bridge, engines, and solar collectors (They don't go very far without them!) gets expensive if you have to pay for 20 rather than 10.

Hehe. Of course you can feel free to do so for your own enjoyment. Another idea would be to halve population mass to 500kT, if you just want faster development. However the point of having these hardships in Proportions is of course to make it the Herculean task it actually would be (actually, I think it's pretty easy compared to "reality") to move many millions of colonists to inhospitable alien worlds and turn them into self-supportive and productive colonies. Another reason starliner modules don't double at tech level 2 is because of my imagination of how difficult it would be to overcome the basic and very enormous physical requirements of moving a million folks and keeping them alive on board and shipped with enough stuff to allow them to do anything but fight for survival (and probably lose) at their destination.

If I were to implement this suggestion, it would probably be by calling the current level I, "level II", and then defining a level I that was twice as lame as the current level I.

PvK