Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview

[dogscoff]

Hey PvK, I had a cool idea for proportions the other night, although I don't know how much work it would involve:

How about adding a "Hive community" racial trait for insectoid races? Races which choose this (The Xi-Chung and Taera for example) would get access to a set of cities which are slightly cheaper (hence quicker to build) than the regular "colonial development" ones. Maybe they could have enhanced organics output, too.

If there are none in the image mod already I'm sure someone could come up with some really cool looking "insect-hive city" pics. If it could be made so that their homeworlds were full of giant hives (equivalent to cultural centres), that would look so classy when you conquered them

Whaddya think?

[dogscoff]

Oh, I had another idea, too.

Say I have a homeworld with 4000 million ppl on it. If I send off a coloniser with 1 million ppl aboard, I am left with just 3999m and I lose my production & construction bonuses until the next population growth, which could be 10 turns away.

This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod.

Why not just move the 4000million bonus barrier down to 3990million or something like that? It would help balance the advanced storage trait and make it alot easier for the rest of us to balance our economies.

Or is this a stupid idea?

[Phoenix-D]

Nice idea, better solution would be to make an even population curve.

But:
"This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod."

Actually I think the real deal here is Advanced Storage Techniques races start with *more cultural centers*.

Phoenix-D

[Fyron]

* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.
* Added base spaceyards with higher organic construction rates, but these have organics costs.
* Added Organic Space Yard under Organic Manipulation tech tree, with higher organic build rate than is available under ordinary tech tree.
* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 5300. This doesn't change their construction rate 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.

Can you say "retrofit"? What is to stop me from building a normal BSY on site, then retrofitting it to a BSY with high organics rate, and building the colony ship there?

[PvK]

Yes, the main advantage of Advanced "Storage" Techniques is the extra cultural centers. The extra population and cargo space are also very helpful, though.

Adjusting the population effects around the usual starting population levels is a good idea. There are sixty entries in the Proportions mod population curve, so it is pretty smooth, but it would make sense to smooth out the parts near the starting homeworld population levels. I had rationalized it as an effect of mobilizing your homeworld population for colonial expansion, but perhaps the ~9% effect is too great.

The only problem is it's a nuisance to insert values in the sequence. Maybe I'll write a program to do it.

The insect idea is a nice one. My design for Foundations mod has a more developed insectoid tech tree with several groovy items, but I'm currently taking a break from working on major mods.

PvK

[Fyron]

I think PvK missed my post...

[Phoenix-D]

"What is to stop me from building a normal BSY on site, then retrofitting it to a BSY with high organics rate, and building the colony ship there? "

If the organics cost is different enough, that will stop it..

Phoenix-D