Where are the Civilians? - Page 2

Noble713 · #11 June 2nd, 2001, 05:38 AM

quote:
Originally posted by ZeroAdunn:
When ever you build a spaceport on a planet it should create a line similar to the lines used in a ships path- maybe of a different color between the new spaceport world and the nearest spaceport world. These would be shipping lanes. When you want to transfere population or cargo between worlds simply hit the transfere button and then in the transfere cargo window there should be an off world option and then you could select any other spaceport world. Then after you have sent whatever you want to send a transport will magicly appear (each planet would have a different number of transport ships depending on it's population at minimun maybe 1 and at max maybe 5 or 10) and begin transporting to wherever you sent cargo. Then it would make the journey to wherever the cargo was headed unload it and make the return journey. It would continue to make trips till all the cargo selected has been moved.

You could also move fighters, satelites, mines, etc in this same way.

Trade between empires would be handled in much the same way. When you enacted a treaty a transport lane would be drawn between the two empires closest spaceport planets. Then every turn a fleet of a certain size (depending on the number of resources being trated) would travel between the two worlds. Every turn another fleet would be sent out.

Ships in orbit around a spaceport world could be given the order "Protect shippping lanes" or something and whenever a transport ship was sent out it would escort it to and from wherever it was going.

I like this. It's a bit like the trade routes system in Call to Power. When a route is created, a line is between the two cities, and you can pirate the route by moving a ship onto it and hitting the right command. This destroys the route entirely and gives you money.

I think the idea of individual ships/convoys moving along the route is better than the CtP system as you can raid it indefinately or have ships provide escort. There is no real way to defend against piracy in CtP.

I also don't think this would be *TOO* hard to implement. It would at least require:

-adding a list of spaceports to the cargo transfer window
-adding code to assign the correct number of transports to move the desired cargo
-creating the freighter fleet in the game screen and giving it automatic Move to X,Y and Drop Cargo orders. You should be able to add other ships to this fleet as escorts
-limiting the convoy's movement to shipping lane sectors
-restrict the player from altering convoy orders (even if the fleet is attacked, it should stay on the shipping lane and continue moving next turn)

How would the freighters be designed? Maybe we could use the transport ship hulls, and add a new freighter component (max of 1 per transport, not allowed on any other hull), which would decrease the maintenance cost considerably as well as marking the design as a freighter and therefore making it available to the spaceports. These ships would not have a build time, as we can assume that many of them are already in service and that the government is just contracting a few to move something.

I have no problem with using this to move fighters/mines/etc. because:

-You can only ship them to planets with spaceports. You have to use military transports (what we have now) to get them to the remote planets and bases.
-Since the shipping lanes are so visible (a yellow line that all players can see), anybody can come along and blow up your convoy carrying your expensive fighters off to the front. They could even hide in nearby storms and wait for a convoy to show up. This would actually give storms a reason to exist, as they just kinda sit there and get ignored now.

This whole system would make deep penetration raids MUCH more interesting and useful. Right now all you can do is send a cloaked ship in to bLast some colony ships, or at best equip it with Smart Bombs and bomb planets. So many planets have weapon platforms that this will hardly ever work, and you don't know which ones have spaceports anyway.

Baron Munchausen · #12 June 2nd, 2001, 06:12 AM

You can do a lot more if you equip your 'deep penetration' raider with plague bombs.

Just one hit and the planet will become useless to your enemy within a few turns. Provided he hasn't got a medical bay close at hand. There's my second mention of plague bombs in as many Posts.

The rest of the ideas here are very interesting. Having to represent ALL of the ships carrying trade around would be a nightmare. It's completely impractical. SE is a huge game already and full simulation on the scale we're playing is just not possible. I agree that the problem of protecting your logistics is glossed over in SE IV, but the reason is clear. So, 'convoy' protection situations would have to be clearly defined to certain circumstanes.

Having a system akin to the MOO II system where you buy abstract 'merchant fleets' might be doable. Food is not considered in SE IV, but if the total volume of resources produced by your empire required a certain number of merchant ships per so many thousands of of points of resources you'd have a decent equivalent. When you want to send something like population from one planet to another, you have to 'draft' some of that fleet and it is not available for regular duties. This could result in a temporary loss of resources just like a blockade or destruction of a space port.

With this system it MIGHT be possible to have an abstract 'fleet' of merchant ships become a real fleet of transports that your ships have to protect in certain situations. Maybe when ships attack a planet containing a space port? If there were 'merchant ships' carrying resources -- that might be lost! -- present whenever a planetary space port was attacked it would add some importance to space port planets.

Steven-n-Donna · #13 June 2nd, 2001, 08:55 AM

I don't think there should be any maintance cost for murchant fleets. If it's based on any type of economic model, the only reason there would be murchants is if their were a profit! The 'owner' of the ship would be responsible for upkeep. Unless you got into the different economic models that I mentioned before (example: Communism-government owned ships, and Capitalism-murchant owned ships).
I don't really like the idea that you must build the populations ships, to much MM. What would be next, designing the layout of their colonies for 40 planets? No thanks!
I think trade should be great enough to partially support your protectorate fleet definately. Make it worth doing, not just a feature in the game to forget about.
The population of a planet should dictate how many ships are murchant ships per planet, the planet should also be required to have a fleet yard (to build the ships) and the space port. Maybe even a resupply station (to give the facility more use and importance).
I don't know if I like the idea of the ships shown on the map or not. The map would need some sort of filter to hide particular types of ships.
As the game progresses, I'd much rather it focus on a more realistic game play style, rather than what seems like playing chess with options.
Any and all features should definately be allocated in the ministers dialog weather or not you want to control a certain aspect of the game, some players prefer different levels of control over their game!

Steve

Jason2 · #14 June 2nd, 2001, 05:25 PM

I personally hope this level of detail would be optional. I, for one, feel it would take away the fun of the game. It already has enough to keep track of and I feel (imho) that this much detail would take away the joy of playing. Just my opinion

Jason2

Urendi Maleldil · #15 June 2nd, 2001, 07:03 PM

How about handling population similar Sims in SimCity

population goes where it wants- aboard civilian starships and such

alien attributes could be given to that population by altering the sim code in one way or another

#16 June 3rd, 2001, 02:32 AM

When I move population, I want it to stay put! I move to get construction rate and productivity up. The only thing I would like to see is automatic move of new population from planets at maximum population already. Now THAT would be nice!

jc173 · #17 June 3rd, 2001, 08:22 AM

Interesting ideas about the shipping lanes and etc. I personally wish you could raid enemy shipping to disrupt resource allocation and resuuply of their forward forces. But how do you design a shipping lane map/graph for a race with the Natural Merchant ability since they have no need for space ports?

ZeroAdunn · #18 June 3rd, 2001, 08:51 AM

I'm glad somebody liked my idea.

Normally, unless you were moving something along the shipping lanes (pop, fighters, mines, etc.) they would just appear to be lines. If you moved something it would use your largest available transport picture to represent the movement of stuff.

To raid shipping lanes is all one would have to do is place a ship along the lanes and select a "Raid" option. Then every turn the resources produced by the system would be transfered from you empire to theirs.

Making resupply depots in that system useless would be an excellent idea, I think.

(In reality this system requires no extra work by the player, in fact it would simplify things, imagine no longer needing to have all those useless transports lying around to move you population and cargo, instead, just transfere them via the shipping lanes)

A natural merchant race (space port on every planet) would get kind of crowded with lines.

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Captain, I found your pants.

capnq · #19 June 3rd, 2001, 06:54 PM

quote:
Normally, unless you were moving something along the shipping lanes (pop, fighters, mines, etc.) they would just appear to be lines. If you moved something it would use your largest available transport picture to represent the movement of stuff.

To raid shipping lanes is all one would have to do is place a ship along the lanes and select a "Raid" option. Then every turn the resources produced by the system would be transfered from you empire to theirs.

It would be a good idea to be able to toggle the lines on or off to keep the display from getting too cluttered.

I don't think the Raid option should be an automatic perfect success; you should only get a small percentage of the trade per raider. The cargo capacity of the raider should be a factor as well; you can't assume that you'll capture the traders intact and have them haul the booty home for you.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Baron Munchausen · #20 June 3rd, 2001, 10:17 PM

If this "supply lines" concept were implemented I sure hope you'd have the option to EDIT those lines! The default movement routines can make some pretty stupid choices. Sending merchants through a black hole system, for example... Also, would you get a "supply line" that ends in a crazy scrawl at a warp point where an enemy ship happened to be sitting when it was automatically drawn?

Being able to change the route would be essential.