Anyone also dislike...

[Zanthis]

From Version history, 1.08:

quote:

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19. Fixed - Changed the Reproduction and Maintenance racial characteristics to be true percents which are added to your current values. Due to that
the cost was increased, and the max \ min were changed.

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I believe that means us non-beta types got hit with this in 1.19? Anyways, anyone else dislike this change?

See, I have ship maintainence set at 3% right now. Because of this, I've had to disallow any changes to the Maintainence attribute, since going from your default of 100 to 101 reduces maintainence by a third! If you got to 103 you'd have zero maintainence!!!

I really liked the old method (and even then, I seriously upped the price). In the old system, if I had a Maintainence of 110% I paid 10% less maintainence. So, if a ship costs 1000 minerals, at the default 25% maintainence it would costs 250/turn. With my 10% reduction, it would be down to 225/turn.

I have a similar problem with the Reproduction change, but the Maintainence problem is the biggie IMHO.

Anyone else agree? Disagree? Was anyone really confused about how it used to work? It used to work just like the three mining attributes, and the "fix" made it different. *sigh*

[Sinapus]

Um, I think that maintenance reduction is a percentage taken off of the cost. I.e., it's 3%, but a race w/110% maintenance gets 10% taken off that cost. It doesn't eliminate maintenance costs.

The race I use has 110% maintenance and I get a maintenance cost. Enough that I have to juggle it with planetary construction sometimes to make it balance out sometimes.

[rdouglass]

I like the idea of having maintenance costs being keyed on the component as opposed to the cost. For instance, the cost of a Master Computer is far more than a Bridge, 2 Life Support, and 2 Crew Quarters. However, by all reason, the Bridge/LS/CQ combo should be far more expensive to maintain - more space and fickle crewmen (or crew'persons' fro you politically correct). They need things like clean sheets, toilets, and the like.

It also stands to reason that things like Cargo Bays should cost a whole lot less to maintain than Quantum Engines...think about it!!!

[Zanthis]

Sinapus wrote:

quote:

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Um, I think that maintenance reduction is a percentage taken off of the cost. I.e., it's 3%, but a race w/110% maintenance gets 10% taken off that cost. It doesn't eliminate maintenance costs.

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That is how it used to work. In 1.19 it changed. If you build a race with a 110 Maintenance attribute, instead of 25% of cost per turn, you'll be paying 15% per turn. Prior to 1.19 you'd have been paying 22.5% (25% - 10% of 25%).

In my game, with maintenance at 3%, a 110 Maintenace would have had you paying 2.7% maintenance. Since I vastly increased all the hull costs of ships to more than ten times there current values, 110 Maintenance would still be a big deal.

Figure out your maintenance costs in a game, you'll find this is how it works. Easiest to do in a new game.

[Trachmyr]

I think one way you might be able to do a quick fix is by raising maintainance back to it's normal level, and incorporate a -90% reduction on all ship hulls (-95% for bases). I think that should work AFAIK.

[Tenryu]

I have never been thrilled with SE4's maintenance cost methodology. It's been a minor annoyance for me. I even e-mailed MM with some ideas about it a week ago.(Since Aaron's pretty good at responding and I haven't yet got an answer I take that as a resounding "Bug-Off!". LOL!)

I basically asked if maintenance costs could be figured as a percent of the build costs of each indivdual component and such and each item had its own script line for us to set the percentage cost for that item. I think it would be way better then the current everything costs X% or nothing deal.

I also asked if we could get a line in settings or the race files for each race that set its maintenance percent costs off the base.( We 'kinda' have that now, but, as you note, it's a little annoying.)

Oh well, I'll now go back to hanging out and waiting for the next patch like everyone else.

[Drake]

They way they changed maintenance is, IMHO a mistake. Typically in a point allocation system, the more points you put into a specific area, the less benefit you get per point. Generally that prevents a lot of min/max values in race creation. I think the best scenario is where cost is a sliding scale, where each succesive point change costs more (or less) than the previous change. I don't like these break points either, because you'll wind up with a lot of similar designs.

Anyway, back to my point. The change to reproduction (env. resist perhaps as well, since it works the same way but on a smaller scale - what's up w/ that?) - ahem.

As I was saying before I interrupted myself, the change to reproduction is tolerable, because the undesirable change is toward the zero point. Each point you reduce it hurts you more severely than the point before it. I think you can actually reduce your growth to 0% by picking a min tolerance and reproduction rate for certain planet/population conditions. The problem with maintenance is that the reverse is true. The zero point is desirable, going from 100 to 105 changes maintenance from 25 to 20, an 20% reduction. Going from 105 to 110 reduces maintenance costs by another 25%... Selecting 120% and then picking the merchant culture reduces your maintenance to ZERO, turning my previous least liked culture into my new favorite.

Just some thoughts. Sorry for the rambling, think it's time to get some sleep. Later!

-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 24 January 2001).]

[Zanthis]

Excellent idea Trachmyr, I'll have to give it a try. Thanks.