Design: Short term v0.2 econ, or...?

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Aquitaine
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Design: Short term v0.2 econ, or...?

#1 Post by Aquitaine »

Hi folks,

I'm finishing up the requirements doc for v0.2 and one issue that is troubling me is that we have not clearly established the link between minerals and industry in anything passed for v0.2; there has been a lot of discussion about huge proposals for the future, but I need something now. This is the 'econ' part of the v0.1 design document:
Base industrial output of a planet with no enhancements is 3 Production Points (PP) per population point. Industrial infrastructure is measured as the percentage of the planet’s total habitable area that contains industry (between 0 and 100%). Developing 1% of a planet’s industry requires 1 PP/current population point. Planets may set their focus to industrial infrastructure which contributes all of that planet’s PPs to this infrastructure. A planet’s current maximum industrial infrastructure is the ratio of its current population to its maximum population. Industrial infrastructure is displayed as a percentage of developed industry, e.g.:

A planet with a current population of 15 and a max population of 100 begins has no industrial infrastructure. If it attempts to build anything (a ship, more industry, or a defense base), its output is 45 Production Points (PP) per turn. If it spends one turn building industry, it raises its industrial infrastructure by 3%. If it spends the text turn building a ship, it receives 46.35 PP (15 Population points * 3 base PP per population * 1.03 Infrastructure bonus).
Because the planet’s current population is 15% of its maximum, it cannot build more than 15% of its infrastructure. Consequently, a planet dedicated to building industry will always raise its infrastructure by 3% every turn, unless it is to small to realize the 3% gain (such as a new colony).
Now, what we have for resources in v0.2 is primary and secondary foci, such that we can crank out between 1 and 6 units of food, minerals, production, or research per population unit every turn. What we don't have figured out is the minerals --> production link. I'm thinking that a very basic short-term solution would be to simply require 1 unit of minerals for every 1 unit of production; later on, when we're doing the tech tree, we can modify this ratio. This bothers me a little bit just because it throws the v0.1 system in the crapper, but I guess we knew we were going to do that all along.

I am also assuming for v0.2 that we can transport minerals where they're needed. Stockpiles have their own design thread right now, but much like the econ design thread, it's sort of snowballed and we don't have a final solution. So those will be the first two things for v0.3.

What do people think of establishing a 1:1 ratio of minerals required for production points? Are there any alternatives? We know that:
-- We have minerals and we have production and they are separate
-- Somehow, minerals are required for production

Those two things are passed and final. The 1:1 ratio seems the most simple at the moment.

-Aq
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

EntropyAvatar
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#2 Post by EntropyAvatar »

Yeah, sorry for 'snowballing' the economic details thread. In my defence I'll say it had gone off on a tangent before I got there....

A 1:1 ratio seems fine for v0.2. If anyone has other ideas though, I'd love to hear them.

I take it that industrial infrastructure is NOT a feature for v0.2? As written, it seems to have a bit of a problem scaling with population. If there is infrastructure in v0.2, then there might be other ways to use minerals.

I think cost-free transport of food and minerals is the simplest for now.

Stockpiling should be at the empire level, and either cost-free or perhaps decay 2% per turn. Blockaded worlds get a fraction of the stockpile, probably proportional to population for food and industrial output for minerals.

Aquitaine
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#3 Post by Aquitaine »

I cam glom the infrastructure piece from v0.1 into v0.2, but I'm almost positive it's just going to change once we start on v0.3. I suppose since the programmers have already had to do it for v0.1, it shouldn't be too much of a big deal to add it to v0.2.

-Aq
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

PowerCrazy
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#4 Post by PowerCrazy »

We could make minerals only required for ship building? Like if the size ratios for mark 1-4 were, 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 that would be the ratio of minerals to industry required? That way a Mark 4 ship in addition to requiring more industry, would require significantly more minerals to create.
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Aquitaine
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#5 Post by Aquitaine »

An added layer of complexity for minimal returns, I think -- minerals should be ubiquitious. Because production points will be used to build everything (ships, buildings, spies?) it would be a bit baffling if you needed minerals for some of those things but not others.
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Tyreth
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#6 Post by Tyreth »

As a placeholder 1:1 sounds best. But I think that this will depend entirely on how easy it is to transfer minerals. Since these things are all going to be decided in 0.3 and just need placeholders now - I recommend that the player can simply click a planet and say either "send 100 minerals to x" and the next turn it will arrive, or "send 10 minerals every turn to x" and it will send 10 each turn as a constant route.

Not completely sure about this transfer method, but could work.

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skdiw
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#7 Post by skdiw »

Your freighting system is a bit complicated. I rather it be done automatically in the background. Excess planet resources are dump into imperial treasury at a small cost and/or decay and any other planet can make a withdraw if they are short. If you want to overdrive industry, then the AI will automatically draw min from stockpile to meet your pp specification.

I advise to use a inflated value of 10:10. We should avoid floating point values. Inflated value would allow more resonable tech bonus while avoiding floats so that level 1 tech upgrade won't yield a whopping 100% for 1:2. I imagine that pp will worth more than minerial so maybe 10:100 may be better; it depends on how abundant mineral is; having the 100 allows more detailed accounting of cost of goods.
:mrgreen:

Nightfish
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#8 Post by Nightfish »

Actually I had thought minerals were only used for ships, too, just like PC.

About the ratio... Well, it just boils down to what we want the ratio of industry planets : mining planets to be like. I don't see any compelling reason why there should be more of one type than of the other so 1:1 seems fine with me.

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#9 Post by EntropyAvatar »

If we end up having to manually send minerals to each planet every turn I may have to commit ritual suicide. If you thought changing the number of farmers every couple of turns was a pain in Moo2, imagine if you had to direct each unit of food?

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skdiw
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#10 Post by skdiw »

Hey, wait for me! Ahhhhhh hhh h (cough)
:mrgreen:

Aquitaine
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#11 Post by Aquitaine »

I agree with skdiw on this one. I think Tyreth has been kidnapped by space aliens, because I am not sure he would ever suggest a manual freighter system. :)

We'll do 1:1 for now and automatic transfer of minerals and bring this up again for v0.3.
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Tyreth
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#12 Post by Tyreth »

Yes you are right :) I blame me being sick at the moment, my brain was running at only 80% capacity.

Nightfish
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#13 Post by Nightfish »

What? I thought we already passed that you have to manually drag and drop every mineral first from production site to local stockpile, then to galactic stockpile if you want to use it on another planet, then back to the other local pile and then dump it into the industry slot on this new planet. I believe this system is very simple and straight forward. You can turn this feature off if you allow the AI complete control over your empire. Now press turn.

Aquitaine
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#14 Post by Aquitaine »

No, Nightfish, we passed that you have to manually drag and drop every mineral from production site to local stockpile. You'll be doing it for the rest of us. You are hereby designated the honorary FreeOrion Planetary Viecory.

(runs)

Aq

(design doc this weekend I hope!)
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Nightfish
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#15 Post by Nightfish »

Ah yes, that's right. Somehow I think a lot of you will be stuck in turn 1 for a long, long time then...

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