DESIGN: Construction Category

Creation, discussion, and balancing of game content such as techs, buildings, ship parts.

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Aquitaine
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DESIGN: Construction Category

#1 Post by Aquitaine »

This thread contains guided discussion for the contents of the Construction category. It is moderated by PowerCrazy.

Specific rules for this thread as set by the moderator are as follows:

Check back soon.
I should have some comprehensive rules soon.



hehe, I'm editing Aquitaines post...

Edited by PowerCrazy...

PowerCrazy
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#2 Post by PowerCrazy »

Here are the rules, they should be easy to follow.

We are to come up with construction techs. A construction tech is basically infrastructure that allows a planet to develop past its current limit. This means these techs will define the "pace" of the game. Thus it is VERY important that we are careful about how fast we develop this category.

Make sure you are familiar with how the meters work as defined here. Our techs will be affecting the construction meter, which in turn affects all other meters.

Think of construction as analogous to population.

Specific rules of this process, most are common sense.

1. Don't turn this into just another brainstorming thread. If you are not sure about the scope of this topic, PM me and I will be glad to enlighten you.

2. Don't come in with a completely new idea for how the economy/(construction) meters/ etc work. As far as this topic is concerned the economy system is set in stone.

3. Don't create new threads in this forum. When a new thread needs to be created I will do it, PM me if you feel that a new thread is necessary.

As per the usual progression of a 4X game, we need beginning techs, which have fairly small yet significant effects these gradually progress to larger and larger effects, until we get to the end game where the rules will break down, and the real fun begins :twisted: .

Ok that should just about do it. Have at it.
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

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skdiw
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#3 Post by skdiw »

Here are my tech ideas in tech lvl order from basic to advanced. The numbers are in order of rate of meter growth, meter cap, and wonders that are available to build. The bold faces are the theories I guess you can split some applied techs into refinements. The bonuses are cumulative. Wonder bonus affects all planets in the system and half to nearby systems. Italics are Galactic Wonder. I assume that we are going to fix the bonus and vary the cost to balance the techs.

Construction Theories
Advanced Engineering 0 1 -
Advanced Archeticture 0 1 -
Civil Planing 1 0 Resort Capital 0 2
Sky Domes 0 1 -
Orbital Construction 0 1 -
4D Transform 1 0 -
Interstaller Manufacturing 0 1 -
Intersystem Manufacturing 0 1 -
Intergalactic Manufacturing 0 1 -
5D Transform 1 0 -
5D Construction 1 1 -
Atomic Construction 1 0 -
Point Construction 1 1 Star Construction 0 2(to all your planets)
Materials
Advaced Alloys 0 1 -
Exotic Alloys 0 1 -
Matter Converters 1 0 Planetary Replicators 3 0
Self-Assembly Materials 2 0 -
Superspring Materials 0 1 -
5D Materials 1 0 -
Gravitation
Local Gravity 1 0 -
Gravity Cores 1 0 -
Controlled Gravity 1 1 -
Anti-gravitation 1 1 -
Planetary Core alteration 0 2 -
Gravitation Field Manipulation 0 1 Gravity Generator 2 2
Space Alteration 1 0 Space Contiuum Warping 4 0 (to all your planets)
Robotics
Large Constructors 1 0 -
Miniturization I 0 1 -
Nanobots 0 1 -
Energy Converter 1 0 -
Replicators 1 0 -
Miniturization II 0 1 -
Self-Assembly construction 2 0 -
Dimensional Phasing 1 0 Phasing Device 0 20 (for this planet)
5D Superposition 1 1 -
:mrgreen:

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Geoff the Medio
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#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

IMO, tech names should be somewhat "specific" and give a good sense of what is being researched. So rather than "exotic alloys" or "advanced engineering" that are rather vague, we'd have more descriptive / evocative names like:
Theories:
Carbon Nanofibres
Monofilment Extrusion
Woven Nanocloth
Flexible Ceramics
Ceramic Plastics
Bioengineered Structures
Organic Buildings
Prefabricated Self-Assembly
Bioadaptive Structures
Induced Polymerization
Structural-Integrity Fields
Seamless Interfaces
Geologic Reinforcement
Metal Foam
Transcendent Architecture
Architectural Psychology

For applications, I assume we should be listing specific buildings like:
Orbital Factory
Monofilment Extruder
Egotistical Monolith Polisher
Subterrainian Excavator
Biostructure Engineering Lab

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Zanzibar
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#5 Post by Zanzibar »

Should something like Nanomachines, Robotic workers, automated factories, and the like be in this category??
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Geoff the Medio
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#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Zanzibar wrote:Should something like Nanomachines, Robotic workers, automated factories, and the like be in this category??
"Construction" is supposedly for stuff that allows you to grow other meters faster. I think this can be interpreted as having a higher capacity to build new industry, farms, labs or mines when so desired, as represented by the Construction meter of a planet.

We should also keep in mind the plan is to make "buildings" that can be on the build queue quite rare. Like semi-wonders at the commonest. The idea was to avoid having the player build 50 copies of the same building on every planet.

Given that, for me it doesn't make much sense for construction to be increased by making a building. Rather, it would seem to make more sense to get an immediate benefit from discovering a new applied construction technology. Researched technologies in construction would be new techniques or materials that allow faster and easier transitions between producing a lot of one resource and little of another to the opposite. You don't really need a building celebrating a technique for it to be used, and while "production" is shared around the empire, the ability of a planet to grow its resource meters is determined by its own construction meter, not other planets, so it doesn't make as much sense to me to have a building on another planet or in another starsystem making the transitions happen faster.

If Construction buildings do exist though, they would presumably be sometheing like a "Cement Factory" that provides cement to all planets within X distance, giving them all a +2 to construction, for example. There'd only be one "Cement Factory" for 20+ systems, though. Alternatively, there could be construction-related "enabler" buildings that are required in order to build various higher-level buildings in other categories, like a "Superduper WonderLab" Learning buidling requiring a "Glassblowing Factory" Construction building within X distance.

Based on the above:

"Robot Workers" might be a reasoanble construction technology (though probably one that is related to several techs in production), as discovering these new roboting workers would let you tear down farms and build labs more quickly, for example.

"Nanomachines" similarly might be appropriate, in that they would presumably do the construction work themselves...

"Automated Factories" sounds more like a production tech to me, though.

That's just my interpreation though...

(PowerCrazy: If this is too brainstormy, sorry...)

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utilae
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#7 Post by utilae »

Some useful 'tools' (variables) for making construction techs:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CurrentConstruction
MaxConstruction
CurrentPopulation
MaxPopulation
PlanetSize
PlanetType
PlanetEnvironment
CurrentIndustry ?could be useful
MaxIndustry ?could be useful
CurrentMining ?could be useful
MaxMining ?could be useful
MineralStockpile ?could be useful
MineralProduction ?could be useful
IndustryProduction ?could be useful

Other Useful variables:
---------------------------
ObjectType
StarType
PrimaryFocus
SecondaryFocus
Owner
ID

Effects Document:
http://www.freeorion.org/wiki/index.php ... troduction

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Prokonsul Piotrus
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#8 Post by Prokonsul Piotrus »

As we seem to be talking (partialy at least) about infrastructure, I'd like to show you how I imagine this would work in game mechanics (and what relevant techs would do with it). I hope my idea stays withing bounds of current game mechanics, and if not, it could be trimmed to it.

1. Each planet has 'infrastructure levels'. Think of each i-level as the semi wonder. Planet can (and must) have only one i-level at the same time (unless we go with regions for planets, perhaps based on size?).

2. I-level shows how developed a colony is. Bascially it represents the colony infrastructure in the urban planning usage sense - cities, roads, industries, population (partially, at least), etc.

Here is a very short and simple i-level list (I hope our will be much more developed):
* colony settlement (created by colony ship): a settlement constructed out of colony ship, providing room for first colonists and some tools and facilities for early growth'
* early colony: a developed colony settlement which has grown into a small town, connected with several settlements in nearby regions
* boomtown colony: where was one a small town, now a city booms. Nearby settlements have grown into towns, and smaller settlements now span hundreds of miles from orginal colony landing site
* medium colony: Colony world capital is now a major city and the entire colony has achieves economic size of an average country. About tenths of the planet is well developed, and majority of planet is inhabited, albeit mostly by small settlements.
* developed colony Colony world has one major metropolis, dozens of big cities and hundreds of smaller ones. It is now similar to a powerful country, or small world empire. More then half of planet area is well developed and entire planet is inhabited.
* advanced colony Main city on the planet is a megalopolis, rivaling majority of homworld orginal cities. The entire planet, with developed industries and orginal cuture now resembles a well-developed world orginal colonists arrived from.

Sure the names and descriptions can use much improvements, but they serve to illustrate the basic idea, I think?

3. I-level requires in order to be build on planet:
* an investment of production points/minerals to build (and perhaps money as well if we are using it)
* minimum population on planet (either in total numbers or %)
* a given tech (obviously this is an important part for us here)

4. I-levels :
* produce minerals, pp points, research and other points if we use it, money
* determine maximum population size of the planet
* can be 'specialized' - i.e. in industry (more pp), mines (more minerals), research (more rp), others (intelligence, ship construction, various stuff we invent later)
* their efficiency may be dependent on total population in place - as population increases, so does the planet/i-level production

5. Now that we have a basic understanding on what i-levels are, back to our tech discussion.

Starting empire should have a few basic i-levels, or perhaps only one - for its HW. It would need to reasarch some colony doctrines/theories to even develop an early colony one, then more to be able to make the colony growth. Some pararell tech lines should explore 'specialized' colonies, allowing player to create agricutlure planets, military planets, etc. Other, later, would deal with 'developed sci-fi ones' - imagine 'ocean colonization', 'subterrean expansion', 'orbital habitats', 'continent-domes', etc. And of course other techs could make existing i-levels cheaper or better or sth.

The advantage of i-level idea is - IMHO - that it puts an important part of what we defined as construction under one common frame. I hope you like it :)
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#9 Post by PowerCrazy »

The effects of construction have alredy been losely defined. There are still a few things to be decided (like whether or not a planet gets an innate defensive advantage for being developed). But for the most part look here for your construction concernes.

http://www.freeorion.org/wiki/index.php ... astructure

Now we need some tech ideas, names and effects, as well as an approximate timescale for when the tech becomes availible.
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

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utilae
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#10 Post by utilae »

System Wide Joint Construction Program (Application)
+5 Max Construction Meter for all planets in system
+2 Current Construction Meter for all planets in system
+2 Max Trade Meter for all planets in system
"Involving organisations from all over the system to work together in planetary and system wide construction projects increases construction efficiency as well as encouraging trade between different planets in the system."
Last edited by utilae on Sun Dec 12, 2004 8:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

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skdiw
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#11 Post by skdiw »

Application: Alternate-dimensional Construction
Description: This technology allows you to construction infrastrature in another dimension, while channeling the benefits to this dimension.
Effect: No MaxCap! However, your growth rate for constructions of new infractures beyond lvl 90 is slow by 10X.

Application: Z-warp Device
Description: This device warps existing infrustructure from other empire into your own.
Effect: Every turn, there is 20% chance per enemy empire that 10 lvls worth of infrasture from another empire will be added to your planet selected at random.
:mrgreen:

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utilae
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#12 Post by utilae »

Nano Construction (Application)
+25% Current Construction Meter for empire
-10% Mining Stockpile (minerals required for buildings and to run nanites)
Prerequisites:AI Theory
"Using billions of microscopic AI robots (nanites) the most complex and difficult construction projects can be accomplished with ease."
Last edited by utilae on Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Zanzibar
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#13 Post by Zanzibar »

Nanorobotics (Theory)
+2% Current Construction Meter for Empire
-3% Mining Stockpile
"Billions of the smallest machines building stuff for you!"

Alternate Dimensional Physics (Theory)
Increases Max Cap by 10%
Growth beyond level 65 is slowed by 5%
"Well, we think alternate realities exist..."
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utilae
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#14 Post by utilae »

EDIT: Put AI THEORY IN LEARNING
Last edited by utilae on Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Zanzibar
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#15 Post by Zanzibar »

Shouldn't AI Theory be just that, a theory?? Anyhow...

Intelligent Robotic Workers (Application)
Requires: AI Theory
+2 Construction/Population point
+20% Max Population Cap (I know, sorta growth related... meh)
-10% Planetary Morale (More unemployment)
+5% chance per turn of "AI Revolt" event
"Why pay people to work, when machines can do it more efficiently?"
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