FreeOrion

I have been tasked to create some basic buildings.
First, I think the number of buildings on a planet should be limited. Probably by size of planet and some other factors.

I reduced these down to the two most promising.

Galactic Medical Center:
people get sick and get hurt. This is not your average hospital, it is a System Level Medical center where the best doctors practice and treat. Like a super CDC, John Hopkins Research Center and an Ivy League Medical School all rolled into one.
build: 5 turns
upkeep: 1 trade
effect: planets produces +10 Health, Chance to save vs bio or plague events for entire system.

Nanotech Medicine, Symbiotic Biology, Basic Autolabs



"SpacePort", "Planetary Shipping Depot":
When an Empire has a spaceport, it is integrated with its own system, and the network of systems. This improves Trade, and allows the Empire to operate as if all of the planets were combined as one. This allows a good terran world to support a weak tundra or desert world. It allows goods to be moved much further.. A spaceport is also the supply and cargo ships that populate the system. A spaceport connect a planet to the system wide freeway around that star. They dont do much good on their own, but when you have several worlds, they can greatly improve trade.

Fleet Logistics, Galactic Monetary Policy, Sentient Automation

build: 4 turns
upkeep: ? trade, -0.5 security -- this should cost some overall value in Trade, and Lower security slightly,
effect: Increase range of Supply lines drastically.

This still needs some refining, and feedback is encouraged.

Are you familiar with FreeOrion`s already made game design decisions?

http://freeorion.org/index.php/Requirements

And how the current version of the game works in practise?

http://freeorion.org/index.php/V0.4_Quick_Play_Guide

I would recommend going through those two pages and checking out our current buildings that are already in the game, before you start thinking about new ones.

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What is your favourite alien species and WHY?
Preliminary thoughts about diplomacy
Some unfinished ideas for specials

I think you need a research lab in there too, but that's probably just me.

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Photo-dump.

Musings

By whom?

Geoff the Medio

This is not how buildings in FreeOrion work. There will be few or no buildings that are commonly build in multiple copies per planet, and most buildings that just boost a meter should have effects that (potentially) act on many planets and that aren't stackable.


Don't worry about upkeep at this stage.

Also, I suggested it might be helpful if you created some new technologies and buildings in areas that the tech tree lacks them. A lot of your suggestions just duplicate existing buildings or techs, however.

I suggest reviewing existing threads discussing buildings and how they should be designed. For example: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2309

are there any you like ?

which ones do you want me to drop completely ?


edit:
I had edited text in here, but you responded so I moved it to the post folllowing

Drop anything that's just +X to a single planet. Maybe they can be modified act across multiple systems, in which case they might be useful if there's not already something equivalent.

If a building just gives +X to any planet, it's not very interesting. Make appropriate conditions limiting where the building acts.

Drop all +Y% modifiers. Only +X absolute allowed.

Maybe something could be done with the Space Port idea, but it needs to have a gameplay role outlined fairly clearly. We already have exchange between systems that are resource-connected. How does a building that allowes sharing within just a system fit into that?

Drop anything that modifies a meter that doesn't exist. eg. "security" ?

Explain the strategic role the building would play. Just giving players something to build doesn't qualify. For example, a building might only be viable if a player is using a heavy-industry strategy and would reinforce that strategy by providing (directly or indirectly) more production output, but would be too expensive for an empire focusing on research but low production to advance. Or, a building might be particularly useful for supporting a particular type of ship that a player might focus on. Buildings also don't need to work in isolation. They can interact with other buildings or specials, or planet properties (as part of or in addition to the conditions that determine where buildings' effects function). One building can unlock the production of another at a particular location or in the empire or in the galaxy, or be required for a building to function. These interdependent buildings can be acquired or unlocked in similar or quite different ways.

Remember that not everything needs to be a building. Application techs can also have effects or unlock things. There should be some reason why it's one or the other. Strategically interesting reasons would likely depend on the fact that buildings have a location that can be incorporated into their effects in various ways, can be destroyed, can be built and (in future) unbuilt, and cost PP and not RP.

I need feedback on buildings
I was going a different direction than I think you wanted
I had started with a bunch of stackable building, that are used to convert cost to balancing flaws in a planet, or amplifying its strengths, min/maxing.
you guys want more empire level stuffs
to mee, thats like having just the super buildings, and none of the regular ones, but that is ok too, it abstracts the concepts a bit
I have some buildings that might work ok, the hospital and such only need slight adjustments
I had thought you wanted buildings to progress like ships, small basic ones, then more advanced, then super specials
you just want the specials
is that a fair assesment ?
also: when will we get asteroid mines actually in asteroid belts ? or asteroid colonies ?


my reasons for the basic buildings initially were situations such as Rigel II. I think it was Rigel II, anyway, R II was a bad planet. It had an eccentric orbit. However it was near my homeworld, about 3 clicks away, and had an asteroid belt. Since I had an asteroid belt in my home system, I focus asteroid mine early to get a nice bonus. So I colonize R II. Well, R II cannot do anything but primary focus food. Cant build asteroid mines, can't build anything. Cant stabilize the planet. If I could build a couple of Hydroponic farms, I could spend a bit of trade each turn, to get them the food they need. Then I can set primary to research, and really get the most out of it. Or set its mining and production up enough to build that asteroid mine so the system is balanced.

You guys want to stay away from that kind of management, thats ok. I just need to look at how to make a lot of your theory practical in the tech tree. Some of those I think can be modified a bit to work the way you want them to.

That's the plan. Focus and meters represent all planet development. Buildings and like wonders, and have far-reaching / significant effects, including modifying meters. You don't need to build more than a few buildings to get their effects on many planets.


Maybe never. Mines don't need to be built on the asteroid belt itself if they can be built elsewhere in the system and give the same benefit.


Add appropriate techs or buildings to such stabilization over a wide area. There's no reason such adaptations need to be done for each planet individually.

Also, make sure the planets are connected for resource sharing, so the eccentric orbit planet doesn't need to feed itself, and can focus on mining to take advantage of the asteroid belt bonus. Planets are supposed to specialize.

May I make a suggestion?

If you're going to make a defense installation, keep in mind all planets already have a defense installation meter, so your defense installation really has to be a defense network or some kind of super powered weapon. It could be...

Dyson Minefield: Causes damage to enemy ships that want to enter the system.
Hyperspace Artillery Station: Targets neighboring systems with powerful attacks.
Starlane Inhibitor: Slows down enemy fleets coming towards the system, giving you time to respond.

I've also seen some buildings that rob Peter to pay Paul, so you could theoretically have...

Elite Proving Grounds: Maybe it devotes a world completely to military pursuits, sort of like what happened on Salusa Secundus

And not all buildings give some sort of numerical modifier, some just change the rules...

Shipyards: Outlet for finished ships in the empire.
Stargates: Hop a fleet somewhere else, maybe another stargate.

So yeah, plenty of things you can do.

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Photo-dump.

Musings

I pulled out most ideas, leaving just the two most promising.

They seem ok ?

How is galactic medical center different from The Caducean Institute?

And I'm not clear on how spaceports work but it sounds like it creates an automatic trade network between planets, that happens automatically without building anything.

Josh, I like those ideas with a just the one nitpick: Minefields only need to be at the starlanes so "Dyson" is a waste of materials.

Also artillery could be split into generic bombardment that reduces productivity and moral on all nearby worlds (higher defense meters mitigate this effect), the most effective and diplomatically problematic building that affects enemy planets, so much nastier than an economic sinkhole for example.

The other artillery would be much more advanced and much less powerful, but its very accurate so you can order it to fire in the middle of a tactical battle, like Age of Mythology's God Powers.

Thanks.

And yes, the medical thingie and the supply thingie are on the right track. Actually I think we have a medical thingie.

Now I have a question for midnight: when Geoff tasked you to make new buildings, did he mean new graphics or did he want you to program stuff? I ask because I could help with the graphics part.

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Photo-dump.

Musings

The supply building might be interesting, but as it is now, it doesn't really fit with the game mechanics. There's no way to make resource supply lines get longer, except by increasing planets' construction meters. We could separate them and have a meter just for resource supply, but people are already complaining about there being too many meters... So anyway, if there's a building that increases resource supply range, it would need to do so by increasing the construction meter, which would have a variety of other effects as well, meaning that describing the buiding as just increasing resource supply range is probably misleading.

What I suggested was that a plan be made for some new buildings and what their strategic roles or purpose would be, and that they be scripted. We already have numerous buildings without icons anyway.