Infrastructure requirements for ships

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

Moderators: Oberlus, Committer

Post Reply
Message
Author
yandonman
Creative Contributor
Posts: 699
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:32 am

Infrastructure requirements for ships

#1 Post by yandonman »

I believe this would be fairly easy to implement script wise. What objections are there to doing this?

Infrastructure change suggestion, mainly aimed at steamrolling - where a player invades a planet, then uses that planet to immediately start producing ships (mainly troop ships) and immediately getting all of the industry/research benefits from that planet.
  • Remove infrastructure cost from buildings
  • Make ships (and/or ship parts) require infrastructure: (much like time-to-build, this requirement would not be additive, only the max infrastructure prerequisite would be used)
    • Troop ships: 10 infrastructure
    • weapons 10-20 infrastructure
    • shields 15-25 infrastructure ,
    • large hulls 20-30 infrastructure
Code released under GPL 2.0. Content released under GPL 2.0 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'm more inclined to have particular buildings be required to produce things than to introduce a number-based threshold system, which is rather abstract and not obvious to player like an icon representing a building would be.

I'm also not clear how your suggestion would actually accomplish the stated goal... is there a missing point about captured planets having zeroed infrastructure?

There is also a forthcoming happiness / allegiance mechanic, which could have effects such as preventing a planet from producing ships / buildings when happiness is below some threshold, or modifying the PP cost of things depending on happiness. Depending on allegiance and the method used to capture a planet (troop invasion generally worse than some form of persuasion using influence, or telepathy), the population could be quite unhappy or reasonably happy after the capture, which would affect the ability of the empire to make use of the new conquest, at least immediately.

User avatar
em3
Vacuum Dragon
Posts: 630
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#3 Post by em3 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I'm more inclined to have particular buildings be required to produce things than to introduce a number-based threshold system, which is rather abstract and not obvious to player like an icon representing a building would be.
(snip)
Geoff the Medio wrote: There is also a forthcoming happiness / allegiance mechanic, which could have effects such as preventing a planet from producing ships / buildings when happiness is below some threshold, or modifying the PP cost of things depending on happiness.
Please don't hit me. ;)
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

yandonman
Creative Contributor
Posts: 699
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:32 am

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#4 Post by yandonman »

Geoff the Medio wrote:is there a missing point about captured planets having zeroed infrastructure?
Current invasion sequence:
* Move ships over planet, they take out weapons, shield and infrastructure
* Move troop ships in, invade
* Planet is yours

Now, current game content would allow players to build troop ships and all other ship (based on buildings at invaded planet) on the next turn.


The proposed modifications would add an infrastructure prerequisite (not a cost), one would not be able to build ships on the next turn. They'd have to wait a few turns for the planet's infrastructure to recover.



I am looking forward to the happiness mechanic.
Code released under GPL 2.0. Content released under GPL 2.0 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

em3 wrote:Please don't hit me. ;)
There is some difference between a threshold for being able to produce anything, or having a single cost dependence factor for all producible things, which is always in effect and always relevant to player decisions (the happiness option), and a system that uses a similar mechanic just to implement the specific feature of a time delay for being able to produce things after an invasion. If it was just desired to have such a delay, there could be a "recently invaded / production disrupted" special, without need for a meter to track "infrastructure" and numerical thresholds for the effects wearing off, particularly as there's not much a player can do to change or influence the infrastructure recovery. With happiness, various other gameplay decisions influence the happiness levels, and likely there would be a way to spend influence to change the local happiness.
yandonman wrote:* Move ships over planet, they take out weapons, shield and infrastructure
Right, forgot about that.
Now, current game content would allow players to build troop ships and all other ship (based on buildings at invaded planet) on the next turn.
The ships themselves do take some time to produce... Perhaps 2 turns minimum production isn't long enough for basic troop ships (or most other ships?)
The proposed modifications would add an infrastructure prerequisite (not a cost), one would not be able to build ships on the next turn. They'd have to wait a few turns for the planet's infrastructure to recover.
Right... I'm not just seeing why this would need to be done with an infrastructure meter instead of an explicit special indicating that the planet had been recently invaded so can't yet produce anything.

yandonman
Creative Contributor
Posts: 699
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:32 am

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#6 Post by yandonman »

The ships themselves do take some time to produce... Perhaps 2 turns minimum production isn't long enough for basic troop ships (or most other ships?)
For a non-recently-bombarded shipyard, the build times are ok (well, subject to ongoing balance discussions). I wouldn't be in favor of a global increase in build times.


em3 has a point. Whether it's a happiness meter or an infrastructure meter... it's still a meter. The point on having an explicit special (of the same kind as Pale of Death, I presume)... I'm lukewarm on that idea. It's worth putting in and seeing what play testing says about it. It being more obvious is certainly a point in its favor.
Code released under GPL 2.0. Content released under GPL 2.0 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#7 Post by MatGB »

yandonman wrote: I am looking forward to the happiness mechanic.
As am I, and as it's in progress, and it theoretically addresses the same problem, I'm not sure we'd need this as well, perhaps wait until it's implemented and see?

One thing I would strongly propose though: make troop pods require at least two turns to build, possibly three. Then you can't just invade a system, take one world (either with colony or troop) then use base hulls to take the rest of the system almost immediately.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

User avatar
Num7
Space Squid
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:48 am

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#8 Post by Num7 »

Happiness will be a groundbreaking new feature. Are you guys currently working on it? :)
If this post contains code, it's released under GPL 2.0 or later.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#9 Post by Vezzra »

MarcThibeault wrote:Happiness will be a groundbreaking new feature. Are you guys currently working on it? :)
Judging by some commit messages, Geoff has already begun implementing it.

shawndream
Space Kraken
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2013 8:47 pm

Re: Infrastructure requirements for ships

#10 Post by shawndream »

In the latest SVN copy it seemed that my expansion's population change seemed based on their happiness (which was increasing as time passed since the last time those jerks up north bombed them).
Everything I post is self-created unless noted otherwise. It is simultaneously released under GPL 2.0 or later, CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, and GNU Free Documentation 1.2. Make something awesome with it please!

Post Reply