FreeOrion

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the main purpose of the construction meter originally to determine the rate current meters grow to their respective target meter values (and determining the resource supply range some kind of secondary function)? This would also explain why it was called "construction" in the first place - because it reflected the capability of the colony to construct/reconstruct the various "infrastructures" represented by the different meters (mining, industry, farming, research etc.).

Obviously this was never implemented, I always thought this would happen at some point in time. I still like the idea, the "construction" (or "infrastructure") meter would indicate how well developed a colony is. And the rate at that a colony can build up or change the various "infrastructures" as well as the range at that it can exchange goods with other colonies depend on that.

At least that's the impression I got of the idea behind that meter when I skimmed through various old threads... has this concept been dismissed?

It was implemented and that's hot things used to work, but it wasn't very interesting or easy to understand, particularly when the construction meter itself had a current and max (or target) value, and +1/turn is a lot simpler.

The broader concept behind it, that i liked, is that the construction meter represented all the mundane buildings you construct on nearly every planet in other 4X games. But instead of you doing that micro, the infrastructure bar automatically fills up over time.

But we haven't yet managed to bring that concept to life.

One possibility is that the meter regulates that max production a planet can produce. So a blasted planet would have to rebuild it's infrastructure before it's population (assuming it survived) could again crank out high levels of stuff.

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That scenario seems adequately modelled by having a target (effectively max) industry (or other resource) meter, and making "blasted" planets have their current industry meter reduced to 0, with it taking a while for the current to grow back towards the target.

I gave this some thought and i think i came up with an idea to breathe some life into the infrastructure meter.

I kept in mind:
1. It should be transparent and simple to understand for the player (no complicated formulars, no hidden thresholds).
2. Easy to implement for the developers.

Current situation:
Effect of Infrastructure: The range of resource supply is Infrastructure diveded by 20 rounded down. This will stay this way.

What modifies Infrastructure (Target value):
- Orbital Construction: + 20
- Controlled Gravity Architecture: + 20
- Galactic Infrastructure: +20
- Imperial Palace +20
- Megalith +30 and +10 to all other planets [Both effects are useless at the moment, should be removed]

My idea:
The names of the technologies that boost infrastructure gave me an idea of what the numbers could mean:
0-20 The infrastructure of the planet itself.
20-40 The infrastructure of the orbit of the planet (unlocked by Orbital Construction).
40-60 The integration of the planet into the infrastructure of the solar system (the tech unlocking this should be changed to be in line with the other two).
60-80 The integration of the planet into the infrastructure of the empire (unlocked by Galactic Infrastructure).

Code changes: None!
(maybe remove the hardcoded resource supply range calculation in favor of a normal meter)

Content changes:
Some techs and buildings that give boni to all planets can restrict them to have a minimum infrastructure value:
- Example1: Artificial Minds and Sentient Automation will give the research bonus only to planets with infrastructure level 20 or more.
- Example2: Orbital Farming will give the bonus only to planets with infrastructure level 40 or more.
- Infrastructure level 60 should only rarely be required (maybe for stuff related to stars - Stellar Tomography?), same with 80.
- In general this could be used whenever it makes sense. Especially boni changed from population based to fixed values can be balanced by this.
The description of the infrastructure unlocking techs will read something like "Allows all planets to reach infrastructure 40. Planets with infrastructure 40 have a resource supply range of 2."

Gameplay effects:
- New colonies and bombed out planets will need more turns until some boni are granted. Especially Orbital Farming made it possible to colonize a planet outside ressource supply range and immidiately start with a non-farming focus. Ressource supply in general will become a little more important.
- The Abandoned Colony speciel will be a little less useless.

Do you think this is a good idea? If so i would put together a complete list with possible changes to tech and building boni (and a patch later if everyone agrees).

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Interesting idea. There's meant to be a dichotomy between players who focus heavily on the Construction category and players who focus heavily on Biology in that players who research biology will have an easier time colonizing new planets, whereas players who research construction gain bonuses that apply mainly to Good environment planets. In other words, it's something of an expansion vs. development trade-off.

However, I'm hesitant to introduce too many of such bonuses as you've described them, since not all players will research to the point where they can have such a high level of infrastructure, and thus several techs would end up being useless. So how about this: rather than having a fixed point at which the bonus takes effect, the bonus can be proportional to current infrastructure. This allows even empires with little infrastructure tech to be able to use these techs, while empires who focus heavily on construction will get a larger bonus.

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Most boni will only require infrastructure level 20, which doesn't need any tech at all. Only techs that have Orbital Construction as prequesite will give Boni that require level 40 (Orbital Farming requires Orbital Construction already). I only want to use a requirement of more than 20, when the flavor is self-explanatory (and the tech prequesite will also be obvious). In the end, the player will never end up with a useless tech or building.


This would require some formulas which are hard to predict for the player. I'm not really against them, but i've learned that Geoff and eleazar really mean to keep things simple.


Since infrastructure growth is the same for everyone and Construction techs are not really needed (see above), the biological expansionists shouldn't have any disadvantages with these changes.

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10 points for correctly anticipating my opinion!

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It might be acceptable to have a infrastructure-scaled bonus if that bonus didn't also depend on population.

If there was a set of content that scaled bonus with infrastructure instead of with population, that's not really much more complicated.

If instead there was a set of content that had a population-scaled bonus that was itself scaled by infrastructure, that gets complicated and hard to understand.

That works for me, at least in theory-- i'm not sure what bonuses would make more sense that way.

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Probably lots of things would make as much or more sense if they don't depend on population, regardless of whether they do depend on some measure of infrastructure... anything but social / money / influence resource could probably work that way.

Presumably most automated technologies would depend more on infrastructure than population. It was suggested in this thread that some "orbital" techs depend on infrastructure more so than population.

Any slavery-based resource output would probably be population-based. Any psionics / mind power bonuses would probably be population-based.

I suppose there could be some species that never increase their population meter, but develop exclusively by increasing infrastructure.

Since no one seems to be against the idea of using infrastructure to control the boni of some techs and buildings, i will post my vision of the first step in this direction:

1. Add a new tech: Solar System Infrastructure

2. The techs Orbital Construction, Solar System Infrastructure and Galactic Infrastructure will have the wording:
"Allows all planets to reach infrastructure XX. Planets with infrastructure XX have a resource supply range of X."

3. Change Controlled Gravity Architecture to do something else than give an infrastructure boost to all planets (suggestions welcome).

4. The boni or effects of the following techs will need infrastructure 20 to take effect:
Artificial Minds (Research+5)
Sentient Automatation (Industry+5)
Active Radar, Neutron Scanner, Sensors (Detection+40,+60,+80)

5. The boni or effects of the following techs will need infrastructure 40 to take effect:
Orbital Farming (Farming+2)

6. The boni or effects of the following techs will need infrastructure 60 to take effect:
System Defense Mines (will get the prequesite Solar System Infrastructure)

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I like the idea of certain boni to be dependent on infrastructure, but some of the listed items don't really depend on infrastructure from my point of view. For detection advancements, having infrastructure doesn't really relate with the ability to see/detect where certain objects are. Using real life as an example, astronomers can "see" or "detect" galaxies, stars, and planets many light-years away, but yet we're still stuck in our own solar system (we have no intergalactic infrastructure).

Since infrastructure in FO mainly represents connections between systems, orbital farming and sytem defense mines should not require infrastructure to function since they are in-system technologies (each system can build their own orbital farms and defense mines instead of having the capital supply all of that to each colony).

For artificial minds, information can be transported through digital means, like how NASA communicates with their probes.

Production is an action, and not a physical resource that needs to be transported. Each system has its own industry, which through infrastructural connections (represented by the current infrastructure in FO), each seperate industry can work together. Essentially, the current industry implemented in FO already depends on infrastructure to function (i.e.: If resource lanes get cut off, a system with 0 industry can't build anything since other friendly industries can't transport their parts to that system.).

In my vision of the FO world so far, the only thing that would require infrastructure would be physical resources (food, minerals, etc.), and this has been implemented already.

I don't think that meaning specifically has been chosen. The Construction tech category has lots of techs that are not about interstellar connectivity. That the construction meter presently only serves to determine resource sharing distance is not an intentional choice, but rather a result of removing some previous functions of that meter, and lack of an effort to assign it other purposes. If it is select to function as an alternative to population growth as suggest, it would gain significant meaning in relation to the development status of a planet. Reasonable explanations of how this allows planets to do things other than generate more resources can be written.

I revealed my concept of infrastructure just a few posts above:

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