Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

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Krikkitone
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#46 Post by Krikkitone »

utilae wrote: 2) Remove multiple species. Select which species go on your colony ship? Come one, I don't want to deal with that. Let assimilated species become your race. There bonuses are not numerous enough to have an effect. If it was removed, a much simpler game to play.
I VERY MUCH disagree. for a few reasons

1. Mutiracial economic specialization can be Very useful.
2. Different Races like different Environments.

Balancing those two factors with the possible social disadvantages of multiple species is a major fun aspect.

I'd prefer eliminating population to eliminating multi species empires.

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utilae
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#47 Post by utilae »

It sounds like work.

For the player to keep track of the fact that planet A has two races on, 35% Race A. 65% Race B. Race A has +5 Research, +10 Industry, -10 Farming. Race B has +20 Morale, -15 Construction.
It's too complex. It would be better if this were simplified. Already people are talking about choosing which specific race (of the many types on your planet) to put on colony ships.

It makes it worse that each race likes different environments. If you have Race A and Race B on the same planet and one hates the planet, then soon you will have one race. To avoid this you would have to put each race on an ideal planet.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#48 Post by Geoff the Medio »

utilae wrote:For the player to keep track of the fact that planet A has two races on ...
Nobody is suggesting having more than one race per planet. This has been decided against for a long time.
Bigjoe5 wrote:I really don't see a huge problem with the magical generation of a unit of population. It goes without saying that we'll be able to balance this with the cost of the colony ship, especially when you consider the fact that there will be (IIRC) no manual movement of colonists.
Black_Dawn wrote:If a planet has zero population, a colony ship will "magically" create 0.1 population.
thawn wrote:In fact, I kinda like the magically created population because it is simple and easy to understand.

Most other solutions presented here require a quite complicate set of rules which would have to be explained to the user somehow.
Actually for most people who just want to play a game, this makes perfect sense: build a colony ship which colonizes a planet with 1 population unit.
Reasonable arguments, although the exact number of population a colony ship will carry or magically create will depend on the capacity of the particular colony ship's design.

Numbers like 0.1 or 0.2 might be more suitable than the current 1 or 2. Testing and balancing will likely determine this.
Black_Dawn wrote:[ships] can be "decommissioned" or "scrounged" for a quick industry point injection (less than the cost to build a colony ship).
This would, as you say 'make "spare" colony ships useful' but would require having a mechanism to order this and to generate a one-turn industry point injection, which the game doesn't presently have.
utilae wrote:2) Remove multiple species. Select which species go on your colony ship? Come one, I don't want to deal with that.
A reasonable solution to this is to eliminate the choice of race when building a colony ship. Instead, the race of a colony ship will be the race of the planet where it is built. This rule can apply regardless of whether a migration system is added to the game. It also adds strategic choices, in that you'll need to invest to be able to build other colony ships of other races, and the location of shipyards becomes even more impartant and dependent on where you have access to particular races.

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#49 Post by utilae »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Nobody is suggesting having more than one race per planet. This has been decided against for a long time.
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A reasonable solution to this is to eliminate the choice of race when building a colony ship. Instead, the race of a colony ship will be the race of the planet where it is built. This rule can apply regardless of whether a migration system is added to the game. It also adds strategic choices, in that you'll need to invest to be able to build other colony ships of other races, and the location of shipyards becomes even more impartant and dependent on where you have access to particular races.
That makes sense. I guess if there was only one race on the planet then its a no brainer for the colony ship. The only choice would be where you build a colony ship on planet A (fast production) and put a race from planet B (desired race) into it.


In any case, I would say the magic population idea seems like a good model. Moo2 did it without any issues.

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#50 Post by Aquitaine »

(Hi!)

The way I always thought about FO handling massive empires (which is, after all, the point) is that you're unashamedly 'Imperial' -- that is, you're going around conquering and colonizing. A colony, by definition, is an extension of the 'mother' Empire. For the purposes of the game, 'race' really refers to 'species plus culture.' There's not really a modern-day analogy because we haven't seen any real, unaplogetic Empires since most of them collapsed in the early 20th century.

At any rate, a colony ship should probably require a negligible piece of the parent colony. I'd say that there should be a minimum population requirement to create one -- not very high, necessarily, but you don't want to be making colonists from a brand new baby colony -- and that the ship should not actually eat up a population point (or should eat up a small fraction of one such that you wouldn't notice it unless you made a whole bunch).

As far as multiple races per planet are concerned, I vaguely recall that we eventually wanted a model for this, but it would be covered by an immigration/emigration system and not by colony ships. Colonies should always be ze motherland. Anyone else can fly their on their OWN ship.

-Aq
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#51 Post by Krikkitone »

Aquitaine wrote:(Hi!)

The way I always thought about FO handling massive empires (which is, after all, the point) is that you're unashamedly 'Imperial' -- that is, you're going around conquering and colonizing. A colony, by definition, is an extension of the 'mother' Empire. For the purposes of the game, 'race' really refers to 'species plus culture.' There's not really a modern-day analogy because we haven't seen any real, unaplogetic Empires since most of them collapsed in the early 20th century.

At any rate, a colony ship should probably require a negligible piece of the parent colony. I'd say that there should be a minimum population requirement to create one -- not very high, necessarily, but you don't want to be making colonists from a brand new baby colony -- and that the ship should not actually eat up a population point (or should eat up a small fraction of one such that you wouldn't notice it unless you made a whole bunch).

As far as multiple races per planet are concerned, I vaguely recall that we eventually wanted a model for this, but it would be covered by an immigration/emigration system and not by colony ships. Colonies should always be ze motherland. Anyone else can fly their on their OWN ship.

-Aq
Well that depends on how we want population+races to work.

A planet becomes part of your empire in one of 2 ways
1. Colonize
2. Conquer

Now which of those can give a different race from your starting race depends.
option 1.. Pure Race= Xenocide is the only option in conquest (MOO1)
option 2...Natives= Conquered planets may retain their population, but that population can't colonize or be moved to other planets in your empire
option 3...Multiracial colonization=Races can be moved off of the conquered world in colony ships
option 4...Multiracial Imperial population movement=A planet can have its race changed from one race to another even after it has been colonized.
option 5...Multiracial worlds=A planet can have a population of multiple races (MOO2..although it lacked option 3 which made it require micromanagement)

I definitely don't want Option 1,
Option 2 seems unusually limiting.... I want race X on a planet, so I will wait until the Race X empire colonizes it and then conquer it.
Option 3 seems like a good compromise position... some micro is involved (must wait to colonize until I have Race X available... but once I do, I am more flexible with it.)
Option 4 Could work, as long as the system doesn't involve too much management, and enough cost, ie it takes time to change over.. possibly time in which the planet is unproductive.
Option 5 involves too much "fiddling"


As a side note, the reason we don't have any modern concepts of "race" as species plus culture is that we only have one species.

I imagine if the British Empire had discovered easy interstellar travel in 1900, say, and it claimed an Earthlike planet, then they would settle population from India in tropical regions and population from Egypt/Australia in desert regions. Those populations might have no more political power than in their original place, and they might not even be loyal (ie Australia/America were dumping grounds).. there might be some white overlords, but the key thing would be that the Government would be British. And if the British conquered an inhabited Venus/Mars/Jupiter-like Planet, you can bet they would use those people to work their colonies on Venus/Mars/Jupiter.

The way I see it
Colonization= Conquest of 'land' and then fill it in with whatever population you want for that 'land' to actually make it productive.

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#52 Post by Aquitaine »

I think I would distinguish between 'the colony ship,' i.e. the motherland actually putting people together for a colony - where, in your British example, I think it's going to be pretty much just Brits, and having 'colonials' actually in the first colony ship would be an exception and not a rule.

That's why it's the combination of this sort of 'we'll send a colony ship of just our guys' and a decent emigration/immigration model that would produce a 'realistic' result, though as in all things, that it's realistic is irrelevant as to how we should do it. In this case, I think the simplest solution is also the realistic one, which is that you want to take a small chunk of your native population and have that be the only factor for your colony ship -- also meaning you can't build a colony ship on a planet that doesn't have at least a decent number of your native people on it, since otherwise it's not really colonization but ghetto-ization.
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#53 Post by Krikkitone »

Aquitaine wrote:I think I would distinguish between 'the colony ship,' i.e. the motherland actually putting people together for a colony - where, in your British example, I think it's going to be pretty much just Brits, and having 'colonials' actually in the first colony ship would be an exception and not a rule.

That's why it's the combination of this sort of 'we'll send a colony ship of just our guys' and a decent emigration/immigration model that would produce a 'realistic' result, though as in all things, that it's realistic is irrelevant as to how we should do it. In this case, I think the simplest solution is also the realistic one, which is that you want to take a small chunk of your native population and have that be the only factor for your colony ship -- also meaning you can't build a colony ship on a planet that doesn't have at least a decent number of your native people on it, since otherwise it's not really colonization but ghetto-ization.
Well if there is a decent population migration system, then a colony ship doesn't need ANY population... it just carries the materials that allow people to begin migrating. So you land the colony ship with 0 population and Then chose what races you want to migrate there (default could be your original race).

As for ghetto-izattion... sounds like a great idea, if I want a potentially less politically costly alternative to xenocide, say I just send all the race X's to live back on their conquered homeworld, repopulating vital worlds with loyal purebloods.

In any case, the better alternative might be to eliminate population altogether (see brainstorming thread)

Considering the options
1. Auto magic population
2. 0 pop+migration
3. Population deduction

#1 is bad if there IS migration, as it creates possible manipulations, but it is OK if there is no Migration
#2 is good and simplest if you have migration... Unless you are going to have long-distance colonies that aren't connected
#3 is ok, provided you have some type of limit on the production of colony ships

#2,3 almost require Multiracial colonization, as the Source race is decided either by where you build the ship or what you do when it lands.

#1 is less so (and that is probably why MOO2's automagic pop was always the original race.) However, even if we have automagic pop, I would want you to have some ability to choose what race that automagic pop was, either based on a decision when you built the ship (probably by where you built it), or on a decision when you landed it.

If we have a two modes of colonization though:
Colony ships= Original race only, can colonize anywhere in Ship supply range, you build an actual ship that moves, population deducted.

Migration=Planets in Resource supply/Trade range can be populated by any race.. no need for a ship, the planet will naturally get populated with a race of your choice, unless you set it as off limits to colonization... or Switch to a population of a race of your choice

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#54 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Black_Dawn wrote:[ships] can be "decommissioned" or "scrounged" for a quick industry point injection (less than the cost to build a colony ship).
This would, as you say 'make "spare" colony ships useful' but would require having a mechanism to order this and to generate a one-turn industry point injection, which the game doesn't presently have.
Actually, it's a lot more logical for scrapping ships to just give you a fraction of the minerals (and whatever strategic resources went into making the ship) than to get a 1-turn industry point injection. And (I imagine) less of a pain to program.
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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#55 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Bigjoe5 wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:...require having a mechanism to order this and to generate a one-turn industry point injection, which the game doesn't presently have.
Actually, it's a lot more logical for scrapping ships to just give you a fraction of the minerals (and whatever strategic resources went into making the ship) than to get a 1-turn industry point injection. And (I imagine) less of a pain to program.
Giving minerals vs. giving industry doesn't make much difference. There's still no way to generate a one-turn injection of any resource. It would be easier to do for trade or research, since there are no stockpile access or existance issues. Were I to add a direct resource production mechanism (instead of indirect via meter adjustments, which depend on population to actually produce resources), I'd want to do it in a universal way, which would alter how the production of resources is determined for each resource centre (currently just planets, but could be other objects as well), probably by added a step to add direct production to the total after calculating the population and meter-dependent portion. This all occurs before any stockpile issues are relevant, so would avoid issues of how stockpiling works for a particular resource or at a particular location in the Universe.

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#56 Post by mZhura »

there is another solution. just let the player decide how much colonists he want transfer to colony ship when it is built, from 0 to maximum capacity, from a system where it is built. and then while ship travels through other systems it can be uploaded there up to maximum capacity, if not yet. that gives tactical freedom to players who wants or needed it. and to others this method add absolutely nothing of additional management. because when planet be able to construct colony ship it nearly always already have enough population to feel it up.

at least this works fine in GalCiv2

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#57 Post by pd »

mZhura wrote:just let the player decide how much colonists he want transfer to colony ship when it is built, from 0 to maximum capacity, from a system where it is built. and then while ship travels through other systems it can be uploaded there up to maximum capacity
That does sound like a lot of micromanagement. If you are trying to allow micromanagement for people who want it and have it automated for others, you are actually forcing players to always micro to be competitive.

"Magically" creating population, sounds like the reasonable way to go and is definitely the easiest to use. [realism]It can be assumed that an advanced civilization has ways to control population growth. Therefore, if a colony ship is build, the additional need can be taken into account and adjusted for.[/realism]

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#58 Post by mZhura »

pd wrote:
mZhura wrote:just let the player decide how much colonists he want transfer to colony ship when it is built, from 0 to maximum capacity, from a system where it is built. and then while ship travels through other systems it can be uploaded there up to maximum capacity
That does sound like a lot of micromanagement.
in FO all operations with ships/fleets does sounds like micromanagement, especially when discovering new systems and planning battles (i even don't mention battles themselves). so, why do you count making colonies less significant task?

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#59 Post by Geoff the Medio »

mZhura wrote:
pd wrote:
mZhura wrote:just let the player decide how much colonists he want transfer to colony ship when it is built, from 0 to maximum capacity, from a system where it is built. and then while ship travels through other systems it can be uploaded there up to maximum capacity
That does sound like a lot of micromanagement.
in FO all operations with ships/fleets does sounds like micromanagement, especially when discovering new systems and planning battles (i even don't mention battles themselves). so, why do you count making colonies less significant task?
The extra micromanagement would be in the picking how many colonists to add to a ship. If there has to be a pop up menu or some other option / setting to determine how many to put on the ship, it makes the ship building process more complicated. But the real major additional micromangement would come from having to plan the route your ship takes through various other systems, planning ahead to only partly fill at one system so you can get the rest somewhere else, etc. You also have to keep track of which planets your'e taking population from frequently, and which colony ships still need more population, which could get quite complicated if there are more than a few sitting around / moving around trying to get filled up with colonists.

With a fixed population amount, you just build the colony ship and are done, and can send it directly, or as directly as possible, to its destination. Genereally it doesn't matter if there are more than one colony ship in the same location or what order they're built or what order they pass by other systems.

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Re: Quick Issue: Colony Ships Population Source and Consumption

#60 Post by mZhura »

ok, you got my agreement :)

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