FreeOrion

No, there's no way to do that. Part of the idea with "outposts" or zero-population colonies was that they didn't have the same location restrictions as proper (populated) colonies.

I considered making it not allowed to found a colony (including zero-population) on uninhabitable planets (for the colony ship's species), but ended up allowing it. But originating colony ship species has no effect on zero-population colonies, since they don't have a species... So, it seemed odd / fiddly to require a particular species on an colony ship to found a species-less zero-population colony, or what will depopulate into one.

It could be set up so that only zero-capacity colony ships have no species-dependent colonization restrictions. Complicated rules of this sort make things more difficult for players, though...

Also, lore-wise, I figured an "outpost" or zero-population colony is small enough to not require any special fancy tech to create. It could be little more than a ship set down on the surface, or in low orbit. Environmental Encapsulation or similar would be required to support a large self-sufficient colony - enough to have a nonzero colony population in-game...

Hmm, i tried to disable production on an empty planet by putting "PopulationCenter" in the activation, but "PopulationCenter" somewhat misleadingly seems to includes zero population outposts. It would be nice if there were a term for colonies and outposts, and one just for colonies with population.


Yeah but it was "different location restrictions" not "no location restrictions".

Putting a colony on an unsuitable world, and then watching all the population die to make an outpost is possible and may occasionally be strategic, but i don't think it should be considered "normal" gameplay. I would be no loss if it were not possible to place a doomed colony.

"You can put an unmanned outpost in places where you can't put a colony" isn't that complicated. The downside of the current arrangement is that the game gives you the option of colonizing everywhere -- even when at the beginning of the game most of the options are bad. Saving the player's time and attention by only giving the option to found colonies that could survive, probably outweighs that complication.


I'm not worried about plausibility or lore. We can rationalize it either way.
Besides the point above, i'm concerned with the progression of the game. Theres a better sense of growth and progress, if basic things like, where the player can put outposts improves as the game progresses. This might not have anything to do with species, but gas giants could need a more advanced outpost tech. And having the amount of places where you can found colonies increase with tech more clearly illustrates your advancement, than numbers changing


Anyway, those are my thoughts. Leave it alone for now-- i can move on with things as they are. Maybe playing with it i'll come around to your view.

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I can't easily make things so that players can't place colonies on zero-target-population planets (ie. planets where the colony can't survive long term) because the target population depends on the species on the planet and requires a meter update to calculate. The client does this meter update in a sort of kludgy way when a colony ship is selected (all unpopulated planets (possibly only in the shown system for the sidepanel and/or system containing the selected colony ship?) are temporarily given the selected ship's species, then a target population meter update is done, and then the planets' species is reset). Doing this on the server would be complicated, as it would have to happen several times (at least during order processing when ships and planets are marked as going-to-be-colonized/ing, and during actual colonization when the marked planets are modified and ships destroyed) and possibly would have different results depending on what stage turn processing is in...

What I can do is add a test for colony ships with nonzero colonist capacity, and make those not be able to colonize planets with worse than hostile environment (ie. uninhabitable) for the colony ship's species. Getting the environment quality of a planet for a species doesn't require any meter updating.

I'd rather do this now than wait, as I've looked at the relevant code recently and have all the places changes need to be made in mind (hopefully).

That works for me. Otherwise the "uninhabitable" label doesn't mean anything.

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Nice touch.

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Excellent!

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After watching the discussion/development for a while I wonder if we can safely assume already that current pop = 0 determines "outpost" status. I'm asking because I wonder if implementing an "IsOutpost" member function for the planet class and exposing it to the PythonAI could be useful?

I think so. It has been the plan for a long time, and has roots in MoO2.



Currently we have "PopulationCenter" which a little confusingly includes zero pop outposts, though we do need an inclusive type.

"Outpost" (i don't think we normally put an 'Is' in front) would certainly be more succinct than: TargetPopulation low = 0 high = 0

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You're referring to content scripting here, I was talking about the python AI. But you're right of course, providing a "outpost" condition for the content scripts is probably even more important than an "IsOutpost" function for the python AI.

PopulationCenter is a C++ class, which the C++ class Planet is derived from, so all Planet are PopulationCenter, even if they have no population at present (sort of because they *could* have population and would still be a Planet if that happened).

Outposts are presently planets which have zero population and which have an owner. Conditions can easily be written to select such objects... something like
If a single-word condition or python property is needed, an IsOutpost function would probably want to do the same tests.

Revision 5040
I'm not sure i like exactly how it works, but asteroid mining and gas giant generators are now not broken with outposts.

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Planets that have zero population and no owner are just empty planets. Planets with nonzero population and no owner are neutral natives. Planets with nonzero population and an owner are player-empire controlled populated planets. Planets with zero population and an owner are player-empire controlled nonpopulated outposts.

I mean i'm not sure i like the effects i've scripted. I'm not complaining about the scripting language.

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I wasn't explaining the scripting language... I was explaining how the game mechanics work.

I built the relavent buildings for asteroid ships on an asteroid outpost, but I cannot build the ships. When I look at unavailable ships the asteroid ships seem to pass all the required conditions, but do not appear in the available list.
Has anyone managed to build any asteriod hulled ships recently? I am using version 5127 - windows.
Also when I get Silmaline Crystals on an asteroid field, the description talks about getting 25 production when using mining focus and increased growth for Litic species. I cannot use foci on asteroid fields (which I beleive is intentional).
Artificial Minds tech works on outposts, since they have Infrastructure. If techs working on Infrastructure affect outposts they can start to produce quite a lot of resources.
Overall the new system for outposts (zero population) is looking good.