Environmental Containment Field

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SkyCore
Space Floater
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:37 pm

Environmental Containment Field

#1 Post by SkyCore »

Through the use of a low power shield, a large area can be protected from hostile environments. Building an 'environmental containment field' at any outpost sets the maximum population to 1 (unless it is already higher) allowing any race to inhabit the planet. Terraformering operations often begin operations by constructing these fields, establishing a base of operations for further terraforming construction.

I suggest this skill be placed as a requirement for the early terraforming line of research, costing very little research (20). Such a tech is needed to give enemy AI a way to colonize nearby hostile planets. But would also be useful in the hands of a player.

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MatGB
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Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Environmental Containment Field

#2 Post by MatGB »

This is very close to what I have in mind for redoing the environmental techs at some point: I was planning to reuse the old Environmental Encapsulation tech name for it, but yes, making outposts "habitable" to allow for minimal population and terraforming makes a lot of sense.

Still need to work out where/how to redo all the adaptation/environmental preferences techs, it needs doing but it's a fairly big job, this could stand alone and be put in beforehand though.
Mat Bowles

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

Nexus
Space Floater
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:29 pm

Re: Environmental Containment Field

#3 Post by Nexus »

I'd be worried about this unbalancing the game a bit. Perhaps if shielded outpost colonies miss out on research and industry tech bonuses like nascent AI and industrial centers until they are properly colonized.

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em3
Vacuum Dragon
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Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Environmental Containment Field

#4 Post by em3 »

The only problem I see is that ouposts (I think) don't have species, whereas population of 1 would have to be of a species.
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[...] 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

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MatGB
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Re: Environmental Containment Field

#5 Post by MatGB »

My plan would be, if we did this or similar, that building the field (or simply unlocking the tech and getting the ability everywhere) would then allow you to colonise Hostile (or Poor, whatever) worlds with a population of 1, then terraform them up to actually habitable.

One of the things I'd like to do in some way is make terraforming vs species adaptation an actual choice within the research tree, you choose to either adapt your species to the galaxy, or adapt the galaxy for your species, but it's very much a longer term plan, there are far bigger priorities.

But doing that requires some way of being able to terraform a hostile planet without having a species able to colonise it, this is one of the better solutions: some form of remote terraforming or a terraform building per environment type that can be built on outposts are other proposals.

Something must be done, this is closest to my preferred something but I'm not sure this is the thing that should be done: however, introducing a mechanism that lets you terraform without the higher end adaptability techs is something that can be done before/independently of the full balance pass on those techs so discussing which way to jump for this specific problem is a good thing.
Mat Bowles

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

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