Not much stuff to build other than ships?

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Num7
Space Squid
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:48 am

Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#1 Post by Num7 »

That'll sound like a dumb question but stay with me.

When playing FreeOrion, the first thing I notice is that there aren't many buildings to build compared to other games in the 4X genre. Even when compared to MOO2. There's a ton of technologies unlocking bonuses. Take all the food/growth technologies that increase max pop, possible planets to colonize, etc. They unlock passive bonuses, but no buildings. That's an example and the way it works in the game, it's okay.

Now, my point is, since I almost never have buildings to build because of the above point... Am I supposed to produce tons and tons of ships full time because I have nothing else to do with my production points? Is that normal?

Thanks! :)
If this post contains code, it's released under GPL 2.0 or later.

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

Re: Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#2 Post by MatGB »

Yes and yes.

It's design intent that there shouldn't be that many buildings and when there are they should be strategically important or globally relevent. There are plenty of games that are about building up each colony, the appeal of this game to me is it's a lot more about the strategy, manouvering and conquest.

I'm currently playing a fair bit of Civ5 (got it on offer thru Steam awhileback) and while I love aspects of it the whole build every building everywhere thing really is getting to me, and the "you can't complete this wonder unless everywhere has got building X" thing is something I'm still getting my head around the mechanics of.

Spend PP on ships, scouts, outposts, colonies, battleships and troops. And things like stargates, spatial distortion generators, terraforming, paradise worlds and similar.
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
EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#3 Post by EricF »

And if you want a 4x game that is about NOTHING but building ships
you should try 'Sword of the Stars'. It also has 'Hands Down Period'
the best ship to ship combat system of any game in this genre.
Since playing out all the ship to ship battles consumes so much time
in that game it was probably a good decision to remove colony management.
Not that there is anything wrong with colony management games.
I play several of them. SotS is just a nice change of pace now and again.

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#4 Post by Jaumito »

EricF wrote:And if you want a 4x game that is about NOTHING but building ships
you should try 'Sword of the Stars'.
'Stars!' was like that, too. You could still build mines and factories (which actually were more like mineral output and production meters, in FO terms), but that could be fully automated. The only "real" buildings were (1) scanners, (2) stargates, and (3) starbases/drydocks - and that was it.

The combat system was both very simple and very efficient. What really made it shine, though, is that in Stars! the tech trees and resources system were so well balanced you could always design a "better" ship to counter what your enemies would throw at you. The fact there was a hard limit on the number of ship designs you could have at a time, also made ship design a strategic decision of utmost importance in itself. I'd say playing Stars! was like playing rock-paper-scissors on steroids.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5713
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#5 Post by Oberlus »

Jaumito wrote:I'd say playing Stars! was like playing rock-paper-scissors on steroids.
And on asteroids, hahaha.

defaultuser
Juggernaut
Posts: 854
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:15 pm

Re: Not much stuff to build other than ships?

#6 Post by defaultuser »

Other than well-dispersed shipyard/drydocks for repairs, gas giant generators, and scanning facilities, building production tends to be fairly low.

I played some of the game "Star Traders 4X" because they have an iOs version and there isn't one for FreeOrion. Now there's one where it seems like most of the time you're constructing buildings. Constant messages that the population on World X is reached housing capacity so build some more habitats. Or build mines. Or factories. Or spice dens to keep the people tractable. But if you build too much stuff the environment goes to hell.

Post Reply