Recalibrating Population & Production

Creation, discussion, and balancing of game content such as techs, buildings, ship parts.

Moderators: Oberlus, Committer

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#76 Post by eleazar »

Zireael wrote:A return to secondary foci? Love the idea!!!
The secondary focus had a lot of baggage, which was why we dropped it. I wasn't much involved in that discussion, but i think moving to one focus was the right choice.

You can read the discussion that lead to dropping the 2nd focus here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3565

User avatar
em3
Vacuum Dragon
Posts: 630
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#77 Post by em3 »

I understand and accept the reasoning that secondary foci would add incentive for micromanagement.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] 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

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#78 Post by eleazar »

OK, i'm working on new, sane population numbers.

I think i'm going back to "max population = 100", since there is no longer food production.

Tentatively that will be approximately equally divided between:
  • base population,
    growth
    species
    tech
    specials

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#79 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:
  • base population,
    growth
    species
    tech
    specials
I'd have thought base population and species were the same thing, and that species ability, techs, and specials would be the types of growth available... So I don't quite follow how that breakdown will work. But, I don't really need to at this point.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#80 Post by eleazar »

I wanted to get to this sooner, but things are stacking up. I'll be back from vacation the first week in July.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#81 Post by eleazar »

OK, moving back to a 100 pt population scale...

Here's what i'm thinking. Instead of having rules about when a pop bonus can work or not depending on tech and quality, you just stack them all together. Bad environments have a negative population malus to overcome, but it doesn't matter what bonus you use-- as long as it is big enough you can live there. (There may be some exceptions).

Population bonuses (such as being the homeworld, or a growth special resource) will generally each add +5 for a huge planet and +1 for a tiny. No more 1/2 population point bonuses.

The "Good Population" pick is the exception, it is calculated last, so it is a percentage boost 125%.
Attachments
population.png
population.png (54.64 KiB) Viewed 751 times

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#82 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Maybe start adequate at 1/2/3/4/5 instead of 0/0/0/0/0 so there's a bit of variety at the start of the game? The name would also make a bit more sense; the planet is adequate to support population, though it's not very good...

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#83 Post by eleazar »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Maybe start adequate at 1/2/3/4/5 instead of 0/0/0/0/0 so there's a bit of variety at the start of the game? The name would also make a bit more sense; the planet is adequate to support population, though it's not very good...
I had it like that at first, but then i thought it would be more interesting if it was right on the edge-- a single tech, growth special, or homeworld-growth-focus would make it live-able.

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#84 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:Maybe start adequate at 1/2/3/4/5 instead of 0/0/0/0/0 so there's a bit of variety at the start of the game? The name would also make a bit more sense; the planet is adequate to support population, though it's not very good...
I had it like that at first, but then i thought it would be more interesting if it was right on the edge-- a single tech, growth special, or homeworld-growth-focus would make it live-able.
I like that as well - they are usable, but they would also typically need a growth bonus to survive, which would make them vulnerable to a blockade.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#85 Post by eleazar »

What do you all think of changing the pedia entries to something like this:

"... adds +1 population capacity per planet's size level.."

instead of the current,

"Increases the population capacity of Poor planets to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for Tiny, Small, Medium, Large and Huge planets, respectively."

User avatar
em3
Vacuum Dragon
Posts: 630
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#86 Post by em3 »

As long as there will be a glossary in 'pedia that explains planet size level. :wink:
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] 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

User avatar
Bigjoe5
Designer and Programmer
Posts: 2058
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:33 pm
Location: Orion

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#87 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:What do you all think of changing the pedia entries to something like this:

"... adds +1 population capacity per planet's size level.."

instead of the current,

"Increases the population capacity of Poor planets to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for Tiny, Small, Medium, Large and Huge planets, respectively."
Seems reasonable, since that's what the effect is actually doing. Of course the player needs to know that Tiny is size 1, etc.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#88 Post by eleazar »

em3 wrote:As long as there will be a glossary in 'pedia that explains planet size level. :wink:
Yeah, i think it would be useful if the 'pedia could support arbitrary articles and catagories.

I'd add a "Game Concepts" to help explain how different bits of the game work.

EDIT: In the meantime a macro could explain "planet size level" or whatever we call in in a uniform way.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#89 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:Yeah, i think it would be useful if the 'pedia could support arbitrary articles and catagories.
Categories no, but you can show arbitrary stringtable entries in the pedia by making a link to it using the internal link format.

A normal bit of content reference looks like [[tech TECH_NAME]] which will make a clickable link out of the stringtable replacement for TECH_NAME to an article about that tech. Internally, this works by being replaced by some text like <tech TECH_NAME>Human-Readable Tech Name</tech>. This is interpreted by the encyclopedia as a link, and Human-Readable Tech Name gets underlined with a link to the article on the tech TECH_NAME.

Something similar exists for arbitrary text, though not with the understanding of what the text means. You can add some text like <encyclopedia SP_GYISACHE_DESC>[[SP_GYISACHE]]</encyclopedia> which will be replaced by Gyisache underlined as a link. Clicking the link will go to a page that is the text in the stringtable entry SP_GYISACHE_DESC, but with no title or other information.

To make proper encyclopedia entries fully customizable, there'd probably need to be a separate file listing the articles, with separate title and main text fields, and probably something about how to index or categorize them.
eleazar wrote:What do you all think of changing the pedia entries to something like this:

"... adds +1 population capacity per planet's size level.."

instead of the current,

"Increases the population capacity of Poor planets to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for Tiny, Small, Medium, Large and Huge planets, respectively."
I think it's better as it is. Introducing extra concepts that require a linked page to explain is needlessly complex when a single line of text explains it on its own.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#90 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Geoff the Medio wrote:To make proper encyclopedia entries fully customizable, there'd probably need to be a separate file listing the articles, with separate title and main text fields, and probably something about how to index or categorize them.
This is now implemented in SVN.

Post Reply