No - I'm suggesting that players that research in the Biology category would get different techs than players who research in the Construction category, and that these techs would use the same resources to produce significantly different effects.eleazar wrote:If you are suggesting that influence generated on a high infrastructure planet would in some cases function differently from infrastructure generated on a high population planet -- that's not going to work, any more than certain species RP is more effective for shield techs. There's no distinguishing one PP/influencePoint/RP from another once it is produced.
That's because it's all that was immediately relevant to the discussion. I don't see a particular reason to assume the most boring scenario for any aspects of the topic that I didn't explicitly address.eleazar wrote:I'm not saying that. Up till this post that is all you have described it doing. I'm trying to find out in concrete terms how you propose they actually be different.Bigjoe5 wrote:I don`t see why infrastructure and population should *just* influence resource production.
OK, here are some examples:eleazar wrote:Like what? Espionage seems a stretch. You could tie ground troop numbers to population. Not super-compelling, but a possibility.Bigjoe5 wrote:Population could do stuff related to troops or espionage as well,
1. Planets with higher populations could be easier to infiltrate, and anti-espionage projects would be more expensive on such planets.
2. Planets with higher populations could have a higher max troops meter and/or generate more troops when they riot or rebel. In the case of a ground invasion, the opinion of the species on the planet would be more significant than on planets with a lower population.
3. Enslaved planets with high population could be more effective than enslaved planets with high infrastructure, but also more apt to revolt.
4. Breeding particular types of space monsters may require sacrificing a large amount of population.
Yeah, that suggestion was meant to replace the current PP per turn thing, which I've never found terribly compelling.eleazar wrote:I'm strongly against added another layer that limits how many PP you can spend per turn. If Geoff can countenance throwing out the current per part/building PP limit system, then we should discuss replacing it with a per planet limit, probably based on infrastructure.Bigjoe5 wrote:...and infrastructure could do stuff related to PP allocation on a particular planet, for example.
In addition to what I mentioned above, players who research through totally different branches of the tech tree are bound to get unique stuff that's not in the other branch. Infrastructure mirroring population for production boosting is what provides enough redundancy between the two branches that it won't be advantageous to research both. I posted a sample tech tree a while ago that has ample unique content in the Construction and Biology categories.eleazar wrote:Yeah, you keep making such, vague statements. But with the exception of the PP allocation, you don't seem to be able to list any of these different, interesting things. EDIT: and while PP allocation may be a justification for the infrastructure meter, it certainly isn't' a justification for infrastructure mirroring population in production boosting.Bigjoe5 wrote:Players with high population should be able do interesting stuff that players with only high infrastructure can`t do, and vice versa, allowing them to use their resources in very different ways.
If having a single tech increase production based on the greater of population and infrastructure is awkward, we could take a different approach: techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure. This would allow a player to most efficiently increase resource production by focusing either on infrastructure or population, but trying to increase both and increase resource production based on both would be less efficient, and have diminishing returns. This still provides a means of trading off between construction and bio, without the awkward mechanics that are currently in place, and without Infrastructure mirroring Population too directly.