Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 4:52 pm
What I don't see (yet) is the point of the intermediate management level, the sectors.
If sectors are clusters of systems, with all planets of a system always in the same sector, I imagine my sectors being multifunctional (some colonies for production, some for research, etc.) and thus I don't see any management advantage from it.
That is currently true. Sector specialisation should go in hand with strategic value I guess.
labgnome wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2019 11:44 pm
Stellaris has sector automation, but I don't know if we want to introduce that into Free Orion, or even how we would like to do that.
Stellaris actually needs (sector)automation because it has tons of planet management etc. We definitely do not want to go that route.
What could work is setting some minimal goals and the sector figures out how to reach these.
E.g. switching planet focus until goals are met. So if you say you want two-thirds research in that sector, and the max research is too low, the automation looks for research vs industry... traits on all its planets and switches the optimal planet to research focus until max research fits the goal. But if we would do this its probably better to do this first on empire scale.
Anyway i think our effect system is too powerful to do this easily, so I do not see how a sector decision would override planet decisions. Maybe adding a managed-by-sector planetary focus (and remove industry/research focus). But that does not help much reducing micro (switching focus is not happening often, especially if we start with the influence cost).
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 4:52 pm
In fact I presume more micromagament if this is implemented.
That could happen, but only if used in the wrong way. once-per-sector instead of once-per-supply-group is probably wrong. once-per-sector instead of once-per-planet or once-per-system is probably good. Question is more if we need that granularity. I wanted that granularity against the stockpile focus dance (i.e. switching all of you planets to stockpile in order to get maximum stockpile growth - and switching back as soon as you got there). i think focus switch cost will fix the stockpile focus dance anyway.
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 4:52 pm
Also, that control concept based on supply... if that control is about influence (power to control), shouldn't it be based on planetary influence meters? I mean, the most influential planet is the one that controls the sector.
Some reasons I was thinking to use supply
- I imagined control to mostly work like supply networks (decreasing from a center, pushing against other supply, building a network) so if you need only to learn one value in order to know both supply values and control values.
- Gives reason to small planets even if your supply tech makes supply value for the supply network irrelevant (note the space elevator might not fit in this)
- There is a fitting fluff explanation / established notion (supply == commercial power)
- It increases with your tech, so your sectors will have higher reach and contain more systems/planets later on --> decreases the number of sectors necessary --> decreases management
I certainly would not want to base control on influence because those interact anyway in multiple ways (paying for control planets, the region matters for influence generation, rebellions can be influenced by influence..) and we probably would start mixing layers in a bad way.
Originally I intended to use supply for two mechanism: reach (number of connected hops) and power (relative power changing loyality, deciding overlapping reaches)
The problem with supply as reach is that it is not so easy to control. Currently you can choose a planet/species, research supply tech, set the supply focus, and build an elevator. If supply increases it increases control in all directions. So having a fixed number of hops as reach is much more stable/predictable.
Supply as power deciding overlapping reaches has similar effects - system may switch from one sector to another if relative supply changes (via supply focus and elevator buildings).
Supply for relative power influencing loyalty is pretty much working as i intended.
Regarding the predictability I think of what the stellaris people are doing. They started AFAIK with full control which systems belonged into a sector. So they introduced a shitload of micromanagement making people optimize the sectors. So they changed that to fully automatically create sectors which lead to really badly shaped sectors and unhappy players. So they are increasing control of sector design by going for a fixed hop layout which is much more coarse-grained than the initial version. It's not rolled out yet so there is no experience from their third try but this might be a data point.
I was thinking it is now the time to introduce sectors as I found three problems which those would solve: define a region and provide stability effects there, mid-granularity effects, leaders.
- Rebellion could work on regions without sectors. Sectors are rather a coarse-grained tool to shape those regions and prepare your empire strategically for rebellion.
- Regional stability effects are possible without sectors.
- Regional/Once-per-sector buildings/effects - currently this is not strictly necessary.
- A place for leaders and for defining the region of their effects. Leaders on fleets were proposed and I think that would be horrible. But the discussion on leaders is not so well advanced
Maybe that is not convincing enough and it is still too early to introduce sectors. If sectors give depth to strategic options it may be convincing. If regional effects without sectors are too confusing it may be convincing.
On the other hand implementing sectors may be as easy as implementing regional effects and probably better structured. The main difference between those i guess is that sectors do not overlap, so a system may be part of many regions but only of one sector.
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 6:03 pm
So I think a simple rule for building placement that works for every building is better than introduccing the sectors and the imperial control. A new kind of meter besides influence, that shall interact with stability and opinions... If we can do all this stuff regarding colonies desiring independence without the sectors and the imperial control, using just the stability, I think that would be much simpler.
I do not understand what that could be, please provide an example.
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 6:03 pmSo I would understand making sector capital the colony ... with a given building (that's the best option IMO, same as the palace building to determine the capital of the empire).
Yes, you would choose the sector capital with a building. The supply example is about the reach, so sector capital with higher supply would control more systems/planets.
Also note that in my understanding controlling local supply and influence generation are not much different (focus, species, building). Supply only has planet size extra (which gets killed if the elevator counts).
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.
Look, ma... four combat bouts!