Major research/production/population boni revision proposal

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MatGB
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Re: Major research/production/population boni revision propo

#16 Post by MatGB »

It was suggested awhileback that GGGs be changed so that, once you had three of them linked they'd apply everywhere, and that Solar Generators would be changed to work the same way.

But it's beyond my ability to script and I forget who suggested it.
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Chriss
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Re: Major research/production/population boni revision propo

#17 Post by Chriss »

Or we could tie gas generators into infrastructure. A planet with infrastructure higher than x and with a gas giant in system just gets the gas giant generator benefits. This would reduce the micro, be somewhat believable, and make infrastructure useful.

It could also be the sum of the infrastructure of all colonies in that system - since I think a system with one large planet with 30 pop should be somewhat comparable to a planet with 2 or 3 smaller planets with similar or slightly larger pop. More things could be tied into the system-wide-infrastructure sum, as this would be an index for how "developed" a system is. Defence, Mines, Starlane speed, detection...

One could also tie some hulls to this infrastructure meter, thus make e.g. outpost and troop ships, maybe scouts available without shipyards.

Raids would also have a significant impact if they destroy infrastructure which needs to be rebuilt. You would loose a number of benefits until the infrastructure regenerates. Some techs could increase infrastructure and it's growth instead of production, and yield production boni through more infrastructure and thus access to a gas giant generator or such.
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labgnome
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Re: Major research/production/population boni revision propo

#18 Post by labgnome »

First I want to start off with something I was directed toward this thread about. I had given some late game feedback in another thread here, and I notice this hasn't come up in this thread yet. Pure Energy Metabolism. Honestly in my experience it's the most broken of all the late game boosts. Once I get it everything shoots up so fast afterward, the game might as well be over. Honestly I think if anything is a single fix that could improve things in that direction it would be removing at least the effect of that specific tech. It basically improves everything at once, which in itself is a bit ridiculous as far as game-mechanics go.

On the Infrastructure vs. population thing. I'm thinking I like the idea of building costing infrastructure, but I also like the idea of at least some buildings that give bonuses doing so off of something besides population. I think this is something that could tie into the idea of different lines or branches of the tech tree. So For you building that improve various things, say industry and research, you have a "starting" line that is based off of population, then around mid-game, you can then get access to new buildings, but this would improve based on factors besides population. For structures that convert infrastructure or supply to industry or research, or convert between the two, they would operate by "consuming" that resource directly.

Something else to consider is having most industry and research bonuses tied to a building, so that they don't just automatically get applied across your whole empire at once. Especially with something like an infrastructure cost for buildings, some planets just aren't going to be able to support them. Either that or having a rule like only one industry or research boosting building per planet. That way you just can't create single planets with ridiculously high research or industry bonuses. It also means you have to be strategic, if you say want to grab some of the later, better bonuses.

I also like the idea of what techs you research impact you along the different possible "lines" of technology. So some might instead of being a requirement, just make others cheaper, while others might make them more costly.

I also agree that I think the adapting and planet-altering types of technologies should work against each other, it really would be interesting for them to be opposing strategies, and also possibly help with game-balance issues. I don't know that they have to be exclusive per-say, but it shouldn't be easy to both make your population tolerate hostile planets more and to terraform them to good environments later. So maybe researching Cyborgs makes it cost a lot more to research Terraforming. You can still do both if you really want to, but it's not going to be cheap or easy, and you have a choice. Also if this is implemented Terraforming should probably be moved to much earlier in the technology tree, probably nerfed in some way, and have improvements that can be researched.

I'm also definitely for breaking up the population boosting technologies as much as possible, and species metabolism seems the most logical rout to take. This also opens up the possibility to make them even more distinctive later on. It also adds an extra layer to strategy when doing things like conquering natives. If say you've research a long way down the lithic species population improvement rout, a robotic or organic species isn't going to be as appealing an addition. Though this does bring up the issue of potentially needing to balance species between the metabolism types to some degree, as organic being especially abundant might make its growth boosters OP in a galaxy with natives.

Similarly it's been suggested that if the population boosting techs are broken up by metabolism type that these could be tied to the different hull lines: robotic, organic, asteroid and energy. I think that a good way to do that is to make the metabolism specific growth technologies reduce the cost (either in price or time) of the technologies for the hull lines. So they aren't completely dependent, but researching one makes the other cheaper.

Alternate possible might be to change the way they work so that say you research to make specific types of planets more hospitable, like say an "Ocean Planets Habitation" technology. However I think that might be a bit counter-intuitive to the "wheel of habitability" we currently have in the game, though I think a few people have issues with as it stands, so if we do go this rout it might be an opportunity to re-examine it.
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MatGB
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Re: Major research/production/population boni revision propo

#19 Post by MatGB »

Regarding Pure Energy, not seeing it as a problem overall. The only major boost it gives is research, and that's similar to a Computronium Moon, the bonus for Industry is less than an Industrial Centre and roughly on a par with Average Industry. Is it possible that you normally get Pure Energy at roughly the same point in the game that you get Force/Energy Structures? That's the really crucial tech in terms of expanding production and research. Energy on its own, while giving bonuses everywhere, isn't a large bonus to anything (except fuel, it's the only tech based bonus for ships and that ought to be looked at I think).

Seriously, I'm very up for adjusting any set of numbers within game, but I genuinely don't see the problem you assign to PEM, I looked into it last time you mentioned it and the bonuses just don't make much of a difference, especially to production, in a meaningful way, and by the time you've got it given all the prerequisites are quite long research times, it just doesn't seem off to me.

Re population boosting techs, I'm thinking that the pop boosts for Organic creatures (and possibly phototrophs) can be, like the growth specials, just a pop bonus—research Symbiotic Biology and you get improved population for organics. But the Robotic and Lithic bonuses could be tied to techs that do other things as well. Robotic species get the Symbiotic Biology equivalent boost when you research Robotic Production, for example. Organic species are a lot more common, that's fine as long as they're not too overpowered, to improve their pop you specifically need to research somethign for that only, whereas for the others you get bonuses to other things as well. And Self Sustaining creatures should get far far fewer bonuses (either that or we need to nerf the base bonus to twice rather than three times, or similar).

I think the big problem in game to the wheel of habitability is poor in game documentation, that's something that needs work on relatively quickly I think.
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Re: Major research/production/population boni revision propo

#20 Post by labgnome »

MatGB wrote:Regarding Pure Energy, not seeing it as a problem overall. The only major boost it gives is research, and that's similar to a Computronium Moon, the bonus for Industry is less than an Industrial Centre and roughly on a par with Average Industry. Is it possible that you normally get Pure Energy at roughly the same point in the game that you get Force/Energy Structures? That's the really crucial tech in terms of expanding production and research. Energy on its own, while giving bonuses everywhere, isn't a large bonus to anything (except fuel, it's the only tech based bonus for ships and that ought to be looked at I think).
I've researched it a few time where I didn't go for force energy structures until the very end, so maybe that's why I noticed it. The problem is that it improves almost everything, everywhere at once. It's part of the whole positive feedback problem. You're already guaranteed to have good numbers in research and production just form the population bonuses alone, then you get even more research and production out of what you have. It might be "on par" with industrial centers, but by the time you get it your planetary populations are likely to be many times what they'd be if you'd gone for industrial centers in the beginning, so the industry boost counts for more by then. The computronium moon isn't a good comparison, because it's a random chance, so there is no way where the benefit is going to be anything like having applied across your entire empire, since you can't build them. Colonies that might have had populations of 4 in the early game with industrial centers or computronium moons aren't going to give you nearly the boost as the same colony later on that might have a population of 16 or more. Also there might be one or maybe two planets with those at that point, later on there could be dozens of planets with similar or even larger populations. So while the fractional population-based boost might not seem like a lot, with the huge population you're almost guaranteed by that point it adds up very quickly.
MatGB wrote:Re population boosting techs, I'm thinking that the pop boosts for Organic creatures (and possibly phototrophs) can be, like the growth specials, just a pop bonus—research Symbiotic Biology and you get improved population for organics. But the Robotic and Lithic bonuses could be tied to techs that do other things as well. Robotic species get the Symbiotic Biology equivalent boost when you research Robotic Production, for example. Organic species are a lot more common, that's fine as long as they're not too overpowered, to improve their pop you specifically need to research somethign for that only, whereas for the others you get bonuses to other things as well. And Self Sustaining creatures should get far far fewer bonuses (either that or we need to nerf the base bonus to twice rather than three times, or similar).
I think that maybe tying their bonuses to some of the other technology branches might be cool, but I don't know if I'm sold on the idea of a two-for one kind of deal, like industry or research in addition to population, as population already gets you more of those, and it sounds like it might just be trading one balance issue for another.

I'd be for nerfing the bonuses to self-sustaining, and maybe even phototrophic. For self-sustaining I'm thinking maybe they could research up-to their current bonus. So they'd technically be at a bit of a disadvantage early in the game but make up for it later on. So "self-sustaining growth 1" would give the equivalent of one growth special on all their planets, "self-sustaining growth 2" two specials, and "self sustaining growth 3" would bring them up to their current level. They might warrant a second track or a bonus to general growth techs that let them colonize more planet types though.
MatGB wrote:I think the big problem in game to the wheel of habitability is poor in game documentation, that's something that needs work on relatively quickly I think.
I know some people have voiced discontent at the wheel, but I'm mostly fine with it. I didn't know if that was something that a number of people were gunning to change anyway or not.
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