local construction / global ship building

[drek]

[cut from the design thread, pasted here]

re: Powercrazy's idea of using Infrastructure locally for building construction and shipping PP into a global pool for ship production

That might be a good idea. I can see it working. It encourages players to build Shipyards and other important structures on developed worlds without artifically restricting build choices. This might be a good compromise between the local and empire-wide queue camps.

Piecing together Powercrazy's other posts on the subject: When there is no build project on a planet, infrastructure builds up automatically. When a planet is working on a build project, infra stands still, and the rate at which the building is completed is based on current infra level, with no PP costs.

If we are using meters: infrastructure, enviroment, certain technologies, racial picks, leader auras and maybe some buildings would effect a new Construction meter. This meter would govern the rate at which projects are built on a given world and the rate at which infra improves.

In other words, you'd never worry about juggling and filling dozens of planet queues....you'd just build what you need based on geography and strategy in the spot that you need it. Otherwise, you just leave the planet alone to do it's thing.

PP would go off into the tzlaine global queue for constructing ships and other units. (in this case, it might be wise to rename the Industry focus "Ship Production" or something like that, or perhaps inventing some empire-wide Industry Projects to go along with the Research projects)

Under this idea, if there is also a mineral cost associated with building projects that must be paid up front, it would:
a: Give us something to do with excess minerals
b: Prevent the player from feeling like he has to build stuff on fully developed worlds, just because the infra has maxed out.

[drek]

Anyway, it's good idea from Powercrazy, though I shouldn't spelled it out in the review thread. If it gets reconned as an option in the public review Buildings II, then tentatively it gets my vote.

[Daveybaby]

Gets my vote, i was just about to propose something like this myself.

[noelte]

in this case, it might be wise to rename the Industry focus "Ship Production" or something like that

That might work. But it still doesn't solve the placing problem (starbases, minefileds, system ships) for planets without a shipyard. Maybe someone can draw the big picture which include:

1 - construction of buildings/wonder
2 - ship construction and placing
3 - avoiding some kind of 1-turn builds (If a single planet can build something within one turn, that would be ok with me, but it won't if 1-turn build is achieved by collecting PP from different planets)
4 - building planet defences and placing (star bases, minefiled, system ships, satelites)

[Daveybaby]

I would suggest that shipyards should be uncommon items - the point being that, after spending locally on infrastructure, all remaining production is pooled globally.

These global points are then spent building the ships in the build queues of the shipyards. i.e. The shipyards still have local build queues, but are financed by the empire, not by the specific planet which they happen to be orbiting.

At this point you no longer need a shipyard per system (or per planet). Just a few dotted around in strategic locations of your empire. Only a few queues to manage. Minimal micromanagement, maximum strategy.

[emrys]

So, to check, effectively what is being proposed here is to do away with 'industrial' planets in the normal sense entirely, and instead essentially have 'ship' planets, with the other uses of industry ( (semi-)wonders (and defences?)) abstracted away and dealt with by infrastructure.

I could support that. (Which obviously has nothing to with the fact that it produces exactly the same results as my preferred handling of industry...)

Question, would we actually need shipyards as separate entities under this system, given that 'ship' planets would now seem to be essentially the same thing.

One worry:

b: Prevent the player from feeling like he has to build stuff on fully developed worlds, just because the infra has maxed out.

Since a maxed out infrasrtucture planet has nothing to do BUT build buildings, I'm not entirely convinced that a mineral cost would prevent this.

[Daveybaby]

No, you would still have industrial planets, its just that their industry is pooled and given to the shipyard. So, if you lost an industrial planet then the capacity of your shipyards would drop.

(bear in mind that this is my take on things, not necessarily what drek is proposing).

[Aquitaine]

If you split infrastructure and Ship production, would you then make an infrastructure focus as well as a Ship production focus? Or would your 'production' focus simply allow you to do both at a higher rate?

Drek, can you indicate where you have your meters idea spelled out? I'd like to include this in the public review but it seems to go hand-in-hand with meters. You had a bunch of graphics for it somewhere that I can't find at the moment.

[miu]

I really like this suggestion, without making shiproduction a separate focus.

Drek's original meters-post: viewtopic.php?t=702&highlight=meters

[Daveybaby]

Edit: by daveybaby

I moved this post to this thread as it makes more sense there.

[drek]

Meters only have a minor amount to do with the build queue. The idea behind meters is that they govern the *effects* of technology, buildings, racial picks, leader abilities, enviroments, government picks, etc etc etc.

I've never drawn any graphics for meters. Maybe you are thinking of the stuff in this directory:

http://home.earthlink.net/~drekmonger/Buildv3/

[drek]

Something that hasn't been discussed yet:

It just occured to me that PC's system works very well for Terrforming as a build project.

[PowerCrazy]

I'm glad you like my idea.

Also wonders, semi-wonders, etc would still exist, they just wouldn't require industry to build.

Basically when we get to tech (which is what buildings are) I see four main kinds of advancements. (as far as colony development goes)

1. New building: a wonder or semi-wonder (including shipyards)
2. Infrastructure improvement (either speed or total amount)
3. Automatic improvement (like Moo2s "galactic currency exchange")
4. Unlock new techs (does nothing directly, like SMACs "Optical Computers")

Basic important aspects of my proposal.
1. Buildings don't require industry
2. Infrastructure develops by itself (modified by tech only)
3. Ships require industry and all industry in the empire is used to build ships.

[Geoff the Medio]

Pooled production for ships still has some flaws that need to be addressed, I think. Relevant discussion here (though mixed in with an UI argument): viewtopic.php?p=12419#12419

Basically when we get to tech (which is what buildings are) I see four main kinds of advancements. (as far as colony development goes)

2. Infrastructure improvement (either speed or total amount)

Not sure what exactly infrastructure means in this case... I suggested this:
viewtopic.php?p=12441#12441
(This avoids need for 142/245 for each of farms, mines, etc. and a rate at which you can build more. It's all abstracted into drek meter bonuses, but with the addition that the bonuses for focus transition over time when you make a change in focus, rather than changing immediately)

[Sandlapper]

emrys wrote:

So, to check, effectively what is being proposed here is to do away with 'industrial' planets in the normal sense entirely, and instead essentially have 'ship' planets, with the other uses of industry ( (semi-)wonders (and defences?)) abstracted away and dealt with by infrastructure.

I like the idea of "ship-planets", but in addition to typical industrial planets. The trick, of course, being how many, when, and where. I would prefer something like one for every ten-fifteen planets. If we ever go the "sectors" route, perhaps one per.