Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

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Geoff the Medio
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Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#1 Post by Geoff the Medio »

It might be interesting to make planetary industry meters not grow on their own, but rather to require production to be spent to make them grow (up to the planet's target industry meter value).

The maximum rate of growth could be something like the planet's infrastructure / 20.

The cost to increase the industry meter would be something like 20 PP for +1 industry.

Those scaling factors could be adjusted by techs, or having access to an Industrial Centre.

PP spend on increasing planets' industry could be spent from the supply-connected resource group, not just a planet's own industry output. Allocation would require some prioritization, presumably first to industry-focused planets, proportional to their target industry, infrastructure, or population.

This would gives something to do with production besides producing ships / buildings. It would mean a turn of not having all PP spent on something wouldn't mean that PP was wasted. It would also give players a choice between producing something now vs. investing in future production capacity.

To represent PP allocated to improving industrial meters, there could be a permanent item on the production queue, kept at the bottom. (Or perhaps one such item for each resource connected group.) The max PP it could be allocated would be whatever is required to maximize the industry growth each turn for all planets in the group.

This is somewhat inspired by the original Master of Orion, in which one had to spend planetary production on producing more factories from time to time. A similar mechanism could also be extended to a pollution mechanic, which requires PP to be spent to clean it up.

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em3
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#2 Post by em3 »

This could be extended to spending PP for improving other meters. At the end of this road we're back to the same micromanagement that was in original MoO and which was shunned by FO design philosophy.

Also, this would also fall under "something to build on every planet, provided sufficient resources are available" clause.

I'm not saying this will or will not be a fun game mechanic. I'm just noting this will mark a notable shift in the direction this game's going.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#3 Post by Geoff the Medio »

em3 wrote:At the end of this road we're back to the same micromanagement that was in original MoO and which was shunned by FO design philosophy.

Also, this would also fall under "something to build on every planet, provided sufficient resources are available" clause.
How / why would this add any micromanagement? There would be no per-planet manipulations, just automatic allocation of unspent PP from the production queue to planets. Instead of +1 industry meter growth per turn, you get a growth on all eligible planets depending on how much unspent PP the empire has left over that turn. The player doesn't pick where extra PP gets spent, except by the already-done setting of planets to industry focus.

The actual allocation to particular planets isn't even very important, since increasing any connected planet's industry meter by 1 gives the same 1 more industry as would have the same allocation to another planet.

Edit: Or were you criticizing your alternative suggestion, and not the original proposal?

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Cpeosphoros
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#4 Post by Cpeosphoros »

I like the general idea, except for it being pegged to the bottom of the production queue. It should be prioritazable as everything else. And it also seems as a good use for the infrastructure concept.

Maybe, instead of changing how the actual value moves - and making production meters behave differently from everything else - this "improve infrastructure" production item could make the meter target grow. Something like: when you start a colony, it would have it's production meter target at 25% of it's maximum value, which would be determined by planet type + infrastructure. Then, this production item would make the target grow up to 100% of the maximum value, leaving the actual meter value behave as every other meter (1 pert turn, etc).

As a nod for what @em3 said, I agree with him it should not be extended to growing other meters, only production.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Cpeosphoros wrote:Something like: when you start a colony, it would have it's production meter target at 25% of it's maximum value, which would be determined by planet type + infrastructure. Then, this production item would make the target grow up to 100% of the maximum value, leaving the actual meter value behave as every other meter (1 pert turn, etc).
I don't think there is need for, effectively, a target target meter in addition to the existing target meter and actual meter.

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Cpeosphoros
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#6 Post by Cpeosphoros »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Cpeosphoros wrote:Something like: when you start a colony, it would have it's production meter target at 25% of it's maximum value, which would be determined by planet type + infrastructure. Then, this production item would make the target grow up to 100% of the maximum value, leaving the actual meter value behave as every other meter (1 pert turn, etc).
I don't think there is need for, effectively, a target target meter in addition to the existing target meter and actual meter.
I see your point. It's just that I don't feel comfortable with having one kind of meter behaving entirely different from everything else.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#7 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Cpeosphoros wrote:...I don't feel comfortable with having one kind of meter behaving entirely different from everything else.
Population already has a unique growth formula. Resource meters generally do the +1 turn up/down per turn towards target. Various other do +1 per turn up to max, but instantly drop to max if above. Others are fixed at their initial value unless within supply range, then instantly go to max. Fuel does +0.1 / turn unless in supply...

It's not unprecedented to have distinctive meter growth mechanics.

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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#8 Post by Krikkitone »

For this model
1. The spending should be distributed over available* planets proportional to their infrastructure, since that limits the amount of growth possible. (basically if you can raise meters across the empire by 250 total, and spend enough to raise it by 50, all planets increase by 20% of their maximum possible growth)...this way there is no "prioritization of planets" needed.

2. The spending (for all planets as a group) should be prioritizable (you would probably put it as top priority almost all the time...perhaps it should be more expensive than 1 meter point per 20 resource points, maybe closer to 50 resource points, this way there is an actual trade off, growing is fine, but I might need ships NOW)

3. I would like to see it applied to each resource meter... influence spent to increase influence meters, industry spent to increase industry meters, science spent to increase science meters.

*planets where the meter is less than its maximum

With this model, resource meter decline should probably change too. (say -10% of meter value or -1 whichever is larger)

Some tiny amount of 'free' resource growth may be needed, at least in the capital so you never totally lose a resource meter (say 0.1/turn for free)
Last edited by Krikkitone on Thu Mar 03, 2016 4:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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em3
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#9 Post by em3 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:How / why would this add any micromanagement? There would be no per-planet manipulations, just automatic allocation of unspent PP from the production queue to planets. Instead of +1 industry meter growth per turn, you get a growth on all eligible planets depending on how much unspent PP the empire has left over that turn. The player doesn't pick where extra PP gets spent, except by the already-done setting of planets to industry focus.
I misread your suggestion, I'm sorry. I somehow thought you meant creating a build item for each planet to increase the meter for so that players could prioritize development of certain worlds.
The actual allocation to particular planets isn't even very important, since increasing any connected planet's industry meter by 1 gives the same 1 more industry as would have the same allocation to another planet.
This assumes static supply groups. It might be strategically beneficial to increase industry of worlds in the center of the group (safer worlds) or some other colonies (because we expect them to be blockaded soon and want to beef them up in the meantime). But yeah - this strategic depth would require the micromanagement I complained about.
Edit: Or were you criticizing your alternative suggestion, and not the original proposal?
Neither, it seems. :oops:
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Vezzra
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Re: Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth

#10 Post by Vezzra »

I've spent some time considering this proposal (and also the discussion), but I can't really warm up to it. My main concerns:

a) I consider this to be more than a "notable shift in the direction this game's going" - IMO that's a quite fundamental revision of one of the most fundamental design decisions of the very beginnings of this project. The way meters work and are supposed to increase (resource meters in particular) would be changed on a very fundamental level. As I consider the original design of the basic meter mechanics to be sound and very well thought out, I think there should be very serious reasons if we want to make any changes here.

Which IMO isn't the case here - subjecting that to such a profound revision "just" for the sake of providing something else the player can spend PP on doesn't strike me as entirely reasonable. With the current proposal of introducing influence and influence maintenance costs, as well as the suggested major revision of the resource output boosts to counter the current excessive growth curves I'd say lets see how those changes will affect game dynamics, before thinking about such drastic measures... ;)

b) I have to agree with the objection that this actually will introduce a level of micromanagement we've always tried to avoid. This assessment:
Geoff the Medio wrote:The actual allocation to particular planets isn't even very important, since increasing any connected planet's industry meter by 1 gives the same 1 more industry as would have the same allocation to another planet.
...isn't really correct IMO. Currently (resource) meters just grow, without requiring any further investment other than the time it takes to finally reach target/max. Hence, if you loose some/all of a resource meter (for whatever reason, be it enemy invasion and subsequent recapture of a frontier world, or simply a necessary, but only temporary switch to the defense focus, or whatever), you don't loose any investment you could have spent somewhere else.

However, once you have to invest PP to increase a resource meter, that changes fundamentally. Now, if a resource meter gets reduced, you loose all the PP you've invested to raise it (and which you could have spent somewhere else). Because of that, it actually does matter how you can distribute the PP you are able to invest in meter growth over your colonies. You might want to hold back investment into frontier worlds that are in an unsafe location and might be lost to an enemy attack, and instead prioritize investment in colonies in safer locations. It's a strategy game, the locations of your resource centers are of strategic importance, therefore any (location dependant) allocation of resources you can/need to do to develop/improve them is of strategic importance too. Or better, any location dependant allocation of resources (to produce/enhance/increase/build up whatever thing) is of strategic importance.

Which, should we introduce the proposed mechanic (invest PP to increase the industry meter), leaves us only with two options, as far as I can see: either hard-code how the invested PP are distributed to your colonies. That basically means we make a strategic decision for the player, which is something we've always been adamantly against (for good reason). Or we provide the player with some means to control where those PP dedicated to industry meter growth are spent, which will introduce a level of micromanagement we also always have been set against (again, for good reason). I'm with em3 here.

c) I also agree with the sentiment, that if we introduce that for industry, we should expand the concept to the other resource meters. To me it feels very counter-intuitive that you'd have to spend PP to build up your industry, but not your research (and soon influence) capacities. The difference between the resource types would be fundamental otherwise, for no adequate reason (from a players POV).

Which would aggravate the issue discussed in b) even more.

So, bottom line, that's a can of worms I'd rather not want to open. The issues far outweigh the benefits, and there have to be other, better ways to achieve those benefits (if we really think it's necessary to find more things to spend PP on, that is).

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