Some questions/comments

[Grifman]

Well, the game is great, I just wish the manual, both paper and Online were more expansive. That said, I have a number of questions I'd like answered if anyone could help:

1. What's the relationship between population and production and facilities? If I have a planet capacity of 500MM, can build 5 mineral facilities on it, but just have 100MM people on it, how is production determined? Are extra facilities useless unless there is a pro rata share of people - that doesn't appear to be so, but production does appear to increase somewhat as population increases.

2. How does "happiness" impact production and birth rates, if at all. Or what exactly does "happiness" do in the game?

3. I know that there is a later shield tech that provides protection against "phased" beams such as the polaron beam. But since the null space beam isn't phased, is there no protection against it?

4. Is there anyway to resupply my fleets other than adding a supply ship to the fleet, hence distributing supplies among all ships? I wish it would happen automatically when I move my supply ship into the square with my fleet, just like repairs work. Too much clicking to get the fleet supplied.

5. More of a comment than a question, but it seems that some "main" guns/beams can be used in point defense, such as the polaron beam. This really doesn't seem right, as I think you should have to have dedicated PD weapons. But what bugs me the most is a enemy dreadnought took out my entire fight fleet with heavy mount polaron beams! Seems that non PD weapons should be penalized when used in PD role, and even more so for other than normal mounts (heavy, large, etc.).

6. Can you transfer different races around on your planets, maximizing population for different environments? But since moving populations always leaves one unit of the original population on there, you can't move them all? What about mixed populations - does the game account for that in some way as in MOO2?

7. Is there some way to create a race with various abilities a la MOO2? As near as I can figure out, there are just preset races to choose from - I didn't see anyway to build your own race.

8. What the heck does the Climate Control facility do? I understand that it will increase the environmental "friendliness" of a planet, but it doesn't seem to increase the max population. So what exactly does it do for you? What is its benefit?

9. Do you need a resource converter on more than one planet, or does it work empire wide in converting resources?

10. Can you find technology when you conquer an enemy planet as in MOO? I've conquered several, but my first victim is behind me for the most part so I can't tell if this occurs.

11. I know that there is a strategic combat option in tactical combat (seems like they should call it "instant" combat instead ) where you can elect not to fight out turn by turn an individual battle. But is there a way in the detailed tactical fight to go ahead and have the computer now compute the "instant" winner? I know you can automate the tactical combat, but it still takes too long and you have to sit there and watch the ships move. I'd just like the ability when the battle is decided to go ahead and let the computer do the instant calculation and save me time. Any way to do this?

12. How does cloaking work? It doesn't seem to provide any combat bonuses, so it apparently works different in this game.

13. On a related note, what do sensors/scanners do. Not the combat ones - I understand that they give "to hit" bonuses, but the non-combat ones. It just says they allow a certain level of scanning but the heck if I can understand what that means on a practical basis.

14. Is armor really worth it? Yes, it does take the first damage from enemy shots that hit, but I'd rather have that spot taken up by a weapon that can fire multiple times in combat, rather than a piece of armor that Lasts only one turn. The "opportunity cost" of defense vs. weaponry seems to high. Am I missing something here?

15. A gripe - I hate colonization ships. They should come preloaded with colonists. Much of colonization is done from outside the system to be colonized and it is too much of a pain to have to manually load colonists when sending them out system. Too many clicks and nothing pleasureable about the experience My main gripe about the game is the number of colony ships I've sent out without any colonists!

Thanks ahead of time to those who take the time to respond.

Grifman

[G-top]

Just add the supply ship to the fleet and it resupplies automatically. This is even better when the "tankers" have those solar collecters or the quantum reactor so you just keep the tankers as a part of the fleet.

I only used one resource converter. It seemed to be all I needed (tho I did upgrade it whenever I was able too).

What I wish for is that whenw you go to the ship menu that you had the order bar for the ships right there. It is a pain on the wrist to go back and forth adding orders.

[Phoenix-D]

4. Resupply depots work nicely

5. You can fix this.. just edit the text files. PD weapons have an advatage- they can fire at max range with no penalty to hit, *and* they don't need multiplex tracking

6. Mixed pop- if they breathe different atmosphere, the colony is domed. You can't take off ALL of a population unless there is another population already there.

7. Yep. On the game setup screen (click new) there is an "add new race" option.

10. Don't think so. Capturing ships, yes, but not planets

11. Yep. Hit "fast tactical combat" in the options window before hitting resolve combat. That makes it go by much faster.

12. No combat bonuses, since you can't fight while cloaked. Advantage: the enemy cannot see you, and hence fire on you, unless they have the needed level of sensors. Great for scouts and for sneaking large, damageing fleets past enemy lines.

13. They defeat the cloak of the same level. Hence, you want them Note that some *armor* also lets you cloak..

14. Advanced armor also negates small hits, gives the ability to cloak, and gives a combat bonus. That and it takes more punishment- and is the only defense against shield-skipping weapons. Organic Armor and Cystaline armor are particularly powerful

15. See my other post

[Psitticine]

1: There's no specific amount of population needed to operate facilities. (I wish they'd add that in the future actually!) All you need is 1 colonist and any number of buildings will operate just fine. Population will, however, boost production on a percentage basis if of suitable size. Check out the details tab on a planet status window to see if the population there is large enough to give a bonus.

2: The happier they are, the faster they breed, and the more people you have, the bigger the bonus they give to production.

3: I haven't tried the null space beam against phased shields so I don't know if it protects against them or not. Considering the damage dealt by the NS beam isn't too large, it's a pretty big weapon, and its ROF is fairly low, I think it isn't unbalanced even if phased shields don't work against them.

8: It boosts the reproduction speed, just as happiness does.

14: Armour can absorb more than one hit. Check out the damage resistance stats on the various types. Even one piece of armour can soak up more abuse than you might think.

15: If you launch them either with the Colonize button or by the Send Colony Ship command in the Planets window, they will be auto-loaded with colonists from the planet they are in orbit around (which would be the same one they were built at unless you've sent them off someplace already.) It makes it a two-click process.

[great.throwdini!]

Re: "1: There's no specific amount of population needed to operate facilities. (I wish they'd add that in the future actually!) All you need is 1 colonist and any number of buildings will operate just fine."

I agree. I would think that instead of applying flat production bonuses for specific population targets (as is currently in the game), the system should be a bit more complex.

(rant on)

Although it may be too complex to closely model requisite population counts to "man" a certain number of facilities, a partial solution would be to add penalties for underpopulated worlds (at least) and move away from fixed population threshholds.

So, set up the production model to relate number of facilities to population size -- the fewer facilities on-planet, the smaller the workforce required to operate them. If a planet's population is beneath the level required to operate its facilities, assign a penalty (underutilized plants, overworked employees). If it is over, assign a bonus (true leaders would simply give more vacation time or create new job roles than face the trouble brought on by mass unemployment). Since planet conditions cap both population and number of facilities, such modelling should not prove unworkable over the range of planet sizes and conditions.

Of course, there would have to be fixed limits on how large or small the modifiers to production could be, else a world hosting 8 billion people with two factories could outproduce that same world with four factories, but I think this system offers a bit more reality than shooting for specific population targets in SEIV regardless of the size of the world or the number of facilities on-planet. Of course, should a planet have population *way* in excess of its employment base (few facilities), the two-factory v. four-factory issue could be resolved by applying a happiness penalty -- gross unemployment that extended vacations cannot solve ...

As things now stand, the marginal output of facilities is affected greatly by population size and only in a positive manner. Larger worlds with more population not only generate more resources through their ability to host more facilities, but also through the bonuses attached to ultra-large population counts.

Maybe I'm coming at it all wrong, but when I think about constructing a "facility" -- especially one that takes up space in the sense that the number of facilities per planet depends on planetary conditions -- it should represent approximately the same output level on any planet. The bonuses for large populations on large planets ignore the competition for resources represented by the increased number of facilities the planet's population must support.

Simply put, one fully-populated, huge world will outstrip the output of a collection of smaller worlds with the same population and facility count. That just doesn't seem right to me.

(rant off)

[This message has been edited by great.throwdini! (edited 20 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by great.throwdini! (edited 20 November 2000).]

[Psitticine]

I agree. I'd like to see something like a "pop needed" attribute added to facilities. It might work well expressed as a ratio where 1 is the "average" manpower needed.

Adding up these numbers and dividing the population by the total would give a result showing how over- or under-manned the average facility on the planet is. Bonuses should be applied based on that, not on overall population.

IOW, if you had 3 mining facilities (let's assign them a manpower factor of 1, just for the example's sake), 2 storage facilities (manpower .5, say?), and 1 shipyard (manpower 2?) on a planet, then the total would be 6. If the planet had 600 million people, the bonus would be based on having an average of 100 million people available for working the facility and/or related industries. If the planet had 6 million people, the bonus would be based on having only 1 million workers available.

There might also be a minimum number of people required per facility to keep things operation. I know I could never get anything done with only a million people to help. I think a production penalty would be a better way to go than shutting down facilities until the minimum people/facility number is reached. Too much bookkeeping involved in the second method!

[greghacke]

Galatica Imperium 2 (sp?) does much of this population theory. Specific facilities require a certain number of workers to function. Without the proper population, facilities do nothing at all.

I agree with the neccessity of adding this to SE4. Without it, the neccessity of robo-factories is reduced. It would add functionality to the population management and require thought in placing facilities.

[Phoenix-D]

There IS a setting for population to operate one facility, but it doesn't seem to work..

Phoenix-D

[LintMan]

I kinda like the production bonus for population model the way it is now. More people helps increase the production power, but not in an overwhelming way, so there's good incentive to grow your populations, but it's not your foremost concern.

IMHO, it's pretty fairly balanced within the overall production model of the game.