Modding multiple shipyards per planet?

[Phoenix-D]

No, the cost is seperate.

This is a sneaky way of getting around the code that says you can't have more than one shipyard per planet.

You have the normal shipyards, unchanged. Then you have seperate facilities called "ShipYard Expansion Projects". These are built, then immediately *upgraded* into normal shipyard facilities. That's where the cost people are talking about comes in, building the expansion project.

Once the upgrade is complete, you have the power of two shipyards on one planet, and can add more. You'll never be able to build more than one ship or base at a time though; for that you need seperate locations.

Phoenix-D

[PDF]

Let's try in French so ... Salut Gusty, je ne suis pas sûr d'avoir compris ton pb
Ce que je comprend de ce que les pros ont dit, c'est que :
* on ne peut CONSTRUIRE qu'un seul SY / planète
* mais si on crée une "facility" bidon qui peut être upgradée (facilement) en SY, alors on peut avoir plusieurs SY
* Le cout de construction n'a rien a voir avec la capacité de production , qui est juste un taux de conVersion des ressources en navires
* Dans tous les cas on ne peut mettre en chantier qu'un seul navire par endroit, même avec plusieurs SY
* Je peux te faire un facility.txt modifié pour ça si tu veux

A +

Sorry for the non French speakers

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"The only thing is, if this works it kills the advantage of the temporal races having a faster space yard"

Not if they can do it too. If a world filled with 25 normal shipyards is fast, how about world with 25 *temporal* shipyards?

Phoenix-D

Of course, you'd have to add a special "Temporal Spaceyard Expansion" since Temporal space yards are a different family number than standard space yards (which means you can't upgrade a standard yard to a Temporal yard - a HUGE pain when you play low tech start and have to replace all those old yards later in the game...)

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Of course, you'd have to add a special "Temporal Spaceyard Expansion" since Temporal space yards are a different family number than standard space yards (which means you can't upgrade a standard yard to a Temporal yard - a HUGE pain when you play low tech start and have to replace all those old yards later in the game...)

But actually you wouldn't need to upgrade to a temporal yard. You could build a SYE and upgrade to a standard space yard. You'd have one temporal yard and as many standard space yards as you wanted or could fit. I guess proporionally it would lessen the advantage of the temporal player, but it wouldn't eliminate it completely. But allowing him to build multiple temporal yards would multiply the advantage. Needs to be a middle ground somehwere I think.

Geo

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Of course, you'd have to add a special "Temporal Spaceyard Expansion" since Temporal space yards are a different family number than standard space yards (which means you can't upgrade a standard yard to a Temporal yard - a HUGE pain when you play low tech start and have to replace all those old yards later in the game...)

That's why I've made the Temporal Space Yard the same family as regular Space Yards. The AI will NEVER change the old space yards on planets where they were built before the TSY was discovered if you don't do that.

I'm tempted to reduce planet and facility space yards capacity and use population bonuses to increase production. This makes more sense to my mind.

But that leaves space yard bases hanging since population has no effect on them. I wish there was a 'fourth resource' -- call it 'labor' since 'man hours' doesn't work for aliens. If population produced 'labor' and components needed 'labor' as well as the three resources we could balance production much more realistcally.

[ June 26, 2002, 22:20: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[dmm]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I wish there was a 'fourth resource' -- call it 'labor' since 'man hours' doesn't work for aliens. If population produced 'labor' and components needed 'labor' as well as the three resources we could balance production much more realistically.[/QB]

That is such a great idea! ("Conquest of the New World" has that feature, BTW.) But you couldn't have any Labor Storage facilities. (Except maybe Temporal!) Wouldn't it be fun demanding Labor from your beaten adversary?

Also, population should use up Organics every turn. If you ran out of Organics, people should starve.

And since I'm suggesting: A planet that is blockaded can't contribute anything to your economy. Makes sense. So, why can a blockaded planet with no mineral mines or storage still produce stuff? A blockaded tiny domed planet with only a SY shouldn't be able to emergency-build defenses out of nothing.

As a corollary, a blockaded planet with no Organics should slowly starve to death. (Although they should riot/surrender before that happens.) This is a huge facet of warfare that is totally ignored by SEIV. If you have the naval power to blockade with impunity, you should be able to take a planet by siege without invading, unless it has been designed to be self-sufficient. Before they surrender though, they would scrap other facilities to build Farms. But then what if the planet has lousy Organic value? Imagine the poor starving slobs pulling apart their Rad Extractors for Minerals to build a Farm, only to realize that they need 10 Farms just to feed themselves on such a barren rock!

And you'd have to add another ship order, "Run Blockade," so supply ships could keep the blockaded planet going.

In fairness to the planets, though, perhaps ships should also have to carry Organics for the crew. Or maybe the supplies can be converted freely into food? (In which case, ships would use small amounts of supplies just sitting there.) But then in fairness, planets should be able to do the same sort of supply conVersion thing. Hmmm ... come to think of it, ships and planets in SEIV use totally different resource systems, with the ship system being quite simplistic.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, there are many many many possible non-combat enhancements to the game that are being neglected. I guess the idea of 'conflict' is uppermost in the minds of most game developers as a way to make the game interesting. I prefer solving puzzles.

More infrastructure features would be a great way to make the game more interesting. Populations should need a some organics to maintain themselves. Facilities should need a certain amount of population to operate. (This was added during development but deactivated. Dang it... why can't it be an option like so many other things?) If 'labor' were a non-portal resource then you'd be forced to locate your major shipyards at large population centers. Hey, presto, more realism! None of these would require 'micro-management' at the level of moving resources around in individual ships. It's all doable with game mechanics about as complex as we currently have in SE IV.

There should be more factors in planetary environment, too. Stars! had it right. Gravity, Temperature range, Radiation. Add those three to the current atmospheres and we've got a pretty decent set of simulated environment variables. Add techs to compensate them for your populations and the game gets much more interesting.

As far as ships and crews, I think tracking individual ships' supplies is good enough. We just need a 'default' supply usage rate so they can't sit on station forever. If the game would read and use the supply usage on components like Crew Quarters and Life Support each turn this would be doable.

[ June 27, 2002, 00:39: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]