Artificial Paradise and Factory Worlds

[MatGB]

In [r8048], I've tweaked the costs of the Artificial Planet tech and also introduced two new artificial planet types, both dependent on the empire having a different tech as well.

Artificial Factory World will, when complete, make a standard artificial planet but inhabit it with an Exobot colony. Artificial Paradise World adds the Gaia special to the planet when created, thus allowing for colonisation by any species type and removing some of the advantage the existing tech gives to Barren species. At Vezzra's suggestion, both have a location requirement that the empire has researched the relevant other tech, this works quite well and was simpler to implement than I'd feared.

I'm very happy with the ideas for all of the above, and definitely think the original costs were far too high compared to other things you can build/research, but I'm not at all sure the new costs/build times are right, feedback very much welcome.

[labgnome]

In [r8048], I've tweaked the costs of the Artificial Planet tech and also introduced two new artificial planet types, both dependent on the empire having a different tech as well.

Artificial Factory World will, when complete, make a standard artificial planet but inhabit it with an Exobot colony. Artificial Paradise World adds the Gaia special to the planet when created, thus allowing for colonisation by any species type and removing some of the advantage the existing tech gives to Barren species. At Vezzra's suggestion, both have a location requirement that the empire has researched the relevant other tech, this works quite well and was simpler to implement than I'd feared.

I'm very happy with the ideas for all of the above, and definitely think the original costs were far too high compared to other things you can build/research, but I'm not at all sure the new costs/build times are right, feedback very much welcome.

I still think it might be interesting to give colonizing barren-preferring species an advantage to artificial planets and a disadvantage to terraforming, it would certainly add some flavor to the game, but I'm always interested in more variety. I am a bit concerned with the artificial paradise planet being a bit OP.

[MatGB]

I still think it might be interesting to give colonizing barren-preferring species an advantage to artificial planets and a disadvantage to terraforming, it would certainly add some flavor to the game,

That's actually not a bad idea. Not sure for all of them, but maybe one or two—are you thinking construction cost or research cost? Eitehr is relatively easy to code, you can even give them a colony building/converter in one fairly easily.

I am a bit concerned with the artificial paradise planet being a bit OP.

I'm not worried about the idea of it, you can easily do it yourself with some micromanaging, terraforming and then building the special. I am concerned about the cost/build time being right.

I'm also always worried, balance wise, about stuff that the player can do that's cool-for-the-game, but which the AI is unlikely/unable to do, and this would probably fall under it, if it's too big an advantage it needs to be much more expensive, but it was far too expensive for even the basic planet before—I've probably made it too cheap, TBH, but that's why I want feedback and test game reports.

Part of the idea behind the paradise world is of course to massively reduce micromanagement, a different idea would be to have an artificial world of each type (or just of several types around the wheel), but that's a fair bit of extra code that I'm not sold on the advantage of.

[Dilvish]

definitely think the original costs were far too high compared to other things you can build/research, but I'm not at all sure the new costs/build times are right, feedback very much welcome.

The output of a planet like that grows pretty fast. Could you record the pop and industry of one of those planets over the 20 turns following its creation (and report that here)? What are the 'other things' you're comparing its cost to?

[MatGB]

Generally, warships. I compare the research/build cost/time of pretty much everything compared to a bigger warfleet, if invading enemy territory will give me more production than a particular project, then that's what I tend to do, and before, artificial planet was both so slow and so expensive that it was always a better strategic choice to invade somewhere.

I've already tied the Exobot cost of the factory world to colony upkeep, it might be worth linking the other costs as well, or at least considering it, but that would again make it much more expensive for aggressive expansionists compared to turtling transcenders so not sure it's the right approach.

But yeah, I'm about to get the tech in my next game and have lots of multiple-gas-giant systems, so will see what I come up with.

[Dilvish]

Generally, warships. I compare the research/build cost/time of pretty much everything compared to a bigger warfleet

Ok, so comparing it to a warfare path to gaining planets, fine. What is the typical cost of one of your warships at that point, and troopships? I realize that the warship is not necessarily used up gaining a single planet, but of course sometimes it is, or is even used up without gaining a planet. Huge planets are a bit too rare to really directly assess as a war prize, but if we considered a Huge planet as *roughly* equivalent to two Medium planets, then what would you consider to be a reasonable estimate of average Warship+Troopships burnt cost to acquire and hold two Medium planets? (at the stage of game where you might be building Artificial Planets) I mention "and hold" because war prize acquisition is along the contested front and at last sometimes the recently captured planet is costly to hold, whereas artificial planets can very often be built back in safe territory.

[MatGB]

Burnt cost? I have 101 ships in my game currently, and the first artificial planets just completed. Most are, you're right, behind the lines. To take a medium sized planet you need approximately 5 Flux hulls with troop pods, costing about 25 production each. Haven't lost more than two ships in the last ten turns, and one of them was a 200 turn old robotic hull ship that I threw away. But the fleet I'd build to take a few planets would likely cost, at this stage, 2000ish production, but that'd be, say, 8 nanorobotic hulls, and they'll survive many many battles (I lost one a few turns back, and messed up with a fleet of five about 100 turns ago when I let them get ambushed by not scouting properly and seeing the fleet of heavy asteroids inbound).

When you take into account cost of outpost ship, then colonising afterwards, it's probably roughly on a par, but like I said I'm probably undercosting a bit. Might be worth having a variable cost depending on, say, low/medium/high planet setting? They'll be a lot more valuable in low planets compared to high.

[labgnome]

That's actually not a bad idea. Not sure for all of them, but maybe one or two—are you thinking construction cost or research cost? Eitehr is relatively easy to code, you can even give them a colony building/converter in one fairly easily.

I was thinking research cost, similar to the situation with psionics and telepathic species. The idea being that it's a path they are more "naturally inclined" to take, and terraforming is a path they're less "naturally inclined" to take. Also it really should only apply if you are, or have, a species that is both barren preferring and colonizing, otherwise you loose the adventage. I think there are currently only a couple of examples, but I'd rather not have specific species be assigned if tying both characteristics at once to the tech is too much of a hassle.

However now that I'm thinking about a construction cost difference I like that too. Especially a terraforming construction cost-increase for barren-preferring. It makes them a lot more distinct.

Part of the idea behind the paradise world is of course to massively reduce micromanagement, a different idea would be to have an artificial world of each type (or just of several types around the wheel), but that's a fair bit of extra code that I'm not sold on the advantage of.

Ok here we might actually be on a similar page. Early on, when I was looking at gas giants and thinking about the possibility of gas-giant colonizing species, I thought of having a "wheel of habitability" of different gas giant types, and instead of automatically going to barren, they went to either tundra, ocean or inferno, basically as to weather or not they were a "cooler" or "warmer" flavor of gas giant, and based on some pseudo-realism around what I know about planet-forming theories, such as speculations on so-called "chthonian" (corresponding to inferno) and water or "panthallasic" (corresponding to ocean) planets. Chthonian planets would be the "cores" of (typically smaller) gas giants who migrated too close to their parent sun, and had their atmosphere stripped over time. Water or panthallasic (the later being more often used by sci-fi/worldbuilding people) are planets of mostly water and compressed ice that can be thought of as "aborted" or "almost" gas giants, that either never gained enough hydrogen and helium or lost too much early on.

However the crux of the idea was the initial type of gas giant gave you the type of planet that was created so the player didn't have direct control. It was also around the idea that there would be gas-giant dwelling species, but it looks like that's just not happening. With the initial gas giant deciding what it was converted too it wasn't too powerful for any of the planet preferences, but also should, with the right choice, produce a planet that's at least "adequate" for some species. However, I don't think I'd like the idea of just "choosing" the planet type, it strikes me as a bit overkill, and also means there's no strategic consideration involved. I'm also not fond of a random outcome either, as that also removes any strategic consideration. I think at this point in the development it's not a particularly good idea, but maybe something to keep on the back-burner.

[MatGB]

Update on this: doing some work on the artificial planets following on from recent cost changes I made to terraforming. I'm of the opinion that the cost/benefit of turning asteroids into a tiny world is negligible at 800pp, but 800pp for a Huge world out of a gas giant is a brilliant deal. Note the base cost of the paradise and factory world is based on the artificial planet cost.

So, given the limitations of scripting, it's very easy to set costs for each so they're exactly half (is converting asteroids costs half that of converting gas giants).

I'm testing at 600/1200 which I think might still be a bit too much for asteroids but about right for gas giants. What do people think?

[Vezzra]

I'm testing at 600/1200 which I think might still be a bit too much for asteroids but about right for gas giants. What do people think?

Sounds like a good start. Only testing will show if we need to tweak those numbers further...

[MatGB]

I'm testing at 600/1200 which I think might still be a bit too much for asteroids but about right for gas giants. What do people think?

Sounds like a good start. Only testing will show if we need to tweak those numbers further...

That was why I thought, so I committed it last night before rebasing and recompiling, it seems to work fine, still not sure it's cheap enough for the asteroids (as in, I doubt I'd ever bother), might be worth upping it to a Small world instead of Tiny.

[Krikkitone]

I'm testing at 600/1200 which I think might still be a bit too much for asteroids but about right for gas giants. What do people think?

Sounds like a good start. Only testing will show if we need to tweak those numbers further...

That was why I thought, so I committed it last night before rebasing and recompiling, it seems to work fine, still not sure it's cheap enough for the asteroids (as in, I doubt I'd ever bother), might be worth upping it to a Small world instead of Tiny.

The other option is making it 1/3 as much (so say 400/1200)

[MatGB]

The other option is making it 1/3 as much (so say 400/1200)

Not easily, no, the easy way to script it is if the cost is dependent ont eh planet it's being built on. Asteroids are size 3, Gas Giants size 6, hence the basic thing that one is half the other. There might be a significantly more complicated way to do it, but I don't think it's worth it.

[Kassiopeija]

bah if it weren't for Nascent & Automated tiny planets wouldn't even be worthwhile and more so not steming from an asteroid belt putting the cost into equation - it really should be cheap to begin with or maybe transform to a small planet instead. But then I wonder why it should be of less productive cost to place a whole asteroid belt - perhaps millions of objects - together, in comparison to a Gas Giant who, at least, is already at one place in time^^

maybe let Asteroids be asteroids, and give them some general traits, like the ability of fleets parking in their system to gain "firststrike" (they would have enough time to hide inside the asteroids

I kind of dislike that my Gas Giant Generators are all becoming moot because Huge Planets just generate so much more production... it feels like GGG are just a mid-game item... but the mechanism of one planet supporting all other inside a system seems intriguing to me even lategame... any idea how to reconcile that?

[MatGB]

bah if it weren't for Nascent & Automated tiny planets wouldn't even be worthwhile and more so not steming from an asteroid belt putting the cost into equation - it really should be cheap to begin with or maybe transform to a small planet instead. But then I wonder why it should be of less productive cost to place a whole asteroid belt - perhaps millions of objects - together, in comparison to a Gas Giant who, at least, is already at one place in time^^

The Supply bonus from tiny/small is already useful, and I hope when toning downt he other supply granting techs that it will become even moreso in future. The idea of giving defensive bonuses to more than just Asteroid hulls in asteroid systems is intriguing, might be worth looking at in future.

I kind of dislike that my Gas Giant Generators are all becoming moot because Huge Planets just generate so much more production... it feels like GGG are just a mid-game item... but the mechanism of one planet supporting all other inside a system seems intriguing to me even lategame... any idea how to reconcile that?

I've been toying with ideas for this for ages but they're just ideas at the moment. I dislike how powerful GGGs are at first, and then how useless they are in the late game—one thing we need to do is tone down the late game bonus stack, especially for industry. But another thing might be to tie the bonus from certain things, including GGGs, to Infrastructure in some way. If it were tied to, for example, 10% of Inf, or even 100% of Inf, then a) in the early game it wouldn't be that powerful, especially for newer planets (we might need to reduce starting Inf a bit), but if we have techs that increase Inf over time then the bonus increases fairly substantially but is knocked out/reduced by attacks including attacks from wandering monsters.

That's what I'm thinking, and I do think using Inf as a source for some/many bonuses is a good one, but it's never got further than thinking about so far.