Supply

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MatGB
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Re: Supply

#31 Post by MatGB »

That makes some sense, it's not Exobots prioritised but colonisation, and exobots normally make better choices (although I'd say cryonic pods with a broad tolerance species is a better investment). Anyway, off topic...

Space Elevator needs nerfing:
space-elevator-doubling-supply.png
I was trying to figure out why my scouts going into unexplored badlands were still in supply as the nearby planets were recently captured. I then remember this space elevator built ages ago and quite a long way away. It's almost as bad as it was back when I started complaining about this and Intersteller Logistics being silly ;-)
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#32 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:Space Elevator needs nerfing:
I thought it was supposed to be changed to compensate / undo the size-dependent bonus / penalties, instead of the *2 ? Apparently Sloth's "my numbers" patch didn't include that...

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Sloth
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Re: Supply

#33 Post by Sloth »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
MatGB wrote:Space Elevator needs nerfing:
I thought it was supposed to be changed to compensate / undo the size-dependent bonus / penalties, instead of the *2 ? Apparently Sloth's "my numbers" patch didn't include that...
Now included: Space elevator provides a +3 bonus which overrides the planet size bonus.
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OllyG
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Re: Supply

#34 Post by OllyG »

MatGB wrote:FWIW, I dislike the gas giants -3 idea, I've always viewed outposts put there as simply being on a moon or in orbit, both of which are so established as tropes within SF that I'm guessing a lot of other players will to, and it does reduce the ability to extend supply via outpost significantly, there are a lot of gas giant only systems.
I think I agree with you - it makes gas giants even more useless (I suggested -3 for gas giants because of the gravity, but didn't think about moons) The problem is that moons are not really in FreeOrion, so it's hard to get across to players when the moons are assumed and when they are not.
If outposts are assumed to be on moons, why not colonies? But gas giants are uninhabitable to everyone! Gas giants could have specials such as 'large swamp moon' which would allow colonisation and outposting (outpostisation?) as if the gas giant was a tiny swamp planet, (giving a bonus to supply). But then it's like the gas giant is just ignored and only there as a pretty picture. Since gas giants tend to have lots of moons there could be special for no moons, which gives the -3 supply. But a colony on a gas giant is way more advanced technology than a colony on a gas giant moon!
I think a thread about gas giants and what we are going to do with them is needed.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#35 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Don't worry about the explanation for this discussion... An appropriate rationale can be given as necessary. The important point is balance / gameplay / functionality of outposts and colonies extending supply range (or not).

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Sloth
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Re: Supply

#36 Post by Sloth »

So what's the bonus/malus of Gas Giants supposed to be? just +-0?

And what about Asteroid fields? Also +-0?
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#37 Post by Geoff the Medio »

It's not "supposed" to be anything, yet...

I'd think it should have a penalty probably, to be consistent with the trend that larger (gravity well) planets have penalties to supply, as this is easier to understand.

That said, there could also be a "Skyhook" building or "Skyhooks" tech that lets gas giants provide more supply range, similar to a space elevator on main-ring planets. (edit: maybe not worth having a separate building... It'd probably be unlocked at the same place, and do the same thing as an elevator... might as well just call it the same: "elevator" /edit).

Asteroid fields could be 0 or +1 by the same "logic", I suppose. But the specific numbers would need input from testers...

Edit: So by that scheme, any planet could be usable to extend supply, but an elevator would be needed to do so effectively with the bigger ones.

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Dilvish
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Re: Supply

#38 Post by Dilvish »

OllyG wrote:If outposts are assumed to be on moons, why not colonies? But gas giants are uninhabitable to everyone! Gas giants could have specials such as 'large swamp moon' which would allow colonisation and outposting (outpostisation?) as if the gas giant was a tiny swamp planet, (giving a bonus to supply). But then it's like the gas giant is just ignored and only there as a pretty picture. Since gas giants tend to have lots of moons there could be special for no moons, which gives the -3 supply.
I think that specials like a 'large swamp moon' would not quite be scriptable currently, but with some modification to Planet::EnvironmentForSpecies they might be (and would then would need to get worked into species.txt). I think that would still be different than ignoring the gas giant, in that the Gas Giant could still have a GG Generator, and as you note, Gas Giants often have many moons, they might also have a 'large tundra moon' special (though working out the scripting for multiple such moons being present would take a bit more thinking). Actually being able to take advantage of a large moon for colonization rather than just outposting could also be dependent on an advanced growth tech.

It does sound like an interesting and reasonable possibility to me.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#39 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Using specials to make gas giants act like other planets types is an unnecessary complication and confusion for the UI, players, and scripters. Gas giants don't need to act like another planet type... those planet types already exist as separate objects and concepts in the game.

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MatGB
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Re: Supply

#40 Post by MatGB »

I...

hate to say this...

but I agree with Geoff, it would be really cool in a smaller scale game that was more about hte colonisation of a small number of systems, trade, diplomacy, etc to have a vast variety of habitable moons (and resist the temptation to rename them Endor and Yavin, etc), but that's not FO. All I really care about with a specific system is that I've got it colonised, producing stuff, safely behind the frontlines and providing me with supply. Adding a huge amount of detail into system/planet types takes the game away from the broad sweep of strategy feel that I like about this game.

(that's not to say though that at some point in the future a fork of the basic engine to make a different game with a much more detailed feel, with a lot of micromanagement and far fewer systems per player wouldn't be worth doing, but let's get this game working first ;-) )
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#41 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Sloth wrote:Now included: Space elevator provides a +3 bonus which overrides the planet size bonus.
Something I note in the patch... the Environmental Encapsulation tech gives the same set of size-dependent bonuses and penalties to max supply as is in the species average supply effects.

This seems strange...
1) Why are these effects duplicated by the tech?
2) I thought Env. Encap. would just give +1 to all planet types (perhaps with a few exceptions)... why is the size-dependent bonus needed?
3) And most of all, it seems very wrong to have a tech, which can't be turned off, give a permanent / fixed penalty in this manner (unless it's there to balance things out with another bonus so the net result is 0)

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MatGB
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Re: Supply

#42 Post by MatGB »

I'll say again I don't think outposts should give supply over distance at first research, they didn't until this most recent change and had a range of zero until Orbital Construction, they're not colonies and shouldn't be able to extend range that much in the same way, but do need to be able to refuel fleets at or very near their location as they're fairly needed in the early game. A base +1 with Orb Con is fine to extend supply and is needed, especially with the AI, removing it completely for, say, gas giants would be debilitating in the early game, especially for the current AI configuration which has enough problems as is with working outside imperial supply range.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#43 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:I'll say again I don't think outposts should give supply over distance at first research, they didn't until this most recent change and had a range of zero until Orbital Construction, they're not colonies and shouldn't be able to extend range that much in the same way, but do need to be able to refuel fleets at or very near their location as they're fairly needed in the early game. A base +1 with Orb Con is fine to extend supply and is needed, especially with the AI, removing it completely for, say, gas giants would be debilitating in the early game, especially for the current AI configuration which has enough problems as is with working outside imperial supply range.
If I understand this and a previous post, you're saying that supply range 0 colonies and outposts used to resupply ships in the same system, but now don't? Are you sure? I don't know what would have changed that in the code...

Edit: Tested in SVN 6600: an outpost with supply 0 does not refuel a ship in the same system.

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Sloth
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Re: Supply

#44 Post by Sloth »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Something I note in the patch... the Environmental Encapsulation tech gives the same set of size-dependent bonuses and penalties to max supply as is in the species average supply effects.

This seems strange...
1) Why are these effects duplicated by the tech?
2) I thought Env. Encap. would just give +1 to all planet types (perhaps with a few exceptions)... why is the size-dependent bonus needed?
3) And most of all, it seems very wrong to have a tech, which can't be turned off, give a permanent / fixed penalty in this manner (unless it's there to balance things out with another bonus so the net result is 0)
The planet size bonus calculation is placed in species.txt, but outposts don't have a species, so Environmental Encapsulation gives the planet size bonus/malus to planets with a population of 0 (because this needs to be done somewhere).

I would be glad to implement it in a better way, but ran out of ideas.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Supply

#45 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Sloth wrote:...but outposts don't have a species, so Environmental Encapsulation gives the planet size bonus/malus to planets with a population of 0 (because this needs to be done somewhere).

I would be glad to implement it in a better way, but ran out of ideas.
It definitely needs to be implemented differently, because currently capturing an outpost or depopulating a colony on a large, huge, or gas giant planet will give a better result before researching the tech...

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