Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

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Ophiuchus
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#16 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:55 pm What's instability? A new meter?
That was an idea somebody threw around terraforming. Either planet meter or a special. There could be all kinds of sources for instability.
First level of terraforming could be undirected instability, so a planet would flip to neighboring environment.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:55 pm Wouldn't it be simpler to just make it the same that an outpost ship, but calling to SetPlanetType with some tricky calculation to get the right parameter for "type"?
...
I hope its easy to reuse code from the outpost/colony parts that trigger their corresponding buttons in the GUI... Not that I'm planning on doing it myself.
There is already nextBetterPlanetType. I would rather have scriptable buttons, with labels (colonize, outpost, bombard) and effects (setOwner/Population/Species, setOwner, setSpecies).

Simpler would be to make this available as a building on an outpost actually.
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#17 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:14 pm
The necessity for a ship instead of doing a project on the planet (which would be less micromanagy) solves the ownership issue and the choice of environment issue. Of course having to take ownership first via an outpost and having a clockwise and anti-clockwise terraforming would also be reasonably reasonable.

Probably the simplest way indeed - but it goes against Oberlus's (good) idea of making Terraforming less micromanagy.

And immersion-wise, I really like the narrative of struggling settlers trying to survive on a hostile world...

Maybe a Policy or an Influence Project like you said which will provide a constant flux of settlers to connected worlds (i.e, not blockaded and within Supply+MaxRangeOfAvailableShips) from higher population colonies ?

Imho the Colony Survival ship part that you propose should not direcly terraform the planet, but slow population decay and maybe allow for population to not decay below 0,5 or 0,1. The colony would still be vulnerable to Bombardment, but if military protected could stay long enough to Terraform the environment later in the game.
Since Narrow Tolerance is used to balance Species, I'm not sure that such a ship should be provided at start for all Narrow Tolerance ones.

If we split Terraforming in two, an early Tech (but still one which needs investment) that allows very slow terraforming (I'm thinking tens of turns) and the real one (similar to what Terraforming is now) that speeds the process up and reduces total cost (since the early one is very slow, it spreads the cost on many turns, so the total cost can be high but still affordable each turn early game) I guess that makes for an alternative development path that is still balanced ?
Oberlus' proposition of splitting also Terraforming into tiers that allow to take further steps (the first tech giving only the ability to move one step towards preferred environment) is interesting too.

If it can reproduce Alpha Centuri's very interesting choice of going towards adapting oneself to the planet or adapting the planet to the settlers, that would be a very big improvement.
And yes, I know that's more or less what Xenological Hybridation does, but it absolutely doesn't feel like it does that.

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 10:49 am Or we should regularly add planet-specials which make the planets less/more suitable to certain metabolism regardless of species environment preferences, reducing the baseline population for planets overall (and maybe having a policy to offset that).

That's an interesting idea, but the organic Growth specials already do that, don't they ?
I don't understand the "reducing the baseline population for planets overall" part though, nor why a Policy should offset that ?

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#18 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:09 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:14 pmOr we should regularly add planet-specials which make the planets less/more suitable to certain metabolism regardless of species environment preferences, reducing the baseline population for planets overall (and maybe having a policy to offset that).

That's an interesting idea, but the organic Growth specials already do that, don't they ?
I don't understand the "reducing the baseline population for planets overall" part though, nor why a Policy should offset that ?
Growth specials also work for all planets at once. Those are rare and strategic.

I want a good amount of planets to be hard to colonize - without an easy workaround (like a different species) - terraforming and/or having to have a policy would at least ask for commitment.

This could mean redesigning species to make one environment mostly uninhabitable or hostile.

Having more local specials slightly increase or decrease max population (flat bonus/malus) would create differences at which tech/empire state you can start colonizing a planet, e.g. pushing zero max pop to one max pop while not changing much in the later game.
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#19 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:57 pm
LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:09 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:14 pmOr we should regularly add planet-specials which make the planets less/more suitable to certain metabolism regardless of species environment preferences, reducing the baseline population for planets overall (and maybe having a policy to offset that).

That's an interesting idea, but the organic Growth specials already do that, don't they ?
I don't understand the "reducing the baseline population for planets overall" part though, nor why a Policy should offset that ?
Growth specials also work for all planets at once. Those are rare and strategic.

I want a good amount of planets to be hard to colonize - without an easy workaround (like a different species) - terraforming and/or having to have a policy would at least ask for commitment.

This could mean redesigning species to make one environment mostly uninhabitable or hostile.

Having more local specials slightly increase or decrease max population (flat bonus/malus) would create differences at which tech/empire state you can start colonizing a planet, e.g. pushing zero max pop to one max pop while not changing much in the later game.
Eh, I don't know.
I'm all for a varied topology but too much specials (abundance-wise, not diversity-wise) means they're not really Special, are they ?
Having the general hostility of planets increased and then some specials giving a corresponding bonus to specific metabolisms could probably be interesting, I guess you're right on that point.

The thing is that we don't so much want to make some planets hard to colonize as much as we want to make colonization more strategic and less of a no-brainer.
What I mean is that if you have one easy to colonize planet and a hard to colonize one (what your proposal will create if I understand you correctly), there's not much strategic thinking involved in colonizing the easy one...
It's different to have (through some mechanism I can't really figure even if Influence could help when we'll have it right) two planets with each its advantages and inconvenient, and the possibility (at reasonable costs) to colonize only one : that's what we should aim for, hard choices having lasting consequences.

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#20 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:45 pm too much specials (abundance-wise, not diversity-wise) means they're not really Special, are they ?
A special is just how you attach a flag or a named number to a planet. Nothing special about a Special
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#21 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 10:27 am
LienRag wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:45 pm too much specials (abundance-wise, not diversity-wise) means they're not really Special, are they ?
A special is just how you attach a flag or a named number to a planet. Nothing special about a Special
Immersion-wise, there is...
I guess we could get the players used to have each planet different from the other through some "nothing special special" but I'm not sure that it would improve the feel of the game.

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#22 Post by Oberlus »

We talking about implementation concepts. "Special" is a kind of object in FOCS that you can use for diverse and quite non-special purposes. The in-game specials such as Computronium Moon or Caretaker's Fruit, which are special in-game, use that "Special" FOCS object, but you can use it also to (e.g.) attach a new numeric attribute to a ship to track crew experience, or stored resources, or whatever you can come up with, intuitively special or not. In those non-special cases, we would not use "Special" in the in-game descriptions.

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#23 Post by LienRag »

Ah, OK. Thanks for the info.
It won't clutter the UI then ?

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#24 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:58 am Ah, OK. Thanks for the info.
It won't clutter the UI then ?
You would see that special on the planet.

But we want to see that the special is on the planet - it has an effect.

So, no - that is no clutter on the UI.
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#25 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:32 pm You would see that special on the planet.

But we want to see that the special is on the planet - it has an effect.

Indeed.
But then we're back to step 1...

I mean, when I first played I used standard galaxy settings, and after that I found that Specials were neat so I played with maximum number of Specials. I quickly discovered that having nearly all planets bear a Special made these Specials not so special anymore and as a result the game less fun.
Of course, there's some personal taste involved, but the fact that Specials (as a whole) are less special if there are too many of them seems also some basic mathematical truth to me.

Also, though of limited realistic value (which FreeOrion doesn't care for very much), the Environnment Wheel is a quite intuitive, simple, powerful and efficiently space-operaish (which is the feel FO's trying to achieve) way to abstract the various factors making a specific specie able to colonize or not a planet.

Even if I fully support the addition of some Population-boosting Specials each applying to specific Metabolisms (as it will make metabolism more relevant that it is now after the creation of so many symetric species), you're more or less reinventing the Wheel here, so it should be done with caution.
Especially, it should be kept to a light-handed approach (each special having limited impact - I think you were talking of a +1 bonus - and globally these specials being of limited abundance) lest you'll end breaking the Wheel - a task suited to Westeros but not to FreeOrion.

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#26 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:03 pmhe fact that Specials (as a whole) are less special if there are too many of them seems also some basic mathematical truth to me.
This is utter nonsense.
Having +1 pop bonus on many planets does not make having rare ancient ruins (which can make you win the game) less special.
LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:03 pm I fully support the addition of some Population-boosting Specials each applying to specific Metabolisms
I never suggested such a thing. And I probably oppose this.
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#27 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:44 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:03 pmhe fact that Specials (as a whole) are less special if there are too many of them seems also some basic mathematical truth to me.
This is utter nonsense.
Having +1 pop bonus on many planets does not make having rare ancient ruins (which can make you win the game) less special.
Well, it may be a matter of personal taste, but my experience is that it does.
Having a Galaxy cluttered with specials makes all of them less important, at least for how they feel.
Of course for game purpose the more important specials are still as important, but the feel of a game is to be taken into account too.

Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:44 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:03 pm I fully support the addition of some Population-boosting Specials each applying to specific Metabolisms
I never suggested such a thing. And I probably oppose this.
Indeed ?
There seems to be a misunderstanding there, what did you mean by that phrase "Or we should regularly add planet-specials which make the planets less/more suitable to certain metabolism regardless of species environment preferences" then ?
I really interpreted as having specials on a planet that would boost population of specific metabolism on this planet...

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#28 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:23 pm Having a Galaxy cluttered with [some] specials makes all of them less important, at least for how they feel.
How you feel about something is inherently subjective.
The galaxy is full of planets but that doesn't make it less special when I find a huge good planet in a blues star or black hole system.
LienRag wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:23 pm the feel of a game is to be taken into account too.
Indeed. But do not confuse narcissistic compulsions to "win" bizarre arguments that no one cares about and that are totally irrelevant for other's interests with the feeling of a game.

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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#29 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:23 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:44 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:03 pm I fully support the addition of some Population-boosting Specials each applying to specific Metabolisms
I never suggested such a thing. And I probably oppose this.
Indeed ?
I suggested addition of population-mini-boosting specials applying to all species (although one might exclude self-sustainable).

It has a small effect and if you make it hard to use it makes it useless.
Also the other growth specials are already metabolism-based so this would be kind of redundant.
Also this would increase the number of necessary specials for no gain.
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Re: Rework pop. bonuses for Tall vs Wide and Terraforming

#30 Post by drkosy »

I thought a lot about terraforming and still like to have EP (Environment Points) for that 8)

Maybe the system could invited without much micromanagement: Every planet produce EP per Turn depending on the environment e.g. Gaia -> 10, Good -> 6, Adequate -> 2, Poor and Hostile -> 0.
Set the focus on EP may give 0.5 * Pop in EP per turn, so you can rush some terraforming projects.
Organic Growth specials could provide +3 EP in addition to their pop-bonus (would make it more interessting to have them more than once)

EP could be spent for:
1.) terraforming (+max Pop, replacing Pop techs - have to be researched)
2.) atmospheric terraforming (changing the environment - like terraforming now)
3.) Pop-Growth on one specific planet (rush pop-growth - like housing in MOO2)

There are different possibilities to implement a system to spent EP:
1.) You need a ship with a "terraforming module", that could perform terraforming and atmospheric terraforming. The module is not consumed by terraforming, but the project costs EP. There could be buttons for "terraform +3 pop", "atmospheric terraform clockwise", "atmospheric terraform counter clockwise". That would enable you to terraform an unoccupied planet. Pop growth project could be something like a policy but cost EP (either once or the whole time it's active)

2.) EP are managed like policies: If you have enough EP you choose a planet and than a project.

3.) EP are managed like production with a list. (I don't like that but want to mention it nevertheless)

I know, it would add an additional ressource beside pop and influence, but I think with the proposed system it is easy to handle. Especially the way 1.) would make the tall an option because you could terraform planets before settle them. On the other side you need at least one ship and sufficient EP to terraform, which prevents it from being a no brainer.

I think Gaia should still be a production project because it's mostly a huge computer to build.

Even if all your planets are good or even Gaia, there is use of EP to let your colonies grow. So I think even in endgame it's an interessting mechanic.
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