Population growth, food, water.

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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truepurple
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#16 Post by truepurple »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:55 pm
truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:48 pm
Basically, you're asking people to do all the hard work to make a game to your liking
"All the hard work" Do you expect everyone who proposes ideas in this forum to code it themselves?
No, only the ones that insist after they've been told that the devs are not interested/that it's not the direction that the game is going.
You don't have the right or authority to close down discussions after making large general proclamations for the whole project. So just because you made such a statement, and I didn't shutup as commanded, doesn't mean you can accuse me of laziness.

Also-
Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:41 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:38 amAs far as I can speak for the project, there wont be any additional location dependent resource in freeorion, ever.
Seems rather strong / overstated as written. Various stuff has local only impact, like ship species, and "location dependent" would include growth specials that are distributed by supply lines, and I'm not sure how asteroid extractors work, and additional resource mechanics haven't been explicitly ruled out...
Anyway Lien, I don't understand why you are being so confrontational with me if you are really interested in the idea like you stated. Whether the idea is true to the general end goal of the game and whether it belongs in a mod doesn't need to be decided right away by you or Orberius. How about we discuss the idea and it's merits and the people with the final say will make their decision based on that conversation. No need to accuse anyone of laziness.

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LienRag
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#17 Post by LienRag »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:55 pm
truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:48 pm
Basically, you're asking people to do all the hard work to make a game to your liking
"All the hard work" Do you expect everyone who proposes ideas in this forum to code it themselves?
No, only the ones that insist after they've been told that the devs are not interested/that it's not the direction that the game is going.

And for your information, I did that for one suggestion that nobody picked up but for which I was told that it was interesting and doable in FOCS.
Took me two years (obviously not full time), I failed miserably, and didn't have the courage to redo it.
I published a (utterly) simplified version, that may or may not be included later on the game.
I have an idea to improve my first try, maybe I will muster enough courage to re-learn the parts of FOCS that I forgot.

And I also plan to do that for another proposal that was rejected (imho, without justification), that's why I'm slowly learning Godot (well, I had to pause due to IRL, but I intend to restart soon).

For your information also, coding well (I mean, professionally, with good optimizations, etc.) is hard (at least, I can't do it) but coding in general is quite easy if you put the hard work.

And here (as in most free software) people are willing to help once they see you put in the hard work.

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LienRag
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#18 Post by LienRag »

truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:07 pm You don't have the right or authority to close down discussions after making large general proclamations for the whole project.
I don't (neither have the right, nor close down discussions).
I'm just explaining to you that you are closing them yourself by your attitude.

BTW, I'm not really accusing you of lazyness, more of being inconsequential and not understanding that you're putting a burden on others that you don't carry yourself.
Free software is a do-cracy ; you get the right to speak by your actions, you're not entitled to it.

Obviously, in a forum, you can voice your opinions, but if you want to be taken seriously, there's homework to do first, as said Oberlus.

BTW, since you already feel insulted apparently, may I ask you what age you are ?


truepurple wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:07 pm Anyway Lien, I don't understand why you are being so confrontational with me if you are really interested in the idea like you stated.
I'm not being that confrontational I believe, though it's true that my patience wore quite thin with what appears from your side as a constant refusal to listen; just explaining to you why your attitude is (at least perceived as) very confrontational.

I'm trying to explain to you how things work, if you're not interested I guess there's no point in continuing this discussion.
Of course I can't prevent you from rambling into the wind if you so choose, usually threads are not closed if they stay on-topic, even if they become a monologue.

I find the idea interesting, that doesn't mean that I'm interested in it, BTW : I don't believe it is possible and I am quite certain that none of the devs will develop it.

In a completely different game, why not, I could be genuinely interested in playing it.

truepurple
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#19 Post by truepurple »

How about we discuss the idea itself, and not whether it would be true to the "spirit" of the game or who would do it, that can be decided latter after we hash out the idea itself. That goes to vague accusations about "attitude" too.

This is a suggestion forum, so let's discuss the suggestion.
I'm trying to explain to you how things work, if you're not interested I guess there's no point in continuing this discussion.
If you want to explain "how things work", that is more than welcome in my thread asking questions about the game, here it's spam and condescending.
I don't believe it is possible
You don't believe what's possible to program? You don't believe that it's possible to program populations to grow as a percentage? I am no coder, but I still know that is a very silly belief.
In a completely different game, why not, I could be genuinely interested in playing it.
This idea wouldn't fit in a completely different game, it's an idea made specifically for games like FO.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#20 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:25 pm Oh, you reported me. That's the spirit!
I wonder if I should punish myself with a ban or something or let Geoff waste his time doing it....

Edit: I'll autoban myself for a couple of days to reflect on my silly and childish behaviour.
That wouldnt hurt my friend.
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#21 Post by Ophiuchus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:41 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:38 amAs far as I can speak for the project, there wont be any additional location dependent resource in freeorion, ever.
Seems rather strong / overstated as written. Various stuff has local only impact,...
I was hoping the rest of the post made clear that I meant "local dependent" to mean resources where you need to manage distribution. So rather location-location-dependent.

Besides production points there is only population I think. The only distribution of population is evacuation and that side-steps the issue by not giving much control (and needs more work).
I would not count supply/colonies here as that is more about quality than quantites.

Intention was to write it strong/blunt. If truepurple shows they know how the current game works and why, one could talk about the details/streamlining. The current OP proposal seems completely detached and introduces I think three resources which needs managing distribution. And as far as I can see mostly for the sake of the challenge of managing. It touches on tall-vs-wide issues.

Truepurple did you try out playing the current master (current development version)? There you need to set imperial policies and take heed of the planets' local stability, have a look what you like from it. Maybe you can invent policies which simulate the different choices. If it is tall-vs-wide what you care about (different empire layouts; tall is concentrating your empire on a few planets; wide is for exploiting as many planets as possible) policies, there quite some discussions about it. But rather have a look at influence, policy and stability (in the master).

If it is survival in a hostile universe you care about, you should probably better think about changing monsters or addings specials which represent those challenges. If e.g. those challenges only arise if you have a lot of monsters a player could choose to opt-in by gradually setting the amount of monsters. Monster danger does kind of snow-ball currently (as they are easy to take care of if they are young and if there are lots of monsters or the universe is large you wont be able to), but not in a good way.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:41 pm additional resource mechanics haven't been explicitly ruled out...
but they better have a strong gameplay purpose.
truepurple wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 7:42 pmA win condition. If you get X amount of people where the average total happiness is above X amount, you have built a utopia, and win! But you can keep playing if you like.
If you forget about food and water and take stability (formerly known as happiness), that would be quite doable for the current master.

Different policies with different winning conditions were discussed (by geoff i think) - something along the lines of accumulating points for winnning, so having the right policy (e.g. "Vision of Utopia") for the right empire (lots of very happy/stable populations) earns an amount of winning points per turn. Reaching a certain number of winning points wins the game.
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#22 Post by truepurple »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:39 amTruepurple did you try out playing the current master (current development version)?
Unable to. I use Linux. A regular install of FO is a old version, Flatpack gets me 4.10, the other system that gets me latest version is disabled by default for a reason (potential loss of security/control on system) There is no experimental option in software manager. And I don't know how to manually build these things or whatever I got to do. Trying to run a windows version under Wine did not work for me.
There you need to set imperial policies and take heed of the planets' local stability, have a look what you like from it.
Does it still use this horrible (to me, and especially to the purpose of this idea) "target population" system that causes population to go up or down to that max population regardless of anything else? Even if these things alter the set target population number, it still means lives in game are disposable and meaningless. Regardless, the biggest and most important part of my idea is not the food and water, but the change in how populations grow and shrink as well as the consequences to that. Right now there are no direct consequences to people dying, or way for them to die other than perhaps temporarily to monster/enemy attacks, my idea is different.

This idea may mean mindless rapid expansion is unnecessary, even a bad idea to expand sometimes. But it also means after a certain point, it forces you to expand as your systems run out of space or resources or need certain foods or water. You grow as your people need, not just endlessly till you run into a enemy.

The important thing about being against the environment is not dealing with monsters, which are still in a way a outside force, nor governmental stuff with whatever programed results from governmental decisions, but dealing with scarcity. The point of having food and water systems in the game isn't to add one more thing to manage, but challenging the player to deal with scarcity and having to seek out more when they explore in this 4X(one of those X's is eXplore after all). Besides, how is governmental stuff any better than having the right system of food and water on the micromanaging side of things? By "right system" I mean not arbitrarily adding them in, for these to work well they have to be carefully implemented as part of a larger system and calibrated or they are pointless waste of time. The previous food system sounds like it was for the sake of requiring food on it's own, definitely nothing to do with my idea.

It's not only scarcity that players can deal with, bonus's, a good part of my system is finding plants that can then be grown elsewhere. And in general its fun to find prizes when you explore along with finding what you need to answer to your scarcities.

BTW, of course with a system like this, you would not likely start with an ideal home world and of course definitely not a maxed population since that would make the game rather impossible, but it could be close to max so that people are motivated to expand pretty soon.

With a system like this, the game could still be somewhat interesting to play, even without monsters or enemies. Of course having opponents to fight over precious resources can still help.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#23 Post by LienRag »

truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:39 amTruepurple did you try out playing the current master (current development version)?
Unable to. I use Linux. A regular install of FO is a old version, Flatpack gets me 4.10, the other system that gets me latest version is disabled by default for a reason (potential loss of security/control on system)
I approve your distrust of Snaps but you could make a VM and put the Snap in it.

Building yourself is not that difficult, though I usually don't.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#24 Post by Ophiuchus »

truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:39 amTruepurple did you try out playing the current master (current development version)?
Unable to. I use Linux....
Yeah it is a shame that we only have the release builds as flatpak. If using snap is an option for I provide weekly builds on the beta channel ('snap install freeorion --channel latest/beta'). Also o01eg has a PPA in case you use ubuntu. Also beware that the new content and balance in current master is a lot more unpolished than in the last release.
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm Right now there are no direct consequences to people dying, or way for them to die other than perhaps temporarily to monster/enemy attacks, my idea is different.
Dying of people is not in master. But bad consequences to not catering to peoples likes/dislikes (via instability).
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm ..mindless rapid expansion is unnecessary, even a bad idea to expand sometimes.
Expansion can be harmful in master. Too much expansion will indirectly and wrong expansion will directly create instability. Instability can lead to rebels taking over the planets.
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm But it also means after a certain point, it forces you to expand as your systems run out of space or resources or need certain foods or water. You grow as your people need, not just endlessly till you run into a enemy.
Having to grow for people needs is not in master. We could think of adding instability when planets get densely populated.
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm ...challenging the player to deal with scarcity and having to seek out more when they explore..
that sounds good (and does not necessarily need to involve shipping stuff around)
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:50 pm finding plants that can then be grown elsewhere. And in general its fun to find prizes when you explore along with finding what you need to answer to your scarcities.
Also good and easy to do (without needing to ship stuff around)


So counterproposal to yours: create instability on planets close to max population, improve evacuation/migration - let population migrate to not heavily populated colonies, let that happen automatically if instability on planets is too high. Add matching planetary specials which decrease that instability in their supply group (or everywhere your whole empire, or based on policy), so you go out to explore.
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#25 Post by truepurple »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:57 pm So counterproposal to yours: create instability on planets close to max population, improve evacuation/migration - let population migrate to not heavily populated colonies, let that happen automatically if instability on planets is too high. Add matching planetary specials which decrease that instability in their supply group (or everywhere your whole empire, or based on policy), so you go out to explore.
I see no mention of a key part of my idea, population that grows as a percentage rather than the confusingly named "target population".

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#26 Post by Oberlus »

Population already grows as a percentage (not the simple one of current population but also considering free space, i.e. target minus current population). I linked the equation for you in your first thread.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#27 Post by Ophiuchus »

truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:17 pm... rather than the confusingly named "target population".
The reason it is called target population is that maximum population would mean something different in freeorion context. It is using a target meter as opposed to a max meter. You cant have a meter higher than the connected max meter, the meter will get silently cut off if for some reason your max meter gets lowered. A target meter is something where the meter grows or shrinks to a target value.

That does not help beginners confusion, but maybe you will understand.
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#28 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:37 pm Population already grows as a percentage (not the simple one of current population but also considering free space, i.e. target minus current population). I linked the equation for you in your first thread.
Let's let the expert Oberlus describe how it really works, you should listen to this person.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:05 am
truepurple wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 8:43 am ['quote] Does max population change how fast a planet gains population?
You can say just yes. The greater your target population, the faster it will grow. But the closer that current population is to target population, the slower it will grow.
Formula is here.
I mean if you got 10,000 people and your growth rate is 20%, next turn you will have 12,000 people, and this speed will not care at all about any "target population", should not grow any (or at least not significantly) faster or slower based on space available. This is super important to my general idea, way more important than food and water or whatever.

The main issue is not the confusing name "target" population, I'd have the exact same issue if you called it whatever else, even if you let me name it as it's not about the name.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#29 Post by Ophiuchus »

truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 8:53 pm I mean if you got 10,000 people and your growth rate is 20%, next turn you will have 12,000 people, and this speed will not care at all about any "target population", should not grow any (or at least not significantly) faster or slower based on space available. This is super important to my general idea, way more important than food and water or whatever.
Would be possible (and easy to implement). Looks more like a balancing than a technical issue to me.

Complications are the colonisation and migration mechanics.

And the main problem would be re-introduction of (even forced) exponential growth/snow-balling.

Could be amended by allowing by tech which slows population growth.

But on a certain level that means your are always in the situation that your planets are all almost full of people. Sounds almost one could get rid of the population meter/would probably need a complete rework of population based bonus.
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#30 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:20 pm
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 8:53 pmLet's let the expert Oberlus describe how it really works, you should listen to this person.
I think you have some kind of brain damage. I'm sorry for you.
My hypothesis is that he's got the brain damage called "being a teenager", but I may be wrong.

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