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Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:41 pm
by Sloth
Bigjoe5 wrote:
ShneekeyTheLost wrote:Since you cannot build a colony on an Asteroid Belt, removing any resource gathering from Outposts makes Asteroid Mining, and the improved version, completely worthless techs.
Yes, if that were to happen, that tech would simply be removed.
I think asteroid mining is very flavorful and beloved by lots of players.
ShneekeyTheLost wrote: If that gets too complicated, then you could, for example, have this:

When you get Environmental Encapsulation, you can build Outpost Modules. When you get Asteroid Mining, you can build Mining Outpost Modules, which are a different beastie all together, and allows mining on that outpost. Other techs would make Farming Outpost Modules, Research Outpost modules, and Industry Outpost Modules. Actually, since Industry is a factor of population, just skip that one entirely.
This would just delay the problem that players are urged to send outposts everywhere.

I totally agree with the first post of eleazar about the implementation of outposts, but would love to see mining outposts (or advanced outposts or whatever they should be named) that can only be build on objects that cannot have colonies (Asteroids and later Gas Giants). Mining outposts should do everything a normal outpost does plus generate ressources.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:39 am
by Zireael
I think asteroid mining is very flavorful and beloved by lots of players.
So do I.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:45 pm
by eleazar
Like i said, we have at least a couple of options to keep some sort of revised asteroid mining in the game. I'm not inclined to replace it with nothing.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 7:43 pm
by eleazar
Any chance we can get "real" zero population outposts enabled soon? It would make squaring off population simpler if there were no more simulated outposts.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 9:53 pm
by Geoff the Medio
Depends on your definitions of "soon" and "real zero population outposts". I've been quite busy the last month or so, and probably will be for a few weeks more, so no much programming progress has happened. I'm also not really sure what is needed for outposts... There's probably a summary somewhere, but a new one might help.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:11 am
by eleazar
Outposts are generally inferior to Colonies. Their two advantages:
  • They are cheaper than colonies.
    You can put them In places where colonies won't survive.
I'm sure a lot of of the desired differences can be done via scripting, so there should to be an easy way to filter by Outpost, Colony, or Outpost & Colony. Possibly the tag system can do that.

I'm probably including stuff that can be done/adjusted via scripting, but i'll err on the side of including too much

Basic Outpost Summary
  • Similarities to Colonies
    * Can create supply lines (both kinds)
    * Provide vision & detection
    * Can be defended and invaded like colonies

    Differences
    * Have no population (and thus can't die from starvation)
    * Can be replaced with a colony (if you would be able to colonize without the outpost)
Details not determined:
* Should outposts be labeled with a species?
* Should outpost conquest be the same as ground combat?

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 9:02 pm
by marhawkman
* Should outposts be labeled with a species?
I think not. IF no one lives there, then there's no species for the population to be.
* Should outpost conquest be the same as ground combat?
Much easier. No personel means only a handful of security guards.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:40 pm
by em3
marhawkman wrote:
* Should outposts be labeled with a species?
I think not. IF no one lives there, then there's no species for the population to be.
* Should outpost conquest be the same as ground combat?
Much easier. No personel means only a handful of security guards.
I always envisioned outpost as bases that are not unmanned, just have small enough population to not register as a settlement (a few dozen individuals). The population is not large enough to be capable of building anything sophisticated or reproduction (limited gene pool).
Outposts are enabled by environment encapsulation, which implies a small habitable space.
Then again, unmanned outposts could be realistically cheaper to sustain.

Of course any personnel present would not stand a chance against quantities of troops normally issued against colonies.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:23 pm
by eleazar
em3 wrote:I always envisioned outpost as bases that are not unmanned, just have small enough population to not register as a settlement (a few dozen individuals).
For most purposes there is little difference between the two. I could go either way, or choose whichever one makes more sense with the mechanics we ultimately choose.

em3 wrote:Of course any personnel present would not stand a chance against quantities of troops normally issued against colonies.
My questions was weather the mechanics should be the same, not the quantities. And you could plausible suppose that a small outpost could be built with defenses that would greatly multiply the difficulty of capture, relative to a whole planet. -- this is of course assuming the goal is capture.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:27 pm
by Bigjoe5
Capturing should use the same mechanics, IMO. Whether this means they also need to have a species associated with them or not depends on whether or not the species of a planet's troops depends on its species (an issue of "role"). I don't want to make any assumptions about that or any other species-related bonuses that might be associated with outposts, so I'd say yes, outposts should have species.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:17 am
by Geoff the Medio
Is there a reason an "outpost" can't just be a zero population colony? Instead of zero population meaning a colony is lost, it would just change into an outpost. The rules for colonization would be tweaked so colonizing zero max-population planets is allowed. Outpost ships would be colony ships that have a population capacity of zero. To match outposts with a condition, you'd select planets with an owner but zero population. Outposts would have all the functions of a colony that don't depend on a particular species or having nonzero population.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:03 am
by eleazar
Geoff the Medio wrote:Is there a reason an "outpost" can't just be a zero population colony?
Several minutes pondering could find no flaw with that approach.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:51 am
by Geoff the Medio
eleazar wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:Is there a reason an "outpost" can't just be a zero population colony?
Several minutes pondering could find no flaw with that approach.
A first try at that has been committed. I didn't try making a zero-capacity colony part, but zero-target-population planets can be colonized, will then have their population die off (and species set to none), and can be re-colonized, all while staying owned by the same empire. These planets retain their resource output abilities, and still have shields, detection, fleet supply, and other colony-type abilities and properties. Presumably invasions should work the same regardless of what amount of population is present on a planet.

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:11 pm
by marhawkman
question: how does that interact with Phototrophic?

Re: Basic Outposts

Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 12:27 am
by Bigjoe5
marhawkman wrote:question: how does that interact with Phototrophic?
I'm not sure what you mean... If a planet has a target population of 0, it has a target population of 0, regardless of the metabolism type of the inhabiting species