Buildings

[drek]

Based off the roadmap, I anticipate that a design thread concerning buildings will be started “soon”. I'm throwing out some ideas for how buildings might work to get people thinking.

Idea 1: No buildings. Since FO’s already got the focus system in place, this isn’t as bad of an idea as it might seem. The one problem is that it leaves Industry with nothing to build save starships and terraforming projects. I think this is the best option if the v1.0 galaxy sizes are going to remain the same as the v.1. There’s no way a human player can juggle 500 or even 100 star systems worth of planets if build decisions have to be made for each one.

Idea 2: Moo2/Civ/Smac style buildings. I think it’s safe to say there’s better ideas out there…too much micromanagement in late game.

Idea 3: EU2 style buildings. For those who’ve never played Europa Universalis, there are a handful of buildings you can improve each province with. The build times are *long*.

Idea 3: Spartan buildings. There are other games that use a similar system, Spartan just happens to be the one that springs to mind first. Basically, there’s only a few slots per planet in which to build stuff. (you can call these slots “regions” or whatever) Two or three slots for small worlds, four or five for large. Once built up, slots can be upgraded as technology increases.

It works very well in Spartan--cuts way down on micromanagement, eliminates the need for a smart build manager/viceroy, and makes every city/planet seem unique. This has always been my personal preference. There’s a few different ways of approaching the slot cap of Idea 3:

Idea 3a: Spartan’s method. There is an infrastructure level that can be upgraded. In Spartan, it’s something like “Outpost”, “Small Village” “Large Village” “Town” “City”. With each upgrade, the planet’s population growth rate and/or population cap is improved and another slot is opened. Infrastructure level would be capped by planet size—so a fully built small world would never have as many open slots as a fully built large world.

Idea 3b: Every slot is open and available to be built up as soon as the world is colonized. The number of slots is determined by planet size. Every slot filled might increase the growth rate and/or population cap.

Idea 3c: Slots are opened for building as the population increases. One problem with this method is how to handle buildings “switching off” when the population decreases.

[haravikk]

I like the spartan method best, I think that a combination of pretty much all the methods would work well, though the spartan one is the primary focus for me. i.e:
Planets are divided into regions, each region by default can have one building which pretty much (at this point) determines what that region specialises in.
As your population increases it becomes possible for the infrastructure to be upgraded to cope with the increase (ideally the AI should begin these upgrades automatically), until the infrastructure upgrade is complete, the population cannot increase as there is nowhere for it to go (assume 'infrastructure' equates to housing and general organisation of the planet). With each upgrade, another building space becomes available for each region.
If population decreases then the infrastructure will have to downgrade as less taxes from population means that such big buildings cannot be maintained. So if a planet gets bombed then regions will start losing their top level buildings (ie the buildings that go into the slot made available by the biggest infrastructure upgrade on the planet) as they also lose infrastructure levels.

Now, buildings themselves would really compliment the planetary focus. For example an industry planet would build mainly industry buildings with a few agriculture or mining buildings in a few regions for self sufficiency if it needs it.
Industry buildings could be along the lines of:
Infrastructure level 1 - Workshops (1 industry per population unit)
Infrastructure level 2 - Assembly lines (+1 industry per pop)
Infrastructure level 3 - Factories (+1 industry per pop)
Infrastructure level 4 - Automated Factories (+1 industry per pop)
Infrastructure level 5 - Robotic Factories (+2 industry per pop)
Infrastructure level 6 - Inter-linked factory complexes (+4 industry per pop)

A fully developed industry world would therefore have a whopping 10 industry per population unit and would essentially be a single sprawling mass of huge factories operated mainly by robotic equipment along with workers to keep it all running.
Infrastructure levels would probably depend on what percentage of the planet's capacity you have populated:
Level 1 - default, even if you have one person there then this is the level you are at. Building can begin
Level 2 - 10%
Level 3 - 25%
Level 4 - 40%
Level 5 - 60%
Level 6 - 90%

[Underling]

I think that the Spartan method sounds promissing for FO as well, BUT I don't think you need to so casually discard the Civ/SMAC style buildings. What is really needed to minimize late game micro with a system like Civ's is nothing more than a dumb (ie- no AI) building plan system. If the player has the ability to set some predesigned build ques that will be followed in order if set to a specifc world, micro is no probelm.

EX: A player decides through experience with the game that he/she has determined the optimal series in which to build improvements for each of the available world focuses. The player could then designate a que of buildings and give that que a user-defined name. Then, when a new world is colonized the player can simply select the que from a menu, apply to the world and viola! micro avoided, SMAC style buildings still used.

Other than the initial investment of time in designing the ques, there is very little to no micro involved. If you allow the player to save their ques between different games, even less is involved as the ques become a one-time process.

I know that players develop such plans in a metagame sense, as I have a set path I always follow on new worlds in Moo2 (which is micro hell) and many of those I play against have developed similar strategems.

[drek]

If population decreases then the infrastructure will have to downgrade as less taxes from population means that such big buildings cannot be maintained.

Actually, in Spartan, there's no population requirement for infrastructure. This is a good thing, as it means there's no need to invent mechanics describing what happens when the population drops below this requirement.

Upkeep would be handled via a cost to Money per turn. (probably)

[guiguibaah]

... But you would still have to go back to each planet when it came time to upgrade your buildings..

IE:

Slot 1 - Missile base
Slot 2 - Factory
Slot 3 - Laser Cannon
Slot 4 - Hydroponic Farm

(Moon Base)
Slot 5 - Missile Base

If I got a tech that allowed me "Advanced FActories" I would have to ditch the regular factories...
... Unless, when you research something, you get the upgrades all free and automatic (to cut down on micro).

I must say I like the slot idea if you would never have to upgrade them.

* * *

The other problem, though, is that it makes things a little tricky late game when things change. IE: you get into a war and NEED planetary defences. you'd have to go through all your planets and scrap your hydroponic farms to build them - that would be a micromanagement heckhole.

Has this been discussed by the Dev's? I hope we're not irritating them with already decided info

(And if we aren't, we should start a whole NEW discussion on the REAL LIFE application of SLIDERS!!!!!)

[utilae]

Idea 3: Spartan buildings. There are other games that use a similar system, Spartan just happens to be the one that springs to mind first. Basically, there’s only a few slots per planet in which to build stuff. (you can call these slots “regions” or whatever) Two or three slots for small worlds, four or five for large. Once built up, slots can be upgraded as technology increases.

This is the best idea in my opinion.

Idea 3a: Spartan’s method. There is an infrastructure level that can be upgraded. In Spartan, it’s something like “Outpost”, “Small Village” “Large Village” “Town” “City”. With each upgrade, the planet’s population growth rate and/or population cap is improved and another slot is opened. Infrastructure level would be capped by planet size—so a fully built small world would never have as many open slots as a fully built large world.

This is good.

Idea 3b: Every slot is open and available to be built up as soon as the world is colonized. The number of slots is determined by planet size. Every slot filled might increase the growth rate and/or population cap.

NO, this would be no fun.

Idea 3c: Slots are opened for building as the population increases. One problem with this method is how to handle buildings “switching off” when the population decreases.

Also No.

If population decreases then the infrastructure will have to downgrade as less taxes from population means that such big buildings cannot be maintained. So if a planet gets bombed then regions will start losing their top level buildings (ie the buildings that go into the slot made available by the biggest infrastructure upgrade on the planet) as they also lose infrastructure levels.

I think this will have problems. First of all, will space combat allow you to choose which buildings to bomb. If so, then the bombed buildings are destroyed and would have to be rebuilt.

If infrastructure is decreased, then instead of destroying the buildings, the buildings should be disabled. SO as soon as infrastructure is restored to the level the building requires, then the building is enabled and works as expected. This would save you from having to rebuild the building.

If I got a tech that allowed me "Advanced FActories" I would have to ditch the regular factories...
... Unless, when you research something, you get the upgrades all free and automatic (to cut down on micro).

I think that if you get advanced factories then your lower level factories should just upgrade automatically. And I guess there is no reason why we should need an upgrade cost and time to upgrade. It's not like the ai can make mistakes. Though maybe we could have a limit on upgrades. So you have a level 1 factory and a level 3 factory. Level 4 factories become available. Level 3 factories will upgrade to level 4 factories. But level 1 factories will have to upgrade to level 2, then level 3, then level 4. Maybe there needs to be time for an upgrade to occur I guess, if you have that situation.

The other problem, though, is that it makes things a little tricky late game when things change. IE: you get into a war and NEED planetary defences. you'd have to go through all your planets and scrap your hydroponic farms to build them - that would be a micromanagement heckhole.

This is a problem. Unless you could do something where you could select all the planets you needed. And say something like:
ALL RESEARCH buildings TO DEFENSE

Another way is that you could select the planets/systems you need and just change the focus to defense. All planets/systems will start converting to planetary defenses.

Maybe you could have policies of which buildings are the most valuable, and how much defenses are to be used. So if research is more valuable then industry, then it will replace industry with defense. However, if defense is set to be really high, then it might use more slots for more defenses.

[Satyagraha]

Idea 3c: Slots are opened for building as the population increases. One problem with this method is how to handle buildings “switching off” when the population decreases.

The other problem, though, is that it makes things a little tricky late game when things change. IE: you get into a war and NEED planetary defences. you'd have to go through all your planets and scrap your hydroponic farms to build them - that would be a micromanagement heckhole.

I like 3c. We could allow slots not supported by population for increased maintenance cost.
population decreases by 1: pay increased cost because there of 1 unsupported building.
slots full, urgent need for defense: option to build 2 unsupported defenses and pay heavily increased cost for both. can be scrapped later if they can´t be afforded anymore.

[haravikk]

To clarify what I wrote:

Building 'level's, the way I saw these is not as upgrades to existing buildings but rather they would be buildings in addition to the previous levels. So even when you have robotic factories then you'd still have the simple workshops. So these are more of an improvements idea, as you progress you add more improvements onto your existing industry.
Construction of buildings I would see as automatically beginning when the infrastructure allows it. Some buildings may take longer than others (e.g research buildings due to their complexity would take longer than agriculture ones).
A note regarding technology I think is that all infrastructure levels should be default tech (so you can fully populate a planet from the start of the game), but the buildings would have to be researched. So you could have a level 6 infrastructure still working in workshops.

Planetary defences I would think would go in a default military region. If you are really confident a world will never be reached then you may ignore this military region.
Military regions would be treated the same as other regions in that they'd have different buildings, however these buildings would be mainly to improve the number of weapons a military region can hold. Weapons themselves would be accessible from the military build queue and would become unavailable once you have built as many weapons as your region will hold. In this way a planet with 5 level 6 military regions could become one nasty fortress of a world to break, able to handle most threats without a fleet to protect it.

[utilae]

Maybe you could have a slot or slots that only millitary buildings can go one. So, reall war like races (which may have say 4 slots) will have heaps of room for defenses.

[Krikkitone]

I'd like to agree with Haravikk's idea of levels.

Essentially, each planet would have
# population
# Food Makers
# Mineral Makers
# Production Makers
# Research Makers
# Money Makers
#.. few more types...

The number of a certain type of building (that would actually produce its good) would be proportional to the population of the planet, * a focus factor * a tech factor (so robotic factories would double the number of factories you could have per pop)

There would then be some 'special' buildings

[PowerCrazy]

I prefer either NO buildings, or just "special" buildings. i.e. wonders or the equivalent.

What is the purpose of buildings? So your planets have something to do. Give a tangible sense of infrastructure, spoils of war?

I'd rather a planet be defined by its foci, ONLY. Thus all planets that have X pop and are classified as Industrial planets will be equivalent, with no input from me save me telling them what to build and when to build it. We could have a little number beside a planet when you click on it that was basically a percent. This would be how developed a planet is, when it gets to 100% it will start contributing money to your empire, unless you have it build something: say a wonder or a ship, or defenses.

All this would be automatic. And when you develop the new industrial controls, this % would decrease because the planet is no longer at its maximum.

[drek]

I prefer either NO buildings, or just "special" buildings. i.e. wonders or the equivalent.

What is the purpose of buildings? So your planets have something to do. Give a tangible sense of infrastructure, spoils of war?

I'd rather a planet be defined by its foci, ONLY. Thus all planets that have X pop and are classified as Industrial planets will be equivalent, with no input from me save me telling them what to build and when to build it. We could have a little number beside a planet when you click on it that was basically a percent. This would be how developed a planet is, when it gets to 100% it will start contributing money to your empire, unless you have it build something: say a wonder or a ship, or defenses.

All this would be automatic. And when you develop the new industrial controls, this % would decrease because the planet is no longer at its maximum.

I like this! Great idea. Basically a planet automatically builds itself up, unless you assign it to build something else. This could be the penalty for switching focus as well--lose half your infrastructure score for switching. (plus, an easy method of inflicting bombing damage...just decrease the infrastructure score.)

I do agree that we don't really need a bunch of economy buildings, since FO's already got the Focus system. Buildings should do extra special things, like Wonders.

[tzlaine]

I like this approach a lot too. I dislike the MOO2/Civ style of buildings for a 4X game. It works great in Civ, where each entity is a village and eventually a city, but it breaks down for an entire planet.

[utilae]

That would be the best way to do it, though it does not mean there has to be no buildings.

So, let's say that the foci system (powercrazy suggests) allows you to only change the primary focus and secondary focus of the planet. You would think we need no buildings. But we can still have them. Just that we don't ever build them ourselves.

SO changing the focus to research, it will build research buildings on its own. See with buildings, they could be bombed, destroyed, etc. So they would need to be rebuilt. But, the focus system would rebuild it for you.

So we can still have buildings, we just won't really interact with them except in space combat/ground combat/spying where we destroy them.

[PowerCrazy]

That would be the best way to do it, though it does not mean there has to be no buildings.

So, let's say that the foci system (powercrazy suggests) allows you to only change the primary focus and secondary focus of the planet. You would think we need no buildings. But we can still have them. Just that we don't ever build them ourselves.

SO changing the focus to research, it will build research buildings on its own. See with buildings, they could be bombed, destroyed, etc. So they would need to be rebuilt. But, the focus system would rebuild it for you.

So we can still have buildings, we just won't really interact with them except in space combat/ground combat/spying where we destroy them.

Right, and the most important thing is I don't have to spend countless hours checking each one of my planets to see what I need to build.