V3 ScratchPad

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Revision as of 15:31, 13 July 2004 by 63.246.166.179 (Talk)

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TO-DO: I'm going to almost comletely rewrite this to make it clearer and conform to suggestions from various sources. ETA: Wend. --drek

Doh. This no longer resembles the document I wrote, esp. in regards to Effects. Moving effects, as it is a debate for another day. From now on, please make suggestions to the talk page...I'm going to finalize the document for Aq's eyes, and so want the content to be more or less locked. --drek

Meters

Meters are variables attached to planets, representing the production capabilities and social attributes of each colonized world. Future Note: There will be “meters” attached to ships, ship parts, empires, and perhaps the galaxy itself.

Meters always range from 0-100. For greater granularity, meters can be modified in fractions of a full step (for example, a current meter value might grow by +.25 during a turn). However, the effects of a building or technology on a meter are always integers (+1, -24, not -5.292 or +0.02) when described to the player (eg. "Superlabs gives +4 to research"), and the value of a meter is always rounded to the nearest integer on the UI.

TO-DO: On going dicussion as to the scale of meters. 0-100, 0-10, 0-255? This may mean a hard cap on meter levels, above which additional bonuses have no effect, or it may mean that the set of possible bonuses in-game are only sufficient to reach a certain level when all applied simultaneously (or as much as stacking allows). Might need a public review.

Meters have both a Max Value and a Current Value. Production calaculations and conditional tests use the Current Value. Current meter values slowly increase towards the max meter value (see Infrastructure for more information). Bonus, penalty and focus effects generally manipulate the Max Value, which may or may not alter the current value. Unusual, catastrophic or good random events may permanently modify the Current Value (until it regrows).

Resource Meters

Resource meters govern the production of resources by a world. Resources are Nutrients/Food, Minerals, Production Points, Research and Money. For each resource,

(Amount of Resource Produced at Planet) = (Resource Meter value) / 10 * (Planet Population)

TO-DO: There is ongoing discussion pertaining to the value of each meter level. That is, does the amount prorduced depend on the meter value, or some other factor that is a function of the meter vavlue? Might need a public review.

v0.3 Resource Meters

Farming: Farming determines the amount of Nutrients (TO-DO: aka "Food"?) a world produces. It is heavily modified by poor environment. [b]Each population point requires one unit of food every turn to not die of starvation.[/b]

Mining: Mining determines the number of Minerals produced.

Industry: Industry determines the Production Points (PP) generated by a world. TO-DO: Gravity (ie, Planet Size) effecting Industry, as a balance for larger planets. Been discussed before, at length when NF and I were assembling v.2 stuff.

Science: Science determines the Research generated by a world. In the future, government picks will probably have a significant influence on this meter.

Trade: Trade determines the Money extracted from a world. In the future, government picks will probably have a significant influence on this meter.

Planet Focus

There is a Primary and Secondary Focus for every colonized planet, representing what resource(s) the planet is "focusing" on producing. The Max Values of resource meters are heavily influenced by Focus settings. Both Focii can be independently set to one of the five resource meters or the "Balanced" setting.

New colonies (including the Homeworld at the beginning of the game) begin with Primary Focus set to Balanced, and Secondary Focus set to Farming. (With these focus settings, a planet is food self-sufficient when its current farming meter equals its max farming meter, unless other modifications change the max farming meter. Each unit of population needs 1 unit of food, and the combination of primary balanced and secondary farming gives the bonuses necessary to produce this amount of food at a single planet)

Focus Effects on Max Resource Meters

At the start of the game (before tech or building modifications), focus settings have these effects on max meter values:

  • Primary Focus adds + 12 to one max resource meter
  • Primary Balanced Focus adds +4 to all max resource meters
  • Secondary Specialized Focus adds +6 to one resource meter
  • Secondary Balanced Focus adds +2 to all max resource meters

TO-DO: There is on going dicussion pertaining the value of each focus setting. Might need a public review. This could change the minimum setting for food-self sufficiency, which might necessitate changing the starting/default focus settings for a planet. The current values have properties discussed on the talk page, so read that if you object to these values and wish to suggest alternatives.

Legacy Note: Once upon a time, in version .2 , each Focus setting would add to every meter, so that every colony would produce a little of each type of resource. That role now belongs to technologies and buildings. Worlds still produce a little of everything, once the proper techs are researched and buildings constructed. TO-DO: This has been mentioned in Infra and Effect threads in Design, and implied in the public review for Infrastructure, though not explictly passed yet.

Techs/buildings can independently add or subtract to the bonus for any of the 4 focus type for each meter. (This can alternative be described as giving a bonus to the max resoure meters at worlds with certain focus) Example: WonderFarms adds +5 to the farming bonus for worlds with farming specialed primary focus, +2 to farming on balanced primary focus, +2 to specialized secondary focus, and +1 to balanced secondary focus, and no bonus (+0) to worlds with focus settings that are neither balanced nor specialized farming.

Social Meters

Social meters govern the properties of a world not directly related to producing resources.

v0.3 Social Meters

Health: Health governs the growth rate of population. (TO-DO: Does a low heath meter mean -ve growth or just no or very slow growth?) (TO-DO: Does food supply influence this meter?) (TO-DO: Famines may or may not work through the health meter. Famine may be an event or just a cap on population equal to the supply of food/nutrients.)

Infrastructure Infrastructure governs the growth rate of Meters, and can modify the costs of build projects. See Infrastructure for more details. (TO-DO: Name for this meter under discussion. Could be "Construction")

Future Social Meters

Happiness: Happiness guards against unrest events. It is not used in v.3.

Security: Security lowers the duration of unrest events, guards against piracy events, and guards against enemy espionage. It is not used in v.3

Infrastructure

On each colonized planet, meters determine the quantity of resource production and the rate of growth on the planet. Each meter has a Max Value and a Current Value.

Effects modify the Max Meter. The exception is destructive events: for example, earthquakes, riots, and enemy bombings act on the Current Meters.

New colonies start with all Current Meters set to 0, with the exception of the Homeworld, which starts with current meters equal to its starting max meter values.

Each turn, if a Current Meter is greater than it's associated Max Meter, the Current Meter is reduced to match the Max Meter. For example, if the player switches a focus from Farming to Mining, the Max Farming Meter will be reduced. As a result, the Farming Current Meter would also reduce to match (if its current value before the change was larger than its max value after).

Each turn, every meter (aside from the Infrastructure Meter) increases via the following formula:

(Meter Value Change) = (Infrastructure Meter + FocusBonus) / ( (Current Meter Value) + 1)
(New Meter Value) = Min( (Meter Value) + (Meter Value Change), (Max Meter Value) )

In the above forumula, FocusBonus is equal to 30 if Primary Focus is set to the meter being incremented and FocusBonus is 15 if Secondary Focus is set, but Primary Focus is not set. These bonuses do not stack: 30 is used if both foci are set to the meter in question. Balanced Foci provide no bonus.

TO-DO: Geoff's forumla. I want Powercrazy and a few other eyes to take a look at this formula.

The Current Infrastructure Meter increases based on the Max Infrastructure Meter: (Meter Value Change) = (Max Infrastructure Meter) / ( (Current Meter Value) + 1)
(New Infrastructure) = Min( (Meter Value) + (Meter Value Change), (Max Meter Value) )

If a Build Project (including Terraforming but excluding Ships) is currently in progress on a planet, growth to the Infrastructure meter is halted for the duration of the project.

The Current Resource Meters are divided by ten, then multiplied with population to determine the quantity of each resource produced by the planet. The results of these operations are not rounded off to intergers internally, however they are displayed to integers to the user.

On the UI, each meter should be represented by: a: Filled in boxes or icons for each point in the Current Meter b: Greyed out boxes or icons for each point of the Max Meter above the Current Meter's value. c: A numeric and/or iconic display of the total resources produced by the planet. d: An indication of which resource meter is enjoying the benefits of the Primary and Secondary Foci. (Player should be able to manipulate this indication to change the Focus of the world.) e: In addition, meters should expand and contract to fit available space. Once meters reach higher levels, the indivdual boxes or icons might have to be quite small. TO-DO: or some other solution

Infrastructure Labels

Infrastructure Labels have no gameplay effect. They represent a rating to allow players to easily judge the progess of colonies.

The average of every Current Meter is determined. Based on this average, a Label is selected from the list below:

  • 1-10:
  • 11-30: Developing World
  • 30-60:
  • 60-90:
  • 90-100: Metroplex

To-DO: Think up better Labels. Can't use Nascent Colony, for example, because low infra might be due to destructive events.