Recognized Exploration/System Bonuses and Actual Empire Building

[TomW1605]

Edymnion you should add a poll

 

[Edymnion]

Edymnion you should add a poll

For what? If you like it, hit Like or Agree on the first post. If you don't like it, don't click on it.

 

[psteiner]

I think that we have elaborated so much on this thread with our walls of text that there is scarcely enough to talk about right now...

 

[Gladstone]

Since everyone is generally agreeing for the need for this (if not necessarily the implementation), and since I believe we can use some more discussion (hopefully the devs see it!), I’ll ask some questions about preferences for this system:

· To what degree should empire-building be cooperative? I believe there are two ways that empire-building could be implemented, depending on how much you like factions. The first way, of course, is that a single player can (with sufficient resources) create an empire as large as they like, sending settlers and warships out conquer entire galaxies if they so please. However, some issues come up with this. While the consensus on this post is that a good part of empire-building will be making your territory self-sustaining (the player isn’t micromanaging every single aspect of the empire, but trying to get it function without interference), I wonder how feasible something like this would be to set up on a multi-system or even a galactic scale. Without thinking about strains on the servers, players would be too busy managing their own empire and putting out fires to interact with each other, except when conflict comes. The other way would be that when a player founds their “civilization”, their max expansion is within that system only, or limited to a few systems. However, their little people can still interact (trade, explore, fight, etc.) with other little civilizations owned by other players. And, when players join a faction, their civilization will treat the other faction-members’ civilizations as friendlies and proceed to trade, build, and fight alongside them. Thus, players can still have galaxy-spanning empires, only now they get to build it cooperatively, and work at a manageable level. This would also allow room for NPC civilizations to exist between player factions, and even for new players to “adopt” NPC civilizations.

· How sector-dense can civilizations be? (Warning: personal preference ahead) In my mind, something that’s a bit visually unappealing is having a civilization of a single system spread out in a thin, lonely band across the sector. I’d like to avoid civilizations being a bunch of tiny, half-dozen settler stations with the bare minimum of systems to get bonuses or have an optimized production layout. I’d like some sort of incentive to group and cluster (for economic reasons; I have no problem with your civilization’s military forces spread thin. Your funeral.) Some incentives would be that your people require slightly more resources when they’re in a bigger station/city, but they also produce much more resources/soldiers/squanches when they’re in bigger groups. One way to do this, without messing with the resource production capabilities of your citizens, is by limiting how many (inhabited) stations you can have next to each other. For example, you could only build a station for your civilization in a sector that is at least two sectors away from other stations. Then, the exception could be if you have an inhabited planet, that planet's sector and all the adjacent sectors can contain inhabited stations. This both allows civilizations to clump and makes planets useful!

 

[psteiner]

Since everyone is generally agreeing for the need for this (if not necessarily the implementation), and since I believe we can use some more discussion (hopefully the devs see it!), I’ll ask some questions about preferences for this system:

· To what degree should empire-building be cooperative? I believe there are two ways that empire-building could be implemented, depending on how much you like factions. The first way, of course, is that a single player can (with sufficient resources) create an empire as large as they like, sending settlers and warships out conquer entire galaxies if they so please. However, some issues come up with this. While the consensus on this post is that a good part of empire-building will be making your territory self-sustaining (the player isn’t micromanaging every single aspect of the empire, but trying to get it function without interference), I wonder how feasible something like this would be to set up on a multi-system or even a galactic scale. Without thinking about strains on the servers, players would be too busy managing their own empire and putting out fires to interact with each other, except when conflict comes. The other way would be that when a player founds their “civilization”, their max expansion is within that system only, or limited to a few systems. However, their little people can still interact (trade, explore, fight, etc.) with other little civilizations owned by other players. And, when players join a faction, their civilization will treat the other faction-members’ civilizations as friendlies and proceed to trade, build, and fight alongside them. Thus, players can still have galaxy-spanning empires, only now they get to build it cooperatively, and work at a manageable level. This would also allow room for NPC civilizations to exist between player factions, and even for new players to “adopt” NPC civilizations.

· How sector-dense can civilizations be? (Warning: personal preference ahead) In my mind, something that’s a bit visually unappealing is having a civilization of a single system spread out in a thin, lonely band across the sector. I’d like to avoid civilizations being a bunch of tiny, half-dozen settler stations with the bare minimum of systems to get bonuses or have an optimized production layout. I’d like some sort of incentive to group and cluster (for economic reasons; I have no problem with your civilization’s military forces spread thin. Your funeral.) Some incentives would be that your people require slightly more resources when they’re in a bigger station/city, but they also produce much more resources/soldiers/squanches when they’re in bigger groups. One way to do this, without messing with the resource production capabilities of your citizens, is by limiting how many (inhabited) stations you can have next to each other. For example, you could only build a station for your civilization in a sector that is at least two sectors away from other stations. Then, the exception could be if you have an inhabited planet, that planet's sector and all the adjacent sectors can contain inhabited stations. This both allows civilizations to clump and makes planets useful!

Well, a lot of great ideas here, let me give a few opinions on a few of them:

Player to Player Civilization relations:
I agree on this, mainly because it would allow for more in depth game play and multiplayer interactions

Limitation of max Civ. Size:
I disagree because Starmade is supposed to be an "infinite universe"


Personally, I believe that encouraging people to group together is a great idea to prevent half baked colonies everywhere...

 

[StormWing0]

Could make the limits if any configurable. :P

 

[Lecic]

There's already talk of gas giants and using them for renewable resource gathering, and I think that would be a good start. Entire wars would be fought over systems with Rammet baring gas giants. Lets look at those as being similar to the various resource panel enhancements in Civilization. Instead of a panel with Wheat on it, you have a system with a Parseen gas giant. Instead of an iron deposit, you've got a Rammet planet.

Personally, I'd rather have gas giants produce fuel that lets you go past the power softcap, with regular planets producing materials. Beyond that, though, I love this suggestion.

 

[Zaphord]

Personally, I'd rather have gas giants produce fuel that lets you go past the power softcap, with regular planets producing materials. Beyond that, though, I love this suggestion.

True, take Jupiter for example, it's upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium. Hydrogen has a long history of being a sci-fi fuel source, so you could mine the gas from a gas giant, process it into fuel capsules and use it to break the soft cap for as long as you have fuel, or even use it to produce a fusion reactor of sorts.

Other gases could be used to say, harden shields or overdrive weapons (Argon, for example, has low thermal conductivity which would allow your beam weapons to fire faster and more intensely without burning out your emmiters.)

 

[lilheartless]

True, take Jupiter for example, it's upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium. Hydrogen has a long history of being a sci-fi fuel source, so you could mine the gas from a gas giant, process it into fuel capsules and use it to break the soft cap for as long as you have fuel, or even use it to produce a fusion reactor of sorts.

Other gases could be used to say, harden shields or overdrive weapons (Argon, for example, has low thermal conductivity which would allow your beam weapons to fire faster and more intensely without burning out your emmiters.)

although the block count for adding all sorts of different gases to the game is a consideration i actually like this you could have gas tanks or whatever that hold x amount of the gases and then you link those tanks up to weapons thrusters power reactors etc and have increased performance for as long as you have gas seems like an awesome idea and a way to add more "customization to your ships"

Edit: i do wonder though how this could be implemented to make it a choice instead of just I need all of these gases to arbitrarily boost all of my stats or my ship isn't as good as everyone elses.

Edit: Zaphord I realized that I was completely going off topic too so i'll add this in here instead of creating another post lol This system is definitively probably worth its own suggestion thread lol i'd support it.

 

[Zaphord]

although the block count for adding all sorts of different gases to the game is a consideration i actually like this you could have gas tanks or whatever that hold x amount of the gases and then you link those tanks up to weapons thrusters power reactors etc and have increased performance for as long as you have gas seems like an awesome idea and a way to add more "customization to your ships"

Edit: i do wonder though how this could be implemented to make it a choice instead of just I need all of these gases to arbitrarily boost all of my stats or my ship isn't as good as everyone elses.

There would have to be a downside to using gasses in order to balance out the advantages you get for using them. Tanks would be a good, you'd have to build extra storage on your ship to hold these gases. You'd also have to have seperate tanks for different gasses, so you'd need a massive ship to be able to have every type of gas available.
[DOUBLEPOST=1445199484,1445199353][/DOUBLEPOST]Opps, seems we're getting off topic. :p Sorry.

 

[Wolverines527]

This is a great idea i love the idea of building an empire its always one thing i did on minecraft after building an epic castle i would build citys and wall them up and set up roads

 

[lilheartless]

This is a great idea i love the idea of building an empire its always one thing i did on minecraft after building an epic castle i would build citys and wall them up and set up roads

haha same with me i'd usually build my "farm estate" big farmhouse tons of fields a huge barn for animals all fenced off and then i'd build a walkway to a manmade village lol.

 

[Wolverines527]

haha same with me i'd usually build my "farm estate" big farmhouse tons of fields a huge barn for animals all fenced off and then i'd build a walkway to a manmade village lol.

Nice do you have ps3 cause i could show most of what i made i even made a ship too

 

[lilheartless]

Nice do you have ps3 cause i could show most of what i made i even made a ship too

i did have a ps3 at one point but it died and i didn't bother replacing it I actually recently bought a ps4 for the sole purpose of playing fallout 4 lol i don't own any games for it right now XD

 

[Wolverines527]

Thats a bummber though i can imagin this game being a blast on a console especially the wii u benefiting in some parts of the game like rapid selection on the screen or a tac pad for commanding your ships
[DOUBLEPOST=1445217827,1445217762][/DOUBLEPOST]Hmmm i might have a good idea might even post it as a sugestion once the game is off the alpha stage

 

[Edymnion]

Additional Brainstorming:

What if the NPCs that spawned in were generic, and didn't do anything on their own? Instead, you needed to have gear lockers (in the same vein that we currently have medical cabinets). An NPC goes to a gear locker, uses it, and is "equipped" with a job role. The locker then goes into a cooldown period just like the medical cabinets do, probably with a longer CD though.

Could make mining lockers that would turn your NPCs into miners who would operate resource extraction. Farm lockers would turn them into food gatherers. And whatever other jobs we could come up with.

NPC visits a locker that isn't on CD at random, and gets a "job". They then go to the resource gathering location (a mining block, or a food block, or whatever else). They pick up a resource block (could make it where you have to build the resource gathering area and resources spawn into the area at a set rate, like one block of food/ore/whatever spawns on top of a food/ore/whatever spawning block every 5 minutes), carry it to the nearest storage bin, repeat X number of times. After X number of trips they get "tired" and move to the nearest unoccupied bed block (maybe make it white with a pillow illustration on top so that we could use other blocks to make the blankets). They switch out of their job clothes, and go to "sleep". After X amount of time they wake up and the cycle restarts.

Wake up, get a task for the day, preform the task, go back to bed.

 

[lilheartless]

Additional Brainstorming:

What if the NPCs that spawned in were generic, and didn't do anything on their own? Instead, you needed to have gear lockers (in the same vein that we currently have medical cabinets). An NPC goes to a gear locker, uses it, and is "equipped" with a job role. The locker then goes into a cooldown period just like the medical cabinets do, probably with a longer CD though.

Could make mining lockers that would turn your NPCs into miners who would operate resource extraction. Farm lockers would turn them into food gatherers. And whatever other jobs we could come up with.

NPC visits a locker that isn't on CD at random, and gets a "job". They then go to the resource gathering location (a mining block, or a food block, or whatever else). They pick up a resource block (could make it where you have to build the resource gathering area and resources spawn into the area at a set rate, like one block of food/ore/whatever spawns on top of a food/ore/whatever spawning block every 5 minutes), carry it to the nearest storage bin, repeat X number of times. After X number of trips they get "tired" and move to the nearest unoccupied bed block (maybe make it white with a pillow illustration on top so that we could use other blocks to make the blankets). They switch out of their job clothes, and go to "sleep". After X amount of time they wake up and the cycle restarts.

Wake up, get a task for the day, preform the task, go back to bed.

sounds alot like indentured servitude .... today you work in the mines, tomorrow you clean the pig pits!

 

[Edymnion]

sounds alot like indentured servitude .... today you work in the mines, tomorrow you clean the pig pits!

Nah, thats why you have recreational areas and luxuries to keep the population happy.

There we go. Wake up, go to work. Finish work, swing by the alien karaoke bar for a bit, then go home to bed.

Be just like real life! Wake up, work, waste time doing silly things, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Ooh, tie the "Repeats task X number of times before getting tired" to the overall happiness level of the sector. Happy NPCs work more shifts before calling it a day, which increases overall resource gathering.

 

[lilheartless]

Nah, thats why you have recreational areas and luxuries to keep the population happy.

There we go. Wake up, go to work. Finish work, swing by the alien karaoke bar for a bit, then go home to bed.

Be just like real life! Wake up, work, waste time doing silly things, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Ooh, tie the "Repeats task X number of times before getting tired" to the overall happiness level of the sector. Happy NPCs work more shifts before calling it a day, which increases overall resource gathering.

hmh maybe i'd just give them a bonus to production rather than making them work more smarter not harder and all that i was actually being sarcastic i originally said slavery but i changed that right away cause of the negative association with that "buzz word" lol. I'm actually all for this I would love to build cities and large empires, not sure how feasible it is but it would be epic if it could be done on this huge of a scale/this in depth.

 

[Edymnion]

One thing to watch out for with this though would be the additional server load of tracking these guys running around. But that could be as simple as "If no player is in the sector, disable the NPCs and just load resources into storage directly every tic".