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Author Topic: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense  (Read 17030 times)

TrashMan

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Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« on: May 16, 2019, 04:47:18 AM »

This needs some serious overhaul.

The simplest way I can think off (that wont' require massive code re-writes) is to simply modify the scale/measuring of colony size.
Right now Colony Size is an exponential measure of population - Size 1 is 1^10 = 10 people, size 10 is 10^10 = 10 billion people.
The range is far too big and makes no damn sense.
Size 1 colony can have 1 industry, but sizes 7-10 can have 4?
So 10 people are enough to operate an industry, but there's no difference if you have 1 billion or 10 billion? Makes no damn sense. Makes no damn sense why would you even have colonies that small.
Anything below 1 million people would not even be worth visiting for a trader.

So re-working the scale so that:
Size 1 - 1-2 million
Size 2 - between 2 and 5 million
Size 3 - between 5 and 10 million
Size 4 - between 10 and 50 million
Size 6 - between 50 and 100 million
Size 7 - between 100 and 500 million
Size 8 - between 500 mil and 1 billion
Size 9 - between 1 and 5 billion
Size 10 - between 5 and 10 billion

Stations work differently, they are trading hubs so their populations doesn't matter as much. (or alternatively, they have their own separate population scale that goes from hunderds to a million tops). That, and they would be limited to 1 or 2 industries anyway due to size


But what about starting new player colonies? They would be size 0 for a while and no faction would care until they reach size 1.
Would be nice to have ACTUAL population numbers. The smaller the colony, the faster it grows
« Last Edit: May 16, 2019, 09:11:01 AM by TrashMan »
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Igncom1

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2019, 09:23:40 AM »

I'm not a fan of this, I prefer the general vagueness of the colonies so we don't get tied up in stuff that we don't need to be.

Besides the industries scale with the planet, so it's not like you'd have massive unemployment beyond what the setting already has.
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Thaago

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2019, 10:30:43 AM »

Colonies start at size 3, not size 1. An industry at size 3 and size 10 are not the same thing. One outputs at a level supporting thousands, while another outputs at a level supporting billions. The idea that anything less than a 1 million wouldn't be worth visiting from a trader is rather silly, considering the population of the sector is around that of the earth and many places of that size contribute economically. Things as they stand make perfect sense if you think about them.

But all that really doesn't matter. The number of industries is regulated entirely by gameplay.
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Baqar79

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2019, 07:09:30 PM »

It looks like Chicomoztoc has the biggest population at 10^8 which is in the hundreds of millions, so it could be possible that the entire sector has less than a billion (not sure what the Lore states about the overall population).

I've just recently grown a colony to 10^8 and it's likely a sizeable portion of the sectors overall population would had to resettle there to make this happen, as there isn't really enough time for a natural population to grow within this time frame.  Would also be cool to have some sort of faction opposition as you begin to acquire a sizeable portion of the sectors skilled worker base, eg if Chicomoztoc clamped down on emigration, perhaps you would need to "liberate" the colony to get the population growth rate going again.  Perhaps the reverse can happen to your own colonies, so you might have the option of setting up "edicts" to provide better working conditions or benefits to those living in your colonies, to keep them from migrating elsewhere, not to mention the market effects of changing down a population tier.

I kind of think that 10^8 should pretty much be the cap on the population unless your game covers a hundred years or so.  Perhaps have the growth rate progress like this after hitting 10^8 (1*10^8):
(formerly 10^8): 1*10^8 -> "<planet name> is one of the few worlds in the Sector with a population over one hundred million"
(formerly 10^9): 2*10^8 -> "<planet name> is one of the few worlds in the Sector with a population over two hundred million"
(formerly 10^10): 3*10^8 -> "<planet name> is one of the few worlds in the Sector with a population over three hundred million"
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TrashMan

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2019, 01:32:37 AM »

As I said, the current setup makes little sense. You have massive starship yards with tiny populations. The population ranges are all over the place.


Colonies start at size 3, not size 1. An industry at size 3 and size 10 are not the same thing. One outputs at a level supporting thousands, while another outputs at a level supporting billions. The idea that anything less than a 1 million wouldn't be worth visiting from a trader is rather silly, considering the population of the sector is around that of the earth and many places of that size contribute economically. Things as they stand make perfect sense if you think about them.

No. Considering how expensive starships are, taking a trip to another system to deliver 10 tons of cat food seems bizzare.
Even our naval cargo ships have to be loaded to make fielding them viable, and they are a LOOOOOOOOOOT cheaper to build and mantain.

The numbers need adjusting. The underlaying mechanic does not need to change. Population on most planets needs to go up (except barren worlds)

My numbers are just a example. Personally,I'd not put max population of a planet above 1-2 billion, Earth has 7 billion and it's already far too much.
Max population could be a function of planet SIZE (not market) and TYPE. Obviously, a large terran planet will be able to support more pop than a small arid world. Basically calculate max pop and adjust pop growth to slow down exponentially the closer to the max it comes.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2019, 11:16:21 AM »

I mean there's no reason to believe that the scale and prices of the star sector economy would be at all related to how they are on earth. It's clearly established in lore that ships are constructed with nano-forges and other technology that doesn't exist, so it's not clear at all how expensive that would be. It's also not clear how expensive raw resources are. It could be incredibly cheap to construct and operate a ship if the manufacturing technology was advanced enough and the resources were cheap enough. It might then be profitable to run small scale trade to supply something that isn't produced on a small colony.

What is reasonable for a trader to do is based on what is profitable, and what is profitable is based on made up technology, so there's no connection to how the economy of earth works.
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Thaago

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2019, 11:42:46 AM »

I disagree with you on all counts, but don't think any argument would be worth making.
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xenoargh

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2019, 12:07:08 PM »

Honestly, I think we took a step backwards with these changes.  By trying to shoehorn players' Colonies into the same small shoes the Faction Colonies were put into, I agree that we've basically ended up with stuff that feels a little absurd, honestly.

The issue here is not the size of the Industries as choices, per se.  It's totally reasonable to have, say, a planet that's super-specialized in terms of exports; a mining Colony, for example, might have a population of millions, but it exports only Rare Ores in giant amounts.

What makes this absurd-feeling is how the current systems translate into gameplay. 

There's a lot of absurdity in larger Colonies not having significantly upscaled military capabilities, defense against Pathers, and reasonable profit margins.  A Size 3 colony in 0.9 with all of the Industry check-boxes ticked could, magically, have enough military forces to see off small Pirate flotillas, which seemed reasonable (surely a few thousand space-colonists could get in their Hounds and defend their homes).  But it doesn't translate properly with scale.  A Size 10 should be able to dominate its System and all of the nearby Hyperspace without even noticing the costs.  Let alone what happens if it mobilizes for offensive war.

Moreover, we're not even at the point where we can declare reasonable / meaningful military goals yet.

A Size 10 should be able to send out endless armadas, not some little fleet we'll be annoyed to have to cross the Sector to face down.  And players shouldn't have to waste an Industry to have it merely able to defend itself properly against anything short of a Faction deciding to send Armageddon.  Seriously; the other Factions shouldn't even bother, if they're not ready to wage a full-scale, no-holds-barred war.

We should have budget priorities we can set for guns-vs-butter, instead, that result in reasonable outcomes.  I think a major mistake here was making military / police an Industry in the first place, just like Commerce and Way-Stations.  It looks like a mistake now that Industries have been so pared back, anyhow; it looked pretty reasonable before.

I think it can be presumed that anywhere humans establish an interstellar outpost, if it's home to thousands, it has the capability to refuel incoming ships, has at least a few security forces and small-arms in lockers for real emergencies, etc.

It just shouldn't be possible for Pirates to Raid anything larger than Size 4 without devoting large armadas to the job; a Size 6 should be pretty much immune.  Same goes for Pathers; they really shouldn't be a serious problem after a certain point, unless we're going to give them magical powers (maybe they like biological-warfare weapons for cases where mere sabotage won't work, for example; but then I want to be able to AM-bomb them out of existence and without diplomatic consequences, if they're straight-up murdering my civilians to cripple my economy; I think it's already absurd that they can get away with Acts of War without extreme consequences, and in my 0.9 game I ended up nuking every last one of their Industries to keep them crippled).

I think that Industries being small in number like this means that a lot of the basic things we expect Colonies to be able to do for themselves (like basic defense, police work, etc.) need to be on budget sliders, where we're able to eat the profits (or money allocated to population growth) to meet the goals. 

I don't want the game to feel absurd, where giant populations don't have similarly-giant resources at their disposal; while we can make the case for a few places being huge but relatively weak, it's all relative; India may not be a superpower, but its military would roll over the Maldives without breaking a sweat, in the real world; what stops them isn't capability, it's consequences vs. the value of the conquest to them strategically.

Lastly... if big Colonies simply destroy the power curve, just make population growth slow down a bunch, or something.  Frankly, I'm on the "who cares" end of the segment, in terms of "balance" here; I don't think money should ever be a serious balancing tool for this game; I think that exterior threats should be the real issue, taking us back to the core loops of the design (i.e., like it or not, serious conflicts are going to be about players' ability to win fights, not out-spend their opponents).  In an end-game scenario where, say, the player's Faction decides to take on all of the Factions in the Sector, the player should just lose, as endless waves of armadas arrive at their colonies. 

If making things difficult on the high end when the player has established Colonies, they're nicely profitable, and they decide not to engage diplomatically, is the goal... simply make the Factions behave as they now do until the player attacks them with AM for the first time... then the gloves come off, the Faction starts deploying much larger military forces... and what they send at your Colonies won't be a joke.  Players will then get ground down economically simply replacing ship losses, at that point, and it's a question of taking damage at home or taking the war to the enemy. 

Right now, it feels like violence as a tool of diplomacy is hugely in the player's hands, and tying those hands with Money isn't going to work out, if the player's fleet, alone, can be expected to take on the worst a Faction can throw at them, for cheap or even at a mild profit. 

If you make the Hegemony mad enough to send a real invasion fleet, fighting it with a solo player fleet shouldn't even be a realistic option; it should be something like 20-30 armadas, and sure, the player can grind them down, but that means leaving their Colony vulnerable.  To defend against that should require warning that it's coming, huge spending on military preparation, and Colonies big enough to pump out a similar volume of ships.  But not a Military Base, etc.- that should all be presumed to exist, because a State without a military isn't a State very long, generally speaking.
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Thaago

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2019, 12:33:21 PM »

The smallest level of military, exactly what you describe should be able to deal with small forces without requiring an industry, does not require an industry slot, it is a structure. Its effects scale with population size.

Historically the actually powerful navies of the world depend on large expensive facilities which take decades at minimum to fully develop, requiring large government investment and the use of significant fractions of GDP, and even these navies have problems with piracy. In the age of sail the British navy was the most powerful navy, capable of simultaneously fighting every other naval power on the planet and winning, yet it still had problems with smuggling and piracy. In the present day, the US navy is in the same position, and yet they are also struggling to deal with piracy of the coast of africa.
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Schwartz

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2019, 12:38:21 PM »

Right now, the game tells us that our colonies are better in almost every way to established NPC planets, which is a big statement to make that informs how we as players feel about the sector at large. We have AI cores, better profit margins, better accessibility and better fleets. To a player, it must feel like the decline is something he can turn around with relative ease. The NPC factions are just 'bad at the game'. Which is not the greatest feeling to inspire in a player.

The only thing standing in the way is pirates and pathers. In my rather late game (cycle 229 currently), the pirates are just throwing raids at systems staccato-style, and the raids are 4-fleet monstrosities with dozens of Atlas Mk.II. I could just let the core systems crumble, but if you're looking to maintain the status quo, things do get difficult because it takes a heavy toll on time.

Please don't give us more industries or more money. Taking scale down a notch would be the simplest solution. The sector is in decline, maybe a size 9 planet shouldn't house billions. That negates most of the complaints re. power, raid defense, trade and money scaling. Besides that, attaining a high pop could be much harder or close to impossible for player-established colonies.

xenoargh, you're right in saying that agency is in the player's hands alone. This should be alleviated. NPC factions are supposed to be powerful, yet they can't take out a single piddly pirate or pather base. They don't send much or any defense to their own threatened systems either.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2019, 12:41:13 PM by Schwartz »
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TrashMan

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2019, 01:20:02 PM »

I mean there's no reason to believe that the scale and prices of the star sector economy would be at all related to how they are on earth. It's clearly established in lore that ships are constructed with nano-forges and other technology that doesn't exist, so it's not clear at all how expensive that would be. It's also not clear how expensive raw resources are. It could be incredibly cheap to construct and operate a ship if the manufacturing technology was advanced enough and the resources were cheap enough. It might then be profitable to run small scale trade to supply something that isn't produced on a small colony.

What is reasonable for a trader to do is based on what is profitable, and what is profitable is based on made up technology, so there's no connection to how the economy of earth works.


Even if you could produce a ship cheaply (and given the rarity of forges and the value of the chips IN LORE  that's a very big no), maintaining that ship is the real killer, both in Real Life and in-game.
Fuel and supplies eat up TONS on credits, and even a player will find most trade offers aren't worth it, even on big trade runs. You make best money on emergency and priority cargo, so yes, I guess one can make money on smaller quantities, but it's not really stable income.

But the issue of scale still remains. Why is population so low? Why even use this measuring system?

Again, mechanically nothing needs to change (except for stations I guess). Only descriptions.
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TrashMan

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2019, 01:26:59 PM »

Historically the actually powerful navies of the world depend on large expensive facilities which take decades at minimum to fully develop, requiring large government investment and the use of significant fractions of GDP, and even these navies have problems with piracy. In the age of sail the British navy was the most powerful navy, capable of simultaneously fighting every other naval power on the planet and winning, yet it still had problems with smuggling and piracy. In the present day, the US navy is in the same position, and yet they are also struggling to deal with piracy of the coast of africa.

AFRICA. Not US.
There is no piracy in US waters.
And the US could wipe out all the pirates, but it's not worth it.

Technically speaking, piracy in space would be even more difficult for the pirates, especially in the SS universe, where ships can only enter the system a specific locations. Imagine if the US border had only 3 places people could physically come in....
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xenoargh

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2019, 01:28:25 PM »

Quote
xenoargh, you're right in saying that agency is in the player's hands alone. This should be alleviated.
Well, I certainly think so, for these minor threats.  I don't mind if, say, the [REDACTED] decide it's time to launch the Third AI War, that the player needs to step up.  But the current situation feels pretty absurd; these giant Pirate raids are coming from locations that are basically nothing, let alone minor empires; that doesn't even feel right. 

Speaking to Thaago's points; sure, piracy's a thing, even in this day and age, but nobody expects Somali pirates to do really significant damage; they're somewhere down the line from drug-smugglers, in terms of economic impact, and way below the power level of even a minor State like Iran or North Korea.  They're a local problem, not something we expect to take down states that aren't incredibly weak.  Somali pirates aren't going to, say, wreck Amsterdam; even the Belgian Navy, small as it is, could see off all the Somali pirates combined (even presuming they could get there in good order). 

Most of the Core worlds can be described as "Belgium" in size, or larger; there are exceptions where you'd think Pirates would make a go of it, but primarily, Pirates should be a threat to shipping lanes, not planets. 

If they're supposed to be a bigger Big Bad, then let them have real planets of their own, that matter to them, and the player can break the back of the Pirates, just as the British did with the pirate-statelets like the Barbary Corsairs, in the Caribbean, etc., historically

As it is, I admittedly did not nuke all the Pirate planets in the Core Worlds, simply because I was working on something else and ran out of time to test 0.9.  I may make that a priority for 0.91, just to see what happens then.

One of the more-intriguing ideas is that the Pirate / Pather stuff is an opening phase of the midgame.  Perhaps one of the long-term goals of the Hegemony or the League, where the player's offered big bounties to clear these places, with help from naval detachments.

While I certainly am OK with the Sector being an even-more-dysfunctional place than Earth is at present for the sake of providing the player with all the in-story reasons to participate in the main loop of kill-and-loot, the setting's premises introduce their own limitations that should be broadly respected.  Pirates should be raiding small, weak Colonies, not large ones; it just shouldn't be viable and while they're apparently suicidally stupid, that shouldn't make it work any better.

Ultimately, the real threat to Colonies, whether AI-controlled or not, should be other states.  Pirates / Pathers should ultimately be minor distractions; ready to swoop in and kill the weak, but no threat to the strong.
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Schwartz

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2019, 01:55:42 PM »

Agreed. I think the same 'declining sector' could overall be achieved by toning down the pirate raids and having inter-faction warfare and faction threats scale up. They are after all the main powers remaining, they should feel powerful even if they're holding onto that power for dear life.

They could even hand out 'letters of marque' that serve as comissions to pirates and other transponder-off folk.
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Megas

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Re: Colony sizes ad industry limits make no sense
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2019, 03:46:09 PM »

Given that the Sector at large is still angry at the player just for setting up a restaurant bigger than a stall, Military Base is just an industry tax to help keep factions off your back when you do not want to be bothered with due to many other fires that only you can put out.  Without Military Base, player will need to always return to base when it gets attacked by enemies.  I am starting to think Planetary Operations 2+, combined with other ground defense modifiers, could be very useful to boost ground defense to absurd levels and block invaders.  (Now that I want Navigation, I have a hard time squeezing said Planetary Operations in my build without killing too much combat power or giving up Navigation.)

I get that factions do not have military bases everywhere, but until the player can keep enemies off his back, player will need Military Base/High Command at all of his colonies.  If the sector attacked each other like they did the player, you bet they would have High Command at every last market.

Meanwhile, the pirates are the most dangerous threat in the sector because of core worlds' incompetence at doing anything beyond bullying their one and only savior - the player.  I had New Maxios, best place to raid blueprints from, get dangerously low stability from repeated pirate raids.  If I ignore core worlds for a long while (because I am busy far in the fringe with my new colonies or exploration), some core worlds will decivilize on their own.

Thanks to Pathers getting foiled by high stability worlds - and fewer core worlds targeted by Pathers, I ignore Pathers now.  I make sure my pather interest stays low (thanks industry limit), and then I try to build up reputation with Pathers for that accessibility boost.  As long as core worlds mostly avoid Pather sabotage, I ignore Pathers.  Now, if I equip rings of aggravation, er… AI cores, then sure, I need to deal with Pathers.  But I do not want the added aggro despite the tempting bonuses.
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