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Author Topic: [0.97a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v9.0.7)  (Read 1070811 times)

crosby

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1455 on: October 06, 2021, 10:19:33 PM »

Hello, I like this mod very much. Can I translate and move this mod to China Forum fossil.org? The old version is 0.91a. I want to bring the new version 0.95a to fossil.org.
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BadAttitude

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1456 on: October 07, 2021, 10:26:16 AM »

The second script works well.  Thanks very much! :D
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boggled

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1457 on: October 07, 2021, 04:03:31 PM »

Hello, I like this mod very much. Can I translate and move this mod to China Forum fossil.org? The old version is 0.91a. I want to bring the new version 0.95a to fossil.org.

Yes, you have permission to translate the mod. Thank you!
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FreonRu

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1458 on: October 11, 2021, 11:45:33 AM »

Good day. I really like the mod, I have been using it since the time when there were two more mods, although it seems to me that past iterations offered a little more opportunities (for example, building a gate).

Are there any plans to further develop the mod? For example, introduce new terraforming capabilities? Or buildings / technologies?

To give an example - every new session I equip the penylope system. Very close to the center - a great opportunity for trade + habitable space (the possibility of hiring officers, administrators, the ability to receive tasks for research, etc.). But each time in the penylope there is only one planet suitable for full terrafroming, which can be turned into a paradise with the help of EUTECK.

I would also like to terraform planets unsuitable for life - for example, in several stages - at the first add the atmosphere to the planet (melting ice or delivery of gas mixtures from gas fogs + atmospheric processors), at the second stage add water (also delivery of ice from cryoplanets or ice asteroids) , at the third stage - the fight against negative planetary properties (intense heat, tectonic activity, etc.), at the fourth (final) adding a mild climate.

Yes, I know about the possibilities of terraforming that can be enabled using the settings, but they, as it is written in the description, are a little cheating and uninteresting.

I have several suggestions to consider, maybe they will spark a discussion:
1 What about the parts of the gates in the domain ships that need to be transported to build the gates - logically, these ships should not only explore unpopulated systems, but also make a short way to it when they find an extremely useful system (this is just a guess)? Or a unique quest to acquire a gate on the black market? Or transporting a gateway to its inhabited system?
2 There is a long debate about terraforming, but the ability to transform lifeless worlds into habitable ones is a very pleasant opportunity. Here you can just fantasize ad infinitum. Melting ice, groups of drones for ice asteroids, groups of drones for asteroids with rare ore, adding atmosphere, stabilizing planetary conditions, the ability to combine certain buildings for terraforming into a certain type of planets (oceanic planets with lobsters are what this sector needs).
3 I have only one small request to avoid Domain-era Artifacts if possible. I'll explain my opinion - the sprite is beautiful and the idea, too, which adds the ability to trade these artifacts, but it also adds a limitation! For a full-fledged game, taking into account the buildings that require these artifacts, it is necessary to control several planets with ruins, and this is not very convenient. How about a building that can produce these artifacts, for example, it will require several alpha cores to build it (the logic is that only the joint work of several artificial intelligence cores will be able to provide knowledge and technologies that are superior to those existing in the sector).
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boggled

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1459 on: October 12, 2021, 02:50:18 PM »

Good day. I really like the mod, I have been using it since the time when there were two more mods, although it seems to me that past iterations offered a little more opportunities (for example, building a gate).

Are there any plans to further develop the mod? For example, introduce new terraforming capabilities? Or buildings / technologies?

To give an example - every new session I equip the penylope system. Very close to the center - a great opportunity for trade + habitable space (the possibility of hiring officers, administrators, the ability to receive tasks for research, etc.). But each time in the penylope there is only one planet suitable for full terrafroming, which can be turned into a paradise with the help of EUTECK.

I would also like to terraform planets unsuitable for life - for example, in several stages - at the first add the atmosphere to the planet (melting ice or delivery of gas mixtures from gas fogs + atmospheric processors), at the second stage add water (also delivery of ice from cryoplanets or ice asteroids) , at the third stage - the fight against negative planetary properties (intense heat, tectonic activity, etc.), at the fourth (final) adding a mild climate.

Yes, I know about the possibilities of terraforming that can be enabled using the settings, but they, as it is written in the description, are a little cheating and uninteresting.

I have several suggestions to consider, maybe they will spark a discussion:
1 What about the parts of the gates in the domain ships that need to be transported to build the gates - logically, these ships should not only explore unpopulated systems, but also make a short way to it when they find an extremely useful system (this is just a guess)? Or a unique quest to acquire a gate on the black market? Or transporting a gateway to its inhabited system?
2 There is a long debate about terraforming, but the ability to transform lifeless worlds into habitable ones is a very pleasant opportunity. Here you can just fantasize ad infinitum. Melting ice, groups of drones for ice asteroids, groups of drones for asteroids with rare ore, adding atmosphere, stabilizing planetary conditions, the ability to combine certain buildings for terraforming into a certain type of planets (oceanic planets with lobsters are what this sector needs).
3 I have only one small request to avoid Domain-era Artifacts if possible. I'll explain my opinion - the sprite is beautiful and the idea, too, which adds the ability to trade these artifacts, but it also adds a limitation! For a full-fledged game, taking into account the buildings that require these artifacts, it is necessary to control several planets with ruins, and this is not very convenient. How about a building that can produce these artifacts, for example, it will require several alpha cores to build it (the logic is that only the joint work of several artificial intelligence cores will be able to provide knowledge and technologies that are superior to those existing in the sector).

I'm glad you've been enjoying the mod!

I removed most of the gate construction content because of the vanilla quest line - I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played it yet, but suffice to say gate-related features probably won't be expanded beyond the current content.

I know the current terraforming system has shortcomings and I'm working on a patch to overhaul it. It's long overdue, but I haven't been able to devote much time to modding the past few months.

I have no plans to add a way to obtain DAE besides mining from colonies. If you don't like having to set up multiple colonies to acquire them, they can be disabled in the settings file.
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Farya

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1460 on: October 13, 2021, 07:17:49 AM »

Honestly I find new system better. With finding a way to reduce negative effects rather than magically turning any bad rock into a good one. Though a gradual terraforming might be interesting.
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Kobura

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1461 on: October 13, 2021, 08:51:26 AM »

Structures with cost-benefit only run afoul of my liking because of the 12 structure limit. Otherwise it's an ideal system. Boggled, consider recommending Grand Colonies alongside this to remedy. I agree with Farya, I played in the .91a with your TASC and the current less-powerful system is more well suited to the game, but having say, Domes and Reflectors and CHAMELEON and a Gene Lab (since I've now spent all that money on getting the hazard down enough to make it worth it) and... now I have no room for the Light Industry and Commerce I wanted on the system in the first place, if I'm keeping Heavy Batteries as well as a Patrol HQ...
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Uhlang

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1462 on: October 13, 2021, 10:50:46 AM »

In the lore, Eridani-Utopia had plans to terraform Ogygia, a barren-bombarded world in the Penelope's Star system. It's definitely not magic, it would just be a long and arduous process that would require a lot of investment and tech.
You would need swarms of drones towing nitrogen and water-ice for the atmosphere and hydrosphere, massive facilities converting water or regolith into oxygen, shades and/or mirrors ready to heat or cool the planet as needed for the terraforming process, genetically engineered organisms that would set the stage for terran ecosystems, and, assuming the planet has a weak or no magnetosphere, a magnetic shield to protect it from solar wind.
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boggled

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1463 on: October 13, 2021, 03:06:24 PM »

Honestly I find new system better. With finding a way to reduce negative effects rather than magically turning any bad rock into a good one. Though a gradual terraforming might be interesting.

I'm not going to completely scrap the new buildings and the suppression mechanic - rather, I'm going to change the planetary type transformation system to make it more intuitive and offer options that don't feel like console commands. This will be my third iteration of the system and hopefully I'll get it right this time!

Structures with cost-benefit only run afoul of my liking because of the 12 structure limit. Otherwise it's an ideal system. Boggled, consider recommending Grand Colonies alongside this to remedy. I agree with Farya, I played in the .91a with your TASC and the current less-powerful system is more well suited to the game, but having say, Domes and Reflectors and CHAMELEON and a Gene Lab (since I've now spent all that money on getting the hazard down enough to make it worth it) and... now I have no room for the Light Industry and Commerce I wanted on the system in the first place, if I'm keeping Heavy Batteries as well as a Patrol HQ...

I'm not going to implement a structure cap increase in this mod. It would introduce compatibility problems with other mods, and the cap is important for balance and gameplay reasons.

In the lore, Eridani-Utopia had plans to terraform Ogygia, a barren-bombarded world in the Penelope's Star system. It's definitely not magic, it would just be a long and arduous process that would require a lot of investment and tech.
You would need swarms of drones towing nitrogen and water-ice for the atmosphere and hydrosphere, massive facilities converting water or regolith into oxygen, shades and/or mirrors ready to heat or cool the planet as needed for the terraforming process, genetically engineered organisms that would set the stage for terran ecosystems, and, assuming the planet has a weak or no magnetosphere, a magnetic shield to protect it from solar wind.

Yeah, the new system will almost certainly allow terraforming of planets like Ogygia with default settings - it will just take longer and cost more than terraforming planets that are closer to Earth-like from the start.
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Zonk

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1464 on: October 17, 2021, 01:58:05 PM »

Thank you for making this mod, and for spending the last 2 years supporting it! I have only used this for my last 2 playthroughs but already I am in love with it. I don't know what I'd do without Astropolis and Siphon stations and use them everywhere. Siphon stations in particular have consistently been the wealthiest and fastest-growing colonies I've been able to make with an otherwise mostly vanilla game. I wouldn't say that it's overpowered, but they certainly have a few advantages over traditional colonies which make them very strong with a number of colony items. In particular:

Synchrotron Core: stations don't count as having an atmosphere, so can be used
Nanoforge: stations don't count as habitable, so they don't have a polluting effect
Plasma Dynamo: siphon stations count as being on a gas giant, so this is super effective on siphon stations
Catalytic Core: same as Synchrotron core, stations don't have an atmosphere

The thing that makes stations so profitable is their inherent 100% hazard rating. Finding a good Uninhabitable, No-Atmosphere planet to use nanoforges and other items comes with tradeoffs depending on the hazard rating and where it is in relation to other colonies. But being able to poop out an immensely profitable station with great 100% hazard rating in any system I want makes colonizing Barren/no atmosphere worlds much less useful. I don't know if the effect is strong enough to count as unbalanced but making a Siphon station produce 3-400,000 credits a month is, if nothing else, very straightforward and not as RNG-dependent as finding a suitably low-hazard world to colonize.

I think building a station should be way more materials-intensive, especially given how profitable they are. I get that the resources required to make a station are proportional to founding a planetary colony, but the planetary colony would have tons of raw materials on the planet itself to bootstrap with whereas every kilo of material that goes into building the station has to be shipped there. 1000 metals and 250 transplutonics is chump change! I think players should either be required to provide 10x as much metals and transplutonics to build the station in the first place and/or that stations should have a constant demand for these items which grows as it grows.



On a completely unrelated note, I figured out that it's possible to build mining stations directly on top of a hyperspace entry/exit point if the hyperspace entry point has an asteroid field around it. If you have a size 6 mining station with a star fortress on top of a hyperspace entry point, every hostile fleet is basically instantly destroyed when they warp into the system. The effect only happens if you're physically present in the system, but since the star fortress is right on top of the entry point every hostile fleet is immediately forced into combat with it and any fleets around the colony. I colonized a nebula with a single hyperspace entry point and if I'm in the system it cannot be invaded or raided by anyone. Is this intentional? Because it certainly is hilarious!
« Last Edit: October 17, 2021, 02:03:43 PM by Zonk »
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boggled

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1465 on: October 17, 2021, 02:30:40 PM »

Thank you for making this mod, and for spending the last 2 years supporting it! I have only used this for my last 2 playthroughs but already I am in love with it. I don't know what I'd do without Astropolis and Siphon stations and use them everywhere. Siphon stations in particular have consistently been the wealthiest and fastest-growing colonies I've been able to make with an otherwise mostly vanilla game. I wouldn't say that it's overpowered, but they certainly have a few advantages over traditional colonies which make them very strong with a number of colony items. In particular:

Synchrotron Core: stations don't count as having an atmosphere, so can be used
Nanoforge: stations don't count as habitable, so they don't have a polluting effect
Plasma Dynamo: siphon stations count as being on a gas giant, so this is super effective on siphon stations
Catalytic Core: same as Synchrotron core, stations don't have an atmosphere

The thing that makes stations so profitable is their inherent 100% hazard rating. Finding a good Uninhabitable, No-Atmosphere planet to use nanoforges and other items comes with tradeoffs depending on the hazard rating and where it is in relation to other colonies. But being able to poop out an immensely profitable station with great 100% hazard rating in any system I want makes colonizing Barren/no atmosphere worlds much less useful. I don't know if the effect is strong enough to count as unbalanced but making a Siphon station produce 3-400,000 credits a month is, if nothing else, very straightforward and not as RNG-dependent as finding a suitably low-hazard world to colonize.

I think building a station should be way more materials-intensive, especially given how profitable they are. I get that the resources required to make a station are proportional to founding a planetary colony, but the planetary colony would have tons of raw materials on the planet itself to bootstrap with whereas every kilo of material that goes into building the station has to be shipped there. 1000 metals and 250 transplutonics is chump change! I think players should either be required to provide 10x as much metals and transplutonics to build the station in the first place and/or that stations should have a constant demand for these items which grows as it grows.

Stations can definitely produce a lot of income, but by the time stations can be used to generate lots of money, the player will already be high level and very rich, and have lots of options for making money quickly. They're not something that can be exploited early on to get money easily.

Also, it's not beneficial for the player to only use stations - they still need food and Domain-era artifacts from planetary markets. Overall, I think station balance is in a good place because it makes sense to build some of them, but they're not strictly better than planetary markets and the player needs to already be rich and powerful to exploit them to the maximum extent with special items.

On a completely unrelated note, I figured out that it's possible to build mining stations directly on top of a hyperspace entry/exit point if the hyperspace entry point has an asteroid field around it. If you have a size 6 mining station with a star fortress on top of a hyperspace entry point, every hostile fleet is basically instantly destroyed when they warp into the system. The effect only happens if you're physically present in the system, but since the star fortress is right on top of the entry point every hostile fleet is immediately forced into combat with it and any fleets around the colony. I colonized a nebula with a single hyperspace entry point and if I'm in the system it cannot be invaded or raided by anyone. Is this intentional? Because it certainly is hilarious!

I wasn't previously aware of this interaction! It doesn't seem all that imbalanced since a huge Nex invasion fleet should still be able to defeat it without player intervention.

Have you tested this on a long time scale? Theoretically the player shouldn't be able to line up the station's orbit perfectly with the jump point, and over several months it should drift away.

I could prevent this from occurring by blocking construction on top of jump points, but it seems pretty realistic to build fortifications/settlements at choke points and try to leverage that.
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Zonk

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1466 on: October 17, 2021, 07:03:35 PM »

Stations can definitely produce a lot of income, but by the time stations can be used to generate lots of money, the player will already be high level and very rich, and have lots of options for making money quickly. They're not something that can be exploited early on to get money easily.

Also, it's not beneficial for the player to only use stations - they still need food and Domain-era artifacts from planetary markets. Overall, I think station balance is in a good place because it makes sense to build some of them, but they're not strictly better than planetary markets and the player needs to already be rich and powerful to exploit them to the maximum extent with special items.

That's a good point, I didn't really start building profitable stations until way in the lategame. And there's still a use for barren worlds with autonomous mantle bore that stations can't ever replicate!

I wasn't previously aware of this interaction! It doesn't seem all that imbalanced since a huge Nex invasion fleet should still be able to defeat it without player intervention.

Have you tested this on a long time scale? Theoretically the player shouldn't be able to line up the station's orbit perfectly with the jump point, and over several months it should drift away.

I could prevent this from occurring by blocking construction on top of jump points, but it seems pretty realistic to build fortifications/settlements at choke points and try to leverage that.



The station has never moved from its place! I jumped in the system and immediately put the station down out of laziness. I was surprised when it was faithfully deposited exactly where my fleet was sitting. The idea of an orbital fortress right at the jump point of a system reminds me of the Honor Harrington series of books so much! The only downside is that it makes trying to jump out of the system extremely annoying without accidentally docking at the station instead.

Edit: apologies for the gigantic image, I have no idea how to make it smaller
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nDervish

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1467 on: October 18, 2021, 01:38:16 AM »

I think building a station should be way more materials-intensive, especially given how profitable they are. I get that the resources required to make a station are proportional to founding a planetary colony, but the planetary colony would have tons of raw materials on the planet itself to bootstrap with whereas every kilo of material that goes into building the station has to be shipped there. 1000 metals and 250 transplutonics is chump change! I think players should either be required to provide 10x as much metals and transplutonics to build the station in the first place and/or that stations should have a constant demand for these items which grows as it grows.

If you haven't already done so, take a look at the mod's data/config/settings.json.  You can change the credit/crew/machinery/metal/transplutonic costs of stations and also enable a "Cramped Quarters" modifier that reduces pop growth above a certain size (optionally with an industry you can build to add more housing and allow further growth, to provide an intermittent ongoing cost).

I haven't actually used Cramped Quarters myself, but I assume it also applies a hazard modifier, although I haven't been able to find its definition in the mod files to confirm that and it's not mentioned in the config comments, so maybe not.  Perhaps add that as an option in a future version if it isn't already there?

The only downside is that it makes trying to jump out of the system extremely annoying without accidentally docking at the station instead.

Easy workaround:  Set a destination in hyperspace or another system.  Personally, I almost never click on jump points (at least from the in-system side) because I generally navigate directly to the final destination instead of doing it step-by-step.
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Kadatherion

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1468 on: October 18, 2021, 07:46:51 AM »


I haven't actually used Cramped Quarters myself, but I assume it also applies a hazard modifier, although I haven't been able to find its definition in the mod files to confirm that and it's not mentioned in the config comments, so maybe not.  Perhaps add that as an option in a future version if it isn't already there?

Nope, I always have it on and no hazard modifier, it just cuts growth rate quite dramatically. So, under normal conditions, it's unlikely a station would ever grow past size 4 or 5 tops. This, combined with how production and economic rates are often proportional to colony size does keep its strength relatively in check: meaning the freedom and flexibility of stations gives you a lot of options, but a well placed planetary max size colony will still outperform them. Relatively being a key word: colonies are already op and basically just money printers in their far from finished vanilla form, everything that simply makes it easier to build more colonies in more places is bound to feel even more op. Especially because you also have the hard cap of 12 buildings regardless of your colony size, so stations can still compete with planets a bit too much, imo.

Anyway, colony management is gonna get some serious revamp in future iterations of the game, as it is now I find the mod relatively balanced. Sure, some things might feel a bit easy in the late game especially, when you can throw all the money you want at it, but that's because, as mentioned, the whole system is just a money printer right now with little to no real managing gameplay behind.
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boggled

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Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.3)
« Reply #1469 on: October 18, 2021, 04:03:54 PM »

The only downside is that it makes trying to jump out of the system extremely annoying without accidentally docking at the station instead.

Good point. That's probably a good enough reason to prevent this from being done, since the workaround to transit the jump point can be awkward.

Edit: apologies for the gigantic image, I have no idea how to make it smaller

This is really helpful. When I said the station would drift over time, I was thinking of an asteroid belt. If the station is built on top of a jump point that has an asteroid field around it as depicted in your screenshot, it will stay on top of the jump point indefinitely.

I'll add this to the list of things to address in my next patch. Thanks for brining it to my attention!

I haven't actually used Cramped Quarters myself, but I assume it also applies a hazard modifier, although I haven't been able to find its definition in the mod files to confirm that and it's not mentioned in the config comments, so maybe not.  Perhaps add that as an option in a future version if it isn't already there?

There's a settings option to adjust the base hazard of stations, but it's separate from Cramped Quarters. Below is the section that controls it:

#Configures the base hazard rating for stations by offsetting the base hazard of 100 by the value the player inputs.
#Negative values can be used to decrease hazard.
"boggledStationHazardRatingModifier":0,
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