2018-07-24 Turrets, Sensors, World Building Limit

[Vectorus]

it would sure be easier to bomb the earth from the moon

That was a central theme in the book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein.

Been meaning to read that. By the way, just elaborated on the "effective volume" idea in the building size thread.

[zslayern]

Well Im drunkand tired this time, but here goes

We tried scaling building count with world size. There was resounding disapproval. The overriding concern was that moons were doomed to be weaker than larger worlds and inherently less defensible. In terms of spaces on the game board, I think the feeling was that a moon should not be penalized strategically over a planet.

Personally, I am ok with some game board spaces being better than others. It is the terrain of the solar system.

In the context of the game, If someone captured the Moon, could they build it up as militarily and industrially powerful as the Earth itself?

If you havent caught what I've said, any planets thats below 9500 will never match it in terms of productivity, and anything above will just achieve diminishibg returns with the current systen.

[Haxus]

Here are three scenarios for scaling the building volume limit according to world surface area. Since population limit is already scaled linearly with world surface area, I'll use that as my basis.

1) Ringworld arc is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull, at 104M cubic meters.

Volume per person is 104857600÷4102166 = 25.561520426

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 288052
Volume limit on sphere 8 is 18435224

2) Sphere 8 (Earth size) is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

Volume per person is 104857600÷721210 = 145.391217537

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 1638413
Volume limit on a ringworld arc is 596418909, which is 5.7x the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

3) Sphere 12 (Largest globe) is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

Volume per person is 104857600÷1622723 = 64.618298995

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 728183
Volume limit on sphere 8 is 46603363.
Volume limit on a ringworld arc is 265074989, which is 2.5x the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

[Haxus]

I am leaning toward scenario 3 as the final solution, if you want building size limit to scale linearly with world surface area, mainly because the ringworld maximum doesn't get too huge.

[resonkinetic]

In the context of the game, If someone captured the Moon, could they build it up as militarily and industrially powerful as the Earth itself?

is this a challenge

[zslayern]

Here are three scenarios for scaling the building volume limit according to world surface area. Since population limit is already scaled linearly with world surface area, I'll use that as my basis.

1) Ringworld arc is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull, at 104M cubic meters.

Volume per person is 104857600÷4102166 = 25.561520426

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 288052
Volume limit on sphere 8 is 18435224

2) Sphere 8 (Earth size) is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

Volume per person is 104857600÷721210 = 145.391217537

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 1638413
Volume limit on a ringworld arc is 596418909, which is 5.7x the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

3) Sphere 12 (Largest globe) is the size where the building volume limit equals the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

Volume per person is 104857600÷1622723 = 64.618298995

Volume limit on the smallest moon is 728183
Volume limit on sphere 8 is 46603363.
Volume limit on a ringworld arc is 265074989, which is 2.5x the size of the largest spacecraft hull.

This isn't what I've asked for, but it's certainly agreeable, static building limits just encourage cookie cutter cites past a certain point, a scalable population limit mitigates that.

And TBH comparing games to books/tv shows/movies is a very dangerous game design philosophy. After all, what is more important? Your user's experience or some line/quote from a book/tv show/movie? This type of thought is why this game would barely compete with other games put through Steam Greenlight.

[resonkinetic]

so is now a good time to start a new empire or should i wait

[Vectorus]

I would lean towards solution 2. It's a good idea, less confusing than my "effective volume", for similar effects.

Ringworlds are meant to be awe-inspiring. Each arc needing a small squadron to outfight it seems fitting. Larger worlds, ringworlds especially, tend not to have the rarest resources anyway. 

You get a nice dynamic where you're forced to expand to secure rare resources with lots of small outlying colonies. But you can afford to focus creative and aesthetic effort on a small number of beautiful and truly sprawling core worlds without losing out strategically.

(Earth size has always been a useful base for various things. It would be a consistent approach. I don't know that large worlds are the base for anything at the moment? Linear scaling is only really necessary if you are treating every planet physically as Trantor, with every inch of area built on. Otherwise, it can be more balance-based)

[Ikkir Isth]

Due note of course that if a smaller planet/moon doesn't at least have a minimum size allowance then they may as well not bother with weapon bases and just use shields / turrets, or not use them as all, because they would simply not be able to produce the bay size requirement to produce any kind of threat (not to mention needing a lot of volume dedicated to whatever industry you chose to colonize the moon for), not to mention also requiring sufficient air production industry somewhere in system (or ice harvesting on moon and production there), not to mention possible population requirements for larger bases.

Speaking of population requirements, I would also be up for harsh pop requirements for non-terraformed / hostile environments that have to be mediated with robot production, which requires maintenance via production/power/funds, in order to produce labor / manpower, and let economic factors be the more limiting factor for building up worse/smaller planets be a major factor.

Other than that, would start the smallest moon at 3/4th the max ship size, scaling up to 2x for largest planet size and ringworld arc (keep em the same, ringworlds will naturally have many many arcs to do defense with).

Edit: may as well include this other note: assuming current q scaling system for ship size limits:
At Q1, you can -> build a Q1 sized ship and a .... Q255 sized defense system on a 1x scaling planet.
Q2 to Q254-> see previous note

Edit 2: assuming a full restart and the ability to build the max sized planetary defenses from the start, how long would it take new ship QL production to become able to attack new city bases?

Edit 3: more info, of course, for defenses: lets also assume our planets and moons and whatnot have defense stations built and nearby local support. This means a moon has up to 1.0x ship volume (dependant on QL) space station for defense plus whatever volume on the ground there is, plus potentially the nearby planet's space station as well plus planetary volume (assuming defenses that can reach, which is a pretty big assumption right now), plus whatever other nearby moons there are for that planet (also a major assumption for defenses that can reach). I would at least fully expect a defended planetary orbit to be able to repel a decent sized amount of attackers, just need to figure out how ship scaling itself works as well because that is a bit weird with planetary volume factor. Also: https://youtu.be/Vm4SRF4ppvg?t=39 (still think we probably need local ship defenses too)

Edit 4: Oh, right, theres more. For any given player, we can assume 1 to 6 personal ships, simply due to how the avatar / demi avatar system works. Probably assume at least 7, really, because they will of course have access to at least one habitable. AI ships arent quite the same as player ships of course, but in a raw standoff they still count for power, so at least need to keep this in mind.
+Addendum: overall need to think about how this planet / city transition is going as well, because the old system was more about building a city and keeping it that way; even if you got conquered you could just conquer it back before they could delete the buildings... while the new system seems to be more of a "less, more important planets" thing where you can build much bigger things but take awhile to pop up and you need all the defense you can because if you lose a city overnight to bombardment its just gone, which basically makes PvP play pretty scary... though of course they have to be able to hurt your cities first (see above)

[Vectorus]

I need to digest Ikkir's points over time. I like the idea that a large planet with a station could put up a reasonable fight against a player's "personal squadron" of 6-7 ships. The 5.7x number (solution 2) for big planets would suit that, together with a station. You could get the feeling of a real fleet battle with only half the ships in play.

Moons/rocks being more about automation, having a special set of mechanism for that, sounds fun. Both bonuses and penalties to different areas. Maybe further down the line, though.

The general advantage to the defender suggested by these approaches is welcome. At least it may give people a bit longer to respond to threats. With solution 2, spaceships are still superior to most cities since most cities devote much volume to things other than combat. But well prepared systems will present a challenge. Not an I superable one, as in last update, but a real one. Next up: pirate bases!

To Ikkir's last point: while you can have fewer, more powerful planets, you can also store vast amounts of popsicle people and resources both in ships and hidden worlds. Cities can also be built faster, since you no longer have to find hundreds of nodes and you can get away with a small number of buildings. Coming back from the brink is probably less scary, not more, than before, even if recapture may be harder.