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

[AnrDaemon]

I said from the start that the idea of independent buildings is not going to work.

[Haxus]

The improvement to military balance will be significant from this update.

Thank you for recognizing that it was a good change. That is the best I can hope for; I value your assessment.

I strive to keep the impact of my changes minimal, transition existing data when possible. Sometimes it cannot be avoided.

[Deantwo]

Buildings Not On Sensors
A bunch of the buildings in my city and on my base are not showing up on sensor screens.

Fixed a bug that caused some buildings to think they were underground.

Maybe a way to filter between civilian buildings and military buildings on all sensor screens would be useful. Since under the new city/world conquest system we are required to locate all military buildings before we can capture or destroy civilian targets.

Maybe the button could toggle between four states for simplicity: All buildings, civilian buildings only, military buildings only, and no buildings.

[zslayern]

World Building Limit
The world building limit enables 400 buildings with 104M cubic meters each. This permits the creation of defenses that could never be conquered. The building limit feels arbitrary and it does not achieve the desired balance.

The world building limit was changed from a number of buildings to the volume of buildings. The world building limit is now the same as the size limit for the largest possible spacecraft, 104M cubic meters. Every 1000 cubic meters above that results in an additional -1 to morale.

This enables tens of thousands of small buildings to be built on a single world. Things get slower as the number of buildings goes up. It could create excessive load on the server. Adjustments will have to be made if this becomes the case. Don't be in too big of a hurry to populate lots of worlds with thousands of buildings.

This change still doesn't sit well with me, why does the world building limit have to be constrained to such an arbitrary number? As I've shown from my calculations colonising worlds with the bare minimum of requirements barely hits the half population limit(where the overpopulation morale debuff happens)of a 9500 world (max 134013 without incurring morale penalties), this heavily devalues larger worlds/ringworlds as anything more than a 9500 world grants diminishing returns, I don't think people would appreciate colonising a ringworld to only find out they're nothing more than a bragging right do they?

Is this table just meaningless now?


Now here's an idea, why not make the world building limit scale with a certain number? And the answer can easily be found in the table above, we could just take the world's surface area and use it as the world's volume limit, since it's simply the population limit times 1000(or perhaps the other way round). This lines up with a calculation I've made earlier that each pop requires a minimum of 782.443m3(fairly close to 1000 I'd say)to avoid incurring morale penalties, not inclusive of military bases, power plants or additional armour/life support requirements for harsh environment worlds. This not only prevents players from carelessly designing uselessly large buildings, but also provides leeways for other stuff like military bases and etc.

[Neils Iyssada]

we could just take the world's surface area and use it as the world's volume limit

I like it actually. Still add a value to larger planets / ringworld, makes sense and is cool.

[Deantwo]

we could just take the world's surface area and use it as the world's volume limit

I like it actually. Still add a value to larger planets / ringworld, makes sense and is cool.

Prediction: After that change the complaint will be that the limit on moons is too small to build anything.

As long as a "400 building count limit" still exsit as well, so people don't make a million 10m³ buildings.
If it is possible, somehow somewhere at some point, someone will do it.

[Haxus]

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?

[Vectorus]

I have always argued for, and would (if it comes up) continue to argue for, a generous flat cap on the number of buildings, with world productivity differentiated by population limits instead. Functional diversity and aesthetic freedom. If the 104 million volume is small enough that it scraps half the population table, that could be a problem, but I can suggest an easy solution.

If the volume limit is necessary for military balance and the servers, why not a simple adjustment: volume for civilian buildings increases in effectiveness, based on world size. I.e., 1m3 on a ringworld gives you more stuff than 1m3 on a small planet.  Just call the world volume limit "habitability points" or "world quality points" or something else instead.

The number of habitability points used by a building is a function of volume x world rating. So 34m^3 might provide one office on a "standard" medium homeworld, but it might provide 15on a ringworld. Should be proportional for all designer values, so that buildings balance each other in the same way everywhere. The baseline value should be houses: each world should have enough "habitability points" that 104 million volume is sufficient to house and keep happy half the maximum population as stated in the table.

That way, larger worlds are genuinely more valuable and the pop limit table isn't totally invalidated by this update.

EDIT: based on your moon comment, I suppose it depends on the level of automation. The moon could extract resources and manufacture products very efficiently by leveraging its low gravity and lack of organic/atmospheric decay etc. It would be cheaper to keep robots going and less fuel-intensive to launch products into space etc. You wouldn't get big banks and Tesco getting rich there, though. Perhaps service industries should get a penalty on hostile worlds and industrial industries a bonus. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

[Deantwo]

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?

Realistically it would sure be easier to bomb the earth from the moon. Weaker gravity, no atmosphere, and tidally-locked, but I think I am getting off the topic at hand. XD

[Haxus]

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.