Hello, in the Federation structures, there is a structure that is called: Medical Centers. Why not rename by: Starfleet Medical Center= One Per Empire - Home System

Because it's not a Starfleet facility? It increases *Population* Health. It's not supposed to be a One per Empire structure; it'd be useless in that form (not that I believe it'll be of any use in the current form ).

i think there are already too many buildings restricted to the Home System.

An attermpt to cram every canon reference into the game. The homeworld is the logical place for most of them. The problem is pretty much energy, and its implementation. It's supposed to be a way of having some colony (population) management (pretty much like food), and work with the energy special structures (and their relation with planet types), but sometimes it feels more like a nuissance than a feature. Also, doesn't make any sense that factories and labs and other base structures don't require energy, but everything else (including other factory- and lab-like facilities) does... and the energy surplus that is wasted.

I hadn't really thought about surpluses before. Got any ideas for what we could do with them, .Iceman?

Regarding energy surplus, it could be converted into production, increasing the output of factories (replacing rush building); but the way the game works doesn't really favor this (since factories don't have an energy upkeep). It could also be used for a Terraformer structure, which would terraform according to available energy instead of having a fixed energy upkeep; since planets in the game don't have any characteristics besides type, terraforming "time" could be measured in energy units, so the more spare energy you have per turn, the faster the planet would be converted. Of course, there's a problem here, the game does not consider planets individually, but the system as a whole, so you can't really assign a Terraformer to a specific planet. You'd probably have to terraform the entire system, one planet at a time.

As for food surplus, it could be used to increase (or decrease, in case of deficit) the growth rate of population (instead of those useless structures), up to a max of +50% or so - or Morale in the system, but that has a few ramifications [maybe the former should be modified by the latter BTW]. Or have a structure with a food upkeep that produces Credits - a kind of / replacing Trade Goods - maybe using excess production from factories. I also mentioned some time ago using surplus food to trade between systems (trade routes, diplomacy).

Food surpluses are currently put into storage as a buffer against famine. If food was traded like you suggest, a system would also need to be implemented to prevent *all* food being traded or you'll lose that buffer. Alternatively, players might be allowed to choose how big a surplus is kept so they can micromanage trading and famine buffers in that way. Such micromanagement wouldn't be necessary as long as a default level is automatically maintained by the AI though.

As for energy, perhaps that could have other uses beyond terraforming. We know planets utilise climate control technology for instance. Perhaps the risk of random events such as Ice Ages and Climate shifts could be influenced if power to the Climate Control Systems was adjustable and/or as your Biotech level increases?

Well, food is stocked locally. The point was if there were two systems within range, they'd trade among themselves if one had surplus production and the other deficit. That'd save the player the micro of shuffling pop around to squeeze the most out of each system, and have both systems have at least the minimum food requirement per turn. Right now you have to go to the surplus system and assign a couple of pop from farms to say science, and go to the deficit system and do the opposite - for a few turns, then rinse and repeat. Notice that I didn't say that *all* surplus food would be traded, only the necessary to keep the deficit system even. As for famine, I assume you're talking about sabotage and bombardment. Depending on how the former will work, it can be exploitable if it will work as you're somehow suggesting; if you can specifically sabotage farms, it's a way to destroy systems "easily". The latter, civilian pop *should* also die in large amounts, IMO. So, I don't really see too much of a problem. Besides, if there's famine in a system, the surrounding systems just set trade routes to that system, and send it food. That's the whole point after all.

I wasn't referring to specifically sabotaging farms. What I meant, was that say a player had a particular system that produces lots of food and built up a big stockpile. This huge stockpile would be useless unless the system encountered a famine for a couple of hundred turns. If players could set it so more of the systems trading is based on trading food, then this would allow the player to shift the production of the trading system to focus more on other things, such as industrial output or research. Of course this would assume the player is trading between his own planets, but other players or hopefully even the AI would realise this and change their output accordingly.

Ok, this system would involve micromanagement, but since Mike is working on a production summary screen, this won't be such a big issue as it might first sound. And if the slider has a default level, ie 33%. of trade is put into food, 33% into energy, and 33% is put into trade goods, then players could simply choose to ignore the system if they wanted to. But those players that like micromanagement could then go about micromanaging their economy as well as their empire.

The game doesn't really favor specialization of systems' production; you can do it with food, because of the planetary Food bonus, but then you hit precisely the wall we're talking about - no trading between systems. So right now, specialization is moot. Even with trading, it's not really a big thing; and IMO it's a good thing, specialization can be a spoiler.
I'm not sure what you mean by famine then. Maybe a special event, but if it can be countered by the stockpiled food - which is due to the game mechanics more than a player's counscious choice - then the event is moot... it just turns into a "let's see if it happens to a vulnerable system by luck", which is hardly interesting.
As for a couple hundred turns, I'm sure the player will build more farms and/or assign more pop to farms. I still don't understand what famine means in the context of the game. Reduced food production? Negative food stockpile?
Shift production - that was my entire point...
Not sure what slider that would be. A trade slider? Don't think it works, it has to be food producing system to establish the routes, not the receiving system. And trading energy?! Hmm.

Famine occurs when the amount of food being produced is less than the amount needed by the population, AND your food stockpiles are zero. But since you can't tailor the production to exactly meet your requirements per turn, you will almost always produce a surplus. The stockpiles will continue to get larger until production is wiped out by sabotage, a random event, a player making large reductions in food production, whatever. And that isn't a bad thing obviously because it does provide a buffer. But that's all it does, and players aren't exactly going to be encouraging famines in their systems on a regular basis. So during the course of most games, you're going to end up with systems, especially the ones you've had the longest such as your home system, having massive stockpiles that will almost certainly go unused. So why not have alternative uses for that food? And if we for instance traded the surplus, why not trade other goods that are regularly produced to excess like energy?

That's what I was getting at. Just a potential way of adding in an interesting feature that helps to eliminate something that is only really going to waste with the current system, and in a way that could be of benefit to players.

Hmm, so by saying this,

Food surpluses are currently put into storage as a buffer against famine

you were just stating the obvious? There's no famine when there's stockpiled food. So I'm confused.



So you're just repeating everything I said? What exactly was your argument? I'm always confused with your replies...

Then my work here is done.

I stated the obvious because that's what you asked me to do. You asked what famine was, so I defined it.