The points that you've mentioned about colonization are the result of legitimate reasons though. A long time ago, we discussed the possibility of moving populations around, but we quickly came to realise this would become an exploitable situation; people would only build colony ships in systems with the highest growth rates, and would be able to recover from the population loss very quickly. They would then be able to churn out colony ships from such systems and use them to bolster their colonies. So we eventually decided that not allowing colony ships to move populations around in this way would be the lesser of two evils.

Besides, having eg a single power plant on each planet would be a concept that I wouldn't have thought that you would want - it would be unrealistic, and would make planetary infrastructure extremely susceptible to Earthquakes, Terrorism, or whatever. But reading your posts so far, you seem to be a person who wants realism in the game.

Dafedz did NOT give the Empires any bonuses in production fields; the actual output of each of the empire structures is identical, for instance, a Federation Elite Academia (Type 11 University) gives +70 research. The Cardassian Type 11 Science Bureau also has a +70 research output.

Credits *will* have the same use that they had in BOTF; they will be be used to maintain ships, to pay your officers, pay for fuel, pay for repairs, whatever.

Mike won't be happy that the opposite is now true and you can tell whether a system is inhabited purely by the lack of information.

I don't understand what you mean about the 14 power structures. All of the empires have access to 16 specific power structures, plus a number of other structures that have an additional energy bonus of some kind.

I just played the game to see what you were criticizing us about. Our poor feelings were hurt by that... ( )

I'll admit that I didn't totally understand what you were referring to in my previous post. BOTF had a default output of 10 industry regardless of whether any of your population were working in industry, and I assumed it was the same in Supremacy. But Supremacy produces 1 industry point for every 1 population in a system - so yes, people are working double-shifts in that respect. But if we're making them work double-shifts already, we certainly don't care that they are working triple shifts. They're only slaves afterall.

Ok, I'll mention this point to Mike, as the system means that some of the low-level buildings will need their industrial costs bumped up slightly - some of the early buildings can be built instantly if you have a high enough population, even if you don't have any of them working in industry.

Having population moved from a system by the colony ships is an idea I suppose;

Anyways, whether you think the population is in millions or billions, it is a lot of people. But this is where I use the gameplay excuse. It's easier to keep it simple.

If there are any other variations, they are likely typos on my part as well, as I don't know of Mike adding in any race-specific variables.

The Primitive Farm IS in the game. It is the default food structure, so if you lose all your food buildings (War, sabotage...) then they're quick and easy to build so you can minimise population loss through starvation.

Asteroids do have an impact on the game, because they are a requirement for several of the game structures, such as Asteroid Harvesters, Asteroid Sweepers, and the Geo-Survey Commission. Systems with Asteroid Belts will produce more raw materials once these special structures are built.

*Edit - err....Iceman, how exactly can you tell where the minor races are? I just played the game and I couldn't tell where they were. The old problem where the race name was displayed in the star system has definitely been fixed - systems are totally blank until they are explored, so I really have no idea how you can know where a minor race is.

Hehe, now let's hear your explanation on how they can be working both on the ground an in space at the same time...

Somehow I imagined there should have been a 10 industry base, as there was a 10 food base. That made some sense really, each system having a base set of stats (an automated "core" of the colony). How about removing the 1 ind/pop default and bumping up industry from structures?

Exactly. Kinda defeats the whole idea of a recent colony... Also, maybe the # of structures a colony ship builds by default is a bit too much?

Another thought: Colony ships cost Officers, but no pop. Yet, they disappear when they colonize. Are the Officers returned to your pool? Shouldn't colony ships cost pop *instead* of Officers? Would make more sense. Officers should be for combat ships I think.

Or by the Transport ships Whatever they're for, haven't gotten to building one yet.

I meant that the actual outputs vary with race (besides Morale, can´t find any other explanation), not the structure stats. All the basic structures now have the same stats (except shipyards, Rom cost more Ene, Car/Dom have higher Efficiency).

But if I can't build it... Not of much use to me. I guess it's obsoleted because the game starts with level 1 already.

Click on an unexplored system. To the right, where the name of the race should be, if it says Neutral, it's empty. If it doesn't say anything, there's a minor there for sure

Transports are for capturing planets with. Since you can't invade systems yet, the transports currently have no purpose.

It IS obsoleted because the level 1 building is already there. Think of the primitive farm as being a level 0 building if it is easier. If one of your systems was attacked/sabotaged and you lost all of your food buildings, you would need to build primitive farms them upgrade them all they back up, so in those instances you would be able to build them. It was the exact same situation in BOTF. And please don't start complaining that the system would start by building the best farms it could with the available resources and tech. That's just the way it is, so accept it.

So that's a total of three separate problems that you've found with the exploration. Considering he's spent so long in trying to get that problem fixed, Mikes gonna hate you.

I was only being facetious

Keep up the feedback though always good to have some.

Regards Wolfe

If they can carry troops, they should be able to carry population While at it, how does ground combat work? Better yet, is there ground combat?

You're kidding, right? You mean you have to go through all the upgrades? Jeez, that's the most senseless thing I've heard so far... hmmm. So if I have at least one level 1 structure of a given type I can build level 1s from scratch, but if I have none I have to go back to the stone age? Sorry, it's stupid - no offense meant.

Hmm, so maybe it's better you don't tell him anything?

I must warn you, I'm a *very* good tester.

As for Transports moving population, I highly doubt Mike will implement it. Transports carry troops, not people. Besides, Mike hasn't responded to my PM yet. He may not even want to have movable populations in his game.

And you're correct about going back to the stone age, so for safety reasons it may be a good idea keeping some extra buildings just in case, although I know that the game also has some production penalties for keeping useless buildings like that...

Too late.

I guessed that from your posts. You've got to have spent a long while looking at the game to notice all the points that you have done so far.

Hmm, troops *are* people

I thought structures going obsolete was automatic. Keeping extra buildings?

Right now I'm trying to teach class...

Yes, obsoletion is automatic. By "keeping extra buildings", I meant it as a way of getting around the problem of earthquakes, sabotage, or whatever destroying your precious buildings; say you've got enough population for 10 industrial buildings, but you've already built 15 industrial buildings. You could either scrap the 5 extra buildings for their resources, or just keep them. If you just keep them, the useless buildings may be destroyed by an earthquake, sabotage, whatever, but the ones you *need* may be spared. It's a tactic that works really well in BOTF, even though it's technically cheating. Mike added in the production penalties to discourage people from doing this.

that tactic only works on upgrade level 9. at lower levels upgrading those buffer buildings cost too much for their potential earthquake benefit.

I think the whole building and population system derived from botf is only a way to symbolize differences in systems and that bigger systems produce more output of some kind than others and that some systems are specialized in something while others do other stuff. It's not applicable to the single-person level where you consider each citizen on each planet individually but as a whole it works quite well again.

I don't see one ship as a single ship either. For me it's more fleet of thousands of those ships. I mean really, a whole conglomerate of star systems with billions of people can only build one single tiny little ship in 2 years time = 1 turn? not really, isn't it. That's why all these allocations and outputs are just proportional factors, not really absolute values in my eyes.