Same potential problems as above, lots of slots, bombardment immunity, etc.
Could be interesting though, but wouldn't you just want to set sliders for industry and research? Food and power, you'd set to the minimum (or would be set automatically) - unless there'd be other bonuses like increased growth for excess food or something (though that might have other impacts).
A bit like MoO2 I think; OTOH, GalCiv2's slider system was kind of lame.

The maximum queue size per system will be increased by construction tech level, you won't be able to put that many items into the build queue at the beginning of the game, but eventually as you get more and more system you CAN have big build queues to avoid micromanaging systems that are far away from the action all the time.


If this was done, the number of slots would have to be decreased.


There will still be new structures unlocked as you research stuff all the way to end game. I think focusing more on functional special structures instead of having 3 different levels of a farm would be more fun.


Maybe a compromise, having planets give bonuses but still require structures like factories could be done, maybe not even all planets just a few, making those systems very valuable (but not overpowered).


I like this idea, requiring (for example biology) research to unlock planets in systems you own.
Definitely going to consider this, just as long as it does not severely hamper early game colonization.


There is a diminishing return on adding bunkers. Low morale reduces pop growth and the rate at which the system gain troops. I might add the option of a really high morale gives a slight industry/research bonus.
The bunkers will not make a system harder to take, it will just make it take longer giving the defender a chance to send in his fleet. Each turn you WILL damage morale and kill people/troops. If you have a big fleet with lots of ships with torpedo launchers structures WILL be bombed pretty quickly.
Bunkers are also kinda expensive/slow to build, take up a slot, so a system full of bunkers is probably not something you would encounter a lot



There is no such thing as bombardment immunity, if somebody is bombing your system you're pretty much **** if you can't get a fleet there to kill them ;D
IF implemented, bombardment would probably affect the current level (slider could be set to 80% industry, but the actual industry output would be lowered to 20% and would need time to increase again, just like when changing the sliders manually). This would require quite some change in the code, and obviously won't be there for the beta but I'll definitely look at the idea when reviewing feedback from the beta and considering what stuff to change.

Ah, I knew I had seen this somewhere.
Still, doesn't seem very handy/interesting. I'd probably go with size of queue being the same as number of factories in the system instead, representing system industrialization level, rather than overall empire construction level. More recent colonies would require more attention.




A lot, I guess. It seems you might have to redo the (planets) art after all




Kind of like BotF (and Supremacy)
Giving all planets specific bonuses, won't that add to/collide with the special structures? I mean, the aquatic farm for oceanic planets, the solar panel for desert planets, etc. If it's only for a few planets, much like BotF, with energy and food bonuses?
If asteroid belts were in systems, you could use that to boost construction. Instead of the gimmicky production rush.




I meant your production is not affected by bombardment, since there would be no factories and such to be destroyed. I'm guessing output would only depend on pop, and with the scenario of many bunkers, pop decreased could be negligible.

It's limited how "interesting" you can make a build queue Basing the max queue size on number of factories would put systems that are not industry heavy at a disadvantage, and by the time you get to a point where you can have a big build queue your system would already have used up a great deal of structures on factories, power and food.

How much attention you give systems is not really related to the build queue max size, but the option for long term construction planning would be there for those who wants it.



I'm 95% sure I got them as photoshop files where I can just move around on the top layer which is the actual slots, so changing planet slots would not be impossible




I was not talking about giving all planet specific bonuses, that would collide with the special structures. I meant that every time the game generates a terran planet it would have a 10% change of having a +10% to farming bonus. volcanic could have a 5% chance to give a 20% power bonus.. arctic 8% chance to give a 15% research bonus, etc..

Realistically asteroid fields should be in systems, not between star systems. the density of "rocks" should be so small that there would be no sensor interference, no chance to crash since each asteroid of some size would be hundreds of thousands of KM from the next. A nebula would not block sensors or shields since it has almost no density (air on earth has a million billion times higher density than a dense nebula), harvesting deuterium from one is just pure nonsense. Chances of finding a terran planet or any habitable planet on a map that was not prohibitively big would be slim at best. There would be no reason for a ship to be in space unless it was in route for a specific system (or other ship).

A star system would contain all the resources you could ever need in this game, the only reason I've added the asteroids and nebula on the main map is to make the game more interesting. It will encourage players to try and control small areas (causes more focused combats), gives you resources to obtain which are good to have for a 4x game, and it adds a tactical element by interfering with sensors.

If you have an alternative to using asteroids/nebula as resources in a better way than just a simple hurry production feature, but still adds some fun and strategy to the main map I'd love to hear them.



If there were sliders like that, the sliders would just indicate what you wan't the system to be like. If bombed the actual value for industry/power/etc.. could all be lowered (just like bombardment now destroys structures). The pop decrease even with many bunkers will not be negligible

Systems that are not industry heavy *should* be at a disadvantage. IMO of course. That's the case of recent colonies that I mentioned. Not so recent colonies that "specialize" on research for example, shouldn't be so "versatile". Then again, size of build queue is not, as mentioned, that interesting - short queues require more work from the player (and length of turn plays a role here), long queues might make system development less interesting.
Queue size equal to # of factories was just a way to "pretend" that each factory would have its own queue - though each system only has one really. It was cosmetic mostly, an attempt at making it more interesting.




This is what I meant in the 2nd part, which I didn't formulate well. BotF like, but more focused in this game because you can select on which planet you build stuff. So you'd always build all farms in that Fertile Soil terran planet, etc. We discussed something similar for Supremacy.




Not really the same thing... Anyway, the game related argument would be



Maybe. Given the extension of such areas (and sensor interference), you don't really need to fight for control. If an asteroid belt is confined to a system, then you have a localized juicy target.
Controlling an entire area only really has the benefit of denying your opponents the resources - of course, you have to be able to lock down the entire area, which is not easy (if at all possible - extension, sensor interference, etc).




You mean a blanket modifier to production when the system is under attack, maintaining slider positions? Food production would plummet I guess, and most likely you'd have to move the slider(s) all the way to food production.




I was going with the 4 mill per high level torp (instead of 217 mill without bunkers) you mentioned - with a single bunker I guess. In 20+ bill, it'd take quite a large number of ships with several torps to make a dent in civilian pop. Obviously, that's just working with those numbers, but that's the point, checking if it's intended.

All systems will start out as not industry heavy, and these might be the systems that requires the most stuff built.

That does make sense, build queues could be a reward from having many factories, I'll definitely consider doing that when adding the build queue size limit.


By fight to control it, I mean you need to have ships there to protect your somewhat expensive mining ships. If you get resources from there the enemy will also have a good reason to attack your mining ships.
Locking down the entire area would be very difficult, but making it secure to a degree (starbase, patrolling fleets, maybe a mine field) would absolutely be possibe.
I guess I'll just have to wait until people actually play the alpha/beta to see how it works out in an actual game setting



Yeah, the protection offered by bunkers may need to be tweaked a bit. But the damage to troops will make the system ready for invasion without killing off half the population in the process think of the children!

What do you mean by expensive mining ships? Are mining ships supposed to be more expensive than other ship types?
I mean, cost in the game is just build cost, so expensive means time to build is longer. That's not that much of an handicap, in this context we're talking about. Also, for mining ships to have higher costs than other ships, it has to be the specific components that have higher costs - mining lasers having much higher cost than military grade weapons and such?
If mining ships have high costs, they need to make multi-turn circuits to get ore, which only serves to rush construction and has no other benefit, and they need to be protected by a fleet (so that that fleet is not somewhere else either protecting something or attacking something), I wonder why I would want to build any mining ships. Also, and tangencially, ore needs infrastructure on systems, which means less slots - which could have factories to increase industry output, and therefore decrease construction time.
Just pointing out stuff, to explain why I think it's a gimmicky concept.




With so many asteroid sectors, you can choose one to mine that's not close to an enemy. Moving a fleet half way across the map just to deny you some ore, hmm. He'll have to commit a fleet to it (meaning it won't be available for other duties), he'll have to spend fuel (just like the mining fleet will!!), he'll have to time the arrival of his fleet with yours actually being there (and not on its round trip), etc, all this requiring accurate intel, so that he'll know what he's getting into. Too many ifs (and costs) for the potential gain IMO.




I'm guessing a starbase will be an "expensive" thing, and it is confined to one sector. How will they be built BTW? Civilian hull "Transports", with troop pods?
Do you have an idea how minefields will be implemented yet?




Will troops get the same protection factor as civilians? If so, that might force the attacker to actually land troops in the system, as opposed to killing them off from orbit (14/50 per torp). Though high level torps should probably at least kill some.

I'm planning to increase the cost of mining lasers quite a bit. What you gain from mining (industry production boost in systems) will of course be of higher value than what you spend (cost of building the mining ships, and protecting them, and loosing a planet slot to an ore processing plant).

Maybe the ore processing plant structure should be removed (or at least be a lot cheaper than it is now), that way you could have miners drop off the ore at young/new systems, where it would be very useful as you could quickly get a system up and running (having lots of industry/power/etc...). Building stuff is slow at first since newly colonized systems have very little industry. Besides that it would be just like in civilization or other games, where you use it to hurry building a strategic structure, or a ship you really need.


So many? I think the default is 2 or 3 fields for a map of 400 tiles (20x20). This number is set when you make a new game, so you can have 0 or many asteroid fields. So if the enemy using an asteroid far away from you, then obviously committing a big force to preventing the enemy from getting those extra resources will not be worth it.
With many players there would generally be someone close by to take out an enemy mining op. Or several players could send a few ships each on a far away mission to deny the enemy resources.


Yes, starbases will be expensive, and stationary (or maybe extremely slow = 5/10 turns to move 1 tile)
Have not really gone into much of the design yet, but so far I've considered these two ways:
1) civilian hulls have a starbase construction kit, which uses X number of turns to build a starbase
2) civilian hulls have a starbase construction kit which immediately (1 turn) turns into a incomplete starbase. The starbase must the be built by a) driving several civilian ships with starbase construction kits to it. or b) delivering ore to it which is used to finish construction.

The starbase could be kinda like a planet in space (have slots) where you could build structures/facilities:
mining ops - starbase "slowly/mediumly" harvest ore from nearby asteroids
refueling station - starbase automatically harvest deuterium from nearby nebulae, and increases refuel range from "in the same tile" to "adjacent tile" for friendly ships.
sensor array - improved sensors, maybe even directional sensors which would give a long range but "narrow" field of vision
repair bays - allow repair of friendly nearby ships
strategic command - gives combat bonus to nearby friendly ships
shipyard?? - create ships, would require ore.

Minefields have also not been designed yet. But they would take up 1 tile (but you could of course have several next to each other), and if enemy enters the minefield they have a high chance of blowing up (duh)
Probably minefields should not blow up ships, but rather damage them quite a bit making them want to return for repairs. Not sure if minefields should be "permanent" requiring a civilian ship with special component (minesweeper) to clear them. Or if the minefield should just disappear after having dealt out X number of damage.


They have different factors now, but If you're saying troops are too easily killed from orbit then I fully agree. Bombing can't be a substitute for actually invading with actual troops.
I'll look at reducing the troop damage from bombing, and perhaps bunkers could also offer complete protection for X number of troops each, + orbital bombardment would have a lower chance to hit troops when number of troops declined.

So you're spending a LOT of industry building mining ships to gain an industry boost? That sounds efficient.
Also, it's not just one slot, you need silos to store the ore.



There won't be a cap on how much industry you can generate from ore, according to the system's industry? I mean, if you have 1000 ore in a 100 industry system, can you spend it all? I'm guessing not.



Isn't 20x20 kind of smallish? The screenshots show lots of asteroid squares in large maps.



We actually discussed something similar for Supremacy.

You've gotta spend money to make money
Wasn't planning on making them VERY expensive, just so that you can't swarm a dozen of them easily. You don't need to have huge stores of ore in all systems, so you can make a few systems with huge ore stores, and then use freighters to move it to where it's needed.


Not presently, I always thought that was silly in Civilization, you could buy a huge structure in 1 single turn (like a wonder or something). So limiting the amount of ore that can be used for hurrying production each turn is probably a good idea.


I could not remember the actual number (but it might have been 3 fields in a 30x30 galaxy), and am currently moving all my stuff over to my new computer so can't easily check the source code for the moment.
The latest screenshots on the website DOES have a big cluster of 3 or 4 asteroid fields. Either this is just a fluke, or I might have increased the number of asteroid fields when starting that particular game.


Must be a good idea then Was a conclusion reached?

You mean you need to build (lots of) freighters too? Seems to add to micro.
You once mentioned that it'd take a mining fleet up to ~40 turns for a round trip, is that still the plan? Seems kind of long for this. Also, early game you might need freighters along with the mining ship, to carry the ore? The mining ship will probably not have a large cargo capacity. That'd be more ships to build.




Of course, for recent colonies you need silos to store the ore, which makes it hard to use this approach on them - having to spend industry on silos that is, stalling development.




You must have changed something then, because in the first page of this thread you have a pic with dozens of asteroid fields - on the ~24x33 visible area (the map is larger) you can see 11 such sectors, and part of the map is hidden by panels. And in the alpha test they were as common as the pic shows.

The idea was to make bunkers have a pop based limit (in how may you can build per system), much like shield generators now are in Supremacy, and each bunker would prevent a given amount of pop being killed.
Mike liked the idea, and was considering implementing it.

so when does alpha start?

Tomorrow at 12:00 (noon) GMT.


There will be 2 servers.
One with a quick turn rate, which means the game should be done by sunday.
And one with a slower turn rate, which should last for about a week

Notification mails are going out now.

Mails with usernames/passwords + server ip/port will be sent out tomorrow at noon GMT

Just a quick update:

Still working on the game, doing some tasks that are mainly feedback issues from the Alpha test (Thanks again to everyone who helped out with that).

Currently it looks like I might be leaving Norway and move to the UK within the next 2 months, so that might keep me a bit busy from both developing and posting here.

Have a good move then!

Hope the move goes well. Tell everyone in the UK I said hey.