No, it does make sense that you should also have building requirements for at least some structures.

Using your energy and Subatomic Simulator example, Azhdeen, it isn't just about the overall energy level you have - it's how you can control and store it. Yes, newer generators are able to produce more energy, but if they can't channel that extra energy safely and efficiently into batteries or the power network, there isn't any point in producing that extra energy in the first place. Doing so is hugely wasteful and potentially dangerous.

A system like Subatomic Simulators would require very precise and constant levels of energy. Even a tiny blip could affect your results - or even blow your containment fields!

IF we have building prerequisites, we will need to go through the entire list and decide *what* needs them, and *what* those prerequisites will be. Of course, that is if we decide it is a good idea. I'm all for it.

We could do some and/or's for the special structures. For example taken from my BotF1 gameplay....

When wind turbines or charge collectors are available, I buy them outright to get a jump on production (I'm sure most people do). Then I can install a bunch of different things, particularly food buildings like replicators, sometimes a shipyard, and maybe even the subatomics if I have both turbines and collectors before I even think about building a replicator, reactor, or a farm.

The required building proposal (as opposed to required technology) would make this more difficult or impossible (I'm sure replicators wouldn't require a specific building, but the simulators... and possibly the shipyard might, even if they're low requirements.)

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, though. It would essentially encourage a more normal pattern of colony growth rather then buying a slew of special buildings now and then worry about the actual infrastructure later. I could go either way on the idea. This should definitely put a stop to the practice of buying aquafarms -> collectors -> turbines -> replicators -> shipyard -> research/intel special -> whatever.

Would we want to require a certain number of buildings to be constructed? If so, specifying a specific number of buildings would be a legitmate discussion to flesh out the idea a bit better. In relation to this, how would you handle systems that have a very low max population? Or would the buildings simply need to be built and not necessarily used... which would make low pop systems a nonissue now that I think of it. I often times shutdown my replicators and devote entire systems to intel or research so.... Yeah, now I'm thinking outloud and rambling, heh.

If an empire has the tech to give new colony a higher likelihood of surviving, I don't think it would allow itself to be hampered by how many or what type of buildings are there. "No, I'm sorry but you can't have an aquaculture farm here: you don't have the construction facilities to build it." No society would do this to their members... Um... In general, that is.

In Star Wars Rebellion -- another game of this era and genre I spent way too much time playing -- you could manufacture facilities and then ship them to other planets. This allowed a new colony to have a good construction facility without needing to go through the painful process of constant upgrades. Of course, you had to wait for it to be constructed and then wait for it to arrive, which could also be painful. BotF1 dealt with this by allowing you to buy the facility and not needing the new colony to struggle to *build* an infrastructure before it could have an infrastructure. IMHO, this was a good kludge considering the limitations and flavor of the game. I prefer to keep the BotF1 approach. However, one or the other method should be used for BotF2: dont make me build a new society from scratch every time I goto a new planet.

If your empire has the understanding to build it, it has the knowledge to place it in the wilderness and make it work within the limits of colonization. Again, only IMHO.

Next topic.

This month's scientific american had a reader comment in the front which correctly pointed out that the adding of computer controls to the construction facilities of the modern world constituted a second industrial revolution. No study or subject is an island unto itself.

I sympathize with the notion of researching a single subject to upgrade to the next step in a facility: fab 11 to fab 12. In BotF1, this exactly how I go up the ladder... Indeed, I figure out what facility, special building or, most likely, ship I want next and pool my research to get it. And you'll notice, for the most part, you can do that with most upgrades to most facilities... Still, I stand by my assertion that once in a while an upgrade should require more than one type of research step to build.

I'm glad to see interest. I'm glad to engage in these conversations again. Thank you.

Uhh... I'd have to disagree with you, Z.



It's not society that is saying, "No you can't build this yet." It's reality. If you do not have the supporting structures to build an object, then how can you build it? I might have the knowledge to program a computer (the technology level), but if I lack a computer and a development environment, how am I supposed to construct the program I want to create? If I want to build a house, but the best tools that I have are a single hammer and 2 screwdrivers, how am I going to manage that?

Now apply that reasoning to the game. How would a colony with little or no fabrication resources be able to build advanced structures that aid construction? The same can go for research and energy and the Subatomic Simulators. What good is it doing if the quality of the energy isn't there to power it? Where does this "research" go if there are no research buildings to collect it? What can an aquafarm do to feed a population if there is no population to take and distribute that food? Is it magic?

Knowledge is an important part for sure. But you also need the available resources to properly utilize that knowledge. Otherwise... you could find yourself building a Sovereign with a ruler, a couple screws, and a level with nothing else.

The only middle ground that I can see would be to always make the advanced buildings buyable - but at a vastly increased cost if you don't have the prerequisites. This additional cost could be in credits, construction time, resources, or a combination of all three.

Think about it - you may have a hammer and two screwdrivers, but you might need to chop some wood. If you have a bit of metal and a stick, you could use the hammer to make an axe.

Obviously that would take time and metal to make the axe though. But thats where the extra costs come into play. The increased construction time (Compared to an instant build) also serves as a limiter for large, economically powerful empires - even if they can afford to buy everything, it'll still take time to build.

Now you're probably thinking of the one major change that this suggests - you're paying for it, but it would still take time to build!

We've discussed in the past whether you should be able to have instant-builds or simply pay to increase the construction rate, and I believe that we decided that increasing the construction rate would be more realistic.

My idea would simply be an extension of this - you would be paying to provide low-tech tools that are able to do the job, albeit much more slowly, more wastefully, or perhaps even more dangerously.

In fact, the danger side would lead on from the point I made in my last post with the energy - if you're using low-tech or low-quality construction materials or tools, surely there would be an associated risk?

If events were included, such as collapsed buildings, power plant explosions, floods, blackouts, and so on, we could include a system to show this. More advanced buildings would have a lower risk of such events happening.

Of course, this would mean the implementation of a random event system...oh wait...

It would also mean that each building would need another statistic - a damage rate or something. More stats mean more things for the game to keep track of though. And more things to keep track of means slower games.

It might be an interesting idea to discuss, but i'm probably going too far with it. Oh well, it can always be implemented in BOTF5, as we used to always say about fun but far-fetched ideas...

I find myself in agreement with this entirely. There's nothing more I can add to these points.



This paragraph is where I start to deviate from. I would imagine that set-backs such as these would be included in the costs. "On average, it will take you 5000 units of construction" is what I see when you build something. There is always the chance for things to go wrong. But if there is too much randomness, it could impact gameplay. Consistent construction is the best solution as it is pretty much the only thing a player can depend on within the game.



This depends. I am against the idea of utilizing the random event system to impact projects that are in construction. I don't have a problem with the system destroying finished projects, thus requiring them to be rebuilt. We discussed this briefly in the random events thread, but it is definitely worth repeating: we need to be careful how often the random events impact players. The universe is huge and there is ample opportunity though the course of a single year for significant random events to occur. I would argue that a slight setback in constructing... say... the Utopia Planetia Shipyards (or any other project), while definitely important, would not be important enough to warrant an actual random event; there are more important things for the system... such as the borg, global climate changes, etc. Sabotage (a mini player-driven random event system itself) on the other hand....



Adding stats to the game isn't really much of a problem, especially one that would work behind the scenes like this one. They simply need a purpose and need to be easy to understand for the player. However, I cannot think of any reason to add this stat into the game from the perspective of construction.

But I could definitely see every single building have a "hit point" statistic for the sabotage system. This would allow partial destruction of buildings that require construction time to repair - as opposed to being rebuilt from scratch. These buildings, while partially destroyed, would also be partially functional and would probably function in porportion to the amount of hit points they have left. Think of the hit points as a pool of "building usefulness points" and sabotage attempts are made against those points. When the points reach 0, the building is, for all intents and purposes, destroyed (it's not being used any longer, even if some parts of the building still stand.)

An easy way to determine an amount of hit points for each building would be proportionate, to some extent, on how many construction points are needed to build the building, the building's usefulness in the system, the building's usefulness for the empire, etc, etc. Or, you could take the easy way out and simply copy over the construction cost for each building and treat it as the hit point pool.

Also, for random events that do involve building destruction, the system could be modified to instead apply damage to structures instead of simply destroying them.

/underail



It's a great concept and, with Mike's blessing, could make it into Supremacy (maybe he already has something). These kind of things aren't even implimented yet so now's the time to determine if it's good enough for number 2 or needs to wait for a couple more sequels to get fleshed out a bit better.

OK, I'm trying my best to follow this thread in spite of my terrible ADD. From what I can gather, it sounds like the question is whether or not someone should be able to build a facility (say, one requiring Level 4 Energy and Level 5 Construction) if they have achieved those research levels, but have not yet upgraded their facilities (so they only have, say, Level 3 energy and Level 4 Construction facilities). If that's the case, then what Matress was proposed is that construction should consume more time and resources with older facilities, and possibly even present a risk factor.

Am I following correctly? I'm looking for a short and concise answer, please--remember my ADD .

For the most part.

Matress and I find it somewhat silly that you can build... say for example... a subatomic simulator on a newly colonized planet without any other buildings. That shouldn't really be possible if you think about it.

Imagine if BMW was building your car with a factory that was dated from the industrial revolution and you'll get the picture. Did that grab your attention? :p

Well, in Supremacy new colonies automatically start out with a set of buildings of your current tech level, so you really won't run into a situation where you're stuck with primitive facilities that are way behind your current tech level (unless you never upgrade them, of course).

Anyway, if you try to build advanced buildings with low-tech construction facilities, it will already take much longer because the industry output of those facilities is considerably lower. So, in a way, Matress' idea is already taken care of .

We know (and that was mentioned somewhere up above.) But that still doesn't really address things (in our opinion anyways.)

Take the Subatomic Simulators for example. Those babies are pretty sensitive pieces of equipment. If, for whatever reason, I build one of them on a colony that only has tech 2 power generators. The power generation for the colony is rather dated. But it's not just about the quantity of the energy, but the quality of the energy... which is also dated. Out-dated support structures should not be able to contribute to the production at all simply because they are incompatible.

Take a more basic example: software. Software, for the most part, is the same in concept - it instructs a computer on what to do. Yet, each piece of software has different requirements which include but are not limited to: OS, CPU, RAM, video card, input devices, sound card, etc. For example, Supremacy itself requires some Vista technologies. Currently, my laptop does not have any of those technologies so... I can't run Supremacy on it... even if I have access to the knowledge of those technologies (my desktop has them.)

So, in applying this to the game... the Simulators would still require a certain flavor of energy or better in order to run correctly. Or a specific research building in order to provide it's data accurately. It is not necessarily just about construction, but it could be a factor.

Going back to your Beamer, which is pretty much state-of-the-art for consumers... would BMW simply take longer to manufacture your car in a factory that is, say, 50 years out of date? Or would they not be able to build it all because, say, there is a certain manfucaturing technique (which BMW has researched) that is required to build it and their factory simply cannot complete that part?

This might be a pretty minor feature to consider. But I think it would flesh the tech-tree out a bit better as a whole and require players to make more informed decisions instead of simply pressing "buy."

I like the way you keep mentioning my Bimmer, but I'm trying not to think about that too much, since I still have to wait 6-7 weeks for it to arrive. It's driving me crazy .

You do, however, raise an interesting point. However, I'm still on the fence about the idea, as I'm not yet convinced that it would be a wise decision from a gameplay perspective. It would certainly be more realistic, yes, but this is a game we're talking about, and realism must often be sacrificed for the sake of fun. In games, tedium = bad.

My current opinion, for what it's worth (a lot ), is that I'm in favor of revising the tech requirements of some of the buildings and facilities to make them more sensible (in line with ZDarby's original argument), and seeing how things go from there. If, after further playtesting, it become apparent that something else needs to be done, we can start considering other options.

We weren't suggesting that ALL buildings would have requirements - only buildings that quite obviously need them, (Back to the Subatomic Simulators example) or perhaps even the minor race structures. It's a bit boring that you can build their structures *just* because you own their planet.

As for the randoms idea, it was basically low level buildings would be more prone to damage for whatever reason, lets say an Earthquake. Newer buildings would be more resistant to such damage, so less prone to random events.

Azhdeen suggested that one way to do this was to give buildings "hit points" and that newer buildings would have more hit points than older ones. This stat wouldn't be visible to the player, it would be a programming thing (Unless we wanted it visible ) that would only be used when a random event occured. (Or maybe even when the planet is attacked)

Obviously any decision is down to you, but I like it.

I guess which ever beneifits gameplay wins out, reality or science fiction come second.

What he said.
My shortest post ever!

I was expecting at least to scroll down text twice with my mouse and now this! 8O Azhdeen, what's wrong!?

I don't have much time: I have to cover for a friend at my old work. So I'll make it short(er).

I do not dissagree with your points concerning old infrastructure. Your statements would be, to some extent, the reality: a new colony would not likely have the infrastructure to build a high-fangled thing like a subatomic simulator.

But if an empire that could build such a thing somewhere in its empire decided it would be benificial to have one at a new colony, they would put it there. This, to me, was what the "buy" button mean. IE, I, as supreme ruler of the Federation, get to decide a certain amount of resources will be sacrificed to put (whatever) on a planet of my choice. And it doesn't matter how poorly the two mismatch: I'm the supreme leader and this is what I want. Period. And I'd have my engineers fix everything so that it would be as I commanded it.

In BotF1, the amount of money was fixed. In BotF2, it could be variable: more resources to integrate newer tech with older. But *please* don't make me build a civilization from scratch just because I decide to colonize a new planet.

Soory forrthe double post.. .

I just realized that my whole arguement against Azhdeen's thoughts stem from the assumtion that new colonies will automatically start at tech 1 like they did int BotF1. But they don't have to!

Think about it: you can make Type C plasma reactors, are you going to set up a new colony with type 1 fusion reactors? No! You'll set it up with something newish and reliable: type A plasma reators.

In other words, new planets are given facilities two tech levels back, not all the way back to tech 1.

I have more to say, but I gotta go.

Hmm...that is definitely worth thinking about. Why do we have to follow the BOTF1 system simply because it was the way it was done? This is BOTF2 afterall - if we think something needs changing or updating we can do it!

I definitely like the idea of variable costs though. If you could choose to build a type 9 Plasma reactor when you've only got type 1's installed, you could be allowed to upgrade - but at a VASTLY overpriced cost.

The cost would be dependant on the difference between level upgrades, (Upgrading type 1 to type 9 would obviously cost more than upgrading type 1 to type 3 for example) the available planetary resources and production/construction buildings, (If you've got a Mining Corps for example, these resources could be used to augment the available resources to reduce the upgrade cost) and could *possibly* even be dependant on the planet type. (Class M planets would be the easiest to build on due to the relatively stable conditions, Oceanic planets would be prone to floods and hurricanes, Jungle planets would need to have the Jungle cleared first, but could potentially be resource-rich, Volcanic planets would be prone to Earthquakes etc, Desert planets would be prone to sandstorms but could potentially be mineral rich, and Arctic or Rogue planets would have low construction rates due to difficult transportation and the risk of Blizzards) and a random factor just to make things a bit different.

That should be enough to think about in one post.

Eh, I realize that new colonies are going to start with up to date support structures. Enter this very possible example (which is generalized a bit):

I started a game at technology level 1. After a few turns, I've colonized a system. In order to build up it's ability to produce, I concentrate on farms and fabricators. Within a turn or two of colonization, I, essentially, have level 2 technology in all areas.

As the game is progressing, I'm still developing farms and fabricators for this colony. I might try to upgrade them as I go along. Let's say... I finally have all the farms and fabricators I could want by the time I hit level 3 technology. So I upgrade them to bring them current, and then start building and upgrading energy reactors (which are still type 1's.) Once that is done, I'm ready to build some support structures. A shipyard, dilithium refinery if applicable... whatever. Then... I start cranking out ships like crazy. The Klingons have made themselves known and are eager for some "aggressive negotiations". I need ships for the slaughter.

Fast forward the game a bit and throw in a Klingon peace treaty and a couple extra technology levels, I now re-examine the status of my systems. Oh look, some of them are out of date. But hey! I can build a couple special buildings, including one dealing with research. Oh, wait; this colony doesn't have any research buildings yet (or, if it starts with one, it's still type 1).

I'm just pulling this example out of no where, really. But this was the general purpose of the idea: to create some reasonable support structures to support (and not just necessarily build) these unique buildings so that they may operate properly.

Considering some of the other changes that have been made, this is probably rather minor in the grand scheme of things.

@ Azhdeen:
I actually agree with your analysis: a chemical generator, for example, would need an incredible amount of modifications to make it run a holographic array, or whatever. And only *vast* amounts of money could make it happen.

It wasn't that I disagreed with your point of view that I was arguing against it. It was that, if a colony *starts* at level 1 every single time, then a player has to go from level 1 to whatever level is current for the rest of the empire (2 to 12). I found this exceptionally tedious and annoying in BotF1; and the only thing that made it bearable was that I could simply buy my way to an acceptable level, either through upgrades or special structures.

If a new colony got tech that was only 2 to 3 levels behind the rest of the empire, than I'd fully support the idea of infrastructure requirements for special structures.

@ MOE:
Yes. Precisely what I wanted to say.

@ mstrobel: (*Extremely* off-topic)
I, too, have ADHD and find reading long posts excruciating. However, I use ReadPlease to convert these long texts to speech. I can read about twice as fast as it can, my retention is about 2/3 as good if I read text with my own eyes and it's useless for more technical texts. But I find I can concentrate on the spoken word about six times longer (13 hours instead of 2) than I can the written word. This is a *big* pay-off and is true for most circumstances.

ReadPlease Plus is expensive ($60) but is much worth it compared to the free version. I find I *never* use AT&T Natural Voices, even though I have some: they take too long to pronounce the words and the whole point (for me) is to go at blistering speeds. (I spend all my time at speed 7-10 using microsoft's 'Mary'... And there are times when 10 is tediously slow.)

There are open source text-to-speach programs as well, though I never spent enough time to make them work properly. I would actually recommend taking this route first, if you have the patience.

I made an error in my tech-tree suggestions for energy facilities. The error and correction should be obvious to anyone who pays attention, still I though I'd post the correction

Type 1 Fusion -- 1,1,1,1,1,1
Type 2 Fusion -- 1,2,2,2,1,2
Type 3 Fusion -- 2,3,3,3,1,2
Type A Plasma -- 2,4,4,4,3,3
Type B Plasma -- 3,4,4,5,4,4
Type C Plasma -- 3,5,5,6,4,4
Type D Plasma -- 4,6,6,7,4,5
Type E Plasma -- 4,7,7,8,5,6
Type F Plasma -- 6,8,8,9,6,8
Type G Plasma -- 6,9,9,10,8,9
Type H Plasma -- 8,10,10,11,9,10
Type I Plasma -- 9,11,11,12,11,11

As before, the key is:
facility - bio, comp, const, enegy, prop, weap

I didn't think of it as a mistake, ZDarby - I thought it was just a simplification.

...

There's a text-to-speech function in NCH's Wavepad audio Editing program. The program is free, and I err...know a way around the trial. *No more mentioning on the forums for fear of Jigalypuff retribution*

The option is under Tools -> Text To Speech.

The program doesn't come with voices pre-installed though. If you need some, there are download links Here.

The voices include Microsoft Sam, Microsoft Mary, Microsoft Mike, (All three as normal, in space, and telephone effects) Whisper, and Robosoft 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Yes. The name used the first time was a simplification: "Type 5 Reactor" Instead of "Type B Plasma".
However, the error was that the main research topic for energy was originally biased for construction: (4,6,*7*,6,4,5) instead of the intended (4,6,6,*7*,4,5).
This was a type-O, of course. Anyone trying to use the system would have realized what was intended.
Still, better safe than uselessly flamed.

Very interesting read. A couple things caught my attention, specifically building 'hit points' and the building construction requirements.

Along these lines, I have a couple things to say.

First in dealing with building hit points, the easiest way to do it would make each buildings hit points equal its construction cost. This could then be very easy to implement the damage/production loss system. production loss(see as in BotF1 terms) would simply be a percentage of the total based on hit points.

So 1 type 1 fab, costs 80 production to build, outputs 13(all numbers fictional and made up on spot for example purposes).
Say this building has been damaged 20 points, so its currently at 60/80 points, and therefor running at 75% efficiency. this can then be applied to the output as a negative multiplier. so like BotF1 had morale % that increased decreased, this would do the same. so that single fab would output 9.75 points(rounded up/down depending on whats best).

Next, building construction requirements. This idea bears a lot of merit, and would NOT be difficult to implement at all.

Mike, the best thing I could say to this is the following. If the requirements are not extremely restrictive this will likely add VERY little to game play as MOST of the time the player is going to be upgrading all buildings anyways. the only time this comes into play is for specialized colonies where you have built it to do ONE specific task. Like in BotF1 you'd have a colony that had a huge pop, you'd build just needed farms and energy to accommodate and needed special buildings and food, everything else would be built into construction, so you can build your ships as fast as possible. Now say on this colony you have the spare energy to run the above mentioned sub atomic simulators.

Now, for this example, lets say this specific structure has the following building requirements needed for the system. would require level 6 energy and research facilities(just one building needs to be built, not manned). now this colony has the energy structure, but has an old outdated level 3 research facility from back in a time when you were using this system for some research as you were at peace. now we have a system where yes, you need to upgrade your facilities to accommodate the needs of the structure. This is by far the best approach i can see to not only add micro management(that will not really even need to be noticed except to the players that will actually be doing this anyways) and add a more intelligent feel to the overall game functionality.

Lets take another colony for a similar example. This colony has been focused on research only, and has been one of the strongest research producers for a while. Now you have a nice brand new technology(making this up for an example) that we'll call Advanced Shipyard which allows for faster ship construction. You are waging a war with the Klingons, who have a superior fleet and you need to bring this system in to construction because its close to war front. Now this shipyard requires building requirements of fabricators at level 7, but this colony never upgraded from its initial start of level 3. Now I can afford to buy this upgrade(using the similar example of star wars rebellion - great game) and necessary building materials are shipped for the construction to get this facility, and the upgrades commence. you can then build the structure and start your ship production.

I think this second idea is very much a good idea to implement(and possibly be able to disable it for those that don't like it). The first idea, while I like it a lot, isn't very important nor will many players notice this, or affect their games at all. I however do think these both merit attention and plan to implement them eventually in my game, though not the first build.

I don't particularily like the idea of changing a essentailly research colony into one which can now be a construction colony because needs must and the kilingons are attacking.

What i mean is that there has to be soem adavantage to putting all your eggs in one basket ie a whole research colony compared with the average mix of research intel and construction. Therefore it becomes strategically important, you now need to spend resources ie Ships to defend this planet, and if the Kilingons have put you in a position where you are forced to spread thing to protect these strategic planets then all the better for the game.

The ability to upgrade takes away a certaint strategic element to the game, hell i'd almost consider where after a while a planet is locked into specific roles "Research or Construction" and can't be suddenly switched, but maybe that is to extreme.

Regards Wolfe

Glad this thread hasn't died - again.

Perhaps having specialised systems could be something worth considering - specialised systems would bring certain bonuses - but would obviously give certain disadvantages as well. In respect to a research one, defense would obviously be an issue - and not just militarily. Such systems would be a magnet for spies and saboteurs...

I certainly think that paying for an upgrade should cost a significant premium though. You will have to pay your workers, buy/mine/manufacture the resources, get the necessary energy, and so on. Such things are not simple or easy matters. They require time, effort, and planning. And taking all those workers and whatnot from research, counterespionage, and so on will obviously impact your Empire. The cost will obviously worth it in the long run, however.

Hit points would definitely be an easy way to calculate damage etc. in planetary attacks, random events, and so on. Your idea of tying this in with the build costs makes sense - but would require balancing. Then there is the issue of the fact that later buildings have in the region of thousands of construction cost points - is this realistic? Do the ships have that much defense? I doubt it. We'll have to ask Dafedz to sort all that out - IF we decide on it.

Interesting... I do thing it would be good to be able to make specific specialized colonies...Hm..mayhaps you can make it with a special building of some sort.

Like a planetary research complex (one per empire) that doubles the research on a planet, effectivly turning that planet into a research colony.. ???

Dunno.

My point wasn't that you needed X amount of said construction facilities or energy production, just that you needed a certain tech level of that facility. Even go so far as to make it to were you can upgrade the technology of the colony for buildings that you may never build, just to meet these requirements. The cost for something like this would be minimal.

Trashman, i've played a few games where they implemented that kind of idea, where you could build a 'structure' that turned your colony into a colony that only does this or that. One flaw in that is how easy it can be abused. sure it seems all nice from a game play perspective, but when you can easily just scrap it and build another planet that can do more, it becomes a simple task to play pass the super structure

For a feature like that it shouldn't be one per empire. it should be can be built ONLY once per empire. you pick a planet. it becomes the super research center. don't like the choice you made, too bad. colony got invaded by an enemy empire, good for them, they now have two and you have none, better hurry up and get it back. This makes those structures not only permanent, but also very strategic targets. (I would also make it to where if they get destroyed they CAN be rebuilt, but only in their original system, and ONLY by the originating empire, unless another empire had never had one, took yours, building got destroyed and then built theirs in the same system ... in this instance NO you could not take it back keep their structure AND build yours, theirs would remain, if it got destroyed you could rebuild yours)

These are just ideas I have. The will also not be part of Supremacy unless mike decides they will. I am implementing some of this in a game I am developing for personal enjoyment and learning experience.

Oh and MoE, i too agree, that the buildings hitpoints/construction costs would need to be heavily balanced, BUT remember, the buildings dont fight back, it just means that when you invade a planet, the people and their buildings are more likely to survive, meaning your invasion will be overall more valuable to you as a player. I always hated invading in BOTF1 cause I always ended up destroying most of the buildings, leaving me to start almost from nothing, when you add the morale issues on top of it, made it that much worse.

This kind of a system would allow for ships to bombard a system for invasion, without bashing in all the needed support structures. I mean, aside from the klingons, who goes around shooting at the buildings that keep your potential slaves ... er I mean citizens ... alive and working productively. ... no one I say! you aim for the defense outposts and blow them to bits, only to rebuild and man your own later ... another thing I don't like, but eh, thats war. Also, the ships will also be stronger late in the game, and if all the scaling values are done properly, the buildings will still be destroyable, just harder. I mean, shouldn't a level 9 replicator be stronger than a level 2 fab? :-p

We could quite easily have other requirements for such special buildings - such as having x number of working science labs. Without the other labs actively workin to support the special structure with data collection, analysis, and whatnot, the extra equipment of the new structure would be wasted.

Having requirements like this would also ensure that you don't just pick a random, non-critical, otherwise useless system for such a special purpose - it has to already have a support network and academics to run the thing. Similar structures in other areas would be the same. We could perhaps even simply adapt some of the other already-existing structures in the database for this purpose...

I noted that some minor races have Freighter ships. This is a ship type not seen in the Major races. Who will we be using freighters that we can only control when we assimilate the right minor race?