Well, it's really the same problem as with moons. Larger systems will become even larger, smaller systems are less affected. Yes, larger systems are a bonus, but they already were. They're also a bit boring to develop, and more pop doesn't really help.
Balance issues have not come into play yet, but more pop also means more Officers/Personnel, more taxes (and everything it entails), more influence, more trade routes, etc.




Well, it does kinda fit, since those will be the workers the colony will have available to build stuff, and the # of production facilities the colony starts with is directly proportional to that work force. Plus, it's more efficient to have only one stat for 3 ship types than having 3 stats, one for each one ship type only.

Maybe...maybe not. I'm sworn to secrecy at the moment, so I can't say any more than that. Let's just say we'll be discussing different problems in future.

Matress wants individualised ship stats! Pweeeease?

"Work Capacity" is just an arbitrary numeric value that represents a ship's ability/efficiency to carry out some task. Colony ships use it to describe the population of a new colony. Construction ships use it to describe their "industry" output per turn. Transports will use it to describe some sort of ground combat capacity--probably number of soldiers or something along those lines. It could have other uses as well.

The concept of "personnel" in the game is going to change drastically, and one consequence will be that ships no longer have a crew/officer requirement.

Conceptually I could not see the Colonyships really carrying a billion or so colonist anyway. I have always though more of them a factories that will allow you to use row material on the new world to support colonists. Colonists would get there in thousands of smaller ships. "Work Capacity" sounds good to me.

What Colonyships are able to do in the game though is just a back end numbers game so think of it like Mike said.

The problem with that approach is where do you get those thousands of smaller ships from... You do not have to build them. You do not have the *capacity* to build them (in the thousands). You don't even have to spend population to build them - which only makes this game's colonization phase as important or more to be fast as in any other 4X, contrary to what has been said here... but...

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As for the system population issue, it's not with moons, higher caps or pop density that it should be handled, but simply by setting system generation in such a way that there's a minimum *planet* count, preferably with larger planets in systems with lower planet counts - and yes, I know, it's Mike's territory.
Not that I think there was something wrong with the old pop numbers though...

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As long as those minors with useful/powerful/cheap structures are evenly spread among the quadrants, it should be ok having minors of different power levels. If not, and due to the rigid nature of the map, it might be a problem.




Still, you can have both in a system, both costing energy. Most likely it's not really an issue since the top-of-the-line scanners are Native only, and these are "NonNative". And these are most likely better than the universal scanners. But since these don't upgrade from the universal ones, you'll end up with both in the system most likely. And unless the AI is coded with this in mind, it'll probably build the universal ones as soon as it can.




So the industry bonus (2.5x Industry) is intended? Along with the special shipyard's construction bonus? See above.

It is a game. A great deal is assumed. Live with it.

Nice point, Kenneth.

I personally don't see a problem with having two different scanners in a system, Iceman - they would serve different purposes afterall. One would be designed to perform intensive scans of a localised area, (So has better anti-cloak detection or can glean more information about enemy fleet composition for instance) whilst the other type would concentrate on scanning distant targets (So you might get less precise data, but at least you get an earlier warning of incoming hostile fleets) I could easily make the standard scanners native only, but this means that you automatically have a scanning disadvantage around all minor race worlds, which seems a silly restriction to me.

Yes, the engineering union's bonus is intended - even with their shipyard. The Tellarites are a proud race that will be relatively difficult to get to join you, much like the Vulcans will; you will have to gain their trust, rather than bribe them into submission. They also have relatively advanced technology, and they were a founding member of the Federation. Therefore they *should* have a particularly large bonus.

I do. But weren't you the one trying to explain it, conceptually? Or can't you take a "conceptual" rebuke? We're not having different standards for different people here, are we?

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Scanners. From what I've seen, those special scanners are actually better than the universal ones (6/7 vs 4/5). So the universal ones are mostly expandable, which is what I was trying to say when I mentioned having both consuming energy. The human player is smart enough (should be) to scrap the universal ones (and gain some credits in the process), but the AI might not be - and hence my comment. As always, these are comments about potential "issues".
Also, the code needs to correctly separate the stats for each scanner individually, so that the stronger scan strength is not applied to the larger scan range - again, just a comment.

On a related note, about scan ranges and map sizes. I've already commented on ship speed vs map size, but with scanners there's also an "issue". On smaller maps, say tinies (10x10), a single scanner (like the Isolinear Scanner for example) placed at the center of a quadrant covers the whole quadrant. With the top-of-the-line scanners, the Card one for example covers the entire galaxy if placed in the center of the galaxy. In larger galaxies, 2 or 3 scanners do the trick.
There's a problem of scale in the game IMO. Maybe there's too many sizes, or too many structures. Ship speeds for example, and taking colony ships as an example, would be much better as 2 and 3 sct/turn (Rom and rest) than 1 and 2, which would make the relative difference smaller. Of course, this would work best for larger maps. The higher speeds for the warships (4 and 5) would also work better in larger maps - as I've mentioned before, in tiny maps they're somewhat... I don't know, can't really find a term for it.


We're not talking a large bonus here, and that was my point - we're talking a HUGE bonus. And yet another bonus on top of that. As advanced as they are, 2.5x normal industry for a *minor* race *sounds* silly. Makes the empires look like slobs.

There certainly isn't different standards. There's a couple things that are going on that you don't seem to notice. For starters, this is clearly a "spiritual successor" to Birth of the Federation, which I think you mentioned you haven't played. I will admit that it is nice to have feedback from people who don't already have expectations from playing the original BotF. However, naturally, the experiences from the original game are quite important when building Supremacy.

If you can make something (colonization, for example) realistic while having excellent gameplay, then you do it. If realism would detract from gameplay (having to build a few thousand ships so that billions of people can move to a new star system), then the KISS mindset is much prefered. Besides, there could be a lot of things going on if an actual star system were colonized. There would probably be far more privately-supported ships ferrying colonists then military ships, for starters (and thus, you wouldn't have to build them). But I digress... as Kenneth said: It's a game. A great deal is assumed (to be occuring).

Also try to keep in mind... not everything that you think is wrong is actually wrong. Perhaps it's not intentional, but you definitely come off as very confrontational, particularly if you are already convinced that something should be done some other way or attempt to validate your points with experience in other games (you have played 4x games before, right?... for example). While it's great to have more people analyze the details within the implimented statistics of the game, it's important to keep in mind that there are certain expectations for the game and some specific design decisions were made based off of those.

As for the scanner/ship ranges on a small map... I don't see how that is a problem. If you have ships and scanners that can traverse the entire map in one-two turns, then it probably means you're starting at a high technology level and you'll be in for a very short game.

As for the minor race structure (The Engineering Union I'm assuming), I'm pretty sure that it cannot be built by the minor race until the race has joined an empire. Thus, the building isn't really for the minor race, but for that race's star system which will be put to use to whichever empire manages to extend a membership treaty or subjugate them. Every minor should have a building that is related to that race's percieved strengths, yet only useful to the empire that they have joined with since it is unbuildiable otherwise. I believe MOE already mentioned that some place.

I'm not sure this is useful or not but if you were to contain each colonist* in a pod (A box shaped coffin so to speak) {170cm x 50cm x 20cm} and stack them all together, by rough volume calculations you would need a cube container measuring approximately 554m x 554m x 554m (1,817.6 ft). Keep in mind that 1 billion colonists are approximately 1/6th to 1/7th the current population of the earth.

* I took the average dimensions of a human female and male and then averaged those, smaller people (such as children) and larger people would need to take up less or more space. I just used it to get a rough estimate. Also keep in mind when dealing with space you have to factor other races besides humans.

These numbers assume no equipment, no thickness to the walls, no devices, no extra air, etc... but conceptually you could carry 1 billion colonists in a cargo-hold that measure 0.5 km a side. The ship itself would need to be larger to contain the cargo-hold. Any matching volume container shape that’s sides were divisible by the original pods dimensions would also work, so you could envision a long container similar to a sea faring ship. For reference the volume is: 170,000,000 m^3 or 0.170 km^3.

On earth right now according to wikipedia the longest ship (a Supertanker) the "Knock Nevis" measures 458.5 m (1,504 ft). Granted this isn't a cube but my imagination isn't stretched too far in imagining something that size being built.

You could imagine it to be a ship that separated into components when reaching the destination that could be scraped or reformed to create basic habitats and infrastructures (something similar to Lego). If you think of the ship along the lines of a fish bone design you could have it carry a container of pods then a container of equipment, then a container of supplies or whatever. A ship 1km long x 0.5 x 0.5 isn’t hard to imagine.

O=========={
....\__\\__\\__\

|-- 1.0 - 1.5 km --|

I hope this helped add some realism to the discussion. I think it might also help prove that a single ship is plausible.

I know this won't make it to the easter update, but anyway.

The Coridan shipyard needs to be in line with the other minor special shipyards (already reported by PM).

The Rakosans system (the fixed one) still has the potential for 11 orbits (4 + home + 4~6). Not really important, just an observation.

The Research Matrix again.
The Multifrequency Beams are still not showing the tech *name* correctly - it's showing the tag instead.
The Diffusion Bonding tech is now correct, but Quadratronics is now incorrect. *Both* the name and description are showing the tags instead of the proper texts. I guess this was from a change from Quadtronics to Quadratronics (or the other way around), and the tags were not renamed.

I'll try to keep this to what concerns the game proper, and just ignore the rest.



It means scanners are mostly obsolete or useless, and that no system is safe anywhere in the map (careful about saying this might be a good thing...). Now use your head to project the consequences of that. And experience in other games in the genre *is* crucial to equate this kind of thing. Just because you don't see that doesn't mean it's not valid.



Ignoring the repeats ad nauseum, and the fact that apparently it's not me who needs to be reminded how the game actually works, like I already told MoE privately, it's a 2.5x industry system building a large (special) shipyard *much* faster, which in turn builds ships faster. This system is in a fixed quadrant, so chances a specific race will always get to it first are high. Yes, it doesn't show every game, but the games it does might just not be too much fun. That's all I was saying. Let's not try to make it more than that.

Ok, now back to my vacation.

I'll make the updates once the easter update is released.

Special minor shipyards

3 out of the 4 (Axanar, Coridan, Tellarite) are in the Alpha Quadrant. Those 3 races are Sophisticated tech-wise.
The 4th, Kazon, are in the Delta Quadrant. They're set to Primitive.

The Tellarites have a Giant homeworld. They're set as a DevelopingPower.

The Axanar and Kazon systems don't have the RawMaterials bonus, only Dilithium.


Just observations, since "the game hasn't been tested yet" - a truly marvellous pearl of wisdom (one among many).

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The Evora Explorer and Ferengi Marauder I are set to Colony.

The Ferengi Raider I doesn't have Hull and Shield values.

I guess we have to wait for MOE to get back from holiday.

I'll fix it after the Easter update!

I noticed it can get hard to keep track of all your ships once you zoom out on the galactic map. Would it be possible to make the ship symbol wink or flash? What about a color outline on a square that has a ship in it?

A couple of suggestions:

Instead of using excess production to build Trade Goods, use the food surplus to generate credits.
Or (IMO) better yet, use Trade Routes to distribute the surplus of some systems to nearby systems, so that some pop in those systems can be freed for other assignments. That would also make Trade Routes a nice tool for diplomacy (as I'm sure they are meant to be in the current design) - use your food surplus to trade with other empires or minors, improving relations. Instead of the credits appearing out of nowhere.
Ideally, some planet types (terran, jungle, oceanic) should produce more food than others (and I don't meant with structures), which would allow some sort of specialization. But this would also require the # of farm slots to depend on system composition. The current design isn't really suited for that.

System window:
Display the Raw Materials and Dilithium system bonuses directly below the star, instead of on the upper left.
Display the planets' class letters in a larger font, and below where they are now, all lined up horizontally at the bottom of the window.
Display the planet bonuses (Food, Energy) below the planets, and display both when applicable [only one is shown].