The Great Crusade - Discussion

[Steve Walmsley]

If I am not wrong, the 3 stations at gamestart would be only good for "kickstart a colony" when colonizing and moving them to the new colony or am I missing something again?

Yes, the extra installations are to assist in early expansion, along with the 100 infrastructure.

[Hazard]

Frankly Steve? I would've claimed Venus as a colony ASAP or pounced on the CMC there and bought its minerals as soon as I could. 4 million tons of Duranium at 0.8 availability is nothing to sneeze at.

[Steve Walmsley]

Frankly Steve? I would've claimed Venus as a colony ASAP or pounced on the CMC there and bought its minerals as soon as I could. 4 million tons of Duranium at 0.8 availability is nothing to sneeze at.

I needed the money more than the minerals

In fact, it looks like C# Aurora is more 'expensive' due to the additional demands on wealth, so I am going to add an extra Wealth +20% at 3000 RP (currently starts at 5000 RP).

[Hazard]

Entirely understandable. I would've still claimed Venus as a colony site for later automated mining exploitation. Fuel sales would've had to do until the civilian shipping started doing its job spawning new sources of wealth on Mars and any inhabitable extra solar bodies, even if it needs a bit of jump starting with infrastructure and colonists.

[Steve Walmsley]

Entirely understandable. I would've still claimed Venus as a colony site for later automated mining exploitation. Fuel sales would've had to do until the civilian shipping started doing its job spawning new sources of wealth on Mars and any inhabitable extra solar bodies, even if it needs a bit of jump starting with infrastructure and colonists.

I don't need to claim Venus and prevent a CMC. I can still mine it using my own automated mines even with the CMC in place. It's not as if the Civs are going to mine all the minerals. At the moment, they have depletion in 80,000 years

I am better with both the CMC and my own mines than just my own mines.

[bowman]

Were there changes in C# that make terraforming significantly more difficult, or perhaps the population capacity is low on most of the worlds you found? I ask because the Alpha Centauri planets were said to "not be terraforming targets" once you got the tech and, even with all the low CC worlds (all the 2-colony cost worlds that seemed to only need a thin atmosphere added) the tone seemed to be disappointed/concerned for the future from the number of jump points surveyed v only finding the 2 habitable worlds.  It could also be that I'm misreading the tone of the AAR and/or it was simply focusing on worlds that didn't need terraforming for the initial expansion.

At any rate, I look forward to more. 
Definitely haven't been checking this sub every/every other day since I saw you post the starting conditions for this campaign.

[King-Salomon]

I needed the money more than the minerals

In fact, it looks like C# Aurora is more 'expensive' due to the additional demands on wealth, so I am going to add an extra Wealth +20% at 3000 RP (currently starts at 5000 RP).

looks like you are already running into balancing changes instead of only bug fixes.. yeah 

Is the NPR running in the same wealth problem as you?

how is the new "geological survey" mechanic working for you balancing wise? are there enough body's with potential for ground survey to make it worth to build the units? I am looking forward to your experience there because of the reduced chances in C# vs VB6 to find additional minerals

[Steve Walmsley]

Were there changes in C# that make terraforming significantly more difficult, or perhaps the population capacity is low on most of the worlds you found? I ask because the Alpha Centauri planets were said to "not be terraforming targets" once you got the tech and, even with all the low CC worlds (all the 2-colony cost worlds that seemed to only need a thin atmosphere added) the tone seemed to be disappointed/concerned for the future from the number of jump points surveyed v only finding the 2 habitable worlds.  It could also be that I'm misreading the tone of the AAR and/or it was simply focusing on worlds that didn't need terraforming for the initial expansion.

At any rate, I look forward to more. 
Definitely haven't been checking this sub every/every other day since I saw you post the starting conditions for this campaign.

The difference is the water. You need 20% water now for ideal habitable and it takes about 1 atm of water vapour to create that much surface water. It takes more effort to add the water than a breathable atmosphere. Planets with water are now far more valuable than planets without.

On the other hand, on small moons with 0.1G or higher, it should be faster to add the water and the atmosphere than just the atmosphere on a terrestrial world.

[Hazard]

That's... not a reason not to terraform. Frankly, you could do the atmosphere, move a good chunk of the terraformers off world towards other planets (that preferably already have enough water) and just let the water add over time.

For any sensible government, that's a perfectly alright approach to the problem. It's just a long term, large scale infrastructure solution, and it's not as if those are unknown.

And frankly? A perfectly habitable world is a massive boon in real life compared to one that needs domes or expansive and expensive water handling infrastructure to maintain the colony's habitability.

[Steve Walmsley]

I needed the money more than the minerals

In fact, it looks like C# Aurora is more 'expensive' due to the additional demands on wealth, so I am going to add an extra Wealth +20% at 3000 RP (currently starts at 5000 RP).

looks like you are already running into balancing changes instead of only bug fixes.. yeah 

Is the NPR running in the same wealth problem as you?

how is the new "geological survey" mechanic working for you balancing wise? are there enough body's with potential for ground survey to make it worth to build the units? I am looking forward to your experience there because of the reduced chances in C# vs VB6 to find additional minerals

NPRs don't pay for research so they are running OK. Still close to running out at times but they adjust production in that situation until finances improve.

I've found about 6 so far, all minimal or low, so I think I went too low on the ground-based geo chances. NPR is doing slightly better. Even so, I think I will increase the chances for the next game.

[Steve Walmsley]

That's... not a reason not to terraform. Frankly, you could do the atmosphere, move a good chunk of the terraformers off world towards other planets (that preferably already have enough water) and just let the water add over time.

For any sensible government, that's a perfectly alright approach to the problem. It's just a long term, large scale infrastructure solution, and it's not as if those are unknown.

And frankly? A perfectly habitable world is a massive boon in real life compared to one that needs domes or expansive and expensive water handling infrastructure to maintain the colony's habitability.

I'm still terraforming. I'm just changing how I judge suitable worlds.

[Hazard]

If it's worth colonizing and you can make it perfectly habitable it's worth terraforming. Only question is how many resources you throw at it.

[Garfunkel]

And there isn't any extra resources to go around at this stage, it seems. So it's perfectly reasonable to dismiss dry planets for now, with the hope of directing the scarce terraforming resources to a planet that only needs small adjustments to make it ideal. Ten or twenty years down the line, with more resources available, those dry planets can be sorted out.

That galaxy map sorting code looks pretty good to me already.

[TCD]

The use of specialized orbital bases to get around shipyard capacity is very interesting change to the game. I'm surprised you didn't go for orbital fuel harvester stations as well to keep that fourth shipyard free. Presumably you could then add a single "tanker" station with pumping components to make a fully functional orbital fuel depot?
   

[Hazard]

Not how it works. Any object with a fuel transfer system can only transfer away from itself. IIRC fuel depots can't actually empty ships, you need a fuel transfer system on the ship itself.

And likewise IIRC, ships can't be refueled by more than 1 other ship/facility at a time.