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Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: January 20, 2020, 05:14:08 PM »

Just a thought.

Shall the Sector Command require population to work?

Basically is a bit unrealistic that 8 Sector Commands could handle all the system within 4 jumps just with one Admin. I mean the amount of paperwork to handle should be insane.

I disagree that it's "a bit unrealistic" or an issue.

According to the change log for 7.0 the average number of jump points in a system seem to be about 2.7

With one of the JP leading back where you came from this means each system will on average contain jump points leading to 1.7 "new" systems.

So the amount of systems we need to administer increase by x 1.7 while the amount of sector commands we need to build increase by x 2.0 for each jump outward in all directions we make.

This is without taking into account that remote systems probably have less population or forces to administer, that you probably don't have meaningful activities in all systems as well as the fact that administrative centrals are more likely to be located in systems with more jump points.

It's overall IMHO a pretty good approximation, and if it could be improved in any way it would be taking into account the travel time and make it so Sector Commands scales with engine technology or distance in some manner. If it takes several years to travel from the sector command to the outlying regions I can agree with you that it's not especially realistic to allow effective administration ( although this is a quite extreme example ).
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 20, 2020, 02:01:13 PM »

If Steve thinks it should have a population requirement, then 50k is not enough at all. It should be 1 million per each level so that it's an actual investment.

This is the key point. The number of sector command installations will be very small compared to other installation types, so unless the population requirement is substantial there is no game play decision involved. There are already significant additional demands on population in C# Aurora (Shipyard changes, plus the need for more financial centres and maintenance facilities), so I don't want to add any more until there has been a lot more play testing.

Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: January 20, 2020, 01:47:39 PM »

And I surely prefer sector commands to use zero population, rather than having it restricted only on very large colonies.
It comes down to: since it's not really a balance thing, but just a preference, let's avoid forcing ONE gameplay style on all players.

I agree with Zincat here. While I fully understand and agree with QuakeIV that
Quote
I'd prefer most things to be an actual mechanic rather than something you have to keep track of by hand

in this case it's not important because there really is no game play issue here. Better to have it as a flexible thing instead of railroading.

If Steve thinks it should have a population requirement, then 50k is not enough at all. It should be 1 million per each level so that it's an actual investment. But I doubt that is necessary since Steve already increased the pop demands of other installations.

So leave Sector Commands as they are currently, it's working well enough IMHO.
Posted by: TMaekler
« on: January 20, 2020, 07:06:16 AM »

According to Star Trek Discovery, the entire Terran Empire is run from a warp capable ship, not from earth itself. So having a SecCom on some remote rock could have its (legitimate?) reasons...  :)
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: January 20, 2020, 12:49:27 AM »

Okay, I've lost track of what actual problem we are trying to solve.  Are people legitimately worried that we can spend thousands of build points to up the output of automated mining colonies by 2 or 3 per cent?  Because we can't build or research without a real population, and if we have one of those then giving the SecCom a worker requirement doesn't particularly matter.

If we're trying to stop the exploit of dumping one SecCom on top of several hundred auto-mines, I'm not sure that (mathematically) it's even an exploit. . . and if it is, then increasing the cost by one orbital habitat isn't doing much to stop it.

Personally, I have never put Sector Commands anywhere other than multi-billion population colonies.  In at least half my games, I've never put them anywhere other than my imperial capital.

Until this thread came along, I had no idea they didn't require workers, or supporting pop, or whatever.  I can't remember if I've ever captured any, or discovered any in alien ruins.  They are just a cool thing I build a few of in my captial and largely forget about.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: January 19, 2020, 09:56:57 PM »

I dunno, I guess I don't really care all that much in this case, but I'd prefer most things to be an actual mechanic rather than something you have to keep track of by hand.  Its kindof a cop out to say 'oh yeah you can just do everything yourself instead of using the game' because thats effectively what it is.  What if part of the population dies?  Do I need to shut everything down by hand, and if I dont notice or forget to do so I keep benefitting from it?  'just RP it' doesn't really seem all that viable to me.
Posted by: Froggiest1982
« on: January 19, 2020, 07:08:37 PM »

You could always say, "In my headcannon it takes 50k pop." and never ever put one on a colony with less than 50k pop.

Well, this would fix everything!

 ;D
Posted by: xenoscepter
« on: January 19, 2020, 04:41:42 PM »

You could always say, "In my headcannon it takes 50k pop." and never ever put one on a colony with less than 50k pop.
Posted by: Profugo Barbatus
« on: January 19, 2020, 03:46:04 PM »

Yea, I guess it does come down to roleplaying. The empire I'm drafting up for C#'s release canonically has a very lean government, so to me having a few hundred people run the one layer above it (with all the given technology from their Transnewtonian shenanigans) works for me, but running some 1800's in space empire would have entirely different expectations of how it should work. Hell, you could probably roleplay sectors as noble fiefdoms and have some interesting stuff around that, with its own expectations once again.
Posted by: Zincat
« on: January 19, 2020, 03:37:46 PM »

Frankly speaking, I'd like to say that at the end of the day this is probably something best left to roleplaying.

Want to have sector commands only on large worlds, because you feel you need a world of hundred of millions colonists in order for the sector command to make sense? Well, you're free to roleplay that, but it's not something to be enforced on the game.

I would be ok with sector commands requiring a token population, say those 50k people, to simulate that it needs some population presence. But anything else should be left to the roleplay of the person playing.

And I surely prefer sector commands to use zero population, rather than having it restricted only on very large colonies.
It comes down to: since it's not really a balance thing, but just a preference, let's avoid forcing ONE gameplay style on all players.
Posted by: Alsadius
« on: January 19, 2020, 03:29:03 PM »

By way of comparison, the Pentagon employs about 30k people directly.

And manages about 10% of the military personnel for one planet, not a whole solar system. Also, sector commands aren't just military, since they give bonuses to the economy. So 50k each sounds about right to me. (It's also in keeping with other installations, so if it's anywhere close to accurate, I'd be fine keeping it at the same level for simplicity).
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: January 19, 2020, 03:12:37 PM »

The 'top level bureaucracy' existed already and the sector command is some addition to that to the extent that it actually makes a big difference to the functioning of said sector.  I think its reasonable to say that it is doing a lot more than just re-locating a couple hundred dudes that presumably already existed, and that its not so reasonable to say that adding a very small number of people would actually do all that much.
Posted by: Froggiest1982
« on: January 19, 2020, 02:37:02 PM »

I don't really see the point to such a low target though. Unless the required population is an actual significant number to consider, this just turns into another meaningless checkbox where you dump a cargo ship of colonists and infrastructure onto a world and call it a day. This is on the scale of tracking the population involved in ground forces creation, where its a trivial enough sum to not really matter. Especially when we're talking these high level commands, and comparing them to entire nation scale control organizations.

If we're looking at this from a realism/simulation aspect, its not really accurate to compare the entire federal government to what is in essence a top level bureaucracy. These planets we're ruling over presumably already have functional governments in them, your sector command is simply acting as a top level coordinating efforts and focus to generate these bonuses. Your not talking tens of thousands of people to do that, your likely talking hundreds. This is your state governors office staff, not an entire extra federal government.

It's a fair point. What about adding population per level then? you could keep 50K. So a level 2 Sector command would require 100k for example, 3 150k and so on.
Posted by: Profugo Barbatus
« on: January 19, 2020, 02:07:54 PM »

I don't really see the point to such a low target though. Unless the required population is an actual significant number to consider, this just turns into another meaningless checkbox where you dump a cargo ship of colonists and infrastructure onto a world and call it a day. This is on the scale of tracking the population involved in ground forces creation, where its a trivial enough sum to not really matter. Especially when we're talking these high level commands, and comparing them to entire nation scale control organizations.

If we're looking at this from a realism/simulation aspect, its not really accurate to compare the entire federal government to what is in essence a top level bureaucracy. These planets we're ruling over presumably already have functional governments in them, your sector command is simply acting as a top level coordinating efforts and focus to generate these bonuses. Your not talking tens of thousands of people to do that, your likely talking hundreds. This is your state governors office staff, not an entire extra federal government.
Posted by: Hazard
« on: January 19, 2020, 10:32:10 AM »

However, Sector Commands don't do military administration. They do civilian administration in C# Aurora, and keep in mind that the USA's own government employs some 200 000 people in Washington DC. Military administration in C# is done by Naval Headquarters instead.

Not all of the people in Washington employed by the USA government will be top level bureaucrats and their staff or other key government personnel, but a large number of them will be. I'd find it entirely reasonable that a Sector Command administrating a population of potentially billions on just one planet would require some 50 000 people as support staff for the assigned Sector Administrator.