v2.6.0 Changes List

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Changes List for 2.6.0 (unreleased)

This post includes bug fixes or minor changes. Any more significant changes will have their own post.

Fixes

• Centre on Selected Body and Create Colony on the Minerals window work on Wide View.
• Fixed error sequence #1954, #1943, #478, caused by an Alien Race without a class naming theme.
• Move Waypoint now functioning correctly.
• Parasites dragged into a different fleet or sub-fleet will be launched.
• Species characteristics, such as growth rate, research rate, etc. are passed on when used as a base species for a new species design.
• 'Redo minerals' works correctly for comets.
• Lagrange stabilisation time no longer displayed for comets.
• If a class has no valid hull type, it will be saved as a cruiser.
• Fixed plasma carronade tech cost at 70cm and above.
• Wreck text uses same tonnage rounding as class summary.
• Fixed bug that could result in new race being created on a planet with less than 20% water.
• Fixed bug that duplicated parasites attached to a fleet when using drag-drop on the Fleet window, without being visible to the player. This could cause deletion problems in certain situations.

Minor Changes

• Population requirement removed for Spaceports. This is line with population being required for 'producing' installations, rather than 'facilities' installations.
• Removed crew requirement for maintenance storage bays.
• You can only tractor inactive shipyards.
• If a ship is transferred to another race, including via capture, any trade goods on board are removed.
• NPRs should improve their coordination of missile fire from ships in the same location.
• The number of terraforming installations and/or orbital terraforming modules will be shown on the environment tab.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Limited Planet Distance

A new game-level option for v2.6 is Limited Planet Distance. This option has the following effects.

• No planets or asteroids will be created if their perihelion is more than twice the distance of the outer ring of survey locations. That is 12 billion kilometres for Sol.
• Bodies with eccentric orbits that have a perihelion within the limit and an aphelion outside will still be created, but their starting position will be somewhere on the portion of their orbit that lies within the limit.
• Companion stars with a perihelion more than 24 billion kilometres from the primary will be deleted unless they have a planet with a LaGrange Point and either the primary star, or another star within 24 billion kilometers of the primary, has at least one gas giant or superjovian.
• Companion stars with eccentric orbits that have a perihelion within the 24 billion kilometre limit and an aphelion outside will still be created, but their starting position will be somewhere on the portion of their orbit that lies within the limit.

Every current system body in Sol will still be created as they all have perihelions less than 12 billion kilometres.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Shipping Line and Colony Changes

New Shipping Line Income
0.0001 per colonist per billion kilometres travelled
0.004 per passenger per billion kilometres travelled
0.25 per trade good per billion kilometres travelled
0.0001 per cargo point per billion kilometres travelled

Export payments are removed.
Dividends are removed.

Shipping Line Tax
Each race can set a tax rate for its shipping lines from 0 to 100%. This starts at zero and can be updated at any time on the Wealth tab of the Economics window. This tax will be deducted from the income of the shipping line and assigned to the race. With 100% tax, the shipping line does not generate any profit and cannot buy new ships. The tax will also be applied to income from player contracts, which means the player could effectively use shipping lines for free in an emergency, again with the downside of no new ships.

While in reality the shipping line would have overheads for fuel, etc. this is assumed to be included in the mechanics. Otherwise I would have a slightly higher income, maintenance charge, lower max tax rate and end up back in the same place with extra coding involved.

Trade Good Changes
The base production of Trade Goods is halved. In addition, the production is multiplied by the manufacturing percentage of the colony, so smaller colonies will generally produce more trade goods per capita. For a homeworld, trade good production is likely to be about 1/8th of the existing level (halved and then multiplied by 25%).

Colonization Pressure
An entirely new mechanic called Colonization Pressure has been added. This determines the percentage of any given population that is willing to pay for passage on shipping line colony ships or liners. This is calculated as follows:

• The base rate is 2%
• Colony Cost is added as a percentage, so a Colony Cost 2 world would add 2% to colonization pressure.
• Each 50 points of radiation adds 1% pressure
• Where a colony has insufficient infrastructure
  
  • Modified Colony Cost = Colony Cost * ((Required Inf - Actual Inf) / Required Inf). If Inf is required and zero is present, then MCC = CC
  • + 25% is added to pressure for each point of modified colony cost (so CC2 with no infrastructure adds 50%)
• If the population for a system body exceeds the max pop the added pressure = excess pop / total pop. So if a colony was on a planet with max pop 100m and actual pop 125m, 20% would be added to pressure.
  
• If a colony has insufficient protection (which only applies at 10m+), the added pressure is (1 - (Population PPV / Required Protection)) * 10. So completely unprotected will add 10%.

Ideal habitable worlds with no issues around security or radiation will generally have low rates - usually 2%. Colonies with high colony costs, or that are overcrowded or unprotected, or that have suffered recent bombardment, will have higher pressure.

New Colonists
Each construction phase, more colonists will become available at the rate of:
(Length of Construction Phase / Year) * Population * Colonization Pressure

For example, if colonization pressure was 5% and the population was 100m, then a 5-day construction phase would generate (5 / 365) * 100m * 5% = 68,493 colonists. A population of 1 billion with 2% pressure would generate 274,000 colonists every construction phase.

The max number of available colonists at any time will be equal to the annual amount generated. This 'production' of colonists has a side effect of breaking up the shipping line colony ships so they all don't move everywhere together. As shipping line colony ships load colonists they will be deducted from the available colonists total.

Shipping Line Restrictions
Shipping line colony ships will only select a colony as a source of colonists if the currently available number of colonists, minus the capacity of shipping line colony ships already en route to load colonists, is greater than or equal to the ship's capacity.

Shipping lines will not deliver colonists to a population with a pressure of 10 or greater. This simulates that potential colonists are unlikely to pay to move to a planet where undesirable factors are causing a notable portion of the existing population to leave.

Government-owned Colony Ships.
None of the above affects player-controlled ships and player ships will not reduce available colonists. Essentially, people will go where the government tells them, but they won't pay to go anywhere undesirable.

Why Change?
These changes are to prevent shipping lines overwhelming the game by growing too large. They can end up with hundreds of huge ships, that strip planets of colonists or generate so much wealth as to make it irrelevant. Income based on distance, player taxes and a much smaller supply of colonists and goods should restrict their growth without any 'artificial' restrictions. Also they will no longer deliver colonists to unprotected colonies, which gives the player a new problem to solve.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Shipping Line New Ship Selection

For v2.6, when a shipping line considers building a new ship, it will use the rules below. For the purposes of those rules, a liner can only be selected if there are at least two systems with surface population greater than zero. A fuel harvester can only be selected if harvester tech is available, there is a Sorium deposit in a player system with a population of 10m+ and the civilian harvester option is on

• If there are less than six civilian ships, or if all existing colony ships and freighters have orders, a freighter or a colony ship will be selected. If there are fewer of one type, that type will be built. Otherwise it will be random.
• Else if all freighters have orders, a freighter will be built
• Else if all colony ships have orders, a colony ship will be built
• Else if all liners have orders (or there are no liners) and they are permitted, a liner will be built.
• Else a ship type will be randomly chosen, with liners and harvesters included if permitted. Freighters have double the chance of the other types to be selected.