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Posted by: Whitecold
« on: February 12, 2019, 12:07:06 PM »

You don't NEED to ship Sorium along, you have the CHOICE to ship Sorium along if the basic industry cap of, say, 100 automines is insuffiicient for you.

Why bother with gigawatt scale conventional plants when you have Sorium reactors? Answered in your previous sentence. They dont need sorium. Sorium is rare and expensive and its cheaper to build a massive solar power facility which functionally costs nothing as it is part of normal development than it is to provide a consistent supply of Sorium for a reactor.

I'm not trying to 'solve a problem' with this power idea, just thinking what value could be added with the mechanic without adding too much complexity.
I don't see the value in exactly this. Unless you are really desperate for sorium, there is no reason ever to not pay the additional cost. Which means it should be automatic.
Every other industry is already capped by worker requirements. Automines are specifically there to get around that requirement, so they are the only ones truly affected by a new cap. Unless a planet is unable to power his regular industry, at which point it is just annoying micromanagement.
If too many automines bother you, give them diminishing returns, and don't bother with power generation.
Posted by: Rabid_Cog
« on: February 10, 2019, 05:50:11 AM »

You don't NEED to ship Sorium along, you have the CHOICE to ship Sorium along if the basic industry cap of, say, 100 automines is insuffiicient for you.

Why bother with gigawatt scale conventional plants when you have Sorium reactors? Answered in your previous sentence. They dont need sorium. Sorium is rare and expensive and its cheaper to build a massive solar power facility which functionally costs nothing as it is part of normal development than it is to provide a consistent supply of Sorium for a reactor.

I'm not trying to 'solve a problem' with this power idea, just thinking what value could be added with the mechanic without adding too much complexity.
Posted by: Whitecold
« on: February 10, 2019, 05:25:05 AM »

Im just throwing ideas against the wall here, seeing what will stick.

The same way planet size determines the maximum population of a planet, power level determines a maximum number of facilities (in tonnage?) on a planet. Planets have a base power level for what can be cheaply powered (solar) depending on size and environment, with an additional amount based on the size of the service sector of population (wind, hydro, fossil fuel, etc) based on the planet size and environment, and you can build Sorium Reactors that consume raw sorium (and require workers) but boost it by a big amount. Going over your power limit results in negative production efficiency modifiers.

So there are 3 "soft caps" to industry capacity of a planet
Unpopulated planet - Base cap
Scales with population (service sector) up to Base + Fully populated planet service sector cap
Each sorium reactor adds to this cap with no limit (but more sorium consumed)

Gameplay value:
No more stripmining an asteroid by dumping 1000 automines on it.
Planets with large populations are valuable as they allow concentration of industry.
Reason to spread out industry among many planets.
Little to no micromanagement as everything is automatic. You just decide to move industries offworld in bulk, which is a strictly macro-scale gameplay.
Possibility to ignore all of the above if you don't like it with a minor cost (sorium) or reduction in production efficiency.
Gives something more to explore for - planets with high population capacity/energy capacity
Except I also need to ship sorium along. Frankly I don't see why an automine should not also contain any and all infrastructure to satisfy its own power demands.
Also, why bother why gigawatt scale conventional thermal powerplants or solar/hydro when you can build sorium reactors that have orders of magnitude more power generation?

The only thing I could agree on is preventing strip mining with 1000 automines, but I would rather model that with diminishing returns for mines above a certain limit per body, representing that eventually mines are getting placed in suboptimal locations.
Posted by: Seolferwulf
« on: February 08, 2019, 02:08:22 PM »

I had an idea regarding power generation that could be simple to add but creates interesting choices.

Industry and research require power to operate efficiently. Normally this cost is included in the wealth cost to operate. However, a planet, or even a moon, can have a natural occurring power source. These pay for a set amount of industry as if they were nearly free. For example, Venus has a high-pressure atmosphere which can be utilized into a power source. The amount of energy is quite high and thus can handle a large amount of industry on its own without an energy grid built for it, and environmental concerns are very low.

Thus, a harsh but high energy planet might be better for the industry but not as livable compared to other planets. Players would choose which is more valuable for them to develop. Something to consider in the future without adding too much micromanagement.

Power tech will improve the bonus to natural occurring power making it cheaper to operate a factory/lab.

With this one could actually create a "high energy planet" using terraformers with Venus as en example, giving terraforming another use besides changing a planets surface into a liveable environment.

Stars could also become major power sources by collecting light with mirrors, powering the rest of the system by beaming it over as a laser, which could also double as a powerful weapon.
Light still has travel time though, so you'd rather beam it to a nearby planet or space station and then redirect it toward the invaders.
Another possibility would be star lifting.
With mirrors again you'd reflect the light back to the star, blowing off material at its poles.
While feeding back elements the star needs for fusion you filter out impurities, among which could be valuable minerals.
The rest would be sold to the civilian sector, generating wealth.
Posted by: Rabid_Cog
« on: February 06, 2019, 01:21:13 AM »

Im just throwing ideas against the wall here, seeing what will stick.

The same way planet size determines the maximum population of a planet, power level determines a maximum number of facilities (in tonnage?) on a planet. Planets have a base power level for what can be cheaply powered (solar) depending on size and environment, with an additional amount based on the size of the service sector of population (wind, hydro, fossil fuel, etc) based on the planet size and environment, and you can build Sorium Reactors that consume raw sorium (and require workers) but boost it by a big amount. Going over your power limit results in negative production efficiency modifiers.

So there are 3 "soft caps" to industry capacity of a planet
Unpopulated planet - Base cap
Scales with population (service sector) up to Base + Fully populated planet service sector cap
Each sorium reactor adds to this cap with no limit (but more sorium consumed)

Gameplay value:
No more stripmining an asteroid by dumping 1000 automines on it.
Planets with large populations are valuable as they allow concentration of industry.
Reason to spread out industry among many planets.
Little to no micromanagement as everything is automatic. You just decide to move industries offworld in bulk, which is a strictly macro-scale gameplay.
Possibility to ignore all of the above if you don't like it with a minor cost (sorium) or reduction in production efficiency.
Gives something more to explore for - planets with high population capacity/energy capacity
Posted by: Marski
« on: February 05, 2019, 11:49:41 PM »

I could see power technology as wealth multiplier since more powerful oowerplants require less wealth spent on logistics. But beyond that? Absolutely not.
Posted by: Sirce
« on: February 05, 2019, 11:42:41 AM »

I had an idea regarding power generation that could be simple to add but creates interesting choices.

Industry and research require power to operate efficiently. Normally this cost is included in the wealth cost to operate. However, a planet, or even a moon, can have a natural occurring power source. These pay for a set amount of industry as if they were nearly free. For example, Venus has a high-pressure atmosphere which can be utilized into a power source. The amount of energy is quite high and thus can handle a large amount of industry on its own without an energy grid built for it, and environmental concerns are very low.

Thus, a harsh but high energy planet might be better for the industry but not as livable compared to other planets. Players would choose which is more valuable for them to develop. Something to consider in the future without adding too much micromanagement.

Power tech will improve the bonus to natural occurring power making it cheaper to operate a factory/lab.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 02, 2019, 08:42:52 AM »

In my opinion I think Steve should not dismiss the use of power so easily.

If each planets have access to a certain level of "free" energy and we make mining and factory (including naval yards) production very power hungry we would have some nice effects from thing.

First thing is that you would need to consider both energy and mineral availability in the overall economic calculations. You would not just put 10.000 mines on a world and strip mine it and move on the the next one. You would be forced to really think when you want to over mine a world past the energy capacity based on availability of free energy versus the cost of using fuel to increase the industry/mining there above certain levels.

Things like labs, financial and other academic institutions are cheap and once you reach a planets free energy from heavy industry you would start adding these less energy consuming industries to have the local population occupied.

You might also try to keep population low and ship it of to the next mining or factory world.

In my opinion this would make the game add more options and choices and "force" us to build more realistic colonies that are less of a rock/parer/scissor type construction method with all mines, all factories etc... Smaller colonies would run mostly factories and mines, that makes sense but as population increase there should be more cultural and academic facilities showing up, this make sense.
Posted by: Rabid_Cog
« on: February 02, 2019, 01:54:21 AM »

If power generation scales up so much with TN tech, won't power consumption also scale up? Also, sorium is valuable and relatively scarce compared to things like sunlight and wind, especially when you have multiple planets to access. Especially when you have TN materials to improve your efficiency in generating from these sources.

But Sorium would form a good fallback if the risk becomes reduced productivity. Modeling Sorium consumption due to lack of power will be a pain, though. Rather just make it a trade good with supply and demand generated as previously discussed with no other special mechanics. Just a way to make wealth, basically (it powers your civilian economy!).
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 01, 2019, 09:20:13 PM »

If I did power generation for buildings, I'd probably keep it simple.

Give each world a baseline power capacity. This is the combination of solar (based on distance from the sun, planet's surface area, and atmosphere) and any other "conventional" power like geothermal, and maybe tidal; wind is basically just solar power at a planetary level. This level of energy is "free" - if you have a colony on the planet it can draw on this power, maybe split for multiple colonies. You don't need to build solar/geothermal/etc plants because that would just be micromanagement. Maybe there could be a tech line, renewable power sources, that gives % increases.

If you want more buildings than the baseline power provides, you'd build sorium power plants - these wouldn't be too expensive, but would require refined sorium fuel to run, and would massively increase the available power. They could scale based on your reactor tech.

The end result of this would be more motivation to spread to other worlds, and not keep all your industry just on your home-world (something I admit I tend to do). I think it could work out.

If ever implemented this sound like a good way to do it. It would encourage spreading out heavy industry. I understand that factories obviously would be expensive and consume allot of energy in comparison with most other facilites. This is how it is in real life... industry (and mining) and its logistics consume by far the most energy.
Posted by: Bughunter
« on: February 01, 2019, 01:12:08 PM »

Increasing power demands as your civilization grows eventually leading to Dyson spheres.. at least partial ones. Regardless of if we get a  power system or not gigantic constructions like that would be cool as end-game projects. If nothing else so just for the achievement of getting there.
Posted by: Whitecold
« on: February 01, 2019, 11:57:19 AM »

Yeah, I agree that while it would be neat to have an additional mechanic, it should be more complex than just "build X facilities on every colony" thing, and it shouldn't be more micro-intensive than existing planetary/colonization mechanics. Having to ship Sorium or Fuel to every colony, or even just every manufacturing colony would be quite a pain.

Perhaps power's role is as a trade good instead of a fixed game mechanic? Specifically, a trade good that has an influence on the rest of your production, similar to Infrastructure: Power Cells.

Industry (Factories, Shipyards, mines) consume power cells. Every planet produces power cells based on:
Current population
Distance from the sun
Water coverage
Tidelocked or not
Up to a certain maximum based on all of the above as well as planet size.

Idea is that smaller colonies with little industry function as net exporters. Large, industrialized planets are net importers.
If you dont have enough power cells on your planet, you suffer up to a 20%(?) production efficiency loss, modified by what percentage of the requirement you do have.
Or maybe just a bonus if you have enough.
That's pretty good idea! It would be far less of a hassle for Steve to introduce an extra trade good, and it would be another incentive to settle planets/moons without TN minerals on them, as they would still produce infa and power cells for other colonies to consume. It doesn't even need to have have malus/bonus effect. Have the size of the manufacturing sector determine the demand for them.

Making trade more important would be a worthwhile undertaking. Energy is the least useful tradegood though. If you are talking electricity, producing it in situ is always the best option. Effects to other trade goods could be added without twisting logic too much.
Since TN reactors produce unlimited energy using Sorium and seems to break thermodynamics anyway, civilian energy needs are a nonstarter. Why ship material when you could just ground the ship and use power from the engine for all your energy needs instead?
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: February 01, 2019, 11:44:15 AM »

Yeah, I agree that while it would be neat to have an additional mechanic, it should be more complex than just "build X facilities on every colony" thing, and it shouldn't be more micro-intensive than existing planetary/colonization mechanics. Having to ship Sorium or Fuel to every colony, or even just every manufacturing colony would be quite a pain.

Perhaps power's role is as a trade good instead of a fixed game mechanic? Specifically, a trade good that has an influence on the rest of your production, similar to Infrastructure: Power Cells.

Industry (Factories, Shipyards, mines) consume power cells. Every planet produces power cells based on:
Current population
Distance from the sun
Water coverage
Tidelocked or not
Up to a certain maximum based on all of the above as well as planet size.

Idea is that smaller colonies with little industry function as net exporters. Large, industrialized planets are net importers.
If you dont have enough power cells on your planet, you suffer up to a 20%(?) production efficiency loss, modified by what percentage of the requirement you do have.
Or maybe just a bonus if you have enough.
That's pretty good idea! It would be far less of a hassle for Steve to introduce an extra trade good, and it would be another incentive to settle planets/moons without TN minerals on them, as they would still produce infa and power cells for other colonies to consume. It doesn't even need to have have malus/bonus effect. Have the size of the manufacturing sector determine the demand for them.
Posted by: TCD
« on: January 31, 2019, 02:18:48 PM »

If we're suggesting late game options around power then I think one interesting idea would to have anti-matter as the fuel for most advanced technology, and make it a "mineral" that needs to be produced. At lower tech levels then it can be assumed that standard micro TN reactors power pretty much everything. But as tech levels increase then energy density requirements would begin to limit tech improvement.

A new technology can unlock "Stabilized anti-matter production", where you discover the new anti-matter mineral. Most higher tech (weapons, engines, shields etc) consume anti-matter in addition to their usual requirements.

Anti-matter itself would require enormous amounts of power to produce. You could build basic fusion plant installations which would produce a trickle of anti-matter, but meaningful production would require large scale orbital facilities, or deep geothermal plants on certain worlds only, or solar farms close to a bright star etc.

I suppose it would be a bit like Civ where you're going along great, and then suddenly discover you need a source of coal to really advance to the next level.

And of course becoming dependent on a handful of gigantic but fragile anti-matter forges, perhaps on the edges of your empire, would be a very interesting new strategic challenge.

(This is C# 2.0 stuff I know, but as we're talking about it).
Posted by: Barkhorn
« on: January 31, 2019, 12:23:55 PM »

I've always been a big fan of huge, exoatmospheric construction projects, so I would love to include power as a mechanic.  You could have dyson spheres or other power generation satellites beaming power to your industrial centers.

I also would have power use heat planets up; even if you're not creating greenhouse gases, industry will generate waste heat.  And on an inter-stellar empire scale, this will be a LOT of heat.