Timeline on Genetic Modification Re-Implementation

[Trackman1997 (OP)]

I’m aware that the majority of the attention Steve has at the moment is going towards fixing any bugs currently in the database rather than adding in new features or re-implementing old features that haven’t been fully ported over to C# yet (which seems like a wise decision to me).  However, with the new 1. 9 change list that has been expanding over the last few days, it seems like most of the major bugs are getting fixed, at least enough that Steve is ok with trying to add back in various small cosmetic changes.

Obviously Genetic Modification is a major feature likely to generate lots of bugs by itself as well as take more time to re-implement, so is likely to be one of the last ones to be added.  With all that said, I’m curious on the general timeline of this as it is one of the features I quite enjoyed playing with in VB6 Aurora.  Not necessarily a date of when it’s likely to be added, but is this a week of coding once all noticeable bugs are fixed to add in a few lines and quash the major bugs before releasing it so it can be play tested, or closer to a few months to a year to write the code?

[Droll]

I’m aware that the majority of the attention Steve has at the moment is going towards fixing any bugs currently in the database rather than adding in new features or re-implementing old features that haven’t been fully ported over to C# yet (which seems like a wise decision to me).  However, with the new 1. 9 change list that has been expanding over the last few days, it seems like most of the major bugs are getting fixed, at least enough that Steve is ok with trying to add back in various small cosmetic changes.

Obviously Genetic Modification is a major feature likely to generate lots of bugs by itself as well as take more time to re-implement, so is likely to be one of the last ones to be added.  With all that said, I’m curious on the general timeline of this as it is one of the features I quite enjoyed playing with in VB6 Aurora.  Not necessarily a date of when it’s likely to be added, but is this a week of coding once all noticeable bugs are fixed to add in a few lines and quash the major bugs before releasing it so it can be play tested, or closer to a few months to a year to write the code?

Well the UI side is actually mostly done I'd imagine - you can design new species and gene modding facilities exist. It just needs the backend for the genemodding itself to happen.

Whats nice is that the game can already handle multiple species on a single planet so the only point of contention would be to allow for easy installation transfer from one pop on a body to another. Maybe even have the industry tab work it like with space stations and fighters building into fleets - except now we are building into pops. So unless Steve intends to do a complete overhaul to how genetic modification affects populations being modded then I do not see it requiring massive amounts of effort. One of the advantages of Object Oriented Programming and modularization of code.

[Father Tim]

The biggest problem with GenMod is that is created new 'races' who then created independent colonies on system bodies -- which meant that converting a few million people into low-temperature people meant that they wouldn't work in mines or shipyards or whatever on your homeworld anymore, unless you specifically gave them their own mines and shipyards, etc.

So porting GenMod to C# Aurora means solving that problem first, rather than simply re-writing the existing code.

[Droll]

The biggest problem with GenMod is that is created new 'races' who then created independent colonies on system bodies -- which meant that converting a few million people into low-temperature people meant that they wouldn't work in mines or shipyards or whatever on your homeworld anymore, unless you specifically gave them their own mines and shipyards, etc.

So porting GenMod to C# Aurora means solving that problem first, rather than simply re-writing the existing code.

I guess what steve could do is have installations be tied to a population - and a species can belong to a population with populations being able to have multiple species. When genemodding the facilities drop the new species into their parent population by default. If there are multiple populations belonging to a single race and there are multiple species present it should be up to the player whether they want separate populations for each species and which installations go to which population. That would need some sort of UI inftrastructure to allow the player transfer of installations/species between various populations. You could even have it so that the player can choose which population on the same body the gene facilities drop the new species into not unlike how we choose fleets with fighters and space stations.

The good thing about doing it this way is that it wouldn't mess with ground combat since it is built to handle multiple populations in active combat.

[Doren]

Problem is each species handles environment differently, has (possibly) different manufacturing bonuses and infrastructure requirement

[Droll]

Problem is each species handles environment differently, has (possibly) different manufacturing bonuses and infrastructure requirement

Good point - then the manufacturing bonus is the weighted average of all species in that population, the weight being the % of total population that species takes up.

As for environmental factors for habitability the game would have to track the infrastructure required for all species on that planet that actually require it and compute a maximum infrastructure requirement. Lets say:
500m humans who do not need infrastructure at all
100m of alien1 who has a colony cost of 1
50m of alien2 who has a colony cost of 3

So normally you need 15k infrastructure for alien2 and 10k for alien1. So for there to be no overcrowding this population needs 25k infrastructure. If there is overcrowding the unrest generated would be weighted based on the % of the population who are suffering from it so in the above example a 30% modifier since 30% is the alien population that needs infrastructure. In terms of deaths cause by overcrowding it would again be the weighted average of the affected species. So assuming a 10% death rate 6.67% of deaths would be from alien1 and the rest alien2.

The one thing I can't really solve is differing population densities - but that is tied to race not species.