Civilian ships reduction - An idea

[Kaiser (OP)]

Hi, as far as I know the only way to limit civilian from spamming, slowing down a game is to ban a body or stopping civilian construction from settings,
Alternatively you can delete a ship from the naval panel, however this option looks unrealistic and a bit "cheaty".

So We could implement a system where the player can choose to scrap through his shipyards as many civilian ships as he wants paying a sum to the companies (based on the ship' size or whatever Steve decide).
That way grants the possibility to scrap many civilian ships at once periodically (improving game performance), keeping a certain degree of realism since we do not have to delete magically them.

[Droll]

There is also a game setting "disable civilian construction" that will prevent civies from making more ships.

[d.rodin]

Right now civilian ships design uses 10% power engines. Possible easiest solution : increase engine power to 25%, decrease spawn rate 2,5 times. There will be 2,5 times less civilians while doing same amount of job.

[liveware]

I just leave civilian shipping lines disabled and RP a command economy. I don't like how the civilians steal/waste TN minerals.

[misanthropope]

every time a civilian company's annual income doubled (starting from some predefined threshold), that company could unlock a new size, double the existing largest size, and then cease to build the current smallest size of the various flavors of ships. 

this would tend to cause civ companies' rosters to stabilize in count (though not in capacity) over time.

[alex_brunius]

What a wonderful coincidence someone having the nick "Kaiser" would be having an issue with too many civilian merchant ships 

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

Right now civilian ships design uses 10% power engines. Possible easiest solution : increase engine power to 25%, decrease spawn rate 2,5 times. There will be 2,5 times less civilians while doing same amount of job.

They use whatever engine tech their attached race has researched.

I just leave civilian shipping lines disabled and RP a command economy. I don't like how the civilians steal/waste TN minerals.

CMCs won't spawn on any body that you have a colony on, even if that colony is empty.  Admittedly a bit micro-managy, but it is an alternative.

every time a civilian company's annual income doubled (starting from some predefined threshold), that company could unlock a new size, double the existing largest size, and then cease to build the current smallest size of the various flavors of ships. 

this would tend to cause civ companies' rosters to stabilize in count (though not in capacity) over time.

Large ships won't take small orders.  Eliminating small freighters and colonizers could cause problems with colonization.

[Froggiest1982]

I just leave civilian shipping lines disabled and RP a command economy. I don't like how the civilians steal/waste TN minerals.

The problem with this is that currently the trade goods are available to pick up only from civilian companies. If Steve could for instance open trade to player freighters a player could designate an admin command called trade and get the freighters to automate and act as civilians (could be done through a flag called civilian same as tanker or supply ships). This would sort everything once and for all.

The trade off is that you'll have to use your own fuel and minerals to support the economy, but I think it is realistic more in this way than civilians just randomly spawn up.

[liveware]

I just leave civilian shipping lines disabled and RP a command economy. I don't like how the civilians steal/waste TN minerals.

The problem with this is that currently the trade goods are available to pick up only from civilian companies. If Steve could for instance open trade to player freighters (could be done through a flag called civilian same as tanker or supply ships) a player could designate an admin command called trade and get the freighters to automate and act as civilians. This would sort everything once and for all.

The trade off is that you'll have to use your own fuel and minerals to support the economy, but I think it is realistic more in this way than civilians just randomly spawn up.

For fear of sounding like a dictator:

Command economy. Don't care. Has no impact on political stability.

Mass driver can move minerals efficiently and a few fuel harvester ships are quite sufficient to move fuel around the empire. A few cargo ships are useful for expansionary purposes and for moving minerals to industrial hubs.

I do better without a civilian economy than with one. I guess I am am evil %uD83D%uDE08

[Froggiest1982]

I just leave civilian shipping lines disabled and RP a command economy. I don't like how the civilians steal/waste TN minerals.

The problem with this is that currently the trade goods are available to pick up only from civilian companies. If Steve could for instance open trade to player freighters (could be done through a flag called civilian same as tanker or supply ships) a player could designate an admin command called trade and get the freighters to automate and act as civilians. This would sort everything once and for all.

The trade off is that you'll have to use your own fuel and minerals to support the economy, but I think it is realistic more in this way than civilians just randomly spawn up.

For fear of sounding like a dictator:

Command economy. Don't care. Has no impact on political stability.

ahahah

I understand. Personally I dont mind they way it is now it has never bothered me tbh. But you know you'll always have the random 2 or 3 post a week talking about either slow downs or limiting civs etc.

Could be good to have an option available for the players who are wanting or willing to remove this part.

Hell, I might try that once just for a change

[d.rodin]

Right now civilian ships design uses 10% power engines. Possible easiest solution : increase engine power to 25%, decrease spawn rate 2,5 times. There will be 2,5 times less civilians while doing same amount of job.

They use whatever engine tech their attached race has researched.

Yes, they use tech what race has researched and use 10% power engines.

Agron Huge F12 class Freighter      177 830 tons       175 Crew       1 013.2 BP       TCS 3 557    TH 6 400    EM 0
1799 km/s      Armour 1-281       Shields 0-0       HTK 116      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 3    Max Repair 50 MSP
Cargo 125 000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 20   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Agron P640.0 Civilian Drive (10)    Power 6400    Fuel Use 0.01%    Signature 640    Explosion 1%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 40.5 billion km (260 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

1800km/s at Plasma Core AM Drive Tech.
It results in 100+ days of travel between 2 of my sectors (5 jumps in total).

Increase engine power to 25%, decrease numbers. Less impact on game performance, while same amount of civilian jobs are done.

[Gram123]

This is quite interesting i always have to few civilians. So I really, really, miss the option to subsidize them to get more.

Guess that depends on the starting settings and play style. 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Right now civilian ships design uses 10% power engines. Possible easiest solution : increase engine power to 25%, decrease spawn rate 2,5 times. There will be 2,5 times less civilians while doing same amount of job.

They use whatever engine tech their attached race has researched.

Yes, they use tech what race has researched and use 10% power engines.

Agron Huge F12 class Freighter      177 830 tons       175 Crew       1 013.2 BP       TCS 3 557    TH 6 400    EM 0
1799 km/s      Armour 1-281       Shields 0-0       HTK 116      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 3    Max Repair 50 MSP
Cargo 125 000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 20   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Agron P640.0 Civilian Drive (10)    Power 6400    Fuel Use 0.01%    Signature 640    Explosion 1%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 40.5 billion km (260 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

1800km/s at Plasma Core AM Drive Tech.
It results in 100+ days of travel between 2 of my sectors (5 jumps in total).

Increase engine power to 25%, decrease numbers. Less impact on game performance, while same amount of civilian jobs are done.

While increasing the engine power seem like a good idea that is only because there are no fuel issues for the civilians that you see. The reason why they use the most fuel efficient engines are for role-play purposes as the game don't model fuel costs for civilians.

So arbitrarily increasing it might perhaps not be the best solution. You as a player could prevent them using better engines by not researching the technology though if you yourself don't use it.

At the same time I do understand the frustration that they could be more efficient.

In my opinion civilians should consume resources as well as civilians consuming fuel even if it should be in more abstracted formats, then it would make sense that the ships uses the most fuel efficient engines.

There might also be some more optimisation that could be done to how civilians operate in the code as well, but I leave that up to Steve to figure out. That might be from how they work to how the code is structured.

[Droll]

Right now civilian ships design uses 10% power engines. Possible easiest solution : increase engine power to 25%, decrease spawn rate 2,5 times. There will be 2,5 times less civilians while doing same amount of job.

They use whatever engine tech their attached race has researched.

I think in the very long term the only way for civies to scale well into long campaigns is to completely abstract away civilian shipping into trade routes and redesign piracy around that. As long as every civilian ship is modelled then there will alsways be a large performance drain.

It the reason why something like stellaris uses "trade value" and trade routes. The key is to abstract without reducing depth/functionality.

Yes, they use tech what race has researched and use 10% power engines.

Agron Huge F12 class Freighter      177 830 tons       175 Crew       1 013.2 BP       TCS 3 557    TH 6 400    EM 0
1799 km/s      Armour 1-281       Shields 0-0       HTK 116      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 3    Max Repair 50 MSP
Cargo 125 000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 20   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months   

Agron P640.0 Civilian Drive (10)    Power 6400    Fuel Use 0.01%    Signature 640    Explosion 1%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 40.5 billion km (260 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

1800km/s at Plasma Core AM Drive Tech.
It results in 100+ days of travel between 2 of my sectors (5 jumps in total).

Increase engine power to 25%, decrease numbers. Less impact on game performance, while same amount of civilian jobs are done.

While increasing the engine power seem like a good idea that is only because there are no fuel issues for the civilians that you see. The reason why they use the most fuel efficient engines are for role-play purposes as the game don't model fuel costs for civilians.

So arbitrarily increasing it might perhaps not be the best solution. You as a player could prevent them using better engines by not researching the technology though if you yourself don't use it.

At the same time I do understand the frustration that they could be more efficient.

In my opinion civilians should consume resources as well as civilians consuming fuel even if it should be in more abstracted formats, then it would make sense that the ships uses the most fuel efficient engines.

There might also be some more optimisation that could be done to how civilians operate in the code as well, but I leave that up to Steve to figure out. That might be from how they work to how the code is structured.

[wedgebert]

What if Civilian ships were abstracted away unless there was a hostile contact? The ships could exist as a series of steps, each step having containing a start point and time, destination point and time, and cargo. Each sub-pulse, the game would only have to evaluate the ships that have a destination time in the past (or every near future?)

So you a freighter might have
From Earth (2052/02/01 15:00:20) | To Mars (2052/03/15 08:30:20) | With 2 mass drivers

Then, those 2 mass drivers are deducted from Earth's inventory and the freighter doesn't need to have any processing time until 2052/03/15.

If a hostile contact arises, some simple linear interpolation can be used to determine where to instantiate the ships. So if it's 2052/03/01, that's (roughly speaking) 2/3 of the required travel time, so just pick a point 66% of the way between the start and destination and add the ship there. Any discrepancy based on orbital mechanics or whatever can be chalked up to the the less precise nature of civilian captains. Once the hostile threat is gone, the ship can disappear back into abstract land with a new start point of its current location.

With a system like this, there's much less overhead for ships in transit, just some date checks. Naturally things would slow down when the ships became real again, but we're used to that.