Semi-Official 6.x Suggestion Thread

[Kof]

UI enhancement request.

Adding a button to allow the user to set a planetary global Reserve Level in the Population and Production screen (Mining/Maintenance Tab), which would set a reserve level for all minerals on that planet would be helpful, especially for scenarios where only one or two minerals are being mined on a planet. Lets reduce needless clicking :-)

[alex_brunius]

I would love to see an improvement for Population growth and spread mechanics.

Suggestion 1:
Add a new value called something like Natural Population Capacity for planets, based on how close they are to optimal race conditions and actual available area size of the body. Geological activity and % water would subtract from the available area effecting this negatively. This could also effect terraforming so that even if average temperature is 30 deg too high/low outside the acceptable interval there will still be a few areas (perhaps 2% max area) that can be settled with colony cost 0, so the actual colony cost is set to 0 but with a very low population capacity until average temperature is closer to race optimal. Everything above the cap is treated as normal requiring infrastructure.

This value is supposed to model how many people can comfortably live on a body without major infrastructure investments (modelling "normal" buildings fairly close to ground level and fairly spread out with a good percentage left for farming and industry/jobs for everyone).

For Earth it would probably be a 2000-6000 million (we have infrastructure today and are not living sustainable with food for everyone), but for bodies not perfectly terraformed or smaller, for example Mars (0.28 of earths area) or even smaller inhabitable moons it would be much lower.

If we say 4000 million for Earth it would be less then 1000 million for all Jovian moons as an example.

Growth % would be a function of how far from this cap you are.

Basically the mechanic means there is a cap on how big population can enjoy col cost 0 without infrastructure, but you can still always use infrastructure (at say cost one or two) to go above it if you want.

I'm not sure if odd gravity should influence how many that maximum can live on a body, perhaps high gravity should at least influence it negatively, what do you think?

Suggestion 2:
Add a new way of priority for what colonies are preferred by colony ships when there are multiple possible destinations. The two major things influencing where we move today are, is there work available there? and is it a comfortable place to live?
So the desirability of a colony should primary be modeled after this, an ideal colony would have a major shortage of workers and also an abundance of available spare room for colonists.

[smerdis]

"Civilian Construction" events should not be interrupts.  Once the shipping lines get moderately rich, they start launching new ships every couple of weeks, making autoturns much less effective.  Knowing that the civilians have a new freighter (or 10) is not mission-critical information.

[Person012345]

I would love to see an improvement for Population growth and spread mechanics.

Suggestion 1:
Add a new value called something like Natural Population Capacity for planets, based on how close they are to optimal race conditions and actual available area size of the body. Geological activity and % water would subtract from the available area effecting this negatively. This could also effect terraforming so that even if average temperature is 30 deg too high/low outside the acceptable interval there will still be a few areas (perhaps 2% max area) that can be settled with colony cost 0, so the actual colony cost is set to 0 but with a very low population capacity until average temperature is closer to race optimal. Everything above the cap is treated as normal requiring infrastructure.

This value is supposed to model how many people can comfortably live on a body without major infrastructure investments (modelling "normal" buildings fairly close to ground level and fairly spread out with a good percentage left for farming and industry/jobs for everyone).

For Earth it would probably be a 2000-6000 million (we have infrastructure today and are not living sustainable with food for everyone), but for bodies not perfectly terraformed or smaller, for example Mars (0.28 of earths area) or even smaller inhabitable moons it would be much lower.

If we say 4000 million for Earth it would be less then 1000 million for all Jovian moons as an example.

Growth % would be a function of how far from this cap you are.

Basically the mechanic means there is a cap on how big population can enjoy col cost 0 without infrastructure, but you can still always use infrastructure (at say cost one or two) to go above it if you want.

I'm not sure if odd gravity should influence how many that maximum can live on a body, perhaps high gravity should at least influence it negatively, what do you think?

Suggestion 2:
Add a new way of priority for what colonies are preferred by colony ships when there are multiple possible destinations. The two major things influencing where we move today are, is there work available there? and is it a comfortable place to live?
So the desirability of a colony should primary be modeled after this, an ideal colony would have a major shortage of workers and also an abundance of available spare room for colonists.

I actually like both of these ideas. I'm against a population hard-cap, but if you can increase it with infrastructure that's fine.

[xeryon]

I agree.  A more dynamic approach to populations seems like it could be fun.  That would harken back to the games Starfire roots with planets having class that correlates to population and production capacities.

You could keep colony cost as a value for required infrastructure to habitate (or pitch it entirely) but have an additional value that equates to how far outside of absolute perfect the environment is. Take into account gravity deviation, available water, and so on.  The resultant value determines a planets population capacity and anything above that also requires infrastructure to grow.  Would make a unique new facet to gameplay and give a use for later-game vast stocks of infrastructure that always end up laying around.

[Omnivore]

Require that the civilian shipping line creating a civilian mining colony have freighters (even if they aren't required to actually move the magical civilian mining complexes into place).

Recently had a situation arise where only one line existed and had no freighters yet was popping up civilian mining colonies, this was causing me numerous problems to the point where I just abandoned every civilian mining colony as soon as it was created and finally used SM mode to create another shipping line which *finally* built freighters.  The original line would not build freighters regardless of the number of outstanding shipping contracts, the inability of their colony ships to actually move anything due to lack of infrastructure at destinations, or the amount of money I gave them through subsidizes.  Note that after giving the original shipping line a subsidy they did quickly build yet another colonizer that they couldn't use.

[Bgreman]

Civ shipping lines and civilian mining colonies are completely distinct.  There is no relation whatsoever between the two mechanics.

[Omnivore]

Civ shipping lines and civilian mining colonies are completely distinct.  There is no relation whatsoever between the two mechanics.

There should be.

[alex_brunius]

There should be.

Agreed, would be interesting with a game mechanics where it actually was major civilian mega-corporations that was responsible for all shipping, civilian mining as well as all the civilian industries in an empire. Each civilian outpost would be owned by a corporation.

It always struck me as strange aswell that the civilians can build infrastructure without any duranium cost so that would be nice to solve.

For example:
* Double all duranium in the game and have the civvies focus on mining this as well as send it home to private manufacturing that build trade-goods and infrastructure out of it.
* New building: Civilian Factories, buildable by corporations only, used to builds all consumer goods and aims have enough to hire X% of the bodies population.
* Service Industries divided into Service Sector and Private Manufacturing, where X% of the population works.

You could let them buy your duranium aswell for an extra income, and they wouldn't have to build civilian mining outposts but leave all mining to you.

This would also mean the civilian industries of a body can collapse if there new supplies for duranium are not located.

[sloanjh]

Recently had a situation arise where only one line existed and had no freighters yet was popping up civilian mining colonies, this was causing me numerous problems

I don't understand why this caused you problems - you had three things you could do:

1)  Build/use your own freighters.
2)  Build mass drivers.
3)  Forego the minerals in favor of taking tax revenues.

John

[Omnivore]

I don't understand why this caused you problems - you had three things you could do:

1)  Build/use your own freighters.
2)  Build mass drivers.
3)  Forego the minerals in favor of taking tax revenues.

John

Addressing this in reverse order so you can see where the lack of understanding arises. 
3) Not a solution -- the minerals present on at least one of the bodies in question was very rare.  Not a strategically sound option to let it go to waste.  Nor is the alternative viable, buying the minerals, due to lack of income.
2) Had mass drivers, doesn't address the economics or strategic values in any way (in other words doesn't change the situation).
1) Building/using my own freighters to, presumably, carry infrastructure to the colonies so that the existing civilian line's ships would be useful and generate income, exacerbates the problem as it requires construction of additional infrastructure prior to shipping.  Which costs money and, presumably, discourages or at least fails to encourage the shipping AI to build freighters.  In other words, it encourages the shipping line to continue in unfavorable practices.

Now reading the context of my original quote, you can see that I tried alternatives such as placing shipping orders and providing subsidies to the original line.  Even in the presence of the shipping orders, the line misspent the subsidies on building yet another colony ship it couldn't use instead of the freighter it could have used profitably.

Whether or not there is any connection whatsoever between shipping lines and civilian mines is beside the point.  Somehow these civilian mines are being placed.  I'm not providing the freighters for that operation.  Should not the freighters be provided by the shipping lines for that purpose?  Even if the actual shipping of the civilian mines continues to take place auto-magically, I suggest that a civilian shipping line owned and operated freighter be present for that purpose.

[Hawkeye]

Mining colonies:
You don´t want to buy the minerals _and_ you don´t want the civies to have the minerals?
Well, there realy is no third option - I don´t see your problem here, except, you want to mine yourself.
If so, place a colony on the body after surveying it and the civies will not put a civilian mining colony there.

Shipping lines:
AFAIK, the type of ship created by the shipping line is random, so you just had a series of bad-luck rolls.
While this is tough luck, it is nothing to get worked up about. Perhaps the shipping line specialized in orbital sight-seening runs or somethig like it (yes, the passengers in a cryogenic transport won´t see a whole lot).

[forgottenlord]

Mentioned this in the previous thread but thought I should repost:

New order: R&R: Task Group stays in orbit around sufficiently populated planet/ship with rec module until the Crew months has dropped to zero.

[metalax]

Add "refuel from own tankers" to conditional orders list. It is present in the standard orders but not in conditional.

[waresky]

ICONS! ICONS! More deep in "RolePlaying" and evolution in Appeal :

http://zho.berka.com/rules/war/ship_counter.shtml

WE have need to IMPROVE satisfaction,appeal and feeling for growth on Aurora's playability...

NEW Map appeal :Example obviously : http://www.travellermap.com/ (zoom in and CHECK how r Awesome this work...Steve know very well Traveller's Universe..Aurora recall most of traveller's Fashon Universe...but..WE NEED MORE LOGISTICAL WORLD,more Mineral capability and a NEW Jump Concept for a New Aurora Era..SPEED,growth,Conquer..Battle..FUN!)