Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[Droll]

I'd like to mention that SM teleporting also works with rendezvous points allowing you to teleport stuff anywhere you want provided you made the waypoint where you want.

I've heard this in theory but had a lot of trouble trying to make it work. I did manage to do it just now in a test game, but the waypoint name was incorrect and I had to fiddle around with the movement orders tab to make it show up at all.

The waypoint name bug was reported by me and fixed by Steve for 1.13. As for movement order stuff I think the UI needs to refresh it for it to show.

[Ektor]

[ the amount of BP spent and each BP produces 4 MSP. The tech is labelled badly, but it is working as intended. I've changed the tech description to BP.

Steve, you're a real gem, man. Thanks a bunch.

[TMaekler]

What are the incentives for civilian mining companies to go mining outside of Sol? They plopped quite a number of mining sites in Sol, but even me stabilising a dozen or so systems and building colonies there all over the place, none of the private investors went to build any civilian mining anywhere but in Sol. And as far as I see it there are a lot of small bodies which should fit their general rules of building civilian mines (and no I didn't preoccupy them by building and empty colony there).

So when and how do they begin to mine outside?!?

[nuclearslurpee]

What are the incentives for civilian mining companies to go mining outside of Sol? They plopped quite a number of mining sites in Sol, but even me stabilising a dozen or so systems and building colonies there all over the place, none of the private investors went to build any civilian mining anywhere but in Sol. And as far as I see it there are a lot of small bodies which should fit their general rules of building civilian mines (and no I didn't preoccupy them by building and empty colony there).

So when and how do they begin to mine outside?!?

You need to have a colony with 10m pop in the system you want CMCs to spawn in. There also need to be bodies which meet the CMC requirements and score well. The minimum requirement is 10,000+ tons of duranium or gallicite at 0.7 accessibility or better, and then once that criterion is met bodies with more minerals of 0.5 accessibility or better are scored more highly. The Sol system tends to have a lot of good CMC sites due to the sheer number of bodies it contains, so you're likely to have a dozen or two good CMC sites where other systems you colonize early may only have a few if any just due to not having as many bodies to survey.

The CMC mechanics are a bit vague and I haven't been able to replicate the logic completely, which is probably on purpose as Steve doesn't like giving players control over civilians if he can help it, but the above is all taken from Steve's posts so should work okay.

[TMaekler]

You need to have a colony with 10m pop in the system you want CMCs to spawn in.

Ah, I was aware of the rest but not of this parameter. I have a system with quite a number of small interesting civilian mining sites but no large body that I colonised myself. My big colonies are elsewhere. But if they need a colony in that system, it makes sense why they don't mine there... .

Maybe Steve can change this by a per-system-flag: allow civilian mining.

[nuclearslurpee]

Maybe Steve can change this by a per-system-flag: allow civilian mining.

This will never, ever happen, because Steve really doesn't like giving players control over civilians more than absolutely necessary. He prefers the civilians to be something the player interacts with, not another lever we can control to make them do our bidding for us.

[QuakeIV]

Maybe Steve can change this by a per-system-flag: allow civilian mining.

This will never, ever happen, because Steve really doesn't like giving players control over civilians more than absolutely necessary. He prefers the civilians to be something the player interacts with, not another lever we can control to make them do our bidding for us.

I think you are overselling the point there a bit, but yeah in general he prefers civilians to be fairly autonomous.

[TMaekler]

I think you are overselling the point there a bit, but yeah in general he prefers civilians to be fairly autonomous.

We should be able to execute Chinese-style control over civilians and tell them how to do their business... let's go with Zeitgeist 

[Droll]

Yeah I don't think restricting systems to civilian mining is an outlandish request as far as player control over civies is. We are already allowed to ban civilian traffic to planets and even entire systems to begin with - with that amount of power it's actually quite reasonable that you could block civilian mining from appearing where you don't want them. This is especially true since we can actually restrict them from mining on specific bodies already at the cost of cluttering our UI, so all a system flag will do is allow you to do what you can already do, but easier.

Although a pretty copout response - RP is your friend here if you don't want to have this level of control over your civilians. We even have a tool that simulates various government styles to help you with this.

I think what you should not be able to touch regarding civies is their ship construction rate and favored shipping targets (I'm ignoring game settings here cuz you can just turn them off technically).

[Kylemmie]

To each his own, #1 is to enjoy your game.  But I personally like the non-control over the Civ. I run an Empire, not a corporation. The point is I can't control every human being and stop them from trying to better themselves. I like that there is that tool I can use to grow my empire, but it is imperfect and adds a feeling of being in charge, but not in complete control. I can always declare Eminent Domain and SM away any Civ's who overstepped their bounds and claim jumped me.

The Expanse TV series captures this setting well I think. Empires are 'in control' of the space lanes....but good luck stopping enterprising Human Beings from making their own way out to where the loot is. I see it as a sign of a healthy empire when I see Civvies starting colonies out in my forward areas. Saves me a lot of freighter micro just buying the minerals (usually 1=1 is by break point, exceptions for shortages) and MD'ing to the designated transport hub of the system. As long as I am steadily buying minerals, they have funds to keep building more ships and make me taxes on the shipping between colonies. Haven't had a Wealth issue buying all the minerals I want using this method. I do make the Tax research tech tree a priority to ensure this works.

When I see a new CMC pop up, it's like a loot box. ( I wish this was a separate 'stop time' event, as opposed to when a CMC grows) Either decent minerals at a decent or sometimes great price, or else a crap spot but gives me free wealth + means that Civ is growing and prob building more ships = more tax revenue.

[tornakrelic]

Quick question I'm sure has been answered before but I haven't been able to find the answer to.

I know when creating a game, the NPR's start with similar pop/tech/etc. But with generated NPR's (mid game generated from system exploration) I know that the NPR's are generated based off a bell curve of the most powerful and largest player empire at the time of generation. Do they also use a bell curve for tech, or is the NPR generated with basic tech plus tech points for time advanced in game?

I ask because I was planning on starting a campaign where my empire is very technologically advanced compared to the starting NPR's but is much smaller then them, by starting the game with my race having a population where I want the NPR's population to start, then SM my population much smaller while using SM to instant a number of techs.

While this should work with no problem, I was concerned with how newly generated NPR's would be. Will they be generated with the same or better tech's then my empire regardless of my empire's size? This would defeat the possibility of being technologically advanced compared to NPR empires.

I also thought of just starting the campaign with the number of NPR empires I want in the game and changing the chance for new NPRs to Zero, but then spoiler's won't spawn, at least no precursors or ruins / xeno sites, as I've tested that in a previous test campaign (No ruins/xeno sites, precursors, or swarm were ever spawned, while a rift was in a system, it never spit out any invaders).

I can test it myself if someone knows an easy way, maybe using SM or something like it, to check NPR tech levels ( or a way to adjust NPR tech levels?). That way I could create a new test campaign and explore until I start getting spawned NPR's and check their tech levels while having my test empire having all tech's researched to see how they compare.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance to whoever knows the answer!

[nuclearslurpee]

Quick question I'm sure has been answered before but I haven't been able to find the answer to.

I know when creating a game, the NPR's start with similar pop/tech/etc. But with generated NPR's (mid game generated from system exploration) I know that the NPR's are generated based off a bell curve of the most powerful and largest player empire at the time of generation. Do they also use a bell curve for tech, or is the NPR generated with basic tech plus tech points for time advanced in game?

I ask because I was planning on starting a campaign where my empire is very technologically advanced compared to the starting NPR's but is much smaller then them, by starting the game with my race having a population where I want the NPR's population to start, then SM my population much smaller while using SM to instant a number of techs.

While this should work with no problem, I was concerned with how newly generated NPR's would be. Will they be generated with the same or better tech's then my empire regardless of my empire's size? This would defeat the possibility of being technologically advanced compared to NPR empires.

I also thought of just starting the campaign with the number of NPR empires I want in the game and changing the chance for new NPRs to Zero, but then spoiler's won't spawn, at least no precursors or ruins / xeno sites, as I've tested that in a previous test campaign (No ruins/xeno sites, precursors, or swarm were ever spawned, while a rift was in a system, it never spit out any invaders).

I can test it myself if someone knows an easy way, maybe using SM or something like it, to check NPR tech levels ( or a way to adjust NPR tech levels?). That way I could create a new test campaign and explore until I start getting spawned NPR's and check their tech levels while having my test empire having all tech's researched to see how they compare.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance to whoever knows the answer!

Probably the easiest way to check this super-quickly will be to go into the DB after an NPR is generated at look at the FS_TechSystem table to see what's been generated for them. It won't give you precise tech levels but you can look at the component names and tell the difference between, say, 15cm lasers and 30cm lasers for instance.

In-game you can also get a rough estimate of NPR tech level from their ship speeds. If they're cruising around at 3000 km/s, they have NPE tech and probably similar everything else. If they're jetting about at 10,000 km/s they probably have something in the fusion areas, so on and so forth.

[tornakrelic]

Thanks!

I'll have to test it and post my findings in a few days.

If anyone already knows how system generated NPR's are assigned a tech level (i.e. is it based on the time passed in game from start, or just on the population size of the largest empire, or is it based on the technology level of the most powerful empire, or the technology level of the most advanced empire, etc.) when they are generated that would save me a half dozen hours or so of testing.

If not I'll post what I find as soon as I find it!

[nuclearslurpee]

Thanks!

I'll have to test it and post my findings in a few days.

If anyone already knows how system generated NPR's are assigned a tech level (i.e. is it based on the time passed in game from start, or just on the population size of the largest empire, or is it based on the technology level of the most powerful empire, or the technology level of the most advanced empire, etc.) when they are generated that would save me a half dozen hours or so of testing.

If not I'll post what I find as soon as I find it!

As far as I know, race generation has not changed since VB6, and NPRs will generate based on the player race(s) population at that point in the game, multiplied by a weighted random factor. Population determines research labs (N.B. maximum of 50 regardless of higher pop than 1,250m), factories, etc. and NPR tech is then assigned based on the number of years passed in-game plus twenty, times the number of labs times a factor of 300 which is approximating RP per year. Similar should apply for BP and etc.

Fun fact, this means that if you start off a game and discover a generated NPR very quickly they will have about 50% more RP than you since game-starting RP is based on a factor of 200 RP/year, meaning early generated NPRs can be much scarier than start-of-game NPRs even if they've started late and not had time to expand into other systems.

[Ektor]

snip

What if I want to roleplay a Communist planned economy, though? I'd like the option to turn civilian mining off. I tried to remove them as they popped but I've kinda relented after it became too much micro.