Posted by: Droll
« on: May 22, 2024, 01:38:51 PM »Honestly at that size you should just go for an integrated mousepad lol.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 22, 2024, 09:45:27 AM »I did go for an 18" laptop with 2560x1600 resolution, but ultimately its still a laptop 
Posted by: vorpal+5
« on: May 22, 2024, 08:26:52 AM »Laptop? Laptop!
Peace (of mind) through Superior Firepower
Peace (of mind) through Superior Firepower
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 21, 2024, 12:35:17 PM »These changes are so great they broke the forums for days with their sheer awesomeness.
LoooL
Steve, I will be brutal, how about release the 2.6 so we can try the juicy shipping line thing?
It's going to be a while before any new release. We are now 10 weeks into our motorhome trip and its going really well (currently on the Isle of Skye). Instead of returning to the Isle of Man in September, we are likely heading to Spain and parking on a beach for a few months
I would like to be back on my PC before doing a new release, as programming on a laptop is not ideal.
Posted by: Droll
« on: May 21, 2024, 11:22:06 AM »Right now the only way I can think of a shipping line shrinking is through very old ships being retired while there are other ships idling (or getting their ships blown up). I know in the changelogs Steve sort of shoots down the idea of explicitly modelling operating costs, but maybe that would be a good way to have civilian shipping more closely model the economic activity of the empire. The admin overhead just reduces the growth rate as the shipping line gets bigger and doesn't really do the same thing.
Also I am once again asking for mineral transport contracts (esp being able to peg it to reserve levels).
Also I am once again asking for mineral transport contracts (esp being able to peg it to reserve levels).
Posted by: Kaiser
« on: May 21, 2024, 10:15:32 AM »These changes are so great they broke the forums for days with their sheer awesomeness.
LoooL
Steve, I will be brutal, how about release the 2.6 so we can try the juicy shipping line thing?
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: May 21, 2024, 10:11:58 AM »These changes are so great they broke the forums for days with their sheer awesomeness.
Posted by: Warer
« on: May 21, 2024, 09:43:55 AM »Really love the shipping line changes!
Posted by: Lastek
« on: May 18, 2024, 08:46:51 AM »First of all - all the changes look great!
At the topic of civilian shipping lines (hope I'm not late to the party), would it be possible to organise the civilian ships into some kind of convoys? Right now every ship is in its own fleet, which leads to tens if not hundreds of civilian fleets flying around. This would declutter the map while still being able to see the CIVs on screen and could potentially limit the late game lag, since the civilian AI would calculate the decisions for lower number of fleets.
At the topic of civilian shipping lines (hope I'm not late to the party), would it be possible to organise the civilian ships into some kind of convoys? Right now every ship is in its own fleet, which leads to tens if not hundreds of civilian fleets flying around. This would declutter the map while still being able to see the CIVs on screen and could potentially limit the late game lag, since the civilian AI would calculate the decisions for lower number of fleets.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 17, 2024, 01:00:09 PM »Interesting changes! Not sure if I should continue discussing here, or move to the change discussion thread, but since we're here...
Will we still be able to set colonies as source or destination or stable?
Also, would it be possible to set taxation on shipping to be negative i.e. to offer incentives to grow their fleet, particularly early on?
Lastly, the changes don't seem to address the balance between colony and cargo ships. Would it be possible to set that taxation on a per type basis? Or is there some other way that balance has/will be adjusted?
Source, destination, stable still work as before, but destination is overridden if pressure is 10+
I don't want to go down the subsidize route again, as that could make the situation worse.
I am going to also add some changes to how civs decide what to build, based more on what is needed, but haven't got around to that yet.
Posted by: nakorkren
« on: May 17, 2024, 11:52:35 AM »Interesting changes! Not sure if I should continue discussing here, or move to the change discussion thread, but since we're here...
Will we still be able to set colonies as source or destination or stable?
Also, would it be possible to set taxation on shipping to be negative i.e. to offer incentives to grow their fleet, particularly early on?
Lastly, the changes don't seem to address the balance between colony and cargo ships. Would it be possible to set that taxation on a per type basis? Or is there some other way that balance has/will be adjusted?
Will we still be able to set colonies as source or destination or stable?
Also, would it be possible to set taxation on shipping to be negative i.e. to offer incentives to grow their fleet, particularly early on?
Lastly, the changes don't seem to address the balance between colony and cargo ships. Would it be possible to set that taxation on a per type basis? Or is there some other way that balance has/will be adjusted?
Posted by: nakorkren
« on: May 17, 2024, 11:36:14 AM »DRAT, I was too slow!
You know what though, while I liked my ideas, I'll take super-fast game updates from Steve over my specific ideas any day.
You know what though, while I liked my ideas, I'll take super-fast game updates from Steve over my specific ideas any day.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 17, 2024, 11:35:27 AM »2. Allow the player to determine (on the wealth tab) how much to tax colonist ship tonnage and cargo ship tonnage (individually). This would give players the flexibility to encourage or discourage growth by giving the CSLs more or less income and hence driving growth (and/or contraction if idea 1 were implemented). This would only require adding two numeric fields on the wealth tab, so hopefully minimal programming work.
Check the update I just posted
There was a bit more work involved though than just adding the extra UI elements.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 17, 2024, 11:34:31 AM »I've taken on board comments from various people about more organic ways to control shipping line growth. Below are the changes. Everything is already coded and working.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg169793#msg169793
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg169793#msg169793
Posted by: nakorkren
« on: May 17, 2024, 11:31:50 AM »I agree that the logical way to handle that is with an organic constraint, not a hard limit. My suggestions in rank order:
A. Implement a maintenance cost and track it for each CSL ship-type based on average ship age. Make the decision to retire ships based on the ship-type's profitability (income earned by the ship-type minus cost to build minus accrued maintenance cost). Once a shipping line reaches a certain age (10 years? 20 years?) start check annually whether each ship-type profitability is above a certain level act accordingly. This will naturally cycle out older ships and reduce overcapacity of specific ship-types (because idle ships cost maintenance and earn nothing, so they'll eventually be retired), with very limited computational load.
B. Allow the player to determine (on the wealth tab) how much to tax colonist ship tonnage and cargo ship tonnage (individually). This would give players the flexibility to encourage or discourage growth by giving the CSLs more or less income and hence driving growth (and/or contraction if idea A were implemented). This would only require adding two numeric fields on the wealth tab, so hopefully minimal programming work.
C. Can CSLs please be allowed to move minerals based on mineral reserve targets? Moving minerals around manually is one of my least favorite tasks, as it's pure drudge work on a repeating basis that adds little to nothing to enjoyment of the game.
D. Very strongly support the previously mentioned idea of getting more granular colony population controls. Some ideas:
D1. Ability to set TRANSPORTATION target, as in "transport 1m people here" (vs "bring people here until it hits 1M"), because then you don't risk massively overpopulating smaller colonies if your civilian lift capacity is large
D2. Ability to set a min/max target transportation RATE per year, as in "transport 1M people here per year" or "Take no more than 5m people from Earth per year"
I think these accomplish numbers 2, 3, and 5 from Steve's draft list of items in a more organic fashion, and items 1 and 4 could still make sense, although 4 is partly met by idea B.
From Steve
1) Payment based on distance in km, not transits
2) Fewer colony ships as a percentage of total ships, although perhaps not until 6+ ships built. I might also make the choice of new ship dependent on which ones are being used.
3) Dividends replaced by an admin overhead that increases in percentage terms based on the number of ships.
4) Payments affected by racial wealth multiplier
5) Have a simple retirement limit, such as 20 years, so that new ships are cycled in.
A. Implement a maintenance cost and track it for each CSL ship-type based on average ship age. Make the decision to retire ships based on the ship-type's profitability (income earned by the ship-type minus cost to build minus accrued maintenance cost). Once a shipping line reaches a certain age (10 years? 20 years?) start check annually whether each ship-type profitability is above a certain level act accordingly. This will naturally cycle out older ships and reduce overcapacity of specific ship-types (because idle ships cost maintenance and earn nothing, so they'll eventually be retired), with very limited computational load.
B. Allow the player to determine (on the wealth tab) how much to tax colonist ship tonnage and cargo ship tonnage (individually). This would give players the flexibility to encourage or discourage growth by giving the CSLs more or less income and hence driving growth (and/or contraction if idea A were implemented). This would only require adding two numeric fields on the wealth tab, so hopefully minimal programming work.
C. Can CSLs please be allowed to move minerals based on mineral reserve targets? Moving minerals around manually is one of my least favorite tasks, as it's pure drudge work on a repeating basis that adds little to nothing to enjoyment of the game.
D. Very strongly support the previously mentioned idea of getting more granular colony population controls. Some ideas:
D1. Ability to set TRANSPORTATION target, as in "transport 1m people here" (vs "bring people here until it hits 1M"), because then you don't risk massively overpopulating smaller colonies if your civilian lift capacity is large
D2. Ability to set a min/max target transportation RATE per year, as in "transport 1M people here per year" or "Take no more than 5m people from Earth per year"
I think these accomplish numbers 2, 3, and 5 from Steve's draft list of items in a more organic fashion, and items 1 and 4 could still make sense, although 4 is partly met by idea B.
From Steve
1) Payment based on distance in km, not transits
2) Fewer colony ships as a percentage of total ships, although perhaps not until 6+ ships built. I might also make the choice of new ship dependent on which ones are being used.
3) Dividends replaced by an admin overhead that increases in percentage terms based on the number of ships.
4) Payments affected by racial wealth multiplier
5) Have a simple retirement limit, such as 20 years, so that new ships are cycled in.
