Posted by: ollobrains
« on: August 17, 2011, 05:13:57 PM »How about civilian owned gas mining ships ( and platforms that could mine the gas giants which could have a plentiful supply as well)
Posted by: iamlenb
« on: August 08, 2011, 09:22:29 PM »"there's a reason why governments invest in private sectors and subsidise their growth"
That's true. It's so the politicians can retire and become directors of those self same companies.
In truth, the more efficient of the two depends on the degree of corruption endemic in each, coupled with how you present efficiency. (grin). Our large financial institutions very recently demonstrated just how much more efficient than the public sector that bailed them out they were. (grin).
This. Then forcibly retire a random civilian official on one of the planets in the trade route chain. "I just lost the sector governor after subsidizing Company X!!!" posts would rock.
Posted by: symon
« on: June 23, 2011, 04:18:40 PM »"there's a reason why governments invest in private sectors and subsidise their growth"
That's true. It's so the politicians can retire and become directors of those self same companies.
In truth, the more efficient of the two depends on the degree of corruption endemic in each, coupled with how you present efficiency. (grin). Our large financial institutions very recently demonstrated just how much more efficient than the public sector that bailed them out they were. (grin).
That's true. It's so the politicians can retire and become directors of those self same companies.
In truth, the more efficient of the two depends on the degree of corruption endemic in each, coupled with how you present efficiency. (grin). Our large financial institutions very recently demonstrated just how much more efficient than the public sector that bailed them out they were. (grin).
Posted by: Sloshmonger
« on: June 23, 2011, 03:42:35 PM »I'm just waiting for the day when I can sell ships to civvies.
I mean, you can already "buy" ships from civvies through suspect game behavior and subsidies.
As for my motivation, once you're done moving 3b people, you start to look at getting rid of some ships.
I mean, you can already "buy" ships from civvies through suspect game behavior and subsidies.
As for my motivation, once you're done moving 3b people, you start to look at getting rid of some ships.
Posted by: Harmonica
« on: June 21, 2011, 05:15:49 AM »Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=3714. msg36367#msg36367 date=1308606359
B) It should cost money, minerals, & fuel to do so, rather than generating such. In fact, it should cost more to have civilians move something for you than it would cost a government freighter to do so.
What's the justification for that? It's illogical. If the game is a simulation, then real-world, there's a reason why governments invest in private sectors and subsidise their growth: because they're much better at it than governments and they can do it a lot cheaper.
This doesn't mean that in Aurora, the player can sit back and have the civvies make it easy, because they're still going to have to plan where they need x resources, and set up their supply chains to make those resources get there when they need them.
Perhaps what this boils down to is the contracts system being slightly limited, if the civvies say to the player 'sure, we can set up a trade route from here to here, but it's going to cost you. . . ' wouldn't you be happy with that? It would be nice to actually interact with them in some kind of basic way, even if it was purely asking them specifically to doing things, and for them to say 'nope, we can't do that' or 'yeah, here's our price. '
As a footnote to this discussion, if civvie industrial sector could set up mining ships it would make the game even better.
Posted by: jseah
« on: June 20, 2011, 08:49:15 PM »A lot of people would, which is why eitherOh sure, option B sounds like the best.
A) It should not be possible, or
B) It should cost money, minerals, & fuel to do so, rather than generating such. In fact, it should cost more to have civilians move something for you than it would cost a government freighter to do so.
Civilian ships *ought* to cost minerals and fuel to build. They take those from the private sector, which is fed by CMCs.
Money isn't a problem. Since most of the time, money is free for me.
Posted by: Thiosk
« on: June 20, 2011, 05:26:00 PM »Doesn't it already cost money?
I pay out the nose to have the civvies move those 500 facilities. The key thing is that a vigorous civilian economy gives you logistical support. I'm already babysitting mineral stockpiles because the civilians can't dynamically notice shortages and run loads of minerals to keep things chugging, and the same with fuel, maintenance supplies, ammunition, and all other products. As a result, I see no problem with paying the civvies to move my smeg for me when i tell them to. I have my own squad of heavy lifters, specifically for the long range moves-- but its my belief the civs are there specifically to help you move those 2000 automines from ceti IV to alpha ceti VI.
edit: yes, civilian contracts cost wealth.
I pay out the nose to have the civvies move those 500 facilities. The key thing is that a vigorous civilian economy gives you logistical support. I'm already babysitting mineral stockpiles because the civilians can't dynamically notice shortages and run loads of minerals to keep things chugging, and the same with fuel, maintenance supplies, ammunition, and all other products. As a result, I see no problem with paying the civvies to move my smeg for me when i tell them to. I have my own squad of heavy lifters, specifically for the long range moves-- but its my belief the civs are there specifically to help you move those 2000 automines from ceti IV to alpha ceti VI.
edit: yes, civilian contracts cost wealth.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: June 20, 2011, 04:45:59 PM »I would play without "owning" any ships at all and simply posting contracts and colonize priorities if it was at all possible to do so.
A lot of people would, which is why either
A) It should not be possible, or
B) It should cost money, minerals, & fuel to do so, rather than generating such. In fact, it should cost more to have civilians move something for you than it would cost a government freighter to do so.
Posted by: jseah
« on: June 20, 2011, 09:24:48 AM »I see a lot of posts on here that seem to boil down to "I can't run my empire on 100% civilian transport." I want to reiterate my vote for "You shouldn't be able to run your empire on even 50% civilian transport." In fact, other than the admitted problem of civilians getting 'stuck' at the end of long chain*, I don't have a problem with the way they operate now.I would argue in reverse.
Military ships, being the ones with the beams and missiles, shouldn't be required when there is nothing to shoot.
Government intervention should not be *required* to move virtually anything. For priority dispatches and military transport, sure, you'd want to use government-owned freighters on hand to move those PDC parts the instant they get built. Even then, I'd say that civilians ought to be able to transport anything. Up to and including things like ship parts and even missiles (properly packaged and not transferrable without a spaceport).
If you wished, you should be able to run the entire production infrastructure via the private sector. Even in today's world, private companies build military planes and weapons. Maybe not nukes, and perhaps with not a little government subsidizing, but even weapons isn't strictly a government thing.
Although, I would also argue that civilian freighters ought to use fuel as well. Sorium might need to be massively more common and plentiful, but there really should not be special treatment for a non-government owned freighter. Ship lines buy fuel from mining companies or the government.
Heck, I'd be ok with "mercenary" ships looking for government kill/harass contracts if they cost fuel, maintenance and missiles just like normal. I would play without "owning" any ships at all and simply posting contracts and colonize priorities if it was at all possible to do so.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: June 20, 2011, 08:58:06 AM »I see a lot of posts on here that seem to boil down to "I can't run my empire on 100% civilian transport." I want to reiterate my vote for "You shouldn't be able to run your empire on even 50% civilian transport." In fact, other than the admitted problem of civilians getting 'stuck' at the end of long chain*, I don't have a problem with the way they operate now.
Do you include "I'd like it if Aurora had better path-finding routines" in this category?
From my point of view, the 4-jump limit is an artificial artifact of the exponential search algorithm. And I find it a bit frustrating that the civies ignore an 8-jump route that's actually twice as short as a 4-jump route to the same place. I'd also like to be able to take advantage of pre-definied route when I'm giving player-run TG orders on the F12 screen (it gets really old clicking the same 6 jumps in over and over and over and over and over....) I don't want the civies to handle all my cargo/colony needs. One other thing: when I look at my nexus systems and see the stream of civies going between trade locations it makes me think "this really looks like real shipping lanes - now we just need some pirates to harass them!"
The other thing that I think is a flaw in the way the civies operate right now (which I haven't yet brought up) is that they don't seem to rate route choices by expected revenue. In my current game, I was making a ton of money on the Earth-Mars run. Then an NPR whose homeworld is 3 months away (each way) granted me trade access, and revenue plummetted when almost all of my freighters went onto that route. Apparently (and I think I remember this from when civies were introduced) the payoff for a cargo is independent of the distance traveled, and the civies don't prefer shorter routes over longer routes. Either one of these two things is ok in isolation, but in combination they don't really make sense. Either civies should be looking hard for short routes or the payoff should have a distance factor included (which would actually help with trade revenue as engine tech improved, now that I think of it).
John
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: June 20, 2011, 08:31:34 AM »I see a lot of posts on here that seem to boil down to "I can't run my empire on 100% civilian transport." I want to reiterate my vote for "You shouldn't be able to run your empire on even 50% civilian transport." In fact, other than the admitted problem of civilians getting 'stuck' at the end of long chain*, I don't have a problem with the way they operate now.
No, let me say this, I like the way civilians operate now. They should have major drawbacks compared to government transport, given that civilians cost no (government) minerals, maintenance, time or fuel to construct/operate and actually produce money.
Actually, there is one change I'd make - add minerals to civilian contracts. I estimate my freighter traffic is as much as 40% minerals (since I don't use mass drivers) and it seems silly that civilians will move buildings but not rocks.
*Clear orders on the stuck freighters. Use SM mode to put a Genetic Modification Centre - or some other installation that would be 'out-of-character' - on the colony world, then issue a contract supplying one GMC at your outpost and demanding one at your capital (or whatever hub you'd like). Increment 5 days and repeat as needed to get all the 'stuck' freighters unstuck. Remove GMCs when done.
No, let me say this, I like the way civilians operate now. They should have major drawbacks compared to government transport, given that civilians cost no (government) minerals, maintenance, time or fuel to construct/operate and actually produce money.
Actually, there is one change I'd make - add minerals to civilian contracts. I estimate my freighter traffic is as much as 40% minerals (since I don't use mass drivers) and it seems silly that civilians will move buildings but not rocks.
*Clear orders on the stuck freighters. Use SM mode to put a Genetic Modification Centre - or some other installation that would be 'out-of-character' - on the colony world, then issue a contract supplying one GMC at your outpost and demanding one at your capital (or whatever hub you'd like). Increment 5 days and repeat as needed to get all the 'stuck' freighters unstuck. Remove GMCs when done.
Posted by: Bgreman
« on: June 14, 2011, 06:01:00 PM »I'd like to throw my hat in the ring on this one.
I could envision two separate types of civilian shipping operations. One would be short-distance (3-4 jumps) general trading, which we have now. Specify supply and demand amounts as happens now. To combat civilian fringe-lock (where freighters get stuck on the fringe with no contracts to lure them home), have each shipping line have a home system. Instead of using the current location of the ship as its source for searching for short-range opportunities, it uses the home system. Idle ships gravitate back toward their home systems. This would set up regional "hubs" of localized shipping. A disadvantage to having this system in place is that freighters will spend a larger proportion of their time empty as compared to now. I'd compensate for this by reducing operating cost and increasing the income ships get when they DO perform a delivery.
To move that mass driver 4+ jumps across your empire, you'd utilize a new addition: long-distance (LD) shipping. It would require a special UI, but the way it'd work is you'd specify your origination point and the destination point, as well as the specific cargo. I. e. , instead of having 200 mines "up for grabs" on Earth, and 40 mines "generally wanted" at Omicron Persei 8, 7 jumps away, you'd specify, "Deliver 200 mines from Earth to Omicron Persei 8". As soon as you "confirm" this contract, the game would calculate the route and a general profit/time rating. From here there are two options:
1) A local shipping company as above would decide to take this contract and allocate enough of its freighters to execute it.
2) There are specific shipping lines who only deal in long-distance contracts.
In the long run, I'd like to see companies make bids on long-distance contracts. So you'd make the contract public, as it were, wait some time, and each line would evaluate its ability to execute the contract, its estimated profitability (based on the number, capacity, and speed of its freighters) and submit a bid, with some randomization in to simulate undercutting and edging profit margins. In the very long run, lines could receive perks for being regularly chosen for LD shipping contracts.
I think this addresses the common concern of having to get components halfway across your empire, while still allowing the more free-form localized trading. There's not a huge performance hit, as the pathfinding for LD contracts is done when you create the contract, instead of at every interval, and the lines only decide whether or not to take the contract one time (or, perhaps, each time they launch a new ship that adjusts their total haulage capabilities, and the contract still exists, ).
If you were really savvy or into micromanagement, you could setup hub+spoke models, where you ship installations directly between two "hub" locations, and then allow the local shipping lines to distribute the installations according the short-distance model. Alternately, it could be that the only viable destinations for LD shipping are locations with commercial spaceports, maybe even to the point where to be eligible to be an originator or destination of a LD contract of X jumps, the location has to have a spaceport of size X-4 (or 3, if you limit local shipping to 3 jumps). I. e. , a 5 jump contract would require a size 1 (or 2) spaceport at each end of the route. This gives spaceports a role besides being cargo handling improvements.
Regarding trade goods, on a local level they'd work the same. On a long distance level, I can envision "trade partners", widely separated colonies that engage in LD contracts with each other behind the scenes, based on their spaceport level.
For refinements, I'd like to see civilian spaceport complexes built up on inhabited colonies rather like civilian mining complexes are now, perhaps based on trade income at that colony, obviously with diminishing returns. Thus, while you could manually expend the resources to build up your trade infrastructure at some world, if it was naturally generating a lot of trade, the civilian sector would build up the world itself. Diminishing returns obviously.
I'd also like to see freighters cost less as time goes by since the design was first produced and/or the number of ships of that class increases (though this is something I'd like to see for all ships, not just civilian ships). One final little niggle is that I'd like it if we could specify that a ship design is a derivative or refit of a different design. I. e. , my Outreach Mk II freighter is a derivative design of my Outreach Mk I. Flagging them this way would allow me to more easily refit my own, and more importantly, allow the civvies to refit their ships if they felt it was economical to do so. Civvies would only consider refitting ships to a new design that was marked as derivative of the current design, and would not step down the chain. I. e. , if I also have an Outreach Mk III, that is a derivative of the Outreach Mk II, a civvie will not consider refitting a Mk I to a Mk III. It will only consider refitting to Mk II. It will also never refit if it is cheaper to just build a new ship to get the same increase in "haulage capability".
So many thoughts!
I could envision two separate types of civilian shipping operations. One would be short-distance (3-4 jumps) general trading, which we have now. Specify supply and demand amounts as happens now. To combat civilian fringe-lock (where freighters get stuck on the fringe with no contracts to lure them home), have each shipping line have a home system. Instead of using the current location of the ship as its source for searching for short-range opportunities, it uses the home system. Idle ships gravitate back toward their home systems. This would set up regional "hubs" of localized shipping. A disadvantage to having this system in place is that freighters will spend a larger proportion of their time empty as compared to now. I'd compensate for this by reducing operating cost and increasing the income ships get when they DO perform a delivery.
To move that mass driver 4+ jumps across your empire, you'd utilize a new addition: long-distance (LD) shipping. It would require a special UI, but the way it'd work is you'd specify your origination point and the destination point, as well as the specific cargo. I. e. , instead of having 200 mines "up for grabs" on Earth, and 40 mines "generally wanted" at Omicron Persei 8, 7 jumps away, you'd specify, "Deliver 200 mines from Earth to Omicron Persei 8". As soon as you "confirm" this contract, the game would calculate the route and a general profit/time rating. From here there are two options:
1) A local shipping company as above would decide to take this contract and allocate enough of its freighters to execute it.
2) There are specific shipping lines who only deal in long-distance contracts.
In the long run, I'd like to see companies make bids on long-distance contracts. So you'd make the contract public, as it were, wait some time, and each line would evaluate its ability to execute the contract, its estimated profitability (based on the number, capacity, and speed of its freighters) and submit a bid, with some randomization in to simulate undercutting and edging profit margins. In the very long run, lines could receive perks for being regularly chosen for LD shipping contracts.
I think this addresses the common concern of having to get components halfway across your empire, while still allowing the more free-form localized trading. There's not a huge performance hit, as the pathfinding for LD contracts is done when you create the contract, instead of at every interval, and the lines only decide whether or not to take the contract one time (or, perhaps, each time they launch a new ship that adjusts their total haulage capabilities, and the contract still exists, ).
If you were really savvy or into micromanagement, you could setup hub+spoke models, where you ship installations directly between two "hub" locations, and then allow the local shipping lines to distribute the installations according the short-distance model. Alternately, it could be that the only viable destinations for LD shipping are locations with commercial spaceports, maybe even to the point where to be eligible to be an originator or destination of a LD contract of X jumps, the location has to have a spaceport of size X-4 (or 3, if you limit local shipping to 3 jumps). I. e. , a 5 jump contract would require a size 1 (or 2) spaceport at each end of the route. This gives spaceports a role besides being cargo handling improvements.
Regarding trade goods, on a local level they'd work the same. On a long distance level, I can envision "trade partners", widely separated colonies that engage in LD contracts with each other behind the scenes, based on their spaceport level.
For refinements, I'd like to see civilian spaceport complexes built up on inhabited colonies rather like civilian mining complexes are now, perhaps based on trade income at that colony, obviously with diminishing returns. Thus, while you could manually expend the resources to build up your trade infrastructure at some world, if it was naturally generating a lot of trade, the civilian sector would build up the world itself. Diminishing returns obviously.
I'd also like to see freighters cost less as time goes by since the design was first produced and/or the number of ships of that class increases (though this is something I'd like to see for all ships, not just civilian ships). One final little niggle is that I'd like it if we could specify that a ship design is a derivative or refit of a different design. I. e. , my Outreach Mk II freighter is a derivative design of my Outreach Mk I. Flagging them this way would allow me to more easily refit my own, and more importantly, allow the civvies to refit their ships if they felt it was economical to do so. Civvies would only consider refitting ships to a new design that was marked as derivative of the current design, and would not step down the chain. I. e. , if I also have an Outreach Mk III, that is a derivative of the Outreach Mk II, a civvie will not consider refitting a Mk I to a Mk III. It will only consider refitting to Mk II. It will also never refit if it is cheaper to just build a new ship to get the same increase in "haulage capability".
So many thoughts!
Posted by: Thiosk
« on: June 14, 2011, 12:54:44 PM »I noticed that too, actually-- theyre delivering contracts 3 jumps out... but not 4.
Posted by: Beersatron
« on: June 14, 2011, 11:56:50 AM »Sorry, wasnt trying to shoehorn in and say I was there first! Just wanted to put down my +1 since the civvies are not servicing my newest colony that is 4 jumps out.
Posted by: Thiosk
« on: June 14, 2011, 12:07:23 AM »haha yes, this thread was originally birthed from that comment. but, like so many other scientists, i resorted to self citation.
