Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Mechanics => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on August 11, 2021, 07:18:23 AM
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I noticed a lively debate on Discord about mineral generation. Generation of all minerals is equal in terms of chance to exist and size of deposit, except for Duranium which has double chance (max 100%) and double size.
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I would love to see a concept of random "ores" in Aurora.
So every game we can get different content of minerals in each randomly generated ore.
Ores could be gas, liquid, and solids. That way every extraction method might have its own tech tree.
One race could mine asteroids or comets for its fuel, another would need gas giants.
Another idea is to have a unique ore that can have tremendous amounts of one or two minerals, but it is present in only one system.
It would be really cool if we could get mines to "focus" on mining specific mineral (like a % in Race Name Theme).
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It's very hard to code AI for this type of dynamic resourses.
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I would love to see a concept of random "ores" in Aurora.
So every game we can get different content of minerals in each randomly generated ore.
Ores could be gas, liquid, and solids. That way every extraction method might have its own tech tree.
One race could mine asteroids or comets for its fuel, another would need gas giants.
Another idea is to have a unique ore that can have tremendous amounts of one or two minerals, but it is present in only one system.
It would be really cool if we could get mines to "focus" on mining specific mineral (like a % in Race Name Theme).
This sounds good from an "immersion" perspective, but from a gameplay perspective all I can think of is the nightmare of balancing the building and shipping of three (or six, with automine variants) kinds of mines. This seems too micromanagement-intensive for the abstract nature of Aurora's mining economy and doesn't add anything to the gameplay.
Given the value of TNEs, in practice every extraction method would be pursued by every race as no good source of a key mineral can be passed up...location, location, location is the name of the game.
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To be honest, I still want some in-game mineral generation, for moderate amounts.
This is more for roleplay purposes rather than as a meaningful substitution to expanding ever outward.
Iirc TN minerals are supposed to somehow "condense" over long periods of time, and mostly in large planets.
You could have some very large planets (or who knows, black holes? and gas giants) have a small production of TN minerals every year to simulate that.
Once again, I'd like this as a flavor, roleplay thing. I'm not suggesting such a high generation of minerals that would reduce the need of expanding.
And it would create a few interesting situations, like:
This system is full of dirtballs. But a couple of them actually make some minerals every year, and they're close to the home system, so they're actually worth at least considering taking.
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To be honest, I still want some in-game mineral generation, for moderate amounts.
This is more for roleplay purposes rather than as a meaningful substitution to expanding ever outward.
Iirc TN minerals are supposed to somehow "condense" over long periods of time, and mostly in large planets.
You could have some very large planets (or who knows, black holes? and gas giants) have a small production of TN minerals every year to simulate that.
Once again, I'd like this as a flavor, roleplay thing. I'm not suggesting such a high generation of minerals that would reduce the need of expanding.
And it would create a few interesting situations, like:
This system is full of dirtballs. But a couple of them actually make some minerals every year, and they're close to the home system, so they're actually worth at least considering taking.
To be honest I think the current lack of this is more realistic (well, as realistic as TN wizardry ever is).
Consider that the solar system is billions of years old, and typically if we survey for instance a gas giant we might find hundreds of millions of tons of sorium (not sure if billions of tons is possible?). So that suggests that in a year, we might see only 0.1 tons "condense" which is basically nothing. Obviously we can wave our hands around with science words about planetary formation and nonlinear rates of TNE condensation, but really at the root of it we're comparing truly geological time scales to a typical Aurora campaign which ranges from 10 to 1,000 years, not even a drop in the bucket in geological terms.
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This sounds good from an "immersion" perspective, but from a gameplay perspective all I can think of is the nightmare of balancing the building and shipping of three (or six, with automine variants) kinds of mines. This seems too micromanagement-intensive for the abstract nature of Aurora's mining economy and doesn't add anything to the gameplay...
Actually, it might add a lot to the gameplay.
Exp. You can focus on tech for extracting very rare ore, but it will turn out with huge quantities of minerals (from limited sources) or a tech for a common ore but with fewer minerals.
Also we already have two ways of extracting sorium...
Anyway, even without different types of ore (solid, liquid, gas), it is still a great way to make a story deeper.
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I think the idea of different types of key minerals in some strange combination is a truly terrible idea. WOuld have to have an option to turn it off or just not add it
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I think the idea of different types of key minerals in some strange combination is a truly terrible idea. WOuld have to have an option to turn it off or just not add it
Minerals would stay the same.
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You could have some very large planets (or who knows, black holes? and gas giants) have a small production of TN minerals every year to simulate that.
I mean, don't the planets that generate with tens or hundreds of millions of minerals at .1 accessibility basically fit the bill for this already? You'll never empty one of those out in any kind of reasonable timeframe.
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Uh... are we discussing 1-time TN elements random generation on various planetary bodies,
or regeneration of TN resources on larger bodies?
If it is randomizing initial resources... Eh, Okay, I guess it can be a setting. How much random you want it to be.
If it is regenerating... Well, yes as well - a slider for how much resource should regenerate over time would also be a good thing. Whether to leave as before, or regenerate a certain % at a time.
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hmm, what do you guys think about something like "Deep core mining"? A new tech that unlocks after reaching a mining rate of 20 or so and that costs 30-60k RP that would then allow a 2nd geo-survey with a higher chance of detecting elements on planets that already have them?
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hmm, what do you guys think about something like "Deep core mining"? A new tech that unlocks after reaching a mining rate of 20 or so and that costs 30-60k RP that would then allow a 2nd geo-survey with a higher chance of detecting elements on planets that already have them?
--- Seems a bit lore unfriendly. While I normally wouldn't bring up the "lore" as it's considered to be largely up to the players; this seems like an area where it might present a worthwhile contribution. The idea of TN minerals is that they exist in the Aether, which is basically another dimension. The reason you only really find them on bodies is because gravity wells cause them to condense. This condensation is what makes them mineable. "Deep Core" would imply that your digging them out, and while that could be the fluff of it for some players, others might want to keep with the whole gravity well theme. Having a tech called "Deep Mining" which let's you reach deeper either into the planet, or farther into the Aether, I think that would be a good middle ground.
--- This Deep Mining could allow a 2nd Geo Survey, but it'd probably be better to have it unlock a special geo-survey that's used to detect renewable minerals. The Deep Mining let's you reach further into the Aether, where the minerals are condensing, and siphon off small, but usable quantities of it indefinitely. Not enough to make a huge difference, but enough to stretch out the supplies you get from normal mining or allow you to bank them for a while to build something a bit bigger. This could also be fluffed as going deeper into the body to get at the TN minerals where they "spawn" if you will, or something to that end. Basically what Deep Mining does that regular Mining doesn't is let you make use of the "source" of TN Minerals, but only with a 2nd Geo-Survey... possibly conducted with Grav Sensors instead, or a Ground Based team.
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hmm, what do you guys think about something like "Deep core mining"? A new tech that unlocks after reaching a mining rate of 20 or so and that costs 30-60k RP that would then allow a 2nd geo-survey with a higher chance of detecting elements on planets that already have them?
--- Seems a bit lore unfriendly. While I normally wouldn't bring up the "lore" as it's considered to be largely up to the players; this seems like an area where it might present a worthwhile contribution. The idea of TN minerals is that they exist in the Aether, which is basically another dimension. The reason you only really find them on bodies is because gravity wells cause them to condense. This condensation is what makes them mineable. "Deep Core" would imply that your digging them out, and while that could be the fluff of it for some players, others might want to keep with the whole gravity well theme. Having a tech called "Deep Mining" which let's you reach deeper either into the planet, or farther into the Aether, I think that would be a good middle ground.
--- This Deep Mining could allow a 2nd Geo Survey, but it'd probably be better to have it unlock a special geo-survey that's used to detect renewable minerals. The Deep Mining let's you reach further into the Aether, where the minerals are condensing, and siphon off small, but usable quantities of it indefinitely. Not enough to make a huge difference, but enough to stretch out the supplies you get from normal mining or allow you to bank them for a while to build something a bit bigger. This could also be fluffed as going deeper into the body to get at the TN minerals where they "spawn" if you will, or something to that end. Basically what Deep Mining does that regular Mining doesn't is let you make use of the "source" of TN Minerals, but only with a 2nd Geo-Survey... possibly conducted with Grav Sensors instead, or a Ground Based team.
While we are on the idea of renewable resources, I think we need to limit this renewability a little bit:
I propose Trans-Newtonian Element storage facilities. You can not store more of these resources than the amount of storage facilities you have on that world/body.
This can create an interesting logistics dynamic, where you spread the resources around your empire, which kind of increases the headache if you don't focus all minerals into 1 place.
And about the storage facilities themselves... I guess they should cost some wealth to maintain/population to function? It basically makes them as important as infrastructure in the latter case. With that, we can also give new uses to cargo ships - 'supply colony' order - allowing a cargo ship to function as a storage facility, for construction, extraction etc.
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TN minerals condense in gravity wells - how about a late tech techline to construct Dyson Spheres? They could become TN collectors - and with a construction cost of 35.000.000 Duranium , 55.000.000 Neutronium and 19.000.000 Corbomite - they come as cheap as it gets and produce infinite renewable TN minerals ;)
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TN minerals condense in gravity wells - how about a late tech techline to construct Dyson Spheres? They could become TN collectors - and with a construction cost of 35.000.000 Duranium , 55.000.000 Neutronium and 19.000.000 Corbomite - they come as cheap as it gets and produce infinite renewable TN minerals ;)
The endgame tech. Heh.
I approve.
Coupled with the storage facility rules, this also can be extra-hard to achieve.
Also, to add a bit to the storage facilities - what happens if it is destroyed, and You have too many resources on the body? They return to the body as minable elements - so in order to get them back, rebuild storage facility/cargo ship in orbit and put mines or automines.
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TN minerals condense in gravity wells - how about a late tech techline to construct Dyson Spheres? They could become TN collectors - and with a construction cost of 35.000.000 Duranium , 55.000.000 Neutronium and 19.000.000 Corbomite - they come as cheap as it gets and produce infinite renewable TN minerals ;)
Ohh, maybe something like star-lifting, the Denser the star the better? Though i would not say "infinite renewable" but more of "We found another large pocket of minerals"
Of course if you want to go with infinite renewability, make it a new tech line with increasing "production" (for lack of better words) like how mining currently works. The first level will give you a set amount per year, say 50K for simplicity, the next level increases it by 5% and so on.
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Steve's Design philosophy kinda goes against anything being "Infinite" because it doesnt drive expansion anymore then.
I prefer the Star Lifter idea if im being honest and i think it fits.
My proposal: Have three new techs. 1 is a solar survey to find stars with TN materials. 2 is the Star Lifting module itself. 3 is the module's efficiency/production tech. Make it a late game tech. Say they have very high accessibility but very low yield of certain things. Its just a steady stream of some of the rarer materials. Make them generate with a substantial amount but not infinite.
They could function like Orbital Miners only for Stars. This would give Stars a purpose and make Binary systems far more interesting to have control over. Imagine what could result from you fighting over a Binary system with an NPR because one of the Stars has a material you need in high amounts.
You could also have a fourth tech now that i think about it. One that is for the different kinds of stars, meaning you have to make different modules for different kinds of stars.
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Steve's Design philosophy kinda goes against anything being "Infinite" because it doesnt drive expansion anymore then.
Which I agree with on the first galnce, but it does not work in reverse:
since you cannot regain all the elements used when scrapping ships/structures, I have to argue that this design philosophy is flawed or otherwise incomplete.
I wouldn't mind not getting all the wealth back - it is a renewable resource, to a certain extent (population as well).
But, I DO MIND when I lose non-renewable resources, without a way to get them back!
Back to that infinite... not all players even want to expand indefinitely - so why force this on us all?
I mean, sure, generally empires can only exist when they are expanding and acquiring new resources, and once they stop, they enter the start of collapse phase.
We don't really have any idea of how ecologically and environmentally (un)friendly the TN element mining and exploitation efforts are, I guess for most of the players the environment issues are at the bottom of their priority list, but we're dealing with a simulation here, and environment is important.
Lastly, even if the resources are made renewable, you can still make that you gain them in so little amounts, that you have to expand regardless, since the amount you acquire via renewable means are next to irrelevant. So, I believe you can still have both.
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Honestly most games lag to a halt before getting to the point when you run out of resources in all the systems you have surveyed so its not exactly a problem persay.
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Honestly most games lag to a halt before getting to the point when you run out of resources in all the systems you have surveyed so its not exactly a problem persay.
Most, but not all.
Besides, I prefer to at least have a safe assumption, that everything will work out until year 9000.
So this lack of an even sign in the resources management gets on my nerves... :(
Also, indirectly, it can be seen as a bit of an insult - what a terrible game, that can't even run for a thousand years! >:(
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I have no plans to introduce renewable resources, beyond the amount returned via the existing scrapping functions, because finding new resources is one of the drivers for expansion. If anyone desperately wants full environmentally-friendly resource recovery, they can always SM the minerals.
Besides, if you don't find resource management to be fun, then you picked the wrong game :)
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I mean my idea for how i think the Star Lifter idea should function isnt related to renewable materials.
I just like the idea of a late game mining tech.
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I have no plans to introduce renewable resources, beyond the amount returned via the existing scraping functions, because finding new resources is one of the drivers for expansion. If anyone desperately wants full environmentally-friendly resource recovery, they can always SM the minerals.
Besides, if you don't find resource management to be fun, then you picked the wrong game :)
I do find it fun... though, could You elaborate, on what is resource management, from Your point of view?
I understand resource management as deciding where to put your limited resources for the highest efficiency.
And these limits, where you don't get back resources, work rather discouragingly on me - if you think you might want to build something, and that something costs limited resources AND you can't get 100% them back if you change your mind after building - I end up not building anything, and just save resources, until I 100% need them. :(
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And these limits, where you don't get back resources, work rather discouragingly on me - if you think you might want to build something, and that something costs limited resources AND you can't get 100% them back if you change your mind after building - I end up not building anything, and just save resources, until I 100% need them. :(
Unfortunately, that strategy means that by the time you realise you '100% need them', it is generally too late to build them. At some point, you will need to spend those limited and non-renewable resources on something you might need, rather than something you definitely need, or risk being left defenceless when hostile aliens turn up. If you could simply reverse that decision at any point and convert the result back into resources with no loss, then it wasn't really a decision in the first place.
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Well, forgetting the "Renewable", what do you think of star lifting? A mid to late game tech that would be akin to a cross between sorium harvesting and orbital mining?
Stars generate with minerals based on the Steller class. A brown dwarf would have near enough to 0 while a white dwarf or neutron star would have the most. No accessibility, each star lifting module would have a set yearly production rate that can be increased through research(say starting at 200/year) & each module would be large (100k tons minimum), expensive and only available on stations.
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As another famous 4X game developer once said, a game is a series of interesting choices.
Aurora is a 4X game, even if on the surface it is easily mistaken for a logistics simulator. ;) To wit, the game mechanics need to support 4X gameplay - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. This is the core problem with adding any form of passive, renewable and thus infinite resource generation into the game, because at some point it becomes possible to build enough of this generation capacity that there is simply no motivation from the game mechanics to play the game. If I can generate infinite resources for all time, why bother with the 4 eXs? The only reason is if I am feeling bloodthirsty and want to kill something, and I can just play CoD if that's all I need out of my gaming time.
Fundamentally, Aurora is a game about resource scarcity leading to interesting stories about how different races ensure their survival. Adding renewable infinite resources detracts from that idea.
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Exactly.
Thats why the Star Lifting idea is such a good one.
As i said before, imagine you and an NPR fighting over a binary system high in resources. it would be great.
Im not a proponent of having the stars regenerate these resources. I think they should be finite.
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Exactly.
Thats why the Star Lifting idea is such a good one.
As i said before, imagine you and an NPR fighting over a binary system high in resources. it would be great.
Im not a proponent of having the stars regenerate these resources. I think they should be finite.
Agreed, my original post was not about infinite renewable resources (finite is a good thing) but about more mining options.
Currently with resource generation Venusian type planets generate with potentially 100s of Milions of Tons of .1 Accessibility minerals. We could lower the maximum resources that can generate on them, maybe up the accessibility to reflect the drop in total resources and then add those resources to Stars. Net result would be slightly higher amount of resources, slightly better accessibility on Venusian worlds, but the largest pools of resources would be in the stars requiring new tech & large infrastructure projects to extract it.
I don't know about other players, but i almost never touch Venusian worlds, the gain is seldom worth the investment, save a few cases. For example in my current campaign (where i am not in Sol, i have NPR Humans) Venus generated with 30mil Corundium @.9. That would be well worth the investment of auto-mines, but in most cases where i might even have 100mil Corundium @.1 it's just not worth it.
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If you could simply reverse that decision at any point and convert the result back into resources with no loss, then it wasn't really a decision in the first place.
You would have used the resource, that we for simplicity's sake, call time. So, I disagree with Your statement.
If converting resources into useful objects, and doing reverse would not take any time - I would agree with Your statement. As it is now - no, because these 2 operations would still take some time to accomplish. In normal game rules, 5-10 days, when construction cycle finishes 1 or 2 times - 1 for using resources in the object's construction, 2 for disassembling it and getting the resources back.
Time is a finite resource as well.
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You can not dig out time, store it or transport it. That is why it is not a resource, especially finite.
Labor, Materials, Equipment is what you work with. Time is an environment.
There is a whole science about it :)
Also, there are no perfect systems that are 100% efficient. Every time you'll lose something due to involved processes.
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You can not dig out time, store it or transport it. That is why it is not a resource, especially finite.
You can set how much you want it in the begining - with the game's limits, setting the start date at year 0001 - you could make it to almost 9000 years. Start it at year 8000 - you have roughly a 1000 year old campaign at max.
However, you cannot change that later on, no technology or any other in-game decision allows you to alter the date.
Labor, Materials, Equipment is what you work with. Time is an environment.
There is a whole science about it :)
Hm... what's the name of that science? Any links that we could read up on?
Also, there are no perfect systems that are 100% efficient. Every time you'll lose something due to involved processes.
True...
But, according to the laws of physics, resources lost are simply converted into other forms of energy. Energy cannot be destroyed or created, just converted.
Considering that wealth is... not exactly a real resource, but rather a financial capability (made up of various means like contracts, stock market manipulations and etc.) to attract workers, labor and other resources, it does not follow the typical resource loss and conversion. So, wealth disappearing into thin air - I can accept that.
In terms of actual TN-minerals... where exactly do they go? Sure, they can leave the planet and end up in cosmos - but at this point I'll ask why do we not have 'TN element extractors' - gathering elements from cosmos? Also, while we are on this topic - how exactly the typical TN mines are working? Some folks assume that it must be quite different to the conventional minerals that we are extracting via mining in real life. It makes me think that TN mineral mines are actually magnets, attracting TN minerals, considering that no such thing as pollution from TN mines are mentioned...
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Hm... what's the name of that science? Any links that we could read up on?
Applied Science -> Technical and Engineering sciences -> Process engineering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_engineering
Also, this might be helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_branches_of_science#E
True...
But, according to the laws of physics, resources lost are simply converted into other forms of energy. Energy cannot be destroyed or created, just converted.
And you'll always end up with waste that you don't know how to use or is converted in a way that makes it unusable.
To this day most of the energy produced on Earth is with a steam turbine (even in nuclear power plants). This process is producing a lot of waste heat.
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You all talk about renewable resources and all that.. But the resources in this game ARE renewable already. Not in theory, but in practice. It takes only a few planets to have effectively infinite resources and no need for expansion besides endlessly spamming mines on them (except gallicite but that is an entirely different topic related to balance in terms of resource expenses for each type and even that can fall under this category if you find 40 million 1 acc world of it).
So, Steve... If you really want the strong drive for expansion to be there, I think the mineral generation system should be overhauled. Waaaaay less minerals, maybe better acc overall, adjustable as well to determine whether you want lots of scarcity and expansion or not.
Tl;dr Currently minerals are renewable in practice and I'd be much happy to see their generation overhauled to make them non-renewable.
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While it isn't a direct solution to the mineral generation, what if we could have an extra racial modifier "wastefulness" or some other name. Just have it as a flat %, 100% = you get the full amount of any minerals mined, lower and you get a reduction in your mining efficiency.
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You all talk about renewable resources and all that.. But the resources in this game ARE renewable already. Not in theory, but in practice. It takes only a few planets to have effectively infinite resources
If you think current minerals are practically/effectively infinite you simply don't have ambitions enough expansion plans for the size of your economy, fleets and space stations... 😇
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While it isn't a direct solution to the mineral generation, what if we could have an extra racial modifier "wastefulness" or some other name. Just have it as a flat %, 100% = you get the full amount of any minerals mined, lower and you get a reduction in your mining efficiency.
Well, what it effectively achieves is lowering the accessibility. And it's the mineral amount the planets generate with that's a problem, not acc. Latter could be even raised to balance after reducing the former. Think about being able to mine each world relatively fast, but each giving you way less than you need, making you constantly look for more and build more and more colonies rather than more and more mines on those 100 milion minerals planets.
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While it isn't a direct solution to the mineral generation, what if we could have an extra racial modifier "wastefulness" or some other name. Just have it as a flat %, 100% = you get the full amount of any minerals mined, lower and you get a reduction in your mining efficiency.
Well, what it effectively achieves is lowering the accessibility. And it's the mineral amount the planets generate with that's a problem, not acc. Latter could be even raised to balance after reducing the former. Think about being able to mine each world relatively fast, but each giving you way less than you need, making you constantly look for more and build more and more colonies rather than more and more mines on those 100 milion minerals planets.
That's true, so then how about a racial trait that determines how much upkeep you have to pay, as a flat % once again. Higher number mean you will burn through your minerals faster to account for a less efficient society and waste. If possible then also add in a tech line to counteract this as time goes on. It would force all younger empires to grow wide and allow them to get taller as they become more advanced.
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Applied Science -> Technical and Engineering sciences -> Process engineering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_engineering
Also, this might be helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_branches_of_science#E
And you'll always end up with waste that you don't know how to use or is converted in a way that makes it unusable.
To this day most of the energy produced on Earth is with a steam turbine (even in nuclear power plants). This process is producing a lot of waste heat.
Yeah, but we still don't have a 1 TN resource to another TN resource converter module/installation.
And Trans-Newtonian resources don't really allow themselves to be conveniently compared to resources in real life...
Still do You think it will stay that way, even as new technologies, giving new possibilities, appear?
You all talk about renewable resources and all that.. But the resources in this game ARE renewable already. Not in theory, but in practice. It takes only a few planets to have effectively infinite resources
If you think current minerals are practically/effectively infinite you simply don't have ambitions enough expansion plans for the size of your economy, fleets and space stations... 😇
Indeed, good sir/madam/whoever!
My gigantomania is not going to be satisfied by the numbers that can only go down.
So, Wake up Stormtrooper, we've got a Dyson sphere to build!
Ships which are at least 1,000,000 ton size...
Though, remind me, what was the limit of a single ship size? A billion ton?
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Though, remind me, what was the limit of a single ship size? A billion ton?
I have 2.5 billion ton "planetary rings" which are 1bn pop orbital habitats so it's more than a billion.
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Though, remind me, what was the limit of a single ship size? A billion ton?
I have 2.5 billion ton "planetary rings" which are 1bn pop orbital habitats so it's more than a billion.
that's... insane, awesome, but insane.
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Though, remind me, what was the limit of a single ship size? A billion ton?
I have 2.5 billion ton "planetary rings" which are 1bn pop orbital habitats so it's more than a billion.
that's... insane, awesome, but insane.
There's a double sized one two which I force myself to use if the planet is larger than earth. So the largest "craft" I've built is 5bn tons.
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Though, remind me, what was the limit of a single ship size? A billion ton?
I have 2.5 billion ton "planetary rings" which are 1bn pop orbital habitats so it's more than a billion.
that's... insane, awesome, but insane.
There's a double sized one two which I force myself to use if the planet is larger than earth. So the largest "craft" I've built is 5bn tons.
and here i was thinking that making an aurora version of the UNSC Infinity was crazy
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and here i was thinking that making an aurora version of the UNSC Infinity was crazy
Someone already tried to do this a while ago and made decent progress. IIRC, one of the major challenges was that if you try to strictly stick to the canon you want to put only three engines on the ship, which have a maximum size of 400 HS (20,000 tons) each. The actual Infinity is Googles 907m tons so this leads to a very underpowered propulsion section.
In practical terms, the maximum possible military jump drive transit size is something like 2 million tons, anything larger would have to use a jump gate or commercial engines (which would probably have a limit of around 20 million tons?). Otherwise the only limit would be integer overflow, if any, and the fact that such a ship would probably cost several solar systems' worth of TNEs to build.