v2.6.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Ghostly]

I think that if a race/power/empire is conquered by the player, then all prisoners of that race/power/empire should be automatically released and added as population to a suitable colony where their species already exist. If no such colony exists, then assume player is committing genocide and the prisoners are disposed of.

That way I can RP a nice overlord race and not have to execute POWs, just wait until war is won.

I think it would be difficult to even notice such an interaction. Meaningful population numbers are orders of magnitude larger than those of crew/prisoners. You'd get 0.01m, the smallest displayed pop, from hundreds of thousands of tons worth of military ships.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve, please, in the formula for the "percentage chance of ‘processing’ a given officer", the Number of Naval Headquarters does it include the levels of each of them, or not?
I mean, a level 3 NH, does it count as 3 or as 1?

Good question - I hadn't thought of it in those terms. Currently it is set up as the physical number of naval headquarters, rather than the level for command purposes. Perhaps I should be using the level instead. I'll think it about it overnight.

I think it make more sense to use the actual number of NHQ, since the logical reason for the levels is to model their range/reach which is a more exponential number in turns of systems covered by each additional jump while the needs of processing PoWs can be assumed to scale more linearly with empire size growth.

Yes, agree. I am going to leave it as it is.

[Ush213]

Am I correct in reading that the new Transfer Prisoners and Unload Prisoners orders allow us to move prisoners around the empire. Like can we dump any prisoners on a random body to group them and then bring a transport in to collect them? Which in my mind creates the need for a Prisoner Transport class of ship.
If so great. With the way my playstyle is it wouldnt suit to have my warships having to double back to unload their captives at my Naval academy worlds. 

[Gniwu]

Love this new, fleshed-out prisoner of war system! Although, the more I think about it, the more I feel that there should also be at least some mechanism in the background for adopting prisoners into your civilization who have been with you for a very long time (as long as you opt into that kind of thing in principle, of course). A small but constant chance of defection for crew that has truly gone native and passed all background checks. I guess I don't want to let people rot in prison for decades with not even a theoretical way out if I'm dealing with an empire that has absolutely no interest in diplomacy at all, but is at the same time too strong to easily conquer.

[nuclearslurpee]

Hooray for better NPRs! 

One thing I'm not clear on from the description: do these settings apply to only the NPRs generated at game start, or also those NPRs generated during the gameplay?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Hooray for better NPRs! 

One thing I'm not clear on from the description: do these settings apply to only the NPRs generated at game start, or also those NPRs generated during the gameplay?

This is only for starting NPRs, although I will probably add something similar to the manual NPR generation too.

Any NPRs created as a result of exploring will be 'normal' single system NPRs. They are generated when a suitable planet is created as a result of system generation (when you or another NPRs explores a JP) and they pass the random chance text. They only exist because their home world was just created. Even if I ran the multi-system process at that point, it wouldn't make sense because they would have already explored the system you entered from and you would have met them sooner. Plus every time you would find their home world first.

The only way to really generate multi-system NPR post-start would be to generate them randomly as the game progressed. Either stand-alone in systems no one found yet, or via a tiny chance for each new system being the edge of their Empire, which would entail generating them standalone and then connecting an 'outer-ring' jump point to the system you just explored - which would be odd in Known Stars games as it would likely be an abnormal jump distance.

The better option is generating several multiple-system NPRs at game start, probably further out than normal, so you can meet them more naturally.

[alex_brunius]

Even if I ran the multi-system process at that point, it wouldn't make sense because they would have already explored the system you entered from and you would have met them sooner. Plus every time you would find their home world first.

The only way to really generate multi-system NPR post-start would be to generate them randomly as the game progressed. Either stand-alone in systems no one found yet, or via a tiny chance for each new system being the edge of their Empire, which would entail generating them standalone and then connecting an 'outer-ring' jump point to the system you just explored - which would be odd in Known Stars games as it would likely be an abnormal jump distance.

The better option is generating several multiple-system NPRs at game start, probably further out than normal, so you can meet them more naturally.

To be fair there are some situations where it could make sense. For example:
1.) A multi system NPR that just has not explored the JP you arrived to their home system through yet (although logically it would not be a vast empire at that point)
2.) A multi system NPR where the encountered system is not their home system but lets say a secondary colony on a habitable world.

[paolot]

Terrific, Steve! 
Really thank you!

How many developed NPR empires would be present? just one, ore more?
Will this number depend on the generated NPRs at the game start (let's say, for example: 3 generated --> 1 is large, or 4 gen --> 1 large)?
Or an even more "extreme" hypothesis: chosing larger numbers of generated NPRs, we could face differently large empires: 1 NPR (or even more) generated using the new method, 1 or 2 halving the chosen parameters, 2 or 3 dividing the param by 3 or 4, etc.
So, we can span from some minor races to 1 or more large empires.

Silly suggestion... can we start calling this version 3.0, no more 2.6? 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Terrific, Steve! 
Really thank you!

How many developed NPR empires would be present? just one, ore more?
Will this number depend on the generated NPRs at the game start (let's say, for example: 3 generated --> 1 is large, or 4 gen --> 1 large)?
Or an even more "extreme" hypothesis: chosing larger numbers of generated NPRs, we could face differently large empires: 1 NPR (or even more) generated using the new method, 1 or 2 halving the chosen parameters, 2 or 3 dividing the param by 3 or 4, etc.
So, we can span from some minor races to 1 or more large empires.

Silly suggestion... can we start calling this version 3.0, no more 2.6? 

All the NPRs generated at game still will use the same parameters. So if you set base to 2, random to 4 and had eight NPRs, then all eight would be multi-system and would have explored between 3 and 6 transits out. The more variation you want in NPR empire size, the more you weight the result to random rather than base.

For my next campaign, I am considering running a conventional Earth against 6-8 multiple system NPRs with the game research speed set to 25% research speed, to see how long I can last

[nuclearslurpee]

Any NPRs created as a result of exploring will be 'normal' single system NPRs. They are generated when a suitable planet is created as a result of system generation (when you or another NPRs explores a JP) and they pass the random chance text. They only exist because their home world was just created. Even if I ran the multi-system process at that point, it wouldn't make sense because they would have already explored the system you entered from and you would have met them sooner. Plus every time you would find their home world first.

The only way to really generate multi-system NPR post-start would be to generate them randomly as the game progressed. Either stand-alone in systems no one found yet, or via a tiny chance for each new system being the edge of their Empire, which would entail generating them standalone and then connecting an 'outer-ring' jump point to the system you just explored - which would be odd in Known Stars games as it would likely be an abnormal jump distance.

I would imagine that, in principle (to say nothing of in practice), it could work well enough with a tweak to the order of events: generate the system, and and if it contains a new NPR then run the new multi-system NPR code, and only then connect the jump point to one of those outlying systems and place the player's fleet at that point instead of in the original system. I think even for known stars games this should be okay as there is some variance in how distant the connections are anyways.

That said, the ability to manually generate new multi-system NPRs would also be great. My main thing really is that I don't want to generate so many starting NPRs to slow the game down at the start, but after a few races have been wiped out it's nice to have some more to keep the game running.

[paolot]

...

All the NPRs generated at game still will use the same parameters. So if you set base to 2, random to 4 and had eight NPRs, then all eight would be multi-system and would have explored between 3 and 6 transits out. The more variation you want in NPR empire size, the more you weight the result to random rather than base.

For my next campaign, I am considering running a conventional Earth against 6-8 multiple system NPRs with the game research speed set to 25% research speed, to see how long I can last

Thank you!
Much better than my hypothesis, as we can face a random preset force in each NPR we meet.

[Froggiest1982]

Thanks, Steve!

I asked about pre-developed NPRs quite a while ago, and I’m glad it’s finally happening! This has been one of the main reasons I would often create and control random alien factions myself.

It feels like I’ll finally be able to enjoy a long solo campaign once 2.6 drops—or maybe after one or two exterminators' patches.

[nuclearslurpee]

I hope this will also work with the customize NPRs feature, particularly if and when Steve makes it possible to do this in the middle of the game!

[Warer]

Multi-System Starting NPRs

*Halo Theme starts playing*

[skoormit]

Any NPRs created as a result of exploring will be 'normal' single system NPRs. They are generated when a suitable planet is created as a result of system generation (when you or another NPRs explores a JP) and they pass the random chance text. They only exist because their home world was just created. Even if I ran the multi-system process at that point, it wouldn't make sense because they would have already explored the system you entered from and you would have met them sooner. Plus every time you would find their home world first.

The only way to really generate multi-system NPR post-start would be to generate them randomly as the game progressed. Either stand-alone in systems no one found yet, or via a tiny chance for each new system being the edge of their Empire, which would entail generating them standalone and then connecting an 'outer-ring' jump point to the system you just explored - which would be odd in Known Stars games as it would likely be an abnormal jump distance.

The better option is generating several multiple-system NPRs at game start, probably further out than normal, so you can meet them more naturally.

You don't need to specify a chance for a newly explored system to be an edge system to trigger multi-system NPR generation.
You could trigger in-game NPR generation the same way you do now, when a suitable planet is present in a newly explored and randomly generated system, and the random chance succeeds.
(Because, as you say, you can at that point generate a full multisystem NPR and link this jump point to an edge system instead of the home system.)
So the overall prevalence of in-game NPRs won't change. They'll just start living and breathing well before you reach their home system, and you won't even be aware when you trigger the creation of one. You'll just see another normal system.