Suggestions for 5.7 and beyond

[UnLimiTeD]

Agreeably does, if a survey team has to swim through a sea of liquid gas, it might pose a problem.
But anything till ~100-150° Kelvin should be bearable with the kind of equipment projected.
Essentially, even low level infantry is depicted as having power armor, or should be given the massive difference to conventional troops.
I think that should change, but it's not up to me.

[waresky]

5.7 launch day?

Steve am waitn for this upgrade:DD

[ardem]

I think my points were explained by others, but a cold planet has just as much impact as a hot planet, especially when it comes to long term machinery use. E.G. Automated mining.

I think survey is also harder as we are talking months in a hostile unstable environment, especially with hot planets. Unlike space you do not have Teutonic plates shifting etc. I understand your point about trans newton materials, however i think it would add to the scientific tree, more so then detract.

 

[crys]

i would like to add here, that the geo survey on the planet is going to be less and less interresting, as the game progresses.
the team usualy finds small numbers of minerals, while you settle for planets with millions of minerals.
so if it is not access increase - the gain of the geo survey is very low - less then 1% minerals total?

so maybe we should go with a tech, which increases/decresses the speed of geo surveys. maybe the chance of an access increase.

to make this matter, maybe the access of minerals could be in general lower - which makes the geo survey on the planet neccessary to increase the access.
to make this more vialbe planets could be generated with 2 access numbers for each mineral - one is the first find without a geo survey on the planet, and the 2. with geo survey on the planet.

lets say the planet was created with 10m duranium with an access of 0.2 for space geo survey, which is set to go up to 0.5 with a planet survey.(this planet would be  usualy 0.5 access - but now needs geo survey on the planet to get usefull)

i would say make this an addition to the geo survey on the planets - so they can still find new minerals and increase the access even higher then said above.
the idear is not to make everything mineral richer - but to make the geo survey on planets neccessary to make planets usefull.

[crys]

i thought about it a little more
maybe all minerals could be set to 0.05 or 0.1 access with an orbital survey and require a ground survey for better access

the gound survey would be in two parts then
1. to increase access(allways works to present values)

2. the old ground survey

research into ground geo survey would be importand to speed this process up then.

problems:
you need more good officers in survey
you need to research ground geo survey - or how ever it will be called

[Deutschbag]

I put this in the change log discussion thread, figure it might fit better here...

It reminded me of something that's bugged me for a while, though: The promotion scores for ground officers. I feel like ground combat bonus gives way too much of a promotion score bonus compared to ground training. After all, ground training is a skill more important to higher officers than the combat bonus. Any chance you could change it so that ground combat bonus gives less of a promotion score boost and ground training gives more?

[ardem]

I like that idea with the need for ground surveying. I think Orbital survey should only pick up two of the main minerals, as it basing it data on rock formations / gases etc with sensors.

However I see a ground survey like drilling cores and chemical analysis being able nut down the best access points etc. Add this with the max and min temperature for survey and automated machinery and you have a much deeper and more meaning geological/mining platform.

Considering this seems to be a very important and strategic point of the game it would be very beneficial.

[crys]

hmm if the orbital survey does not pick up all minerals, it gets very complicated to pick potential mining colonies.
the ground survey is not realy fast atm - ok there is a change comming, but who knows, how it will be?

but if you would need to ground survey each planet/moon for specivic mineral values, you would be surveying with 0% survey ppl, because you just run out of usefull ones.(actualy for me only the 30% survey guys are actualy usefull) in additon i think about the game flow a little, and you would realy spend alot of time sending out survey teams to each planet, and make all of thouse colonies that you can actualy ground survey them.

i think it would be enough, to have the need to ground survey mineral rich planets, like setting all access values low without ground survey.


if the ground survey can be speedup with research, it could make sence to slow it down again, a little maybe with the planetary suitability value. but it gets complicated with asteroids? or just use a set value there?

[UnLimiTeD]

I think this needlessly complicates things.
What Steve could do, however, is reduce base minerals, and then increase the chance that teams find something; Maybe slightly raise the chance if a body already contains minerals.

[crys]

hmm i think a mining colony or operation on an asteroid or comet should be worth/need a geo survey team.
if huge mining does not need geo survey teams or it is not worth the time deploying them, we can remove geo survey teams.


geo survey teams are a "weak" part in the game atm - they are nice at the home planet, but as soon as you leave to other systems, they loose value alot - like i said you get less then 1% more minerals for a good mining planet pick.
with luck some access increase.

i think thouse geo survey teams are a nice part of the game, but they need theire importance.

[Andrew]

I can rarely be bothered with geosurvey teams as they add to the micromanagement , so changing things to make them compulsory (to find decent minerals) would be a bad thing as it imposes micromanagement on players

[crys]

you actualy make my point.
you call geo survey teams micromanagement. so i would say make geo survey usefull/needed, or take it out of the game.
because it just does not matter alot atm.


im sure there are several different ways, to make geo survey teams more then micromanagment for mining planets.

my goal would be to make it neccesary to ground geo survey mining planets, or on rich planets which are interresting as mining planets.
not to ground survey every planet in each system.

[ollobrains]

how about geo survey fighters or drones

[nikow]

how about geo survey fighters or drones

Now you can create geosurvey fighters and drones.  You can create survey missiles, if you add some geosurvey sensors. . . 

[ardem]

I designed a geoship with lots of buoys, just dropped them on each moon and planet and moved on.  Fastest and most cost effective way to survey a system. However these are still orbital surveys.

As for micromanagement, I laughed this is aurora not command and conquer. But I agree micromanagement needs to be worth it, and I would like more non combat ways of empire management. Combat is only part of the fun in this game, creating an empire it a reward in itself.