v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

With the new orbital changes, what orbit does ʻOumuamua get? Did you go with a really big ellipse or an actual hyperbola?

At the moment the program only handles eccentricity less than 1, so I deleted it for now until I figure out the answer to that question

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The new changes to system generation are exciting to say the least. Moving the version to 2.0 is an intimidating prospect, I'll venture to say...

I did have one thought regarding the changing colony costs, which is the interaction with civilian shipping. Presently, civilian ships will tote colonists to any colony set as a destination which has some room. They sometimes overfill a bit but generally they get this about right. However with the new planet eccentricity, say I colonize Mars and place some infrastructure while it is closer to the sun, CC=2.11, and the civilians decide to fill it up with colonists. When mars orbits "away" and the CC rises to 2.5ish, those colonists will suddenly be too much for the life support.

So will civilian logic be changed to work on the body maximum CC in this case? Or maybe it already does and I don't know that because I never put colonists on comets?

Civilian colony ships will check population capacity based on the current infrastructure and the max colony cost. Civilian freighters will deliver infrastructure based on the infrastructure requirements of the destination at max colony cost.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

One other factor is that the available manufacturing population may change during orbits as colonists are required to focus more on environmental concerns. The economics window will therefore show min and max manufacturing populations where there is a difference.

Here is a population with a difference in current and max colony cost.



This population has no difference, so there is no need to display both numbers.

[serger]

Supported Population must be "Current / Min", I think, not "Current / Max".

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Supported Population must be "Current / Min", I think, not "Current / Max".

Yes, I was thinking population at max colony cost - but you are correct that min is far better.

[Droll]

What about variations in carrying capacity? If a planets hydrosphere is at about 100%, you could have relatively large deviations in carrying capacity on small bodies due to temperature changes reducing/increasing hydrosphere slightly. Though I could be exaggerating that since I don't know the numbers.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

What about variations in carrying capacity? If a planets hydrosphere is at about 100%, you could have relatively large deviations in carrying capacity on small bodies due to temperature changes reducing/increasing hydrosphere slightly. Though I could be exaggerating that since I don't know the numbers.

A temperature change could theoretically turn oceans into water vapour and therefore change the hydro extent to zero. However, if the planet is in that orbit, the liquid oceans would probably not have formed in the first place. Otherwise hydro extent is not affected by temperature beyond the tiny percentage that would turn to vapour if ice sheets became oceans.

I think the vapourising oceans scenario is rare enough to not list it on the economics window for every population.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I am generating some systems to test generation and display and noticed something interesting. A superjovian in one system has caused a gas giant with 30 moons to move into an orbit with 0.81 eccentricity. Some of the moons are varying between 4 and 8 colony cost. A colony cost 4 moon is generally a candidate for mining if there are suitable deposits, perhaps with some terraforming, but colony cost 8 is not really practicable even with terraforming (due to the low base temp).

However, in this case you could have a moon that was a mining candidate for part of the parent's orbital period, or was at full production for part of that orbit and moved to limited production when workers shifted to environmental. Also, this particular gas giant has an orbital period of 66 years, so the moon could be a good mining colony for 30-40 years before being abandoned.

It looks like there is potential for many interesting situations and some meaningful new choices.

[RougeNPS]

So you can put orbital habitats over the twin planet right?

And can you manually add them in SM mode or at least change the chance of it happening?

And can you have more than one at once or is it just a twin?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

So you can put orbital habitats over the twin planet right?

And can you manually add them in SM mode or at least change the chance of it happening?

And can you have more than one at once or is it just a twin?

You can put orbital habitats on either of the two bodies, but one is orbiting the other so you have to choose between them. In game mechanics terms, the twin planet is a moon almost as large as the first planet. There are no triple planets.

[Droll]

Since system generation is currently being looked at, can we expect the return of nebulas and black holes? With nebulas I wonder if we could have "starless" systems that don't actually contain a star yet but is essentially just a conglomerate of rogue planets.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Since system generation is currently being looked at, can we expect the return of nebulas and black holes? With nebulas I wonder if we could have "starless" systems that don't actually contain a star yet but is essentially just a conglomerate of rogue planets.

I left out black holes because the VB6 interpretation was too gamey. In C# mechanics terms, a black hole would just be a system primary with no more ability to suck in ships than any equivalent mass star. I might add them, but it would be for flavour rather than any new mechanics. If I make them really massive, it could be a system with no planets but potentially a lot of jump points (as higher mass primaries tend to generate more jump points) and it would be very hard to survey due to the high point cost for massive stars.

Nebulae have been low priority because I tend to play real stars (and there are no nearby nebulae) and the VB6 nebula mechanics are tricky for the AI to handle correctly. I may still add them, but probably with different mechanics. I doubt they would be starless as the formation of stars and planets is tied together. However, rogue planets is something I have been considering as a add-on to existing generation.

[nuclearslurpee]

Since system generation is currently being looked at, can we expect the return of nebulas and black holes? With nebulas I wonder if we could have "starless" systems that don't actually contain a star yet but is essentially just a conglomerate of rogue planets.

This would be very cool and likely a popular change. I for one do not mind if 1.14/2.0 is delayed to add such a cool feature, as I have plenty to keep me busy in 1.13 1.12 anyways. 

Since system generation is currently being looked at, can we expect the return of nebulas and black holes? With nebulas I wonder if we could have "starless" systems that don't actually contain a star yet but is essentially just a conglomerate of rogue planets.

I left out black holes because the VB6 interpretation was too gamey. In C# mechanics terms, a black hole would just be a system primary with no more ability to suck in ships than any equivalent mass star. I might add them, but it would be for flavour rather than any new mechanics. If I make them really massive, it could be a system with no planets but potentially a lot of jump points (as higher mass primaries tend to generate more jump points) and it would be very hard to survey due to the high point cost for massive stars.

Nebulae have been low priority because I tend to play real stars (and there are no nearby nebulae) and the VB6 nebula mechanics are tricky for the AI to handle correctly. I may still add them, but probably with different mechanics. I doubt they would be starless as the formation of stars and planets is tied together. However, rogue planets is something I have been considering as a add-on to existing generation.

If the mechanics are different that would not be a problem, the value of nebulae and black holes is flavor more than mechanics I think with mechanical differences serving to make them interesting in a general sense. The specific VB6 mechanics are not IMO essential.

I like this idea of black holes being effectively large, planetless stars. It may not be as tactically interesting as the super-gravity effect but it would add an interesting flavor to the galactic map topography to have a system which is difficult to survey or traverse but has a very large concentration of jump points.

For nebulae it may be worth changing the mechanics to be a drag force that reduces speed by some fraction instead of a hard cap, and allowing missiles subject to the same force. This would still lead to a situation where beams are advantageous, since the slower missiles are vulnerable to beam PD (and AMM efficiency is unaffected), but the NPRs won't be crippled for example if they can't figure out that missiles shouldn't be in a nebula.

[TMaekler]

Whilst you are modifying orbits, could you make displaying the orbit of an object also be visible when zoomed close in? I find it annoying that I lose the display of the orbit to soon when zooming in.

[Droll]

Since system generation is currently being looked at, can we expect the return of nebulas and black holes? With nebulas I wonder if we could have "starless" systems that don't actually contain a star yet but is essentially just a conglomerate of rogue planets.

I left out black holes because the VB6 interpretation was too gamey. In C# mechanics terms, a black hole would just be a system primary with no more ability to suck in ships than any equivalent mass star. I might add them, but it would be for flavour rather than any new mechanics. If I make them really massive, it could be a system with no planets but potentially a lot of jump points (as higher mass primaries tend to generate more jump points) and it would be very hard to survey due to the high point cost for massive stars.

Nebulae have been low priority because I tend to play real stars (and there are no nearby nebulae) and the VB6 nebula mechanics are tricky for the AI to handle correctly. I may still add them, but probably with different mechanics. I doubt they would be starless as the formation of stars and planets is tied together. However, rogue planets is something I have been considering as a add-on to existing generation.

The idea of black holes acting as an interstellar junction of sorts IMO is unique enough on it's own. As for nebulae I wasn't necessarily saying that they should be starless systems all the time but just that there might be a tiny chance that they can be starless (because the nebulae might be super young and the star hasn't formed yet).