v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Garfunkel]

Well, empty star systems just got content! Babylon class star bases, here we go!

I was initially against allowing OH's to transport colonists but on second thought, the fact that they so much more space does balance them vis-a-vis cryo pods. So you'd want the latter for colony ships so that they don't get too big and slow but you can move Orbital Colonies around with their population intact if you want/need without having to do a complicated unload/reload dance.

[TMaekler]

Currently, that isn't a valid order for a DSP, although I guess for RP reasons that 'spacing the prisoners' should be an option

It is always good to "expand" Aurora 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Well, empty star systems just got content! Babylon class star bases, here we go!

I was initially against allowing OH's to transport colonists but on second thought, the fact that they so much more space does balance them vis-a-vis cryo pods. So you'd want the latter for colony ships so that they don't get too big and slow but you can move Orbital Colonies around with their population intact if you want/need without having to do a complicated unload/reload dance.

At the moment, orbital habitats are treated like infrastructure and are independent of the colonists. When you move them, the population stays behind. Once of the reasons was to avoid creating 'cheap' colony ships, but the massive size is an interesting point. While they might be 'cheaper', they may not be 'better'. I would need to run the numbers.

One option might be to change the mechanics of orbital habitats (maybe they become Ark Modules) so that they act as colony ships rather than infrastructure, but with the added ability to contribute to a planetary population while in orbit. In this case, the colonists would be associated with the ship rather than with the planet.

[Garfunkel]

That could very well be a good change. With OH use, the size blows up really quickly so I doubt lot of people would prefer them over cryo pods, especially since you don't usually need dozens and dozens of colony ships.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

That could very well be a good change. With OH use, the size blows up really quickly so I doubt lot of people would prefer them over cryo pods, especially since you don't usually need dozens and dozens of colony ships.

I've run the numbers using a basic space station with 200,000 capacity. Habs are about 70% cheaper than cryogenics, but 10x larger. On that basis, I don't think habs are a realistic alternative to cryo for pure transportation purposes so allowing them to transport colonists would be fine.

The next question is whether to simply make that change - which would lead to the slightly odd situation of a hab having to unload its colonists at the destination so it could then house them, or make the change above and have the colonists contribute to the population for work purposes, while still being associated with the ship. Even though it is a lot more work from a coding perspective, I think the latter works better and would help a lot with 'nomadic' games.

[Droll]

That could very well be a good change. With OH use, the size blows up really quickly so I doubt lot of people would prefer them over cryo pods, especially since you don't usually need dozens and dozens of colony ships.

I've run the numbers using a basic space station with 200,000 capacity. Habs are about 70% cheaper than cryogenics, but 10x larger. On that basis, I don't think habs are a realistic alternative to cryo for pure transportation purposes so allowing them to transport colonists would be fine.

The next question is whether to simply make that change - which would lead to the slightly odd situation of a hab having to unload its colonists at the destination so it could then house them, or make the change above and have the colonists contribute to the population for work purposes, while still being associated with the ship. Even though it is a lot more work from a coding perspective, I think the latter works better and would help a lot with 'nomadic' games.

I'm gonna repost my post on the previous page so I hope that isn't too spammy (for all I know you already read this):

Using the ingame cargo system might work. Colony ships carry their colonists as cargo. So you make it so that any ship that is classified as an OH can also carry colonists as cargo. Not only that you can add a new continuous order to a fleet with OHs called "assign to population at body" and then pick the population on that body you want to assign the OH to. Doing this adds the capacity of that OH to the population and adds the "cargo" of colonists to the actual population of that colony.

The main issue is population growth. When the population grows you would want to add cargo of the appropriate species into the cargo "hold" of the OH. But how do you determine how much of the new population goes into the OH and how many are living on the surface? Agriculture % is already based proportionally between the OH capacity and surface population so maybe a proportional approach would be best.

When you decide to move the OH you can issue another new order "unassign from population" or just cancel the existing assignment order. This would remove the OH capacity from the population as well as subtract population equal to the colonists that are in the cargo bay of the OH.

Also, colonists that are of a different species to the species of the assigned population should not be added to the population, though they will still take up OH space. Alternatively, you forbid an OH from housing multiple species outright, it would be helpful to somehow mark in UI what species an OH is carrying (if any).

Loading and unloading colonists would be a bit different. A colony ship with cargo shuttles should be able to choose to either unload onto the assigned population which puts people at the surface or they can directly unload colonists into the orbital habitats.

The final problem I can think of is population growth when the OH is unassigned/in transit. Either disable population growth or have it be a flat rate based on the species growth and empty capacity (like carrying capacity).

Edit: I will add that "assign OH to population" is a very helpful thing even without the consideration for mobile habitats. In multi-species empires it can be very useful to assign a group of habs to a specific population because you want to have lets say 2m human population of "overseers" in orbit while the 2bn NPR aliens you just conquered toil in labour camps OSHA compliant factories.

Would also be good when population gene-modding gets re-implemented or just any situation that warrants multiple populations on one system body.

[Desdinova]

Do people actually build colony ships past the early game? I always just let civilian shipping do its thing.

[gpt3]

Do people actually build colony ships past the early game? I always just let civilian shipping do its thing.

I usually scrap all my colony ships once my civilian shipping lines have 3-4 colony ships. The only case where one needs state-owned colony ships is to colonize beyond unstable jump points or unsafe star systems.

Micromanagement can be done by adjusting populations' immigration/emigration settings.

That could very well be a good change. With OH use, the size blows up really quickly so I doubt lot of people would prefer them over cryo pods, especially since you don't usually need dozens and dozens of colony ships.

I've run the numbers using a basic space station with 200,000 capacity. Habs are about 70% cheaper than cryogenics, but 10x larger. On that basis, I don't think habs are a realistic alternative to cryo for pure transportation purposes so allowing them to transport colonists would be fine.

The next question is whether to simply make that change - which would lead to the slightly odd situation of a hab having to unload its colonists at the destination so it could then house them, or make the change above and have the colonists contribute to the population for work purposes, while still being associated with the ship. Even though it is a lot more work from a coding perspective, I think the latter works better and would help a lot with 'nomadic' games.

An interesting side effect of the current "colonist transportation habs" discussion is that doing so would enable the creation of gardener ships - i.e. fully nomadic ships or fleets that only stop to resupply and to lay down new planetary colonies.

[nuclearslurpee]

Do people actually build colony ships past the early game? I always just let civilian shipping do its thing.

I do, because I don't trust civilians to do exactly what I need them to, when I want them to. If I need ten million people on a planet yesterday, I'm not going to wait for the civvie to finish depopulating Mars or whatever.

Of course this especially applies to establishing colonies outside of the stable jump network which is often a necessity. Actually because of this, I would say at a certain point it starts to make more sense to make (new) colony ships jump-capable as this becomes the major use case.

E: Ninja'd by Steve post, the new Arks change is very neat. Steve, can you confirm that this fixes the long-standing complaint about using OrbHabs at planets like Venus? Prior to 2.0, OrbHab populations at Venus, etc. would build surface infrastructure and experience pop growth beyond the habitat capacity, leading to colonists on the surface which tanked the manufacturing efficiency of the entire colony. It sounds like with the new distinction between orbital and surface populations, this can no longer happen? So if we have 10m colonists in habitats at Venus, they will not overflow to the surface and induce significant penalties to manufacturing efficiency.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Do people actually build colony ships past the early game? I always just let civilian shipping do its thing.

E: Ninja'd by Steve post, the new Arks change is very neat. Steve, can you confirm that this fixes the long-standing complaint about using OrbHabs at planets like Venus? Prior to 2.0, OrbHab populations at Venus, etc. would build surface infrastructure and experience pop growth beyond the habitat capacity, leading to colonists on the surface which tanked the manufacturing efficiency of the entire colony. It sounds like with the new distinction between orbital and surface populations, this can no longer happen? So if we have 10m colonists in habitats at Venus, they will not overflow to the surface and induce significant penalties to manufacturing efficiency.

Yes, the pops are entirely separate, so there is no movement of population from the Ark modules to the surface.

[Platys51]

Yes, the pops are entirely separate, so there is no movement of population from the Ark modules to the surface.

This will reduce fair bit of advantage of habitats tho: pop growth
As most will be filled and no gov bonuses apply, any pop on them is basically dead or in very slow growth

Can be an issue

[Garfunkel]

Unfortunately, there's no way around that since Arks will not organically grow and there's no option of overcrowding. You got space for 200,000 colonists, you load 200,000 colonists, now you're stuck with 200,000 colonists forever.

I could see loading Ark with only 90% of its capacity if doing a low-pop start so that it can grow - relatively quickly - that remaining 10% but probably won't bother otherwise.

[Bremen]

Seems like a fun and flavorful change. The only quibble I can think of is it might be better to have population growth use the greater of the planet's growth or the orbital hab growth when in orbit of a colony (potentially dropping surplus pops down on the planet), so having a bunch of people in orbit doesn't reduce your growth if the planet below has plenty of space. But that's a pretty niche difference, and something you can already deal with by micromanaging the balance of the colony and orbital hab populations if you want.

[Platys51]

Unfortunately, there's no way around that since Arks will not organically grow and there's no option of overcrowding. You got space for 200,000 colonists, you load 200,000 colonists, now you're stuck with 200,000 colonists forever.

I could see loading Ark with only 90% of its capacity if doing a low-pop start so that it can grow - relatively quickly - that remaining 10% but probably won't bother otherwise.

If the pop growth was less linear, we could have a standing order to drop once a year overflowing population on the ground, it is a ship after all.
So let's say you employ 90% of your pop regularly, and once a year drop *calculated yearly pop growth of whole fleet* on the ground.

[Black]

If I understand it correctly, we are not able to make commercial space station that would have repair capability in orbit of gas giant right? That is something we were able to do with commercial hangars.