v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Players might refer to fighters as a specialised type, but they are the same as any other ship in mechanics terms and not treated any differently in hangars. The only real difference is that they can be built in fighter factories due to their size.

I've had them repaired in the BSG game, but I had to tell them to repair - it is not automatic.

[nuclearslurpee]

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP and colonists can be delivered to, or collected from, the DSP. If there is no orbital population capacity, any delivered colonists will die.

Excellent, now we have a way to "accidentally" kill millions of people at once through player ineptitude, this has been lacking ever since mass driver-induced population shrinkage was removed from the game. 

Quick question, what happens if we drop off alien prisoners at the DSP? At a body they are just added to a number on the summary screen and otherwise cannot be interacted with. I find the idea of dumping a few hundred POWs at an empty DSP to be left floating in the void rather amusing.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP and colonists can be delivered to, or collected from, the DSP. If there is no orbital population capacity, any delivered colonists will die.

Excellent, now we have a way to "accidentally" kill millions of people at once through player ineptitude, this has been lacking ever since mass driver-induced population shrinkage was removed from the game. 

Quick question, what happens if we drop off alien prisoners at the DSP? At a body they are just added to a number on the summary screen and otherwise cannot be interacted with. I find the idea of dumping a few hundred POWs at an empty DSP to be left floating in the void rather amusing.

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

[Bremen]

Super excited to see DSPs! I always get that one annoying planetless system that's also a major jump nexus, so it'll be really nice to be able to set up at least a logistics base there.

Any chance we'll see maintenance modules eventually changed to produce MSP as well? That would let the fully replace maintenance facilities at a DSP, but might make them a bit too good. For that matter I'm also curious about the chance of some sort of ordinance/fighter factory module now that DSPs are an option, since I normally set up my logistics bases with those for resupply purposes.

[cdrtwohy]

Steve since you've said that 2.0 is feature complete you have added 2 features and a balance patch lol

i'm going to need you to stop my wanting can only go so high lol

[Platys51]

Players might refer to fighters as a specialised type, but they are the same as any other ship in mechanics terms and not treated any differently in hangars. The only real difference is that they can be built in fighter factories due to their size.

I've had them repaired in the BSG game, but I had to tell them to repair - it is not automatic.

Im pretty sure I set it to repair itself, but it was few months back now, so cant say for sure, the fighter got blown up heroically in defensive action. Could be I forgot.

Anyway, with deep space habitats, we need something for colonists to do!
*asks for some orbital module needing pops to work shamelessly*
Zero G labs, manufacturing centres etc!

Could make some components to be impossible to make on planet, needing manufacturing on deep space habitat only to be ferried to shipyards for construction~
Possibilities are endless, and so is hype \o/

[Vivalas]

This is exceptional!

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP and colonists can be delivered to, or collected from, the DSP. If there is no orbital population capacity, any delivered colonists will die.

Excellent, now we have a way to "accidentally" kill millions of people at once through player ineptitude, this has been lacking ever since mass driver-induced population shrinkage was removed from the game. 

Quick question, what happens if we drop off alien prisoners at the DSP? At a body they are just added to a number on the summary screen and otherwise cannot be interacted with. I find the idea of dumping a few hundred POWs at an empty DSP to be left floating in the void rather amusing.

Heh, this was my immediate thought too. Cleansing a planet of xenos very quickly just got as easy as putting a DSP immediately in orbit of the planet and just putting colony ships on loop from the planet to the DSP. Might create space junk though.. 


Other question: for a while I've wanted to do a purely nomadic playthrough, with huge ships and travelling hordes of civilian populace, and this change even as it is now makes that extremely tenable. This raises a question, however: what happens when you pull orbital habitats from a DSP? I assume it just rips the pop capacity out of the spot and everyone dies. I imagine it would be quite a hard workaround to get population to somehow be able to transiently move with orbital habitats (moving DSP), but is there an actual issue here? Is it possible to somehow just have a capability of DSPs to have a second towing option that just causes the DSP to move (or split) and follow a TF?

Getting quite into the weeds with this one, but I'd thought I'd ask. The things that are possible in C# Aurora are really pushing the boundaries!


EDIT: A far more sane option might just be to have the ability to "pack up" orbital habs and create massive colony ships, although this also raises huge balance issues.

[nuclearslurpee]

Other question: for a while I've wanted to do a purely nomadic playthrough, with huge ships and travelling hordes of civilian populace, and this change even as it is now makes that extremely tenable. This raises a question, however: what happens when you pull orbital habitats from a DSP? I assume it just rips the pop capacity out of the spot and everyone dies. I imagine it would be quite a hard workaround to get population to somehow be able to transiently move with orbital habitats (moving DSP), but is there an actual issue here? Is it possible to somehow just have a capability of DSPs to have a second towing option that just causes the DSP to move (or split) and follow a TF?

I think it would be feasible to build OrbHab stations with built-in cryo modules and a cargo shuttle bay, and have them load/unload their own colonists when moving between populations.

The requirement for a cargo shuttle bay is perhaps a bit silly, but from a RP perspective what self-respecting nomad race population hub superstation wouldn't have some cargo shuttle hangars?

[Droll]

This is exceptional!

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP and colonists can be delivered to, or collected from, the DSP. If there is no orbital population capacity, any delivered colonists will die.

Excellent, now we have a way to "accidentally" kill millions of people at once through player ineptitude, this has been lacking ever since mass driver-induced population shrinkage was removed from the game. 

Quick question, what happens if we drop off alien prisoners at the DSP? At a body they are just added to a number on the summary screen and otherwise cannot be interacted with. I find the idea of dumping a few hundred POWs at an empty DSP to be left floating in the void rather amusing.

Heh, this was my immediate thought too. Cleansing a planet of xenos very quickly just got as easy as putting a DSP immediately in orbit of the planet and just putting colony ships on loop from the planet to the DSP. Might create space junk though.. 


Other question: for a while I've wanted to do a purely nomadic playthrough, with huge ships and travelling hordes of civilian populace, and this change even as it is now makes that extremely tenable. This raises a question, however: what happens when you pull orbital habitats from a DSP? I assume it just rips the pop capacity out of the spot and everyone dies. I imagine it would be quite a hard workaround to get population to somehow be able to transiently move with orbital habitats (moving DSP), but is there an actual issue here? Is it possible to somehow just have a capability of DSPs to have a second towing option that just causes the DSP to move (or split) and follow a TF?

Getting quite into the weeds with this one, but I'd thought I'd ask. The things that are possible in C# Aurora are really pushing the boundaries!


EDIT: A far more sane option might just be to have the ability to "pack up" orbital habs and create massive colony ships, although this also raises huge balance issues.

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.

[Droll]

Other question: for a while I've wanted to do a purely nomadic playthrough, with huge ships and travelling hordes of civilian populace, and this change even as it is now makes that extremely tenable. This raises a question, however: what happens when you pull orbital habitats from a DSP? I assume it just rips the pop capacity out of the spot and everyone dies. I imagine it would be quite a hard workaround to get population to somehow be able to transiently move with orbital habitats (moving DSP), but is there an actual issue here? Is it possible to somehow just have a capability of DSPs to have a second towing option that just causes the DSP to move (or split) and follow a TF?

I think it would be feasible to build OrbHab stations with built-in cryo modules and a cargo shuttle bay, and have them load/unload their own colonists when moving between populations.

The requirement for a cargo shuttle bay is perhaps a bit silly, but from a RP perspective what self-respecting nomad race population hub superstation wouldn't have some cargo shuttle hangars?

Or you could do that.

Though it would be problematic with my 1bn colonist mega stations to have that many cryo-pods. They're big enough as it is.

[Platys51]

Or you could do that.

Though it would be problematic with my 1bn colonist mega stations to have that many cryo-pods. They're big enough as it is.

Honestly wouldn't be that much larger, only problem is, cost.
RIP there.

[nuclearslurpee]

Cost would be the bigger issue, but if you are playing as a nomad race I would imagine you're SMing a bunch of these superstations at the start of your playthrough and then tugging them across the galaxy for a few centuries, not necessarily looking to stop in Alpha Centauri for a few centuries to build more.

[Migi]

Fighters can already repair themselves if they have sufficient MSP

Can they? I had a damaged fighter that should have enough MSP to fix itself orbiting a planet for PPV for maybe 30 years before it was visited by angry NPR.
It was still damaged when I was making stock of my forces in the system before battle. It was being fully maintained and had MSP whole time.

My guess would be that you need a Damage Control Rating of 1 or more to repair. You're unlikely to have a full 50T engineering space on a fighter, so most of the time you need the hanger to provide a bonus to the DCR otherwise the chance of repair is 0.


Regarding the Deep Space Population feature, I note that it uses the same acronym as the game Dyson Sphere Program.

There will be no surface location to place installations, ground forces, fuel, ordnance or MSP.

Without ground forces, how can we deal with unrest?

Due to the lack of a physical location, no ground combat can take place at a DSP, although any ships or stations at the location can be attacked via boarding combat.

If you capture an orbital habitat, what does that do to the portion of the population that depends on it?

Minerals can be delivered to the DSP and collected from it, as it assumed these are stored as free-floating resources.

This feels a little odd, I think the main thing is it feels discordant with the prohibition of storing fuel, ordnance, and MSP. While it seems possible for raw minerals to be kept in blocks floating freely in space, they ought to be in orbit of the star. It also implies that exposure to vacuum or solar radiation doesn't cause the materials to degrade in some way. I'd also be concerned about organization, access, and handling in the absence of any infrastructure.
The current rules make things simple, and that's probably for the best, but if you changed it so that minerals need to be stored on a ship/station with cargo space I think that would be entirely justifiable.

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP

How can you build a habitat at the DSP if you can't have construction factories and a spaceport at the DSP?

Deep Space Populations do not orbit any stars. They remain in their original position.

Various comments regarding cryo storage for habitats

1 orbital habitat contains 200k people and takes 500kT of space at a cost of 200 BP
20 cryo transports contain 200k people and only takes 50kT of space at a cost of 1000 BP
I'd be more worried about the cost of adding cyro storage to a habitat than the size.

[skoormit]

Orbital habitats can be built at, or towed to, the DSP

How can you build a habitat at the DSP if you can't have construction factories and a spaceport at the DSP?

You can build them with a shipyard.
You can have shipyards at a DSP.

[Vivalas]

Various comments regarding cryo storage for habitats

1 orbital habitat contains 200k people and takes 500kT of space at a cost of 200 BP
20 cryo transports contain 200k people and only takes 50kT of space at a cost of 1000 BP
I'd be more worried about the cost of adding cyro storage to a habitat than the size.

I see, so the idea could work fairly decently with cryo storage. This raises a question, however, from the "everything is consistent" side of the game's design. What justifies that the cost of enabling mobile habitats is 5 times the capacity of such habitats? Cryo storage is far more compact than orbital hab space so you can argue the cost is the "cryo" part of the design, which keeps everyone happy as a sardine in a sardine can for their journey. For orbital habs we have that cost reduction worked into "we just need a box that holds air and cleans it every now and then". The cryo storage just exists here as a workaround. Sure you can handwave it as something like "for safety purposes in-case something bad happens while moving" but that seems a bit spurious.

More than happy to use the system as is, but I would propose with this change that orbital habitats get a secondary function of being able to store colonists like cargo. Then we fall back into this sort of dichotomy we've been creating lately (e.g., with repair bays and hangars existing simultaneously) where these two similar components have over-lapping roles but are specialized in different ways.

The main problem I can see with this idea is that colonist transport capacity becomes much cheaper to build BP-wise, but you end up paying much more in fuel, and you're tying up mainline industry now instead of shipyards. Enabling orbital habitat colonist storage would create these interesting strategic decisions, imo, while also tying up a large consistency issue I think habitats have had for a while.