in worldbuilder, how does one go about PROPERLY adding a resource to a planet? it seems that i can add it to a star system, but not any specific planet. (and thus, can't build the appropriate building.)
You can't add it to a specific planet- the interface isn't that sophisticated. Adding a resource to a star system adds it to that star system's current building planet.
oh, and another thing i'm curious about, playing as red syndicate: where does the +1 each of food and hammers from trade routes come in? i built warp lanes between stars, and the trade routes show up in the "city screen" on the next turn, but it seems the hammer and food outputs remain unchanged. never played vanilla final frontier, so don't know if this was an issue there as well.
<TradeRouteYieldChanges>
<iCommerce>0</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>1</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>1</iCommerce>
</TradeRouteYieldChanges>
<TradeRouteYieldChanges>
<iCommerce>1</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>1</iCommerce>
<iCommerce>0</iCommerce>
</TradeRouteYieldChanges>
I have rarely, if ever, seen the pirates trash a warp lane that wasn't inside your cultural borders. I think it's because they use them to speed along in their efforts to rob and pillage you and stuff. Annoying when you're trying to extend to that resource patch, but I assume that's the point.
right, that's what i had assumed would be the case as well. but it doesn't seem to work. i've tried adding to unsettled and already-settled stars, with no luck on either. the resource shows up on the tile, but none of the planets say it "provides [so and so resource...] when i move my cursor over it, and the appropriate building never shows up as an option in the build menu, no matter which planet i choose to build on. i've tried with cotton, wine, grain, seafood, cattle, etc. still no luck.
SIDE NOTE: should the warp lanes at least be semi-visible even when not in line-of-sight (outside of influence/culture border)? just like roads in regular civ, it would help to at least know which cities i've already connected to my road network. of course, as with normal FOW, if a pirate/barb or enemy destroyed the road outside of my borders, the only way for me to know is if i sent a unit out there to see the change (or indirectly, if i notice a trade route is cut off).
Uh-oh. Looks like a bug (or two).
I just did a quick test as the Red Syndicate (world builder in a colony ship, some defenders, and some rapid construction ships into a new game, then founded a colony and connected it to the home system) and in both population 1 star systems with 1 trade route...
1) the extra food and production are not listed in the trade route yields in that part of the city screen (I don't think they ever were in regular FF, but they should be)
2) the 1 extra food is not being applied, all of the food can be accounted for as coming from the planet
3) I see one extra beyond what the one population on the planet is giving, so that is presumably coming from the trade route
So I check the CIV4TraitInfos.xml file for the definition of TRAIT_SYNDICATE nad it turns out that it has this:
which is not right, assuming standard ordering these ought to be food, production and commerce.Code:<TradeRouteYieldChanges> <iCommerce>0</iCommerce> <iCommerce>1</iCommerce> <iCommerce>1</iCommerce> </TradeRouteYieldChanges>
I changed these to be
and ran the last autosave. The results are a bit odd:Code:<TradeRouteYieldChanges> <iCommerce>1</iCommerce> <iCommerce>1</iCommerce> <iCommerce>0</iCommerce> </TradeRouteYieldChanges>
The systems do now have one more food than is provided by the planets, so this is fixed by this change.
The systems now have two more production than is provided by the planets, rather than 1 like they were (correctly) getting before.
(I hadn't noticed if they were getting extra commerce before - I would guess that they were, but I don't know if it was 1 per trade route.)
Then I ran a few more turns so that one of the systems grew to 2 population and the result was the same: 1 extra food, 2 extra production. A couple turns later the other went to 2 population with the same result.
By the way, it seems to me that these tags should be iYield rather than iCommerce.
I don't see any reason why routes should be visible when they're outside of your territory, since they wouldn't be visible this way in regular civ. Also, there's no easy way to implement it, as the game does not keep track of who built which route.
My feeling about this is similar to that of the original FF - that it's engrossing and fun enough for you to suspend disbelief with inherent problems of playing a space-based game on the Civ interface. The updates are well-done and add a lot of depth. Wormholes are especially cool. Still, though, it seems like there are some AI problems that, if fixed, could make it even better. For one, I have never (in either original FF or FF Plus) seen the AI build carriers! Most of the wars I fight have involved the AI sending stacks of destroyers and battleships with little or no fighter cover, where it's just a matter of whittling them down with bombers from carriers. Anyone else notice this?
Would changing the terrain to "water" distort so many things?