Space Colonization modmod

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I have removed your old version from the SVN. Should I put V3 on the SVN or are you fine with it the way it is?

 

[pepper2000]

That's a good question. I still consider it to be an extremely rough draft, but now that the synthetic colonies are moved away from Earth, there should be enough added value to the future eras without causing problems for people who don't want the space colonies. V4 is probably a long ways off, since I have big plans there and also limited time in the near future to execute them.

Have you made sure that it works? It worked on my system for a test game, but I'm not really satisfied until someone else confirms that it works.

I'd be happy to see my work be included in the SVN, if you and the other modders believe that doing so will be for the good of C2C. And if you do include it, feel free to make any changes you deem appropriate. Let me know so I can update my own files accordingly.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I only checked the pedia and tech tree and then only cursory as part of my testing of the changes I was doing. The next release is still away off so it could be added for people to test out. You are more likely to get comments that way. If it turns out to be a big problem then it is still a module and can be easily removed.

@TB & SO what do you think?

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm cool with that. The main concern I would have with adjustments to the tech tree late in the game would be throwing off the naval review that hasn't yet fully manifested. Otherwise, I'm good.

 

[Faustmouse]

This isn't yet in the main mod, is it?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

This isn't yet in the main mod, is it?

No it isn't. I was going to do a bit more testing but have been distracted of late.

 

[Faustmouse]

I'm in the middle of the modern era now, going for Rocketry now. It's a tiny map on snail speed with one deity AI. There is also space, deep space, martian andlunar terrain, and asteroids on this map and I made it purely to check out your stuff ingame. If you (or anyone else) is interested, I'm happ to upload my savegame so others can test it, too.

The biggest buzzkill isn't turn times, but - as you stated - building lists. I tried my best to build as many buildings as possible, but it's almost impossible. I was thinking of adding three buildings just for me:

1) Production Ban at Wildlife Preservation, that will replace ALL Factories that produce something (the one that gives the 50% would still be buildable), since at least I only have one major production city and in my other cities they only clutter up the list.

2) Zero Tolerance at Law Enforcement, that will replace all buildings that can spawn criminals, like the Assassins Den etc.

3) Metal Industry Ban at Smithing, that will replace all Smelters and Smith's except for the basic smith that gives the 15% .

These are buildings most of us won't miss in most of their cities and it will "clean it up" a bit. I was thinking of making a building that replaces all these "+1 and +1 " Sport Buildings; maybe "Lazyness" at Televisions

 

[pepper2000]

I agree; the build lists are really the biggest problem late in the game. It takes a long time just to open a city screen. Imagine how long it takes to go through 20 cities and get Bioinformatics Labs--which itself has a prereq chain--for each of them. I just put them on autobuild and hope the city governors figure it out.

You'll see that I put in a few consolidation buildings for food and production. That's a small sampling of what I would want to do, though I am hoping that others will take on the building consolidation task. Part of the problem is that build lists get so complicated in the Transhuman Era that it is difficult to untangle.

Keep in mind that I haven't gotten around yet to separating out cislunar, deep space, and interstellar buildings, so all of them are bunched up in "Space". That's a project for a future version, whenever that will be.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I'm in the middle of the modern era now, going for Rocketry now. It's a tiny map on snail speed with one deity AI. There is also space, deep space, martian andlunar terrain, and asteroids on this map and I made it purely to check out your stuff ingame. If you (or anyone else) is interested, I'm happ to upload my savegame so others can test it, too.

The biggest buzzkill isn't turn times, but - as you stated - building lists. I tried my best to build as many buildings as possible, but it's almost impossible. I was thinking of adding three buildings just for me:

1) Production Ban at Wildlife Preservation, that will replace ALL Factories that produce something (the one that gives the 50% would still be buildable), since at least I only have one major production city and in my other cities they only clutter up the list.

2) Zero Tolerance at Law Enforcement, that will replace all buildings that can spawn criminals, like the Assassins Den etc.

3) Metal Industry Ban at Smithing, that will replace all Smelters and Smith's except for the basic smith that gives the 15% .

These are buildings most of us won't miss in most of their cities and it will "clean it up" a bit. I was thinking of making a building that replaces all these "+1 and +1 " Sport Buildings; maybe "Lazyness" at Televisions

Interesting idea but I would think something similar at City Planning or similar might be a bit more immersive. Basically at City planning you can choose what type of city it will be and that would remove lines of buildings. If the choice is via a building then you don't have to choose any and you can choose whenever you like.

Just an expansion on your idea.

 

[Faustmouse]

Interesting idea but I would think something similar at City Planning or similar might be a bit more immersive. Basically at City planning you can choose what type of city it will be and that would remove lines of buildings. If the choice is via a building then you don't have to choose any and you can choose whenever you like.

Just an expansion on your idea.

Yeah, someone had a city specialization modmod that did that. Really good idea, imo. The main problem is that there are plenty buildings that don't fit in any category, like Sport buildings. A "Sport city" would be a strange specialization. Other buildings (banks, parks) can be found in every city. But they could be in every city and don't require a specialization.

A good idea I think.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I did not like the specialization modmod because it came too early and was forced on a city but that is probably where this discussion should be.

 

[Faustmouse]

I bumped the old city specialization thread.

Also, I attach my savegame here if someone is interested. You obviously need Pepper's modmod so you can test it

 

[Faustmouse]

I know that these were in the main mod and not your modmod, but I really like to see your stuff in the main mod anyways, so I might as well put space related things in here:

- Communication and Spy Satellites both require a Lat of max 60. That's just plain wrong. It doesn't matter where you launch them, they can still serve even the north pole. Not every orbit has to be equatorial.

- Communication Satellites require NASA or Commercial Spaceflight; the latter comes a lot further down the road. They should instead require a Launch Site; and ONE Launch Site in your empire should be enough.

- Apollo Program still is listed at Satellites. While you put Mercury and Gemini at Enviromental Systems (IIRC). I'd move Mercury to Satellites as the flights never were THAT long. Long term stays were first done during Gemini. And Apollo and Gemini pretty much were parallel programs, so they both could be at the Enviromental Systems.

- Sputnik is too expensive. Which is any an issue due a lack of production boosting buildings in the Modern era and beyond. Also, Sputnik (and Explorer?) could act like "First Cloned Mammal" in a way that one civ has to build it in order to build other satellite (and Program) stuff.

Can't wait to see what else you added

 

[pepper2000]

Thanks for the comments. I agree with the first three. It might be worth adding an "Effect - NASA" to make space launches easier. I might make a similar change with the later Modern space missions, since they all require a Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the city (should be sufficient to have a JPL in any city).

Regarding buildings costs, that's a tricky one. When I tested V3, I had used Thunderbrd's suggested building cost guidelines. I decided that was too much and changed all Earth buildings to 75% of guidelines and non-Earth buildings to 33.3% of guidelines, but didn't test that change. If you find Sputnik too expensive, you will probably find everything else too expensive. What multiplier do you think would be appropriate? Keep in mind that Fusion will give a huge production boost (too much, I think), and I put in a lot of other buildings that give more hammers.

To be honest, I dislike the world project mechanism (e.g. Apollo Program, First Cloned Mammal). I understand the purpose. There is a "first mover" phenomenon in that the first civilization to develop a major new technology, such as nuclear fission or satellites, has to work a lot harder. But our use of the mechanism is so selective as to be arbitrary. Why no world projects such as "Newcomen Steam Engine" or "Gutenberg Printing Press"? They can also needlessly slow progress. I typically don't get First Cloned Mammal built until a few columns into the Transhuman Era, by which time my build lists are falling behind because I haven't gotten any Stem Cell Labs up yet. So, until I see a better way to use the world project mechanism, I prefer to avoid it.

More suggestions are very welcome. My design philosophy is to dump a lot of content in quickly, then sort out all the details later. And there are tons of details yet to be worked out. I'm very grateful to have input and not guess all of it myself.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I know that these were in the main mod and not your modmod, but I really like to see your stuff in the main mod anyways, so I might as well put space related things in here:

- Communication and Spy Satellites both require a Lat of max 60. That's just plain wrong. It doesn't matter where you launch them, they can still serve even the north pole. Not every orbit has to be equatorial.

- Communication Satellites require NASA or Commercial Spaceflight; the latter comes a lot further down the road. They should instead require a Launch Site; and ONE Launch Site in your empire should be enough.

The reason for the latitude restriction is the cost of launching into equatorial orbit increases dramatically the further away from the equator you are and non-equatorial orbits are of less utility to a city building them.

Spy satellites are not so much a problem as a polar orbit gives you greater cover but it is intermittent over a particular bit of Earth.

Having something that enforces this limit early on is good but having it removed later would be more realistic in my opinion.

Similarly one launch site in a nation would be fine early on but it should be one per team later and there should be the possibility of a trade treaty at some point where you use another nation's facilities.

 

[pepper2000]

In real life, there is no single city that builds satellites. Components are manufactured all over the world, and the satellite itself might be manufactured far from the launch site. So the latitude restrictions might be a bit arbitrary. I can see it for spaceports, though.

On a gameplay level, restrictions might be useful simply for keeping the long build lists down.

 

[Faustmouse]

That's a good design strategy and I'm glad to help you

Regarding buildings costs, that's a tricky one. When I tested V3, I had used Thunderbrd's suggested building cost guidelines. I decided that was too much and changed all Earth buildings to 75% of guidelines and non-Earth buildings to 33.3% of guidelines, but didn't test that change. If you find Sputnik too expensive, you will probably find everything else too expensive. What multiplier do you think would be appropriate? Keep in mind that Fusion will give a huge production boost (too much, I think), and I put in a lot of other buildings that give more hammers.

You basically can't use the chart or off-world colonies. This chart is not the holy grail, it was made by trying to fit a curve through production capabilities of a city. It works very well up until the Modern era, but after that it struggles as there aren't many production boosting buildings (as I said). They really lack there.

For my lunar stuff, I abandoned it completely. Of course these cities can't keep up with your advanced cities on earth. So I had two options: Giving them HUGE production boosts so they can instantanously become as productive as earthen cities; or try to figure out my own curve for them due playtesting and adjusting. I did the latter.

Fusion IMO is also "broken" and way too strong. In civ it acts as the one and only form of energy and once you got one of your fusion power plants running, they immediatly overshadow every other powerplant.

The reason for the latitude restriction is the cost of launching into equatorial orbit increases dramatically the further away from the equator you are and non-equatorial orbits are of less utility to a city building them.

Sure it gets more expensive to launch something into an equatorial orbit the further north (or south) you go, but why does it have to be an equatorial orbit? The russians used an highly elliptical orbit so that their satellites stayed over russia most of the time and then got around the globe quickly. GPS is not completely in an equatorial orbit as well.

Similarly one launch site in a nation would be fine early on but it should be one per team later and there should be the possibility of a trade treaty at some point where you use another nation's facilities.

I also had the idea with Launch Contracts but that would be more advanced stuff and requires us to have normal launching stuff hammered out beforehand.

In real life, there is no single city that builds satellites. Components are manufactured all over the world, and the satellite itself might be manufactured far from the launch site. So the latitude restrictions might be a bit arbitrary. I can see it for spaceports, though.

True, Satellites are not built in only one city and also, they don't have to "serve" the city that built or launched them. You could build one in Australia, Launch it from Russia and let it serve Argentina.

I agree with the first three. It might be worth adding an "Effect - NASA" to make space launches easier. I might make a similar change with the later Modern space missions, since they all require a Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the city (should be sufficient to have a JPL in any city).

Why "Effect - NASA"? We have the option to have a prereq like "Requires 1 NASA in your Empire". I think I'd go for: NASA -> Launch-Site -> Satellites (reqiure 1 Launch Site in total).

Having something that enforces this limit early on is good but having it removed later would be more realistic in my opinion.

What I don't like here is that Communication Satellites are quite important as they enable lots of buildings later on (IIRC). You'd block them from all cities north of Stockholm, which they would truely disagree with

To be honest, I dislike the world project mechanism (e.g. Apollo Program, First Cloned Mammal). I understand the purpose. There is a "first mover" phenomenon in that the first civilization to develop a major new technology, such as nuclear fission or satellites, has to work a lot harder. But our use of the mechanism is so selective as to be arbitrary. Why no world projects such as "Newcomen Steam Engine" or "Gutenberg Printing Press"? They can also needlessly slow progress. I typically don't get First Cloned Mammal built until a few columns into the Transhuman Era, by which time my build lists are falling behind because I haven't gotten any Stem Cell Labs up yet. So, until I see a better way to use the world project mechanism, I prefer to avoid it.

Ok true. especially as they are mostly overpriced.

Oh, and previously you needed Apollo Program for Hubble Telescope and a Space Station.... Which was annoying, since the Apollo Program was only active when you selected Space Victory.

 

[pepper2000]

Why "Effect - NASA"? We have the option to have a prereq like "Requires 1 NASA in your Empire". I think I'd go for: NASA -> Launch-Site -> Satellites (reqiure 1 Launch Site in total).

In theory I think that's a good idea, but my understanding is that an additional launch site would be required for every satellite. Or is there a way to set that up so that a single launch site will allow any number of satellite launches, without resorting to an intermediate Effect building? I didn't think that was possible, but if it is, it makes some of my ideas a lot easier to implement.

You basically can't use the chart or off-world colonies. This chart is not the holy grail, it was made by trying to fit a curve through production capabilities of a city. It works very well up until the Modern era, but after that it struggles as there aren't many production boosting buildings (as I said). They really lack there.

I'm finding that is correct. I will lower costs some more for the next version, and no doubt it will require a lot of experimentation to get right. My guess is that Mars buildings also need to have their costs reduced.

 

[Faustmouse]

yes that is possible. For example, NASA needs 3 Military bases (on Tiny), and they don't necessarily needs to be in the city you build NASA in. If this number is reduced to 1, then it stays 1 no matter the map size. Anything above 1 will scale with map size.


What I did for lunar buildings in the end was setting the costs to a previously calculated number, then playing and see how long it would take. I wanted each building to take around 5 turns on marathon, with more key ones 10 turns. Then, if i saw a building took 7-8 turns to be built, I reduced it's costs by 50% etc.

 

[pepper2000]

That works well for buildings such as NASA that you only build once. But what I'm concerned about is a situation like with the Major League Stadium. It requires two Minor League Stadiums. But if you want 2 Majors, you need 4 Minors, and so on.

So, the way I think it would work is that one launch site allows you to build a communication satellite anywhere. But if you want to build a second comm. satellite, a second launch site somewhere else is needed. And what I think you intend is that a single launch site, anywhere, will allow an unlimited number of satellites throughout the empire.