Logistics/Freighter mod idea

[Urendi Maleldil]

I've come up with an idea for a new mod I'm working on that might make non-combat ships more valuable, but I want to run it by you guys before I start experimenting with it.

Right now the only way to destroy a person's economy is to start glassing planets. The mod I'm working on makes planets much more resistant to ship weapons, and I started thinking that it would be cool to somehow have a player's economy depend also on cargo ships.

It works like this:

• make everything a little more expensive. (not sure how much yet)
• increase cost (and build time) for resource storage facilities
• add resource storage ability to standard population transports (either on the transport hull itself, or on the Cargo Bay component)
• reduce transport hull maintenance costs dramatically

Increasing build costs should make resource storage more important, and having resource storage attached to population transports that cost next to nothing to maintain should encourage a player to build more.

Players will move them around from planet to planet because, if you've got transports anyway, why not use them to move population around and make your planets more efficient?

It also works with the AI because all you have to do is get them to build more population transports.

This might work well with something like the economy of scale mod, where ships can get really expensive. Want to screw up someone's economy? Destroy all their transports so they can't save up resources to build anything.

[Captain Kwok]

I don't think the resource storage ability works on components.

[Ed Kolis]

What if the transports simply produced resources? Or would that be too unbalancing?

[Urendi Maleldil]

Aww, nuts. I just tested it. Resource Storage doesn't work on ship hulls or components.

Oh well.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Maybe you could have space stations and huge ships produce the resources, to simulate hubs where freighters from all over the Empire deposit their goods for storage and further transport? Maybe have space stations with "remote mining" comps to simulate planetary production having to pass through that station. (Does Remote Resource Generation actually work on colonized planets?) Then you'd have to make sure that planets would become infrastructure hubs, with extensive space yard facilities (i.e. the Adamant Mod model), research, ship bonuses, resource/cargo storage etc. Logically speaking, it would make sense that a government lets private enterprises exploit the resources on their planets then take a portion as taxes, that way you'd have the resources without the hassle of having to take care of the workers. The larger part of government involvement in planet infrastructure would be either for the military or for organizational purposes (i.e. governmental institutions), and the rest would mostly be accounted for by government-funded research institutions. Hmmm.....

[Renegade 13]

Nope, the Remote Resource Generation ability does not work on colonized planets to the best of my knowledge. Only asteroids and uncolonized planets.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Ah well. Hafta make population resource bonuses higher then. Or find another way to simulate trade hubs besides Resource Generation From Nothingness.....

[Captain Kwok]

You can use the Generate Points abilities added in version 1.91, they will work on ships etc. However, the amounts generate will not appear anywhere although they will be added to the empire's total.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

That's what I meant with Resource Generation From Nothingness, but I don't really like that except for mobile platforms..... For orbital stations, I'd prefer to have the amount of resources generated dependent on the planet's value..... waitasec..... no, I've got an idea..... no, wait..... never mind. Ah well, I even confuse myself sometimes

[Suicide Junkie]

It works fairly well on planets, if you make it part of the theme...
In GritEcon, for example, your options for power production include geothermal, solar, and fusion plants. They depend on planet value, number of stars, and flat rate (using the new ability) respectively.