Anybody else think planet sizes are out of whack?

[aapomeranz]

When you take a look at the planet size vs "building slots" (the number of structures you can build on that planet), does anybody think it could be a little better balanced? Right now, it seems like non-breathable planets are not really worth colonizing (unless you're ready to convert their atmospheres or need a refueling station)

Basically, on planets with breathable atmosphere, you get 5*size (tiny=1, huge=5). On non-breathables, you get 1*size.

Seems to me the game might be more interesting if it were:

size max breathable max domed
tiny 6 2
small 9 4
medium 15 6
large 18 8
huge 21 10

That way, there isn't such a dramatic different between breathable and non-breathable planets...

Just a random thought. Anybody wanna try it and see how it goes? (Personally, I find the 100 turn limit frustrating, so I'm not playing much till I get my preordered full Version)

Tarindel

[Comar]

I don't think so. To get the numbers you are looking at, a significant amount of the planetary surface would have to be domed. That just isn't that realistic.

As it is, it gives you drive to research techs to change the atmosphere. Or, if you are playing multi-player, a reason to share systems with other players.

The game will be out soon, and it is worth it.

[Psitticine]

I think they work fine the way they are. There's value to be had (usually as dedicated mining/farming/whatever colonies) even from the smallest non-breathable planets, and it makes those beautiful breathable ones all the more interesting to fight over!

[General Hawkwing]

The gap also drives expansion to more systems. You string your empire out to reach the breathable planets because unbreathable ones, while useful can not make you a super-power. Look at the neutral empires who colonized everything they can in their system but rarely(never) expand beyond it. They stay weak because they rarely have more than 2 planets that are breathable. Nonbreathable planets have value for specialized functions (resource generation, intel. or research centers, military/refueling Posts). They can also house your nonproduction facilities (spaceport,refuel,urban pacification,etc..) freeing up space on breathables to build the production booster facilities (robotic/computers).

[This message has been edited by General Hawkwing (edited 20 October 2000).]

[Baron Munchausen]

I have to agree that I like the large difference between breathable and non-breathable atmospheres. It gives an incentive to look very hard for your atmosphere type and to really struggle to get those planets. It also provides quite an incentive for capturing races that breathe another atmosphere. If anything, there ought to be a few more atmosphere types to make things even more interesting. Some of the SE3 types, like Argon were "unrealistic" but having six different atmospheres was nice. I've asked them to restore Chlorine as an atmosphere type. I hope they will.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 20 October 2000).]

[Taqwus]

Hmmm. In the context of the demo and my warlike playing style, location and sheer quantity seem far, far more important than quality.

Basically I try to grow QUICKLY, the more worlds of any type, the better. I'll overrule the minister at times to colonize in specific systems in order to increase the effective range of my fleets, or to colonize multiple planets in a frontier system at once -- the latter is useful if they will have shipyards, since a fleet can be split up for refitting to decrease total time needed for repair work afterwards.

The demo's not long enough to really max out all my worlds or population -- at one extreme, I had 236 planets by 2407.1 or so, and only ~60 billion people,and that's with +20% pop growth (admittedly, Organic could boost this up a LOT methinks -- think 'replicant center'). Many of the newer worlds still had large build queues remaining.

IIRC, you get more production total from splitting your population into many worlds and building more facilities, than by waiting to max out a planet -- top pop bonus is something like +80% methinks, while with more worlds you can build more facilities in parallel. More planets of any kind also means more potential shipyards, which means more production of colony ships per turn. In the game aforementioned above, I still had something like 50 colony ships heading off to new worlds when the Last enemy surrendered, and more being built... That's not as feasible if you concentrate solely on building a smaller number of high-pop worlds unless you go with a large number of possibly costly shipyard bases, because you also have to be building a war fleet at the same time...



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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[aapomeranz]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

I too, would support having one more type of atmosphere (eg. Chlorine, Argon) as 3 seems just a tad too few...

[wingte]

Well, I have two problems here.

First, population growth is either unrealistly slow,, or max planatary population allowed is way too large. I regularly use organic and the medlabs and gestation vats and replicant centers are helpful,, but,, it still takes a long long time to get enough population on a remote planet to be able to use it to build colony ships without risking completly depleting its population. This could be helped by being able to build a couple large transports and setting them to continuously replenish a single planet.

Second,, the colonization minister is a klutz. I would like to be able to set it to colonize "special" planets first. Then largest planet with breathable atmosphere. Then when no breathhable atmosphere it should colonize largest planet.

Right now it seems weighted to immediately send the next availabe colony ship of any type to any system where I don't have a colony yet. Then it appears to look at resourse production and try to colonise the planet with the highest resourse value in my current lowest production area.

This often results in colonizing a tiny non-breath planet and passing up a hugh breathable planet. I also have noticed that planets with specials are almost never resourse rich so they are way way down the Ministers list.

I would prefer to have to manually overide to balance resourse production because I have a continuous running display of it during the game and I can get a lot more resourses out of a 25 facility 102 99 120 planet than I can out of a single facility 150 150 150 planet.

[General Hawkwing]

quote:

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Originally posted by aapomeranz:
Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

I too, would support having one more type of atmosphere (eg. Chlorine, Argon) as 3 seems just a tad too few...

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No offense but there are more than 3 types of atmospheres: Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen, Methane, None, and Oxygen. Did I miss one? I agree that more atmosphere types would add to variety of the game but would it add to the play? Having a better balance between the empires (1 game all but 2 had the same atmosphere as me, next only 1 did) would ensure a more confrontational game.

Wingte,
I know its only a matter of play style but I don't use the ministers at all. I then don't have the problems you have with population distribution and colonization. My current game has a black hole system as 1 of my home system's 2 neighboring systems. To shuttle population to my new colony (which the colony minister would not have established)across the BH system a population minister would have chosen to travel through 8-10 systems (3 claimed by unfriendly empires) to reach the new colony. By taking care of all the details myself, I can have the transport skip across the BH system and drop the population in no time. I