Proportions 2.5.2 mini-patch feature preview

[PvK]

Speak now or upgrade your organic shipyards.

These are the few features I am thinking of posting as Proportions 2.5.2. The Last four are a set designed to restrict the exploitation of space yard ships to avoid the difficulty of moving colony ships long distances. However, I am thinking some players in existing games (especially those using Organic technology) would prefer that I not do this until the next major Version (3.0) because it would mean that they would need to upgrade their existing base space yards in order to be able to use them to build organic ships effectively. Just say so and I'll put these off until 3.0.

Version 2.5.2:

* Added restriction on remote miner components per unit to two, halved
structure, and doubled size of ship/base Versions. This prevents
massively productive mining bases, which were possible before but
were unintentionally overproductive. It also presents interesting
choices between ship, base and satellite miner designs. Pre-existing
bases in upgraded games will retain their former abilities (except
structure).
* Fixed crippling Sergetti design bug - thanks to Oleg again!

Unless someone in an existing game objects:
===========================================
* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.
* Added base spaceyards with higher organic construction rates, but
these have organics costs.
* Added Organic Space Yard under Organic Manipulation tech tree, with
higher organic build rate than is available under ordinary tech tree.
* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 5300. This
doesn't change their construction rate except on the new ship-based
spaceyards. This makes it impractical to use space-yard ships to
build colony ships at or near their destinations, instead of having
to send colony ships long distances under their own power.

PvK

[PvK]

Oh, there is another option, too, which is to implement the shipyard changes, but make it so that existing ships and bases in old upgraded games retain their abilities, as I am doing for the remote mining components.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

Wouldn't the change make organic races more powerful, since they could still build colony ships on-site but no one else could?

Phoenix-D

[PvK]

The Organic Space Yard is a base-only component that requires organics to build, so it takes 2-3 years to build with a space yard ship. It's just a somewhat improved Version of the base space yards available to non-organic races. It is a minor compensating advantage, because the other changes are a net disadvantage to organic races, which suddenly can't effectively build their weapons and armor techs with space yard ships.

PvK

[oleg]

Good changes, but it can probably wait till next major Version: it will create confusion in existing games and in new games one can make a gentlemen agreement not to exploit space yard feature. BTW, forthcoming SE patch removes double tech by analizing carriers, so may be you should now dump "carrier ships" technology ?

[PvK]

Ya, I was thinking it might cause confusion or aggravation for some, so perhaps you're right. As for the carrier ship tech, since the next patch fixes the double-analysis bug, I might not have put it in, but now that I have, it'd be odd to remove it, also since some PBW games have been playing with it. Also, it seems to me to make sense - fighters and 800kT carrier ships are different sorts of technologies.

PvK

[dogscoff]

Hey PvK, I had a cool idea for proportions the other night, although I don't know how much work it would involve:

How about adding a "Hive community" racial trait for insectoid races? Races which choose this (The Xi-Chung and Taera for example) would get access to a set of cities which are slightly cheaper (hence quicker to build) than the regular "colonial development" ones. Maybe they could have enhanced organics output, too.

If there are none in the image mod already I'm sure someone could come up with some really cool looking "insect-hive city" pics. If it could be made so that their homeworlds were full of giant hives (equivalent to cultural centres), that would look so classy when you conquered them

Whaddya think?

[dogscoff]

Oh, I had another idea, too.

Say I have a homeworld with 4000 million ppl on it. If I send off a coloniser with 1 million ppl aboard, I am left with just 3999m and I lose my production & construction bonuses until the next population growth, which could be 10 turns away.

This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod.

Why not just move the 4000million bonus barrier down to 3990million or something like that? It would help balance the advanced storage trait and make it alot easier for the rest of us to balance our economies.

Or is this a stupid idea?

[Phoenix-D]

Nice idea, better solution would be to make an even population curve.

But:
"This gives races with advanced storage techniques (or whatever it's called) a major advantage, as you have already acknowledged in the mod."

Actually I think the real deal here is Advanced Storage Techniques races start with *more cultural centers*.

Phoenix-D

[Fyron]

* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.
* Added base spaceyards with higher organic construction rates, but these have organics costs.
* Added Organic Space Yard under Organic Manipulation tech tree, with higher organic build rate than is available under ordinary tech tree.
* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 5300. This doesn't change their construction rate except on the new ship-based
spaceyards. This makes it impractical to use space-yard ships to build colony ships at or near their destinations, instead of having to send colony ships long distances under their own power.

Can you say "retrofit"? What is to stop me from building a normal BSY on site, then retrofitting it to a BSY with high organics rate, and building the colony ship there?