Would anyone be interested in more planet development?

SunDevil · #1 February 6th, 2001, 11:39 PM

Is there anyone else who wants more to build, and have more choices on what to have on your planet. There a lot of facilities that could be added to this game.

There a couple of things to do:

1.Double all the planets facilites/storage capacities.
Huge 25->50
Large 20->40.....

2. Work with what the game gives you in regards to abilities for facilites.

Power Station: Increase production/and ??
but decreases conditions 2% each year.

Housing: Increases happiness/prevent plagues

Police/Intelligence burrow: Calms riots, increases happiness to a certain level, and increases the chance of intelligence attacks against population failing

Transportation facilites: Some kind of transportation facility that might increase production, and/or make happiness.

Survey/Weather Center: Guard against/early warning of natural disasters.

These are just a few that can be added as of right now based on the abilities.txt file in the data folder.

Also because of these added facilities, there can now be more diverse and extensive researching projects as well.

Would anyone be interested in creating some of the graphic files? I'm not much of an artist.

Let me know what you think? Thanks

Tampa_Gamer · #2 February 7th, 2001, 12:14 AM

SunDevil - I am interested. I am actually keeping a list of several mods I want to do once I get the AI a bit more challenging. In the early days, I put out my Mod 1.0 which had an additional area of research called Planetary Defense which in turn had 3 different types of facilities with 5 levels each including normal planetary shield generators, defense bunkers and a defense satellite network. Some of the abilities worked, some didn't (that is when I discovered that not all abilities are utilizable by facilities and components). The one caveat is that until the next patch, I really don't want to change the AI files (other than the Darlok) to utilize all of these facilities, but we can still come up with a list, start experimenting with ability uses, playtesting and creating the graphics. Anyway, I would be interested in assisting with a "Facilities" mod pack, but again (as you know) I am by no means an artist.

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 06 February 2001).]

SunDevil · #3 February 7th, 2001, 12:38 AM

Tampa_Gamer:

1. Do you feel that research projects and topics are a little dumbed down. Example,
when you research new engines, or storage techniques/material, I would like to able to actually discover the new material first, then be able to incorporate it into other research projects to get better engines, storage facilities. I guess more like Civ II where research topics relied and were connected to one another. What are your thoughts?

2. Do you know if it is possible for MM to ever make an update to the Abilities.txt file to have the option of adding more abilites?

3. We might as well start making a list of facilities and/or options/abilities to create.

Power Station: Increase production/and ??
but decreases conditions 2% each year.

Housing: Increases happiness/prevent plagues

Police/Intelligence burrow: Calms riots, increases happiness to a certain level, and increases the chance of intelligence attacks against population failing

Transportation facilites: Some kind of transportation facility that might increase production, and/or make happiness.

Survey/Weather Center: Guard against/early warning of natural disasters.

**New Ones**

Military Barracks: Increases the defense of a planet against ground attack/also makes the population stronger/more difficult to kill.

Communications Center: Would prevent intelligence attacks that involve communication sabotage. Example:Mimic

Schools/Library: Increase research output.

JSnider · #4 February 7th, 2001, 01:20 AM

Be interested in this area .. haven't not done art for over 5 years, but willing to attempt if can't find pro to help. pers more into creating mods to keep research tree going, i hate to run out of things to R&D ... really upsets me, so been adding things on wpns side now and then was gonna approach bldgs. must state upfront my biz keeps me traveling a lot right now so i would not be able to assist in reliable manner.

jsnider

E. Albright · #5 February 7th, 2001, 02:00 AM

quote:
Originally posted by SunDevil:
Military Barracks: Increases the defense of a planet against ground attack/also makes the population stronger/more difficult to kill.

Civil Defense Network?

Tenryu · #6 February 7th, 2001, 03:00 AM

How about an ability that allows you to have more facility space?

Sub-surface industrial complexes!
Orbital Facilities!
Nomadic cities in space !

Rev-Up your Spin-dizzies!

Drool drool. I want it NOW! LOL!

Talenn · #7 February 7th, 2001, 03:12 AM

Many good ideas but one thing I would not want to see is a return to the late game colony management nightmares that was MOO2. Bleh!

I just have nightmares of being late in the game and then finally researching the 'Uber-Gadgetron 900' and then having to go through each and every world and add one to its queue. 10 Turns later, I get the 'Ultra Gadgetron XL' and its the same headache on every colony. Many games I just stopped researching this stuff cuz it was just too much management to keep ahead of it all.

One thing that really appeals in SE4 is the minimal amount of colony management required beyond the initial queuing. Sure, later on there are some new facilities but not every planet needs/wants them. Better models of current facilities are neatly handled by the 'upgrade' command.

So, I guess its all a question of what you are trying to get from the game. Personally, I like the 'big picture' approach already taken with minimal amounts of Colony management and planning/updating of the same. This is not to say that I wouldnt like to see added options, but I would like them to be just that...options...not more things that you are required to do just to 'keep up with the Joneses'.

Talenn

SunDevil · #8 February 7th, 2001, 03:20 AM

Talenn,

You've made a good point, I'll try to make a lot of stuff at base level. In other words the first Version would be available either at the start of the game or within the intial or second round of the research project. This way it would just take the update button to get the new/improved Version if there is one. You can only have so many improvements of housing facilities.

Jason2 · #9 February 7th, 2001, 04:06 AM

I would be worried that this game will bog down in tedious micro-management. It already requires a *high* level of management - any more is questionable.... If it is just a matter of new facilities that improve, I would be open to it. If it meant planets would *have* to have these new facilities, I would not... The problem with Civ and Alpha Centauri is they require so much building that that is 90% of the game... I like the fact that this game seems nicely balanced between a building/management sim and warfare/combat.

Just my 2 cents

Jason2

LintMan · #10 February 7th, 2001, 03:49 PM

I'd like to see some more interesting facilities become available (ie: defense, prod boost, etc), but the AI would need to be able take advantage of them for it to be fair.

I also agree with Jason2 about the new facils not being requirements. One of the first things I appreciated about SEIV was that you didn't to deal with the have the whole "population appeasement" factor that CIV, SMAC, and so many other 4X games have, where you need to continually build "holo-theaters", etc just to keep your cities from rioting, because they are always on the edge of doing so - you can never keep them happy enough. Blah. Then in SMAC, they did the same thing with polution control as well as happiness - urk.