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Home » news » forums » Support & Feedback » Scenarios & Mods » SE:V MODs

GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Fri, 2007-11-23 18:58. SE:V MODs

I am considering drasticly changing how planets are developed under my mod (and only under my mod, this probably isn't appropriate for the stock game).

In a nutshell, planets would have reduced population, facility, and cargo space than they currently have now.

Players (and the AI) would build facilities, each increasing a planet's facility, population, and cargo space (depending on the facility type). We already have one for increasing cargo space in the stock game. There would be possibly one or two new tech areas to cover the new facilities.

The question is: Is this something the player community is interested in, or would this just over-complicate my mod? I'm interested in doing this (and it wouldn't be that hard to implement), but I am unsure whether it is something people other than me would like to play.

‹ Balance Mod v1.11 Available! Editing script files? ›
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Captain Kwok's picture
Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Captain Kwok on Fri, 2007-11-23 20:26.

Facilities that add facility space can lead to an infinite amount of space... Sticking out tongue

A good approach is making a good set of population modifiers and allowing facilities to increase the population amount.


Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Fri, 2007-11-23 20:52.

Yeah, I was worried about the whole "infinite capacity" thing.

I was considering a cap on the number of such facilities per planet (like 5, or something) in order to prevent runaway problems.

I've got a good set of population modifiers (despite having to create a spreadsheet to spew the data out in a form I can copy and paste in to the Settings.txt file...grrr...).

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Psieye's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Psieye on Sat, 2007-11-24 05:27.

Me, I'd certainly be interested in a "increase population limit" facility (assuming it can be done {Edit: Oh I see, it can be done}). I'm not sure of an "increase facility space" facility though. Neat idea but... not quite so appealing.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Blubel on Sat, 2007-11-24 06:02.

You could also try to increase the cost of the facilities, so that the first on a planet costs x and the second 2*x....
Therefore it could become an interesting question, if you will build a 3. facility or not. But I'm not sure if this can be modded.

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Henk Brouwer's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Henk Brouwer on Sat, 2007-11-24 06:06.

I certainly like the idea of added facility and population space, the facilities that provide this should be relatively expensive to build though, since we 're probably talking about changing large parts of the planet to make them habitable. The coolest way to do this would be by terraforming the planet, similar to the way atmosphere conversion works, only changing the atmosphere or planet to something better than just breathable. I guess that would be impossible though, but there are other possibilities ofcourse, one example would be subterranean infrastructure: This 'facility' would make it possible to build other facilities underground, (or in deeper layers on gas giants)

extra facility space is certainly a neat idea, but since this will add lots of extra facilities to the game, later game components should probably be made a bit more expensive, to compensate for the effect.

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sat, 2007-11-24 13:40.

Blubel wrote:
You could also try to increase the cost of the facilities, so that the first on a planet costs x and the second 2*x.... Therefore it could become an interesting question, if you will build a 3. facility or not. But I'm not sure if this can be modded.

Interesting idea....very interesting...

I think this is an example of how to do that:

Name                                            := Infrastructure
...
Cost Minerals Formula                           := (1500 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 50)) * (Get_Planet_Specific_Facility_Count("Infrastructure") + 1)
...

The cost per facility would be recalculated for already placed facilities as well, which means that upkeep on each one would go up. Technically, the upkeep on the first facility would be 20% (double the normal 10%) in the above example.

Actually, I kind of like the sound of that.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Henk Brouwer's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Henk Brouwer on Sat, 2007-11-24 14:13.

I can imagine that this would lead to long calculations on whether it is a good idea to build such a facility or not, while the flexibility of the system is nice, it would lead to a little bit too much micromanaging for my tastes. I'd rather have a coded limit of 1 or a few of such facilities on a planet.

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sat, 2007-11-24 14:35.

Well, there would have to be a hard limit anyways. As Kwok said, if there is no limit, you can run in to infinite planet space issues. I am not opposed to a limit of one (or even to just tossing the idea).

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Henk Brouwer's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Henk Brouwer on Sat, 2007-11-24 14:41.

No don't toss it! I really like the idea, improving your colonies is one of the things that I really liked about masters of orion 2, and really missed in the SE series so far.

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Tilarium on Sat, 2007-11-24 15:08.

This was something I was thinking about modding into my version of the balance mod. Reducing the storage capcity and making it so you needed to build cargo facilities to hold any decent amount. Also reducing the population capcity and requireing you to build housing facilities to hold more. I thought of it when I was changing the structure size of some of the buildings.

Kyle

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sat, 2007-11-24 15:26.

Tilarium wrote:
This was something I was thinking about modding into my version of the balance mod. Reducing the storage capcity and making it so you needed to build cargo facilities to hold any decent amount. Also reducing the population capcity and requireing you to build housing facilities to hold more. I thought of it when I was changing the structure size of some of the buildings.

Kyle

I get the feeling that many of us are thinking the same thing: That the planet development aspect of SE is sort of lacking.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Psieye's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Psieye on Sat, 2007-11-24 16:01.

Yeah I'd been thinking of a "improve colonies globally by new research areas" as an alternative. That and there are some aspects of the game I don't think are strictly necessary - like upgrading facilities or life support (as opposed to having them naturally get better as you research).

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Tilarium on Sat, 2007-11-24 16:09.

Hmmm... that's a nifty idea. You can set it so when the research is done it automatically imrpoves certain facilities? That's a really good idea!

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sat, 2007-11-24 16:17.

Just use Get_Empire_Tech_Level in the ability formula. All of those "Get" functions return a number (if they work in the file in question). Some of the "Get" functions don't work in certain files (like Get_Vehicle_Size_Tonnage does not work in Components.txt).

This could be used (with some clever math) to create a tech tree for miniaturization of components, for example (just have the amount of miniaturization scale based on the tech level of the component, so you don't throw balance all to poopie).

Anyways, I digress.

The tech system is interesting. I think I'll stick with the old-fassioned facility upgrade system in my mod, but I am intersted to see how it works out in yours.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Psieye's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Psieye on Sat, 2007-11-24 18:47.

Ahahaha, you'll likely have to wait at least 2 years before I even start modding. All I've got right now are too many ideas and not enough time to even make a multiplayer-only (read: no AI) mod of it all.

As for miniaturisation - that's what mounts are for ('component enhancements' if we're to call them properly).

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sat, 2007-11-24 18:55.

I was just useing miniaturization as an example. At this point, I'm not interested in including such a thing in my mod.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by solanrix on Sat, 2007-11-24 22:40.

hhmm interesting... however my 1st thought was the same as most peoples regarding facilities that increase facility space, just be infinite spiral.
but what about facility space increasing with population, i.e small town growing to city to metropolis... therefore as u build facilities to increase polulation u naturaly gain space to build more factories and such.
of course each planet can only suport x amount of people so no infinite progresion problem and no arbirary limits.

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Sun, 2007-11-25 13:54.

Yeah, I think that would be ideal.

However...

I know of no way to dynamicly modify a planet's max structure capacity based on population levels. I don't think you can get there from here.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by solanrix on Mon, 2007-11-26 01:15.

so no possibility of a get_planet_population greater than.... some arbitrary number = +1000 facility space.
by now you have noticed i dont do formulas much, or at all. however is such a thing posible? not being a modder myself i dont know what specific new functions were added in recent patches.

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Mon, 2007-11-26 11:30.

I don't think Max Facility Space in PlanetSize.txt allows formulas in it. You could make a facility that controls the amount of facility space on a planet.

However, even if it accepts formulas, or you make such a facility, there is no formula function to get a planet's population, so there would be no population number to base the calculations off of.

You could make such calculations in the AI and event scripts. In that case, however, there is no system function to change how much facility space there is on a planet. So, even though you can calculate how much population there is, you have no way to change facility space.

So...we lack the tools to get there from here.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by solanrix on Tue, 2007-11-27 03:57.

ah that is sad. was thinking of gritty galaxy mod where all components required certain amounts of crew to function, gues cant do the same for facilities then? well thats the gist of what u said anyway i think.
gues you will just have to nag for modding tools like everyone else...

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Reiver's picture

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Reiver on Tue, 2007-12-11 18:25.

Saaaaaaaaaaay.

You're probably right in that you can't have population size modify things in the planet file increase. But can you make the population bonuses apply to a facility? A structure that granted additional facility space based on the population bonus it recieves could be one workaround. Maybe. I'm not sure if you can Get_population_size() anywhere, but.

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Mod Designer

Re: GidMod, future concept: Planet Development.

Submitted by Gideon on Wed, 2007-12-12 01:50.

Reiver wrote:
Saaaaaaaaaaay.

You're probably right in that you can't have population size modify things in the planet file increase. But can you make the population bonuses apply to a facility? A structure that granted additional facility space based on the population bonus it recieves could be one workaround. Maybe. I'm not sure if you can Get_population_size() anywhere, but.

Good thought, but...

Quote:
...there is no formula function to get a planet's population, so there would be no population number to base the calculations off of.

If there were a formula function to get the planet's population, then a facility workaround would be possible. As it currently is, there is no way to get a planet's current population from anything in the data directory. The scripting system can get a planet's current population, but it can't manipulate the total facility space on a planet from within the scripting language.

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

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