Multiple planets per system

from Stardock Forums
I know I am just dreaming at this point.
What we see is almost all we will get.

I expect some things will be added such as morality good vers evil technology, Some graphics and animations, some tweaks and lots of bug fixes such as picking Federation does not give you and production boost.

But two thing bother me.

First you should be colonize and keep planets that are not habitible.

1)Ore rich planets can be used to mine metals
2)Gas giants can be used for hydrogen
3)All planets can be used for military staging
4)All planets can be used for science
5)Some planets can be used as listening outposts.

You should be able to create a starbase which becomes
the habitation modules on these planets.

The populartio nof course on a non habitible planet will alway be low they would have high morality.

Second multiple planets in a system should not be tied to each other. One planet should be able to be colonized by you the others by any alien race that wants it.

For example to tie everything together take our solar system as an example.

By rule 1 something in the future all the planets in our system are being used.
Mercury for mining and solar power.
Venus is being mined for Co2 and being teraforumed.
Mars being mined for Iron and Teraforumed.
The gas giants are be used for science and harvisting hydrogen.
The outplanets Pluto are being used as listening outpost, miltary staging for the system.

by rule 2
Now a Alien race comes by.
They may be evil and want to solar system and billions of human slaves buy why would they need to take the whole system at once. They may take over Pluto and build thier own staging area to take over all the inner planets.

Or for example we may have a Alien Ally and the required a gas giant if we have no outpost at neptune they may harvest the gas they require at Saturn.

I do not know having colonization on non habitable planets makes sense to me, and allowing more than one race per system also makes sense.

Maybe in GC2 or maybe my ideas are too much like MOO.



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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Having multiple civs sharing starsystems would change how the fleets are working, and it may be a radical change. I like it as it is now. But I have a question : is influence calculated by colony or by starsystem ?

On the other hand, I'd like to have more specialized colonies, not only for populating... Perhaps by increasing the role of starbase ? I have not used them much so far, I may have missed something, but could play the role of scientific outposts, mining outpost, etc. But they are damn expensive. Do you think they have a good return on investment ?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Could be a good compromise.

It would be less radical if when you colonize a system you can mark the system as a mining system, military outpost etc..

Right now the starbase is only used to extend range. I usually can work without them. There are plans for starbase I think they will do more in the next Beta, it would be cool if you can drop a starbase on a inhabitable system.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Could be a good compromise.

It would be less radical if when you colonize a system you can mark the system as a mining system, military outpost etc..

Right now the starbase is only used to extend range. I usually can work without them. There are plans for starbase I think they will do more in the next Beta, it would be cool if you can drop a starbase on a inhabitable system.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Read slowly:
In the OS/2 version, the unused planets in a colonized system were resources on the detail page of the colonized planets. You could tweek military, social or research for each planet. The more unused resources, the more available for tweeking. If there are 4 uncolonized class 10 planets, you get combined total of 40 points. Maybe stardock could post an old gif showing this.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I personally think that these ideas don't add to the fun... You have to think that all the aliens and you want to WIN because this is a GAME. Sharing systems was on of the things I DIDN'T like about MOO2. There is a point in any game where some things that would work in "real life" and "make sense" arn't fun. I really like the boardgame feel GalCiv is going for and while I do like having allies, I wouldn't want said allies decreasing my production by sharing systems with them...
And as for specifying what kind of colony you have, well, that just adds complication where you don't need it I feel...
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I actually really like Technician's ideas.

Wyrenn, complication is generally bad when it comes to UI design but I don't see how it could be bad for something that adds depth and strategy to a game..
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Hehe, I guess for those people wanting more depth should play MOO3 whilst those that want it simple should play GalCiv. (no offense)
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
'First you should be colonize and keep planets that are not habitible'

'Uninhabitable' planets already are colonizable. I've dropped colonies on class 1s before, and it's possible to get class 0s now. You're not going to get much out of them because either population or morale is going to be disasterously low (or most likely, both. 1M pop. on a class 1 only has a morale of about 50%).

Low pop. == low production. Low morale == low production (and rebellion, once beta 3 is out).
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Arturus Magi,

I am not ever going to drop a colony on a planet weaker that say 10 but why could you just not use the same device that creates starbases on a planet rated 1 ?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
But why would you build a Starbase on a class 1 when you can build them anywhere?
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
"What we see is almost all we will get."

Not true. Unlike most gaming companies, we will be making significant updates to the game after release, and I don't mean just bug fixes.

I read a book once called "Game Design: Secret of the Sages" or something like that and one of the developers intereviewed was quoted as saying "You never really finish a game. You just quit working on it." That is very true, for any game. There is always "just one more" thing that you'd like to see in your game. But you have to release it eventually so that you can pay your bills. :) So we'll release the game on time, but all registered users will be able to download updates, new ships, and other cool stuff.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
'I am not ever going to drop a colony on a planet weaker that say 10 but why could you just not use the same device that creates starbases on a planet rated 1 ?'

I'll agree, it's not the kind of thing you want to do often.

Remote mining, which is what you seem to be suggesting, is something entirely different from colonization, and even if it wasn't, you claimed that 'uninhabitable' planets weren't colonizable, which isn't the case. It's just a very bad idea unless you have things planned out well in advance.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
you might be able to research a mining ship that specificly builds a mining colony. It might be that its run by nanobots which would remove the whole morale thing.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree it would have to be planned.

Remote mining could be very neat.

I envision dropping a device on a planet which normally does not support life.

Now there is a population on the mining outpost and its morality is tied into the trade routes it has open to the rest of your space. Create a freighter on a Habitable Planet. Establish a route between your mining outpost and this planet. The incoming freighter brings supplies and cash to the miners, the out going freighter brings raw materials back to the planet which created to route.

If you play evil,

A mining outpost could fit well in invasion plans. You could possible build a miltary outpost on a System under the cover of the mining station.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
The suggestion of specialised colony ships at higher tech levels is interesting. It may also add some extra playability at mid to late game stage. Perhaps the following options:

Mining colony ship: Builds a Mine on the world it is sent to. No population increase, no moral. Generates income or production. Perhaps it could create a free freighter from the mined world to your capital world (hence giving income). The value of the production/freighter depends on the planet being mined.

Research colony: Uses the planet for research purposes. No population, no moral. Add X research points, depending on the planet.

Military colony: Creates a defense outpost. No population, no moral. Adds X% to the defense of any ships in the system.

Terraforming colony: Each colony ship increases quality of uninhabited a low quality planet by a value of 1 (up to the maximum value of X (14 maybe)).

Obviously any of these colonies would be destroyable from orbit for an enemy ship.

Paul.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
All these specialized colony ships seem to basically imitate what a Spacestation can already do...
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Except for one thing the future edition of a Spacestation may do some of these things but not use starsystems which are unused.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Spacestations currently effect every planet in every system in the sector. This can be a huge bonus.
Specialised colony ships would only effect a single planet and give a very specific resource (economic / research / military).

Paul.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Colonizing planets helps to increase your tax base, so there is value to be gained by these ships. If you can colonize a class 0 planet and terraform it into a class 10 planet at the time of colonization (giving it a potential class 17 with the social projects) and a star base has modules that increase the income from the planets in that sector you improve your tax base even more.