Empire colonizing my station's planet

[MartialDoctor]

I'm not sure if this is a bug but it should not be possible. Another empire has come in and established a colony on a planet where I had mining base, thus taking the planet from me.

If it's a bug, let me know and I'll submit a save. Even if it's not, please resolve this issue as it's absolutely ridiculous... [:'(]

[Erik Rutins]

That's by design, as long as the system was not in your sphere of influence, such that you did not control it. However, it should be a diplomatic hit to do that. Colonization is seen as the ultimate claim to a planet. Mining is a lesser claim and usually a smaller operation than a full colony.

Regards,

- Erik

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

That's by design, as long as the system was not in your sphere of influence, such that you did not control it. However, it should be a diplomatic hit to do that. Colonization is seen as the ultimate claim to a planet. Mining is a lesser claim and usually a smaller operation than a full colony.

Regards,

- Erik

What do you mean by diplomatic hit? I see no reputation damage to the offending empire.

If I have a mining station set up, I obviously have claimed the planet and have people living and working there. If they come to colonize this same planet then they have, obviously, forced those people off of the planet against their will.

IMO, this should be seen as a very hostile act and similar to invading a planet when not at war. I see no difference between the two. Is it perceived thusly by the AI and by the game (in terms of reputation hit) or is it not as drastic?

[Simulation01]

I have railed against this before....alas my plea's fell on deaf ears.


It should at least be considered an act of war and so when it happens the two empires are immediately at war and the empire that setup the colony should take the reputation hit as well.

[Wicky]

So you're complaining that you left a towel on the sun lounger on the beach, and next morning you come there to see it's already occupied? Heh, reality hits you hard

[Nedrear]

It is a diplomatic offense... as if you make an excavation in the arctic and a russian science team decides to pack a research station right there. Obviously it is NOT an act of war, but it is a diplomatic "challenge". Either you consider going to war and prove them wrong or you take it and risk them acting against you a second time. It is clearly a wanted action. Maybe you are playing on higher difficulty and are not in a nice relation with them. I did this with the greedy ancient guardians a lot which took the good worlds for ressoruce extraction...

[Cauldyth]

I think if the presence of a simple mining station were sufficient to give you full claim to a planet, that would make it far too easy to just spam every decent planet within half the galaxy with mining stations, regardless of whether or not you could colonize them any time soon. Your opponents would then have to go to war to get them away from you.

It seems to me that the current mechanic, while a little goofy, is the least goofy option.

[Bingeling]

I agree. Claiming system by mining station is not good design. So putting bases outside your sphere of influence got a risk now. It used to be very annoying when the AI colonized your main mining systems around your capital and had the guts to complain about bases in their system

[MartialDoctor]

Well, let's take a couple of analogies.

I am an explorer in a new land and I find an oil well.  I build an oil well and bring laborers there to get this oil.  All of a sudden, person B comes along and says, I'm going to live here now.  You must all leave immediately.  If you don't leave immediately, I will force you off the land (and person B has a gun).

Or, you could do the same sort of analogy with the above scenario with empires.  Empire A has a series of oil wells, or what have you, in said territory.  Empire B then comes and says, this place is now mine, we're going to live here.  Leave immediately or we'll force you off.

Obviously, it can be done.  But this would seriously offend the person / empire and should be perceived as such.  Also, it should hurt one's reputation as this is definitely a disreputable action.  I just want to know if it's perceived this way in game.  From what I've seen thus far, it is not.  Although I could be wrong and that's why I asked the second question.

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth

I think if the presence of a simple mining station were sufficient to give you full claim to a planet, that would make it far too easy to just spam every decent planet within half the galaxy with mining stations, regardless of whether or not you could colonize them any time soon. Your opponents would then have to go to war to get them away from you.

They wouldn't have to go to war. They could just destroy the station and then claim the planet. This would hurt their reputation and such as it should be when you are force ably evicting someone.

[ASHBERY76]

I think it should have a very slight diplomactic hit but I can see gameplay issues by making a mining ship claim a system.I am seeing many exploits with that.

[Nedrear]

We talk about stations not ships. A orbital planetary STATION.

[ASHBERY76]

Typo and the same issue anyway.

[Locarnus]

The problem is, that you cant claim systems, if you can not colonize one of their planets.

If there is a great system with 14 planets and 10 moons and korabbian spice and whatever in the middle of nowhere and it contains only 1 desert planet which you currently can not colonize, then you have to forget about this system...

You can stuff it with spaceports, defensive bases and mining stations, but eventually a desert people will come along, colonize the desert planet and all the system will belong to them...

This is ridiculous. You have hardware in this system, which costs you 3 times the maint of the hardware in their homesystem, but all they need to take it from you is a colonizer.

There should be something like the outpost in moo2. You can put such an outpost on a planet you can not colonize yet, it costs you a massive amount of upkeep (eg 20k or so), generates no taxes, but mines the resources of that planet like a colony and claims this planet/system.

[ASHBERY76]

Well the game has included mining rights for those issues and it kinda goes against the whole borders gameplay systems if all you put down an outpost.

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Well the game has included mining rights for those issues and it kinda goes against the whole borders gameplay systems if all you put down an outpost.

It does not if this applys in areas OUTSIDE the ruling territory. In this case it would prevent foreign colonisation while maintaining your order. It is not said that this spice planet needs to be in enemy territory.

I second the idea of expensive outpost to claim rights. Its a brilliant idea I used to prevent mining - not colonizing as it is impossible - in earlier games. I build a military buoy for that.

[dazoline II]

They way I see it since the mining station is a private enterprise and not part of your empire's ships or bases the act is akin to nationalizing another nation's industry. Happened a lot to the oil industry in history. Makes the owning corporation mad as hell and usually the home nation as well but an act of war, no.

Doing this in neutral territory where might makes right, well you always have the option to take it back by force. The only law in deep space is the law of torpedoes. Take a look at some naval history and how laws of priacy evolved, the game exists in an era without interglactic law.

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: dazoline II

They way I see it since the mining station is a private enterprise and not part of your empire's ships or bases the act is akin to nationalizing another nation's industry. Happened a lot to the oil industry in history. Makes the owning corporation mad as hell and usually the home nation as well but an act of war, no.

Doing this in neutral territory where might makes right, well you always have the option to take it back by force. The only law in deep space is the law of torpedoes. Take a look at some naval history and how laws of priacy evolved, the game exists in an era without interglactic law.

I think this is a good point and what I was getting at. After thinking it over, I feel that you should be able to do it but it should have repercussions. If you do it to the AI, they should be extremely upset with you. And the AI should know the player, and other AIs, will react in this way. Also, a reputation hit is in order. After all, it is a disreputable act (I wouldn't trust someone who did such things).

In terms of how to resolve this, I have found if you attack a colonizer, they will retreat, obviously. The problem is, in my current situation, the other empire would then retreat any unit that came in the vicinity of my patrolling ships there (even merchants which I would, of course, have no problem with). I'm also not sure if this would work every time since I've only done it this once. It would be nice to have some sort of order to have military ships "guard" a planet from any attempts to colonize or mine a planet. In this way, you wouldn't have to babysit your ships in that area to "claim" a certain spot.

[Simulation01]

The only problem is that their is no other way to prevent colonization of a mined planet without having to set their and eyeball the place.  There is no way to tell a ship to fire on any colonization ship that approaches..you have to do it manually and their are a lot of places where that is just not practical, also you are taking the reputation hit where as the dirt bag that was going to squat on your mining facility gets away with no rep hit.

This has all been argued before and NOTHING was done to even mitigate the colonizing loophole.  There should be some kind of order you can give a ship or fleet to fire on friend or foe that approaches a certain planet or position.

[WoodMan]

I agree with Ash here I'm afraid, using mines to claim planets outside of your territory may be realistic, but it would make for an awful gameplay feature, rendering many other things irrlevent and giving you a very easy cheap option.

Remember there is a difference between a rep hit and a relations hit.  You control your own relations towards the AI, if it does something to offend you that you think warrants war... then you know what to do [:D]