New Mod Project: Space Colonization

[seille]

Where is the turn now ? I sent my turn at 11th april early evening to Vic.

[Vic]

I just send it to Lunaticus.
sorry for the late reply.

I have been thinking about the gameplay though and i cant feel to escape the feeling that the production ramps quite slowly. But maybe i should have chosen a different start strategy and should have focussed both construction units on getting a new factory build as soon as possible instead of building a Rare Metals and Radioactives and supply mine first.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn sent on to Grymme.

If the general impression is that production is quite slow there are several settings to influence this: Give everybody a third construction team (but then I fear the fourth player will be even harder pressed to find some sweet spot to settle on) or increase EP value of the Orbital Construction unit. On the other hand I am not sure if anybody has managed to build any offense units yet... My suggestion is to revisit this in some turns.... Please let me know your suggestions...

Another point to add on the gameplay (will write some better documentation once I have the time):
There are no victory points. Instead the game computes the percentage everybody has of solar-system wide production and powerpoints each round. If somebody drops under 5% on both he is eliminated (hope this helps streamlining e-mail play), the first who gets over 50% on both wins. The statistics for this (and the total tech level of each faction) are shown under the statistics tab.
It seems Blue and Red (ahem) are doing good on production while Yellow is leading in Tech...

[seille]

I just also thought about the slow buildup/starting phase and i think to give the construction pods
more EP per turn would be a good solution. It simply needs too much time to build something.
I would increase the EP value to 250 per turn.
This way the "boring" phase of the game won´t last too long.
 
Turn sent to Vic [:)]

[Grymme]

Actually i really like this peacefull slow start of the scenario. It feels like you are desperatly fighting against the clock to be ready for the war. (with my forces right now there wont be much of a war. So i really like the slowness.
 
Hmm... what player was i now? It doesnt feel like i am leading on anything. Am i the green one?

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

@Grymme: Nice one[:)]. Sent you the turn.

I will increase the EP value of the Orbital Construction for the next game. To balance things I will probably also increase the EP value needed for a space dock so this stays a middle game construction.

So we all got the war imminent message this turn so it will be 1-5 rounds till war starts. If nobody is ready than there will be no war of course. But I did see some military this turn so I think we should be wary...

One more small comment (will just add these as a replacement for documentation): In this mod small crafts ("planes") do not reach far into the solar system without carrier as they are orbital/carrier based. However on the planet they reach very far so small crafts on a carrier next to a planet should be able to attack/defend all planetary hexes. The solar system belongs to the spaceships. And the raider is also able to carry 1 small craft (as this is not a submerged raider) and a raider with a bomber will be strong attacking other ships whereas a raider with a ground striker is nice against undefended settlements....

[Grymme]

A better solution (i think) would be to give locations a small symbolic autorecover value (maybe 10-20/round) so that you wouldnt need a construction pod for every location.

[Grymme]

turn sent on.

[seille]

turn to Vic

[Vic]

turn sent on.

I noticed that my recon probe wasnt automaticly transported from the wormhole to an exoplanet...  or did i need some special spacecraft to make this jump?

kind regards,
Vic

[seille]

You found a wormhole, Vic ?
I searched for, but so far i found no wormhole.
 
However, the answer for this question i would also like to hear [:)]

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn sent on.

As to Wormholes: After war has broken out there is a 50% chance per round that wormholes will become available. The reason is that I wanted to be sure that units of different players not at war with each other are not transported on top of each other. As war should start in the next 1-2 rounds just wait a little bit and the wormhole should open...

[seille]

turn to Vic

[Vic]

Maybe you could use a different graphic for an open and a closed wormhole.

[seille]

Is there a specific area i have to search for the wormhole ?
What distance to the target planets ?

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Still everything more or less peaceful, turn to Grymme.

As to the wormholes: I am thinking about having them open from the beginning. That was my original plan but then added a mechanism to have them closed at the beginning. Need to think about early opening could lead to a conflict (should not but need to make sure). Otherwise I will change the graphics...
The wormholes are at the outer edge of the solar system (last row of hexes before "Deep Space"), one in each quadrant towards the planet in question (so one in the NW, NE, SW, SE)...
Also I am currently thinking about the following:
- Make the market mechanism price change stronger
- Have the price for spying decrease each turn to allow more incentive for using the card
- Nerf 1-2 units (like the short range missile - hope it is still banned)
- Add repair ship as a unit (restores maybe 10-20 readiness per turn on the hex it is in)
- Increase EP value for Construction Pod
- Make the resource hexes easier to build up (so that you can fully build up a mineral hex in 1-2 turns)
But am very interested to see how things go in the next turns.

[seille]

Maybe you could decrease the needed cargo capacity for transferring troops.
Actually a transport ship can´t send a single groundunit SFT over about 20 hexes.
I would need a couple of transport ships to move a single SFT. Imho too much.
Or do you want more or less manual transports with loading and unloading?
 
Turn to Vic. Still no war.

[Vic]

I think manual transport has its charm in this scenario. Like it did in my Colonial Gold scenario. (did you try that one out Lunaticus?, you might get an idea from it, it had excellent gameplay)
If you do allow it make sure Anti supply can kill it.

One small thing... i have some believability issues with the ground troops on the gas giants... but thats minor. my feeling is tanks should not work in a gas giant, which has no surface...

Kind regards,
Vic

[Grymme]

Round sent.

No war, as i can see.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

@Seille: Will have a look. I did base the transport capacity more on supply transfer so I might need to adjust for units. I also think there should be some limited transport capability of units between neighbouring planets (and only neighbouring). Actually I downloaded the Colonial Gold scenario and played some turns iirc  Looked very unique as to setting and gameplay. Will need to find a human oppenent for this sometime. And I very much hope that raiders will be a constant hassle in this game...
@Vic: Yes I agree. Did allow them because I did not want to weaken them further. Lets say they are anti-grav tanks...

Turn to Grymme. Did some recalculation and am pretty sure the war should start with Grymmes turn now ....