Miniaturization / Tech Specialization / limited carrier

Neptune's Pride Feature Requests
1

Hello,
I know im new and maybe this is complete bs, but there are just all these ideas popping into my head and I’ll have to release them somehow. So, i have three suggestions, of which two are quite big and have synergy to each other and the third is

  1. a cheap carrier(5$) with a very small shiplimit(maybe five or ten ships) for taking neutral stars. Probably these carriers would alwas retreat when meeting enemies, loosing some ships eventually and being destroyed when shipcount=zero like every carrier. Why? 1. For scouting enemy planets that are in hyperspace but out of sensor range and 2. for cheap early capturing of neutral planets without provoking the AI if it is faster at the planet.

  2. Miniaturization (counterpart to terraforming): - in a basic way this already exists for there is high-level stars. But what about a technology that diminuishes the cost-increase of higher level infrastructure? So that maybe cost goes up not by x * y with x being base price and y the structure level but instead i.e. x + x * ((y - 1)+0.02 * z) with z being that techs level. Why? To make tall empires possible, that focus on the most valuable stars buildig them up to the limits with banking+miniaturization.

  3. Technology-Specialization: at the moment it looks to me as if the game encourages researching all techs to a first level before going to the next one, while under circumstances getting ahead in one or two extra-important techs. I think it could be interesting to let players make tough decisions. Im just unsure how that should work.

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I’m making two points related to your second idea. The first is really seeking clarification on what your formula mean, the second more general statement about why it won’t work.

[quote]So that maybe cost goes up not by x * y with x being base price and y the structure level but instead i.e. x + x * ((y - 1)+0.02 * z) with z being that techs level.
[/quote]

The current way it works is roughly:
cost = floor((base * (current + 1) / (resources / 100))

Combining constants and simplifying somewhat we get:
cost(x) = x * c / resources

Where c is some constant and x is the infra count. The cost increase is just:
dcost(x) = c / resources

Terra works by increasing the denominator by a constant:
dcost(x) = c / (resources + terra)

Your formula, x + x * ((y - 1) + 0.02 * z), (where x is base, y is level and z is tech level) seems to say:

cost(x) = base + base * ((x - 1) + 0.02 * mini)

This simplifies to:
cost(x) = x * base + 0.02 * base * mini
dcost(x) = base + 0.02 * base * mini

That is to say, miniturisation increases cost to build? I am sure this is just a mistake.

It is possible you meant for the formula to be:
cost(x) = base + base * ((x - 1) - 0.02 * mini)

Which simplifies to:
cost(x) = x * base - 0.02 * base * mini
dcost(x) = base - 0.02 * base * mini

This is very similar to how Terra works, however Terra has diminishing efficiency and scales based on resources. The above formula means as soon as you hit level 50 everything costs as much as at the start of the game, at level 100 everything is free :smiley: This applies to big and small stars.

It could also be that you meant the formula to be the cost increase. In which case the cost increases much faster than how it currently works. Currently the cost function goes linear after a while.

I don’t think any variation of the above formula would work. While the tech you propose would benefit small empires, it doesn’t punish big empires. Big empires would get just as much advantage from using it, and because they are larger they would get an greater absolute advantage.

One possibility for modifying your formula is making cost increase: c / (resources * mini + terra),that is a multiplicitive bonus to resources before adding the terraforming modifier.

Have you tried playing games with Terraforming disabled but with cheap infrastructure? They can be fun.

Why none of this will be added: Each of the technologies applies to a different area of the game. No two technologies interact directly.

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As first… Okay, I didnt know that tech can go up to 50, ofc that would be a problem ^^ I might give the game some more years of testing before I create Numbers out of nothing.

remember… I meant… I meant… I meant
dcost(x) = (x-0.2*mini)*base… so I guess you analysed my intention and mistake quite accurately, forgive me for I assume I have been tired when posting :smiley:

I did not intent it to be a game-breaking overpowered tech, I rather thought that it might be funny to have players make a decision for going either after terra or mini I would not like the thought of players being able to combine them.

Your Formula with c / (resources * mini + terra) would do exactly what I intended, just that it does not prevent players from using both techs which I would adress by making them share cost increase in science and trade. So when you have terra = 1 and mini = 2 your next level on any of both would cost base * (terra+mini) (-1 or maybe start one of them at zero…)

About your last point: I understand and accept it as a reason and I believe that you are right, but I would like to object(since Im an annoying little carper) that Weapons and Manufactoring infact interact in a way that they scale multiplicatively with each other both affecting military power only.

mh… Maybe thats a reason to play locked weapons tech games…

and now I think about a gamemode where every neutral planet holds some neutral defender-ships relative to its res-level but without any infractructure :smile:

4

I just read this thread super fast and didn’t really read the math, so apologies if I missed your point, but I have said in the past that I don’t like that Terra basically evens out all stars towards the end of big games and I would like to either change it so that good starts stay good and bad stars basically don’t get built on, or… just cut terraforming altogether.

Some tech that make good stars even better might be interesting some how!

5

At the moment my personal preference would be to give players a choice between either making bad stars okay…ish(like the early stages of terra) or making good stars awesome(what mini is meant to be). Thats what my second post pointed at.

So that players can either focus on good stars exclusively or count for every little piece of rock.

To be balanced so that an empire containing a standard-distribution of stars would go evenly well with any of both technologies.

Actually that choice thing is a bit of my third point in the initial post: if at each point of a tech you get to choose one of two bonuses:

But i guess both terra and mini have a balancing problem: while terra evens out all stars, mini might snowball strong starting positions even harder.