hobknob Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 One question. Why would pop units from an allies homeworld transferred to you on his homeworld all of a sudden suffer whatever your attrition rate would be? What are the changes in the life form that turns home and zero attrition into hell and lots of attrition? I can see it if you are moving your own pop over and it makes every bit of sense that way. It makes very little sense the other way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobknob Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 Pete Thanks for shedding some light on this topic. Your comments always have a calming effect and put to rest much speculation that is caused by lack of knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EternusIV Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 I have to admit...this paragraph gave me goosebumps Next, the trade option: if your ally chooses, he can build items on his homeworld and ship them to you. Right now this might seem like an arduous task, but that is only because you have not figured out how to move cargo long distances in a reasonable time frame. It's far easier than you think, actually...you guys just haven't figured it out yet. This issue alone affects many other game systems, and I'm confident that somebody, somewhere, will finally research the thing that opens up the wonders of faster ship movement. It will happen, and it will revolutionize your way of thinking on trade. Utterly. Revolutionize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balagor Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 I understand how trade works, this sounds good. However, I suspect the Machivellian problems Pete sees may not occur. Given the extra-Galactic news channel we have (i.e. this board), if I were to use such uber-sneaky-nasty tactics on someone, even if they had meet noone else, it would be all over this board. And after that, my name would be mud and empire toast when I ran into others. I do see one possible abuse. Assume my race is optimized to breed rapidly, which my friends is slow breeding, but otherwise a powerhouse. We find the planet on his home system I can grow best on, and I set up a colony there and start breeding like rabbits. We then set up a minimal colony on his HW of my type. I could then take shiploads of my rabbits to his HW, transfer them to my Pop Center, and then to his Pop Center, magically transforming my weak rabbits into his strong bears, and causing his bear population to explode. One solution would be to have a Racial ID associated with each Pop Group, and only allow transfers in of identical Racial IDs. This would force shipping in pop for these Homeworld trade colonies, but keep magical racial transforms from occuring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTGPete Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 With your last comment, are you saying that if I take over, by force, the pop center of some other player, those Pop Units become owned by the conquerer and they start to suffer attrition per whatever my rate would be on that world? For example, lets say my race is from a Hot Terristrial world and I conquer the major Pop group of some player on their homeworld Frozen Rockball. Would the POP in the captured group become mine and begin to suffer attrition losses due to the massive temperature differences between my race's starting point and the actual environment (barring any tech improvements to reduce the impact of course)? No - but if you make a new colony on another player's homeworld and he gives you population, they would become part of your colony, and would suffer attrition. Since you cannot dictate what specific population group you're going to conquer, you couldn't have him create a pop group for you on his homeworld and then conquer only that one. He could create a colony in his home system and forget to defend it, you conquer it, and use that as a production base, but (a) he would have to do a lot of work <gasp> to do that, ( it wouldn't be on his homeworld for easy item transport and © there's no way to prevent players who really want to transfer ownership from doing so. Additionally, no additional production is created under any of these schemes. I don't consider all of this to be anything like the doom-and-gloom scenarios painted in this thread. I could, however, easily exclude population transfers or offloads to colonies not owned by the empire transferring the population. This would simply encourage players to move in the direction of creating a colony and allowing it to be conquered. Or, of course, conduct actual trade (actual work <gasp>) which can be done in any event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WKE235 Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 Thanks for the clarification Pete. The budding warlords in the universe can all breath easier. As to my comment that Trade as designed is pretty worthless .. let me clarify. It would have been better for me to write "I think working on trade at the current tech levels is pretty worthless given all the time and trouble and multiple warp jumps it will take to set it up and carry it out". I have glimpsed (via explores) the possible future techs (multiple such techs) you mention that will speed movement through the universe and make trading a major aspect of the game. But for now, there's nothing I'm desperate enough to want at current tech levels to have to take 6, 7, or 8 turns to get from point A to point B. Way to much work and investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ur Lord Tedric Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 Way to go Pete & Russ! I've got a solution to everything - don't change anything at all until 2/3rd's of the players tell you it's broken! And now, I'm going to make a pretty good, but still complete, guess........ Currently when your fleet WARPs, you get a little message that says something like ..."All ships in 301st Colonizer Group #301 are reduced to zero Action Points following their successful Warp movement." Notice that it's a separate sentence.... When you have fitted the **Improved Super Jump Everywhere Drive** or the, my favourite, **Warp Sustainment Module**, then suddenly that sentence will dissappear So, given that viable 8 AP ships are on the horizon and MOVE + WARP is 1 AP - suddenly the universe isn't so small! Your exploration may be at the same speed, but once the convoy route is established you're away....... Chief Trader to Ur-Lord Tedric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurassier Posted July 31, 2003 Report Share Posted July 31, 2003 Thanks Pete! I just figured this game will develop at a slow but decent pace. I for one am glad it is not just a 'blast the enemy as soon as you find him to win game'. Although, that is an option for those who wish to pursue it. It is in my humble opinion, probably best to make friends (aka, buy him a beer ) with the first alien we meet. That way you both have at least one 'ally' in the game, when the rest of the alien freaks come flying your way. This also gives you the opportunity to test all of these little theories of ours (and yes I have quite a few I choose not to reveal, including one on trade!!!!) Of course it has to be with someone you learn to trust, which goes both ways. So here is to the first Alien I meet Cheers! Alcorn the Honored One Leader of the Sabeli Ecok Head Brewmaster of the Holy Brotherhood of Brewmasters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKO Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 I think some of us are underestimating the ideas and designs put in by RTG. What is the point of research in a long lasting game if all the tech is available in the beginning? I guess every one would be willing to give a lot to trade for a few **Warp Sustainment Modules**. I would! So I hope I will be the first to be able to put them up for sale. And with that (or another tool to make travel faster) the universe becomes smaller too. I have full confidence in Russ and Pete that they have thought about these issues and were aware from the beginning that making contact and trading would not be easy ...... at first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damiano Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 My favourite part in all this, is the benefits for knowing some of the tech's you need for the traded items yourself i.e. If a component for the item you need is advanced and you only have improved then you will have to dump the base material on the alien production centre which they then convert to the required advanced materials before they can produce the required end product, so the closer you are in tech the higher the returns. or to put it another way Longshoreman: Here, where do you want these rocks, you pointy eared freaks keep calling Bauxite? becomes Shipping agent: OK, thats 50,000 tons of Molybendium Steel Flange Sprockets milled to your nano-specification, sign here, and I'll be able to get back to the missus in time to watch "Pointy Eared Aliens Ate our Planet". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquilonia Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 I think there is a paradox in trade. To buy some Warp Creator Modules from a high tech race, need to sail tens of star systems and back, with an optimistic estimating 30-40 turns total. In that time we can probably reach that tech too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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