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I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 4:37:11 AM   
Tom_Holsinger

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 10/23/2003
Status: offline 		The population transport system is driving me crazy! It takes far too much of my time and it's boring as hell. I hate it.

Sure it's important. Something useless I could ignore, but not this. It's too much micromanagement.

It looks like this is a deal-breaker for me.

I'm going back to MOO3. I'll check back here every few weeks to see if the first patch has been issued. If the existing population transport system is still in, the game is over for me.
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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 6:19:17 AM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline 		Yes, this is one part of the game that is far less than enjoyable. It does start to get irritating after a while, even setting up with continuous shuttling. Not a deal breaker yet, but having some way to automate it (IE the migration system of MOO) would be better.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 9:27:34 AM   
Grandpoobah


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Yes, this is one part of the game that is far less than enjoyable. It does start to get irritating after a while, even setting up with continuous shuttling. Not a deal breaker yet, but having some way to automate it (IE the migration system of MOO) would be better.



I agree that an automated migration system is the ticket to eliminate this micromanagement issue.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 10:25:31 AM   
kafka

 

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quote:

I'm going back to MOO3.


Tom, just a question. I don't suppose you're playing vanilla MOO3. Which mods would you recommend and where to get them? Thanks

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 11:46:53 AM   
ool


Posts: 470
Joined: 12/25/2007
From: Ottawa, Canada
Status: offline 		MOO3 was FAR better in this aspect. Wasting time moving civi's around isn't and shouldn't be a focal point of the game. In fact MOO3 had the whole population movement as a background function. At least until they came out with a patch. In this patch they put in a function where you could designate a planet to have the surplus population prioritized to that particular planet. Something I think the developers should really consider. Run this function as a background function and free the players to play and have FUN!

< Message edited by ool -- 12/6/2009 12:27:55 PM >

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 3:23:21 PM   
Aroddo


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Joined: 11/7/2009
Status: offline 		You're just complaining because someone shot your unguarded transport fleet to hell. ;)

I quite like the transport system with the automated shuttling.
I don't know how MoO3 handled it, but MoO2 had those invisible teleporting transporters. It did the job but didn't feel very convincing.

In Armada you can simply setup your migration plans manually by assigning a few transports to shuttling duty. The only thing I miss is an extended command queue where I could tell a transport stationed at A to fly to system B and start shuttling colonists to system C.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 5:56:18 PM   
Aurelian

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aroddo

You're just complaining because someone shot your unguarded transport fleet to hell. ;)

I quite like the transport system with the automated shuttling.
I don't know how MoO3 handled it, but MoO2 had those invisible teleporting transporters. It did the job but didn't feel very convincing.

In Armada you can simply setup your migration plans manually by assigning a few transports to shuttling duty. The only thing I miss is an extended command queue where I could tell a transport stationed at A to fly to system B and start shuttling colonists to system C.


That's what I do.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 7:22:31 PM   
Tom_Holsinger

 

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Status: offline 		A further explanation is merited. My experience developing turn-based 4x games tells me that the existing population transport model of Armada 2526 is so interwoven with other matters in the game, notably population growth and empire expansion, that changing it will be slow, difficult and expensive. It might require a second edition called Armada 2527. That is why I am giving up on the game rather than struggling with it while waiting for a patch.

It is possible that I'm wrong here and that Bob will go with MOO2's population transport model in the first or second patch. For those unfamiliar with Master of Orion 2, it did not use transport ships for population. Instead those were one-use puppies created at the instant of moving population points between planets. My recollection is that there was a cost of some sort, either in industrial points or money, assessed when the population points were moved. The game mechanic was simple. You clicked on the transport box which opened a menu to choose how many population points of each race on the sending planet to move, then you clicked on the Destination button and next clicked on the system you wanted to move them to, then confirmed the order. My recollection is that the troop movement system created troop transport points which were abstract ships with no combat value. You had x number of troop transport points moving with a fleet.

The final straw for me was that I finally got as far as an Armada 2526 end game (above Turn 200 for the first time) and realized that I was stuck spending 20-30% of my time for each turn just moving population around. The reason is that the colonization period never ends in Armada 2526 due to its otherwise excellent use of wormholes and wormhole technology. The wormhole stuff absolutely adds a great deal to the game, and the only things I’d change there would be to bulk it up by making discovery and survey of wormholes something only survey ships can do, plus I’d change the Teleportation system to Wormhole creation and destruction similar to the Space Empires system.

But, if new large new colonizable areas are always being discovered in Amada middle and late games as ability to use wormholes increases, the colonization period never really ends. That means there will be a constant need to expand the population of new colonies as fast as possible, and a player doing so effectively will determine victory or defeat at the impossible difficulty level where players must use every available means to succeed.

So, if population transport of any sort is allowed in the game, I’ll have to use it just to survive at the customized and thoroughly-ramped up impossibly difficulty level I will eventually play most games at.

Which means I can count on the Armada 2526 game system forcing me to spend an enormous amount of my time in each game fighting the game system in a truly boring fashion rather than fighting AI empires in exciting wars. The designers of MOO3 and BOTF decided not to have population transport in those games for this precise reason.

I am outta here.

Edit:

Araddo, I have used the automatic shuttling system in every game I've played, including after Teleport tech is developed. The latter makes things worse rather than better.

Armada's population transport system is brain-dead micromanagement city. Use of it is so rewarding that it demands use, and so draws attention away from the fun parts of the game.

< Message edited by Tom_Holsinger -- 12/6/2009 7:33:25 PM >

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 8:37:10 PM   
Aurelian

 

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Status: offline 		M3 fell flat on its face. BoTF wasn't much better, if at all, from M2.

Doesn't make much sense to have colony ships that can be intercepted and destroyed while populations moving between planets can't be.



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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 8:53:59 PM   
ShotmanMaslo

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

M3 fell flat on its face. BoTF wasn't much better, if at all, from M2.

Doesn't make much sense to have colony ships that can be intercepted and destroyed while populations moving between planets can't be.





The best way mentioned here in my opinion is to have population migration as an automatic background function, maybe with setting priority planets. This function can then automatically create population transport ships which can be intercepted and destroyed (like automatic trade ships in Sins).
Best of both worlds.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 9:27:32 PM   
Wade1000


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quote:

ORIGINAL: ShotmanMaslo


quote:

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

M3 fell flat on its face. BoTF wasn't much better, if at all, from M2.

Doesn't make much sense to have colony ships that can be intercepted and destroyed while populations moving between planets can't be.





The best way mentioned here in my opinion is to have population migration as an automatic background function, maybe with setting priority planets. This function can then automatically create population transport ships which can be intercepted and destroyed (like automatic trade ships in Sins).
Best of both worlds.


That sounds perfect. Great idea. Thanks.
It seems so obvious to combine the two features like that yet no game like Armada 2526 has done it yet. I hope that Ntronium accepts the idea and can implement it. I will copy and paste this in the wish list thread.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/6/2009 9:38:26 PM   
Aurelian

 

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Joined: 2/26/2007
Status: offline 		In Galciv 2 you can position ships on enemy trade routes.

WitP allows you to auto supply bases, if you have enough cargo ships at the home port. (They can be sunk too.)

Or maybe a tech can be put in that enables zero population growth?

(I do like Shotman's idea.)



< Message edited by Aurelian -- 12/6/2009 9:40:03 PM >

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 2:39:44 AM   
Aroddo


Posts: 125
Joined: 11/7/2009
Status: offline 		weeeeell, to be completely honest, before automated transports were even implemented (and boy, did you waste time on shuttling pop) there were several ideas that floated around.


  • MoO2 style transports, aka invisible teleporting transports. Transports are no ships but just represented as a number in a pool. If you want to transport something from A to B, you just give the order somehow (would look different in Armada than in MoO2) and the transports are removed from the pool while the cargo is in transit (same speed as other starships).
    It was canned because of a certain dislike for invisible teleporting transports (since the transports from the pool seem to be stationed wherever they are needed it seems like teleporting).
  • Completely AI controlled transports. You'd somehow give transport orders or some kind of transport directives and you could either assign some transport ships to be automated or all transports are automated from the start. Then the AI would automatically send the transports to where they are needed. Not very clear on the details but Bob was confident it could be done with reasonable effort.
    This idea was squashed because of concerns regarding weird or inefficient transport routes (like a single transport taking a 20 turn hike instead of just building a transport somewhere near the transit area and make the delivery in better time). Also, too much automization isn't always fun, like MoO3 demonstrated quite thouroughly.
  • The current system. Semi automated shuttling services. Saved about 70% time compared to no shuttling at all (like before), was kinda intriguing to manage and got the job done. Worked awesome in smaller maps like the Twelve Races scenario (which was pretty damn large for my taste).
  • ... and some others ...


@Tom
I don't know what maps are making you despair on overwhelming micromanagement, but in my games I just accepted the extra workload up to the point where I didn't care about the details because I was on a fighting spree. Ok, that neglegience would bite me in the ass later, but I could cope.

In hindsight it might have been better to go for option #2, if only for easier managing the giant cancerous giant empires. But on the whole I think the transport system if fine.
Sure, there's room for improvement and maybe Ntronium will do it in a future patch - after tending the more important stuff first.



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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 3:45:29 AM   
Aurelian

 

Posts: 3916
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Status: offline 		I wouldnt' be in a rush to hold up Moo 3 as an example of how things should be done, any more than using the Pinto as an example on how to build a car.

Having played WitP extensively, I personally find it a breeze. Just shipping pop from point A to B is much easier than shipping oil and resources from Point A thru M back to point O than shipping supplies and fuel to point P thru Z.

Could it be improved? Sure. Should it be as Moo like? No. Kind of tough to bombard a planet to death if the other guy can magically send in more people.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 5:28:11 AM   
Plodder


Posts: 1001
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From: New Zealand
Status: offline 		I mean no offence Tom, but I hope Ntronium doesn't take too much of your advice. This is not MOO3 (Thank god) or any other 4x. This game seems to be blazing it's own path which I really like.There's a couple of things that need to be tweaked, population control is one, possibly bigger tech tree and more races IMHO, but I like the transport system and the bureaucracy model seems right on for humans and follows our history as well.

< Message edited by The Plodder -- 12/7/2009 6:20:20 AM >

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 6:17:53 AM   
Warspite3

 

Posts: 210
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Status: offline 		What about checking the box and allowing your transports to continously make trips.? Like this you can make a chain of transport routes, planet A goes to planet B, then eventually B goes to C, C goes to D and so on. I never actually tried this but it seems like it would work.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger

The population transport system is driving me crazy! It takes far too much of my time and it's boring as hell. I hate it.

Sure it's important. Something useless I could ignore, but not this. It's too much micromanagement.

It looks like this is a deal-breaker for me.

I'm going back to MOO3. I'll check back here every few weeks to see if the first patch has been issued. If the existing population transport system is still in, the game is over for me.



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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 7:22:29 AM   
Anguille


Posts: 637
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From: Hyper-cruiser "Phantom"
Status: offline 		I can't judge Armada 2526 so far as my game is still travelling somewhere around the world.

MOO3, MOO2, MOO1 have each excellent systems to move population. Birth of the federation didn't have any, but it was ok as population growth was decent. Each game i mentionned is a good game. Some like, some don't but it doesn't mean that they are bad. I agree with Tom on the qualities of each.

Cheers

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 10:39:21 AM   
Iceman

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aurelian
Could it be improved? Sure. Should it be as Moo like? No. Kind of tough to bombard a planet to death if the other guy can magically send in more people.


Precisely.
Not that you can't run blockades anyway, with the automatic unloading options

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 2:36:06 PM   
Shark7


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Status: offline 		Actually what I'd suggest is something similar to what we have in War in the Pacific AE, that is the AI can be given control of a number of ships or planets and it manages it as needed. The player still has the ability to form and send out convoys, but the AI will keep levels of population as close to the ideal level as possible.

In WiTPAE you go to the automatic convoys system screen and you can do several things:

Assign transports to the automatic convoy system
Assign individual planets or all planets to the system
Assign warships to act as escorts.

Once this is done, the AI will handle supplying all the bases on the list making the best use it can of the available transports and escorts. Bear in mind it is NOT a perfect system and that many of us don't depend on it because of the lack of efficiency, but it is a useful tool for taking care of the mundane tasks of daily base resupply. It would be a good option for Armada to have something similar though, it takes the full micromanagement out but still allows for the use of the transports.

Something to consider.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 2:49:54 PM   
ool


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From: Ottawa, Canada
Status: offline 		This sounds like a good plan to remove the population shifting burden from the players.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 5:18:41 PM   
Janster

 

Posts: 54
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Status: offline 		Uhm I agree with Tom, you have to consider what is FUN, and shuffling pop around manually, is a click fest and its not even remotely FUN. Moo 2 used a system where you built transports into a pool, these where used to move population around. Not entirely sure if they could be destroyed, i vaguely remember they could be actually.

Why on earth this game of all had to try to reinvent the wheel when obviously way more clever ways of doing it was already done before, is beyond me.

It has led to to stop playing it as I just can't be assed spending my time moving pop around.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 5:58:29 PM   
ASHBERY76


Posts: 2136
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From: England
Status: offline 		MOO3 had a great system for natural automization of population immigration and even had a migration focus button for your priority colonies.MOO3'S problem is that it automated the whole game and the players felt like they had little to do.

< Message edited by ASHBERY76 -- 12/7/2009 5:59:45 PM >

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 6:28:55 PM   
Aroddo


Posts: 125
Joined: 11/7/2009
Status: offline 		I once won a game by letting the automanager do everything.

Sadly there was no automanager that pressed the next turn button for me.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 6:36:10 PM   
SireChaos

 

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From: Frankfurt, Germany
Status: offline 		Indeed. I am at a loss to explain how anyone can consider MoO3 a positive example for anything. It tried to be too many things at once, and in the end, was lucky to get a few of them done more or less half-assed.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/7/2009 7:39:03 PM   
ShotmanMaslo

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Indeed. I am at a loss to explain how anyone can consider MoO3 a positive example for anything. It tried to be too many things at once, and in the end, was lucky to get a few of them done more or less half-assed.


MoO3 failed, but for other reasons than population transport. It failed mainly because it wanted to be "original" at all costs and tried to reinvent the wheel (MoO2), instead of recycling what is already good in MoO2 and other games, and adding something to it.
There is no good multiplayer turn-based space strategy game on the market since MoO2, so there is a big hole on the market to be filled, no need for inovation at all costs. I myself would buy even MoO2+GalCiv2 ripoff with just newer graphics and multi, no need to be original just to be original Just create multiplayer variant of those and add something to it. :)

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/8/2009 11:10:06 AM   
Iceman

 

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Status: offline 		Well,one could say the same thing about Armada - I mean, being original and reinventing the wheel. Let's just hope that it's not a given that that leads eventually to disaster... 

Honestly, I pretty much prefer how LE:I did it. There's *no* pop transport. You found colonies and they have to grow on their own. That puts an emphasis on habitability, and growth rate modifiers.
Like mentioned during beta, consider removing the "14 free pop" thingy, and increase pop cost for arks to the minimum to open a slot (7). Let pop grow on its own. Effects of this, reduced need to transport pop, early colonies cannot spam arks, colonies are more valuable and there's less "exploits" (no 2-lab-only systems), etc.
In LE:I I suggested making marines cost pop, so that you could recruit in one system, transport them to the target system, demobilize them, and get some sort of pop transport  - at a cost though, the cost for the marines and some MM. Worked like a charm.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/8/2009 7:54:37 PM   
SireChaos

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Iceman

Well,one could say the same thing about Armada - I mean, being original and reinventing the wheel. Let's just hope that it's not a given that that leads eventually to disaster... 

Honestly, I pretty much prefer how LE:I did it. There's *no* pop transport. You found colonies and they have to grow on their own. That puts an emphasis on habitability, and growth rate modifiers.
Like mentioned during beta, consider removing the "14 free pop" thingy, and increase pop cost for arks to the minimum to open a slot (7). Let pop grow on its own. Effects of this, reduced need to transport pop, early colonies cannot spam arks, colonies are more valuable and there's less "exploits" (no 2-lab-only systems), etc.
In LE:I I suggested making marines cost pop, so that you could recruit in one system, transport them to the target system, demobilize them, and get some sort of pop transport  - at a cost though, the cost for the marines and some MM. Worked like a charm.



Sorry, but what´s LE:I?

Considering what kind of number we´re talking about, population transport should be slow, take a stupendous effort or both.

And I don´t think Armada really tried to re-invent the wheel. It´s more like they looked at the general problem which getting from A to B presented and came up with something other than the umpteenth great-grandchild of the Ford Model T. It´s different, it takes some getting used to, but it works and it doesn´t have to live with being a direct clone of something or another.

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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/8/2009 9:10:31 PM   
Aurelian

 

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LE: I is Lost Empires Immortals. Another 4x Star game. I have it. Just haven't got around to trashing it yet.

The only impressive tbing about it to me is you can have @5000 stars....










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RE: I Can't Stand It Anymore! - 12/8/2009 10:05:59 PM   
SireChaos

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aurelian


LE: I is Lost Empires Immortals. Another 4x Star game. I have it. Just haven't got around to trashing it yet.

The only impressive tbing about it to me is you can have @5000 stars....



Oh right. I have Lost Empire, though not the Immortals version. That game, I´m not actually sure what it was trying to achieve.

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