I don't have RotS so maybe my suggestions are already in. If not, I would reallyx5 like it if they were introduced.
1) Make it possible for player to build freighters instead of waiting for AI to spam them.
2) Give the player the ability to de-automate PRIVATE freighters and manually set up trade routes between stations. I want to make a shipyard and place it in the middle of nowhere. After I queue some ships I want to de-automate a few freighters and set up a trade route between one of my colonies (at my choosing) and the shipyard. The freighters will be able to see what resources are needed and how much to build the queued ships, pick up the resources and send them to the shipyard.
3) Give player the ability to build mining ships. Give the player the power to set missions for these ships: "Only mine in this system", "Only mine Gas, Metal, or Luxury resources", "Go and mine wherever".
4) Give the player ability to dock ships at any base with docking bays. For example: If one of my mining ships' cargo hold is not full I want that ship to dock at a certain space port and drop whatever resource it has in cargo there. Currently in vanilla ships only dock and drop off resources at nearest space port and only if they are full.
< Message edited by Lonck -- 12/30/2010 4:43:19 PM >
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Personally I'm against it. Not saying it couldn't be an option, just something I don't want to have to deal with. I love the fact that the private economy takes care of itself without any input from me.
I do not agree that this feature should be changed at all. For the reason I will list below
1.) The current system of DW's hands off the civilian economy is one of the key features that makes this game work.
2.) The reason this system is a breath of fresh air and a fun one, is that it mimics real world economics. Granted there is no detailed economic simulator here, I am talking about the relationship between you the player (Government), and the Private Sector. You do what you can to provide an environment that let's the private sector flourish by exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating (Whoa 4x! ). Jeeves was working on a guide about this, and basically his tip was that if you lower taxes this frees up the private sector to buy things. If you build ships, this uses up stocked resources and the private sector will move to restock and replenish.
3.) As far as your shipyard in the middle of nowhere, have you tried this in game yet? As far as I know, if you build it they will come.
I like your idea of the only mine a certain system, which sounds like it could be implemented very easily.
I like the civilian sector being automated, but being able to generate some kind of civilian work orders could be fun and still keep with the theme.
You could say transport X amounts of Y resources from A to B, and it would enter the job list and cargo ships in the area looking for work would get it done. Or simply request X resources at a location, and ships would find the nearest mining station and haul it over. This way if you want to stockpile a certain resource on a planet, like say you want a border world to become a refueling point, you could just say transport 50,000 hydrogen to this world. Or if you're having a shortage of a certain material for your shipyard world you could order a bunch extra of that so ships would haul it in constantly in favor over the other worlds and you would be able to build away without delay.
First this could be an option. No reason to simply say "no". Second, you guys constantly complain that your colonies run out of fuel and that freighters only haul 2% of their total cargo capacity, which has prevented me from playing the game. I run out of a resource the stupid AI spams freighters which further reduce the resource on a colony.
First this could be an option. No reason to simply say "no". Second, you guys constantly complain that your colonies run out of fuel and that freighters only haul 2% of their total cargo capacity, which has prevented me from playing the game. I run out of a resource the stupid AI spams freighters which further reduce the resource on a colony.
However, I'm certainly not in favour of being able to control the private sector ships, thats one of the cool distinguishing features of DW, that the private sector goes about its own business. However, I see no problem with creating a state controlled ship in the design window that can transport goods or mine resources. Of course you will have to pay for it like all state ships and its maintenance fees would be paid from state budget not private. Military have cargo ships too. I personally don't see the need, but if that was possible it would at least not change the public/private dynamic that a good part of DW.
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Personally I'm against it. Not saying it couldn't be an option, just something I don't want to have to deal with. I love the fact that the private economy takes care of itself without any input from me.
I wouldn't mind being able to give the private sector priority requests (ie. send resource X to planet/base Y - useful for anticipating a massive increase in resource usage [future ship building], something a game AI could never do) Or, alternatively, setting target resource levels are bases for the AI to try and achieve
But that would be it
Any issues currently being had is more a case of the AI decision process needing to be improved, not switched off
First this could be an option. No reason to simply say "no". Second, you guys constantly complain that your colonies run out of fuel and that freighters only haul 2% of their total cargo capacity, which has prevented me from playing the game. I run out of a resource the stupid AI spams freighters which further reduce the resource on a colony.
The latest beta patch seems to fix the freighter cargo issue, I see them actually filling their holds now and resources move around quite nicely. It is difficult to get such a complex system working properly, and kudos to the team for trying and doing so well.
If you run out of a resource, the private sector will rally to fill that gap. In a recent game I ran out of polymer because I'd not yet found a source and the stuff is used in EVERYTHING. Due to that, I was unable to build any new ships so I started exploring (this was very early in the game) more systems. When I found a source of polymer I couldn't build a mining base because I had no polymer.
So what happened? Every single mining ship in the private sector flocked to the planet on their own and started mining the hell out of polymer. Soon the shortage was over, I got a base established, and I went on to kick some space bugs butt.
Being able to contract private ships to focus on something would be a nice middle ground. Costs money, you stimulate the economy, and the private sector focuses on what you want.
The problem is not that freighters don't do what we want them to do or that ships run out of fuel.
The real problem is that it takes a little time playing the game to work out how freighters operate, what you can do to help them operate more effectively, and how to manage fuel reserves.
The private sector AND the fuel limits are two of the most important strategic elements in DW so I certainly don't want them changed. But I think the game needs to cater for new players and somehow give better feedback on what is going on. Perhaps some sort of new player advisor pop-up that explains things. This could work along the following lines:
The player colonises a world in a new system and the advisor appears:
"You have colonised 'ThisSystem I'. The citizens will now start to build 2 freighters. If this system is important you may want to consider building a star port which will then add further freighters."
Or the player sends a fleet for refuelling. After it has finished the refuelling mission the advisor says:
"Fleet X has finished refuelling and is ready for action. If being used for offensive action take note of the fuel range and ensure your ships have plenty of fuel left for battle. Sending them no more than half the fuel range is usually wise before refuelling again."
And so on.
< Message edited by Das123 -- 12/31/2010 5:47:01 AM >
Here's what I would like to see. Leave the civilian freighters alone, but allow me to build military freighters that I can automate or manually control. Anything the civilian sector builds I have no control, but I control the military side. I would like this so I can build bases where I want and then make sure these bases are supplied. I could do this if I was allowed to build some freighters that are under total military control. I would also like to be able to dedicate resources at bases for military purposes and then use these military freighters to pick them up for delivery to the base of my choice. Here's one of the scenario's that I'm thinking of; my western flank has a lot of gas clouds, but none of them have fuel. A resupply ship isn't going to work as a outpost and right now if you build a base out there (at least in my experience) it will not be sufficiently supplied by the civilian sector and solar collectors will be totally useless. With a military freighter I can send it where it's needed. Also an AI routine could be developed for the military freighter that would look for military bases that are not built at colonies and supply them first and if there aren't any then they would work just like the civilian freighters. The military freighters support would come out of your military budget, but when automated and delivering supplies to the civilian sector part of the profit for the sale of the goods would go to offset their maintenance. I can think of many instances where I would like to place an outpost in an area where I would be unable to use solar collectors or mine fuel and being able to use military freighters for dedicated supply would allow me to build there.
this is what I was thinking also. Just give the player options. I'm a control freak so I would want to control the individual pop if it was possible. Or a priority feature. Put a base somewhere and prioritize resources to be sent there then the civie freighters can do their thing. Putting a resupply ship on top of a planet may not be the best solution sometimes cuz there may not be a fuel planet nearby. Placing a base on the way to the enemy colonies prevent ships from going out of their way to re-fuel. This reminds me of Cultures 2 where soldiers would wander off in search for food and leave their posts. DW has the same problem: ships leaving the system to re-fuel because no fuel planets are present in that system.
< Message edited by Lonck -- 1/1/2011 7:32:38 PM >
I have no interest in individually controlling the private sector - one of things I like about DW is the fact that the private sector goes about it's business happily if I provide the right environment. Gives the game the feeling of being more alive. And frankly would be too much micromanagement for my liking. However, I do really like the idea or prioritizing certain resources, or places to send resources - that seems accurate in that the government (me) is encouraging/directing the private sector in certain areas to the overall benefit of the empire.
We're not talking about the entire private sector (although I wouldn't mind if private sector was eliminated). We're talking about a few freighters to haul resource in emergency situations. Its like saying the army relies on private sector alone to supply its troops. The army has their own supply transports while at the same time using private sector, too. Why are people so against this? I'm not talking about changing the game, just add an option among many(the game has lots about automation) to let player control a few freighters and mining ships. Maybe RotS fixed it but in vanilla I'm forced to build colony ships with extractors because the freighters don't move resources around. Just let me control a few more things.
< Message edited by Lonck -- 1/1/2011 7:40:06 PM >
Can't speak for others of course, but I'm not against other people controlling private sector elements. Just saying I have no interest in doing it myself. If it's an option that's fine - based on how Codeforce programs stuff I'm sure it would be optional. To each their own style of playing. Although playing RotS I haven't noticed issues with resources not being moved around properly.
I think that it would be nice if we could purchase and stockpile resources, with the military sector getting first crack at what their own empire's private sector produces. If I remember rightly, the USA released some of it's gas stockpile a couple years back to stimulate the economy. I would like to be able to do the same if a war breaks out, or if there is an sudden demand for Dhuyat skin cream. Or just to have the spare material for warship production.
I personally am against managing each and every freighter as this would probably get incredibly tedious in the mid to late game. However, I think that it is interesting that command economies ( communistic/socialistic/fascistic) are MIA in DW. I think a good middle ground could come in the way of some kind of high level commands. For instance, I could select a mining base and tell it that all of its output is to be moved to some space port. Then it would simply order any freighters which pick up its goods to move to the specified space port. For another example, we might want all our large space ports to have an even distribution of goods. Then, my automated private sector would simply focus it efforts to ensure that this is the case. The idea here would be to make the entire process very simple while giving players some indirect control over the automation of the private sector.
With my suggestion you have no say in the private sector, but would have the ability to build military freighters to transport needed resources to critical areas. Unless you are a anal micro manager you shouldn't need all that many and with the ability to automate you wouldn't need to tend them, but they would be there if you needed a vital resource at the front and the civilian sector just wasn't getting it done. Besides in the real world, military's do maintain their own supply network.
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The private sector should stay how it is. It is dynamic and "realistic", and gives the game depth and strategy. Sometimes I hear complaints about not having the necessary supplies to build something/complete it. This as it was meant to be. It is enemy embargoes and shipping-raiding having its effect on the game. It's what happens when you try to build a fleet of ships using components that require piles of exotic resources that you dont have. Otherwise, there is no reason to have a supply and demand economy.
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). Jeeves was working on a guide about this, and basically his tip was that if you lower taxes this frees up the private sector to buy things. If you build ships, this uses up stocked resources and the private sector will move to restock and replenish. 
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