Colonisation ideas
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Is the current method of colonisation too simple/ quick.
Currently a huge colony ship is built and then sent to a new planet when a colony instantly appears ready for use.
I would love to see something along the lines of Master of Magic, where a colony took some time to produce. Maybe when a colony ship arrives at a planet it should take 5-10 years for the colonists to disembark and build the foundation (industry, research, production, engineering, food, health, etc...) of the new colony. After this period the colony then becomes useable.
During this period colonies should be vunerable and attacks by more powerful ships should be able to destroy them (ie attack level 5+). This would make colonies more tentative and expansion more realistic.
A second idea (which may be too much micromanagement to add) would be the idea that a colony ship is designed for a particular planet. A probe or survay ship should have to explore a planet before a colony ship can be built for it. The colony ship is then built for that particular planet.
This would match the idea that a colony ship knows the resources of a planet, the climate, the health issues, etc. It may need extra stores of particular minerals, genetic modification of the population for particular climates/ diseases, etc. Once built for that planet it would be fairly useless for other planets.
Perhaps at a more advanced technology a super colony ship can be built which removes the need for surveying, but which requires more cost to build (as it has to do it's own surveying, genetic modification, mineral transformation).
Paul.
Currently a huge colony ship is built and then sent to a new planet when a colony instantly appears ready for use.
I would love to see something along the lines of Master of Magic, where a colony took some time to produce. Maybe when a colony ship arrives at a planet it should take 5-10 years for the colonists to disembark and build the foundation (industry, research, production, engineering, food, health, etc...) of the new colony. After this period the colony then becomes useable.
During this period colonies should be vunerable and attacks by more powerful ships should be able to destroy them (ie attack level 5+). This would make colonies more tentative and expansion more realistic.
A second idea (which may be too much micromanagement to add) would be the idea that a colony ship is designed for a particular planet. A probe or survay ship should have to explore a planet before a colony ship can be built for it. The colony ship is then built for that particular planet.
This would match the idea that a colony ship knows the resources of a planet, the climate, the health issues, etc. It may need extra stores of particular minerals, genetic modification of the population for particular climates/ diseases, etc. Once built for that planet it would be fairly useless for other planets.
Perhaps at a more advanced technology a super colony ship can be built which removes the need for surveying, but which requires more cost to build (as it has to do it's own surveying, genetic modification, mineral transformation).
Paul.