Starbase Goodness
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I've seen a lot of talk about the starbases for gal civ. Much of it goes in the direction of limiting the number of bases or putting a maintenance cost on them.
Though I do think that the current system is a bit unrealistic, the above is even more unrealistic.
1st off to limit the number of starbases would be absurd, the fact that space is huge should snub this idea. Space is HUGE, enormously huge, infact it is so huge it is hard for the human mind to grasp it. The empty space per sector should be able to contain trillions of starbases without any crouding. Also the sectors are displayed in 2D, well space is 3D so stacked starbases aren't too much of a cheese, especialy since you can stack ships.
2nd to put an arbitrary maintenance cost is a bit on the downer side, see below for a more detailed explination of how maintenance can be justified. This just puts a penality for me building many starbases. So what if I want to build 10s of star bases I should be able to be allowed to. But 10s of star bases should not affect my production on a linear scale, i.e. the bonuses just shouldn't stack.
So I submit my not so humble suggestion...
No maintenance costs for, all modules except military. Everything else can generate enough revenue to support it's self, i.e. trading takes some $$ off the top, and the rest is your %bonus, production bonus works the same way. The cultur optoins have a similar philosophy, i.e. people come to consume the goodies of McDonalds and Party all the time to whatever is in pop culture, hopefly they've nixed NSync, and Britnay Spears by then. Anyway the consumerisim takes care of the maintenance costs.
Of culture, trade and production, only trade should not be modified. Basicly each trade post allows for further trading and for specilization of goods. Instead of just frictonless clothing, you can now have yellow, green, blue frictionless clothing, then how about frictionless accessories, such as purses... This is just an example of what happens with trade. This isn't seen by the user but this is a good justification of why trade doesn't get peanilized. The more trading posts the more variety.
Now production and culture should be penalized for game play and because of "realistic" expectations. I have all my production facilites on the planets in the system, and each of those planets "out sources" some of their work to the star bases. Only smaller projects can be outsourced because the starbases just don't have the realestate or the structrual integrity to manufacture the really huge things. Also you can't just build a Tech Capitol and "ship" it to the planet that ordered it.
Defensive modules would be part of the infrastructure that exsists as part of the SB. These should be "free" and the overhead covered by the the other modules installed on the SB. This isn't too realistic because you can have a SB with just Defensive modules, but you got to keep the game enjoyable.
Now my suggestion for limiting is something like this, and remember only for culture, mil, and social producion.
1 free base per inhabited system.
beyond the freebies...
1st 100%, no change
2nd 90% of what the modules would produce, say you get a 100% increase to culture, the 2nd base would only give you 90%
3rd 70% of what the modules would produce
4th 50% of what the modules would produce
5th 30% of what the modules would produce
6th 10%
7th 5%
8th - 10th 2%
the reset would do nothing, but would provide backup in the event that your sector is in a huge battle and you loose many of your star bases.
But every base beyond the 10th would then begin to incure a maintenance cost. In our current society empty buildings still require mantenance, and because nothing is being produced by them there is no revenue to "skim off the top" to cover overhead.
Military modules should cost something like .2BC per plus they give. I.E. if a base gives +12 pts to a ship's attack and +1 for repair and +1 for def, it should cost a maintenance of 3BC/turn, rounded up.
Anyway thanks for an awsome game!!!!
Though I do think that the current system is a bit unrealistic, the above is even more unrealistic.
1st off to limit the number of starbases would be absurd, the fact that space is huge should snub this idea. Space is HUGE, enormously huge, infact it is so huge it is hard for the human mind to grasp it. The empty space per sector should be able to contain trillions of starbases without any crouding. Also the sectors are displayed in 2D, well space is 3D so stacked starbases aren't too much of a cheese, especialy since you can stack ships.
2nd to put an arbitrary maintenance cost is a bit on the downer side, see below for a more detailed explination of how maintenance can be justified. This just puts a penality for me building many starbases. So what if I want to build 10s of star bases I should be able to be allowed to. But 10s of star bases should not affect my production on a linear scale, i.e. the bonuses just shouldn't stack.
So I submit my not so humble suggestion...
No maintenance costs for, all modules except military. Everything else can generate enough revenue to support it's self, i.e. trading takes some $$ off the top, and the rest is your %bonus, production bonus works the same way. The cultur optoins have a similar philosophy, i.e. people come to consume the goodies of McDonalds and Party all the time to whatever is in pop culture, hopefly they've nixed NSync, and Britnay Spears by then. Anyway the consumerisim takes care of the maintenance costs.
Of culture, trade and production, only trade should not be modified. Basicly each trade post allows for further trading and for specilization of goods. Instead of just frictonless clothing, you can now have yellow, green, blue frictionless clothing, then how about frictionless accessories, such as purses... This is just an example of what happens with trade. This isn't seen by the user but this is a good justification of why trade doesn't get peanilized. The more trading posts the more variety.
Now production and culture should be penalized for game play and because of "realistic" expectations. I have all my production facilites on the planets in the system, and each of those planets "out sources" some of their work to the star bases. Only smaller projects can be outsourced because the starbases just don't have the realestate or the structrual integrity to manufacture the really huge things. Also you can't just build a Tech Capitol and "ship" it to the planet that ordered it.
Defensive modules would be part of the infrastructure that exsists as part of the SB. These should be "free" and the overhead covered by the the other modules installed on the SB. This isn't too realistic because you can have a SB with just Defensive modules, but you got to keep the game enjoyable.
Now my suggestion for limiting is something like this, and remember only for culture, mil, and social producion.
1 free base per inhabited system.
beyond the freebies...
1st 100%, no change
2nd 90% of what the modules would produce, say you get a 100% increase to culture, the 2nd base would only give you 90%
3rd 70% of what the modules would produce
4th 50% of what the modules would produce
5th 30% of what the modules would produce
6th 10%
7th 5%
8th - 10th 2%
the reset would do nothing, but would provide backup in the event that your sector is in a huge battle and you loose many of your star bases.
But every base beyond the 10th would then begin to incure a maintenance cost. In our current society empty buildings still require mantenance, and because nothing is being produced by them there is no revenue to "skim off the top" to cover overhead.
Military modules should cost something like .2BC per plus they give. I.E. if a base gives +12 pts to a ship's attack and +1 for repair and +1 for def, it should cost a maintenance of 3BC/turn, rounded up.
Anyway thanks for an awsome game!!!!