| Author |
Scrapping hubs: an interesting idea. |
MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
|  Posted: 2003-07-18 23:25
Colony bases (hubs) support your faction's colonists. Colonists are the most important thing your faction has: they generate resources for ships and run the planets that make victories possible. Without them your faction is doomed. There is no more important resource in the entire galaxy than your colonies.
Colony bases are not something to be destroyed on a whim even when the planet's being invaded. They're your colonist's habitat and only means of survival. Scrapping a hub right now is akin to murder! Even though the planet is being invaded, scrapping and murdering your colonists is still bad. How would your faction's leaders respond to it's pilots and fleet admirals in the field killing their own colonists without attempting to save them and move them elsewhere?
This is what I suggest: A new unit called a COLONIST. They come 4 at a time from colony bases. (maybe even more than 4 so destroyers can't do the colony transfer...read on for explanation).
Now, with this suggestion, in order to get rid of one of your colony bases you need to either (L)oad the colony base onto your ship requiring orbiting the planet OR bomb it. (L)oading it is the preferred method. It would require 4 empty ship slots, and create 4 colonist units. They can be then dropped on another friendly planet to either: max that planet's population if it isn't already, or create 4 infantry if max. pop (not sure on level, but elite can cause exploitation problems).. What you just did is 'save' those colonists. That's something I'm sure your faction's leaders would approve of! You can also use those 4 infantry right away if you want or max out a newly-built planet, so the 'scrapping' of that hub isn't a total waste.
Bombing the hub of course should carry a heavy penalty, much bigger than current.
If those 4 colonists are dropped on a non-terran planet without a base, they die (they're not infantry which are equipped to survive without habitat). If dropped on a terran planet, the 4 colonists can create a colony base there at the rate remote building builds structures (if there's no base there already). And naturally, if dropped on an enemy planet they die.
This way hubs can still be destroyed to prevent the enemy from getting them, but not easily because it requires a bit of planning and reacting now, and in a roleplay sense it would prevent the 'murdering' that occurs now by allowing the 'saving' of the colonists from the torturing hands of the invaders.
Hubs are too easy to scrap and it carries no negative effects right now. If there's no negative effects to killing your own colonists, then there's no reason NOT to kill them! Hence, it's an all-too common practice.
Now terran planets, those aren't being murdered by scrapping. I guess that's like destroying the colonist's 'capital city' then...it's still a bad thing to do, and certainly something your faction's leaders wouldn't want happening without making plans for that city's citizens and resources. It is, after all, one of your faction's most important colonies being terran and all...
I know colony bases have never been thought of as supporting colonists, just techs, but maybe they should?
EDIT: Oops the MOST IMPORTANT THING: this can only be done if the planet is being invaded! Otherwise you can have an engineer build colony base after colony base, have a ship (L)oad them, then unload the 4 colonists onto a new planet, max it's pop., and repeat.
_________________
 "My father taught me many things ... keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." -Michael Corleone
[ This Message was edited by: MrSparkle on 2003-07-18 23:37 ]
_________________
|
Max Kepler
Fleet Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: March 08, 2002
Posts: 589
From: ICS Victory
| Posted: 2003-07-18 23:41
Interesting, but probably too complex to add at the moment. If the system is revamped, though, it would be an interesting idea.
_________________
|
Antra
Admiral
Agents
Joined: February 16, 2002
Posts: 657
From: Grand Rapids, Michigan
| Posted: 2003-07-18 23:45
As Max said, perhaps too complex...but that doesn't make it any less valuable. Maybe you won't be able to deactivate the colony base, either. Just disable that function, so it doesn't kill colonists on airless worlds.
_________________
|
MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2003-07-19 00:02
It is a little complex isn't it? Well I can't be giving out easy suggestions! They gotta be MEATY!
It's actually easier than the explanation sounds. 1 base makes 4 colonists when you 'scrap' it (meaning (L)oad it now from orbit). The 4 colonists when brought to a new planet can either become 4 infantry , become population themselves, build a new base on an unclaimed or ravaged terran planet, or are lost. But the base has to be (L)oaded to get rid of it; scrap function is disabled. Or it can be bombed...
EDIT: and the ship has to have the 4 slots available or (L)oad won't work. And i picked 4 as the number so that scouts or ships not prepared for it can't do it.
_________________
"My father taught me many things ... keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." -Michael Corleone
[ This Message was edited by: MrSparkle on 2003-07-19 00:06 ]
_________________
|
HellGremlin
Cadet
Joined: June 24, 2003
Posts: 91
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
| Posted: 2003-07-19 17:14
You won't have much luck with this idea. I mean, it runs parallel to the problem I have with Darkspace's self-destruct.
People will just say that the colonists (like the crew of a ship being self-destructed for no good reason) 'understand their sacrifice' or some BS like that.
_________________
'Good day, gentlemen. Time to die.' - Attributed to Warmaster
Harlan Stratholme of the UGTO Strategic Command at the Battle
of Procyon, 2267.
|
Banshee
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: August 28, 2001
Posts: 2181
From: Philadelphia, PA
| Posted: 2003-07-19 19:59
erm.. if you scrap the hub, you only lose a third of your colonists on a barren planet, the rest are it domes, and then taking into account of the RPG element, then surely most of those 10 would actually be at work in the mines, starports, factorys, defence bases, depots, sensor bases, powerplants etc,
So how would you kill them if there out on the defence bases shooting the enemy invading them? id say that to only lose 10-15% of the population is very acceptable while you have overwhelming enemy forces rushing round a planet.
hmm now ive picked it apart, it certainly would make an interesting addtion, especially if/when Neutral ships are implemented, youd have to call in the help of someone flying one of these to help evacuate the colony, be it a large cargo vessel, a cruise liner or a hosptial vessel.
I mean, not many warships function well with 1000's of civillians running around its decks 
_________________
|
Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2003-07-19 21:04
I heard some speculation from some of the Dev Team awhiles back, where stuff like this would be implemented...
The idea being that it takes a looong time to populate a planet...right now, it's 1 pop per minute, but they thought about extending it much longer...like days or weeks or something, so that it takes a LONG time for a planet to get fully built-up.
You sure as heck wouldn't scrap the domes or hub when the planet's about to be captured, or it'll devastate it for a lot longer than the enemy occupation.
The second part would be that populations don't grow in sterile environments...in order to colonize a new planet, you have to take some people from an exisiting one. This would greatly slow down the rate at which planets are built up, to the point where there are "fronteir" worlds, and uninhabited space beyond them.
And THEN, someone suggested that if we got it slow enough, we could add on more star systems as the fronteirs expand, meaning CONTINUOUS exploration and expansion...no fixed size!
Of course, this is all in the extreme long-term...if you think the 1.481 patch took awhile to do, imagine how long THIS kinda change would take...we won't be seeing this anytime soon, sadly.
_________________
If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger space battleship and try again.
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
