Talvieno wrote:

Poet1960 wrote:I thought some more about this idea laying in bed last night, and it occurred to me that population is really a kind of commodity. I don't know how detailed you would really want it, but in theory you could have at least some kind of population migration as new sectors or planets open up. How you implement that could be in a few different ways, but in general there would be an increase of general civilian traffic as a new station comes online, or a new planet is colonized, or a new mining field is found, new jobs being created etc.

They don't necessarily have to be fully AI, although I guess you could procedurally generate them as well. Just enough traffic for someone to notice that there is an increase in the general traffic of the area.

*points at my above post* viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3047&p=51547#p51520

LOL. Yes, yes, I read it. Some very good points in there. You touched on the thing that I was thinking about, you have a certain number of population that perhaps grows over time, but the people will MIGRATE depending on conditions, to the locations where things are better or have potential for getting better like new planets, sectors etc.

I think simulating migration is less of an problem than to make them to make pleasure trips.

Because how do you value flying a bunch of people cargo widgets in a circle?

Maybe by assigning missions "carry people through this areas" and paying through the abstracted peoples accounts.
(Basically out of the funds the planet has)

This would require to create factional constructs that are "children" of the planetary faction which do not buy any ships and outsource the flying to the spaceborn population.

Maybe this could also be solved by making projects nameable.
So the planetary AI creates projects which are named like travel bureaus which pay for data packets showing you carrying around their cargo passengers.
"5cr/min for hanging around blue giant stars" or something.
This could also be more specific by saying "5cr/min for hanging around alderaan sun"
Defining tour routes.

In combination with talvienos mood meter this could create tourist trips with minimal additions to the mechanics and AI already in place

Cornflakes_91 wrote:I think simulating migration is less of an problem than to make them to make pleasure trips.

Because how do you value flying a bunch of people cargo widgets in a circle?

Maybe by assigning missions "carry people through this areas" and paying through the abstracted peoples accounts.
(Basically out of the funds the planet has)

This would require to create factional constructs that are "children" of the planetary faction which do not buy any ships and outsource the flying to the spaceborn population.

Maybe this could also be solved by making projects nameable.
So the planetary AI creates projects which are named like travel bureaus which pay for data packets showing you carrying around their cargo passengers.
"5cr/min for hanging around blue giant stars" or something.
This could also be more specific by saying "5cr/min for hanging around alderaan sun"
Defining tour routes.

In combination with talvienos mood meter this could create tourist trips with minimal additions to the mechanics and AI already in place

I suppose you could just generate them, but they wouldn't actually become "real" until either the NPC AI or the player interacted with them in some way like shooting them etc.

1. Are civilians workers or executives?

2. (Related to #1) Can civilians offer missions?

(Note: These are not "I don't know the answer, please inform me" questions; they are "how do you think these concepts might work, and why?" questions.)

Cornflakes_91 wrote:I think simulating migration is less of an problem than to make them to make pleasure trips.

Because how do you value flying a bunch of people cargo widgets in a circle?

Simple. Use the same code used to have AI ships "explore" - they simply go around trying to collect as much location-based data as possible. It'll make them visit asteroid fields, trade lanes, other planets, space near the local star, jump holes, etc. As a nice little bonus, this collects data on the local star system, I suppose - unless you want to just use data collection as an excuse to make them fly around, and trash whatever they collect - or don't allow them to collect anything at all.

1. Are civilians workers or executives?

A simpler form of workers. They don't really know anything except what is hard-coded into them. All civilians are allowed to do is go from point A to point B.

2. (Related to #1) Can civilians offer missions?

I would say no. It's not a real faction, and they're all basically workers.

Talvieno wrote:

1. Are civilians workers or executives?

A simpler form of workers. They don't really know anything except what is hard-coded into them. All civilians are allowed to do is go from point A to point B.

2. (Related to #1) Can civilians offer missions?

I would say no. It's not a real faction, and they're all basically workers.

Couldn't a civilian hire someone to deliver goods to them, akin to ordering from Amazon?

I think this could somehow tie into how credits are original generated.

It was discussed before that the LT universe is a giant closed economy, meaning that everything has to come from somewhere. Including money.

Credits have to be "made" somewhere at some point however. The most logical place for this in on planets. (like how governments print money)

This could be link to the above idea with planet happiness and civilian transports.

One thing however, Josh has said there will need to be some sort of limit to how many ships can be in a single system at once due to engine and computer limits. I really don't want to see my space battles being forced into tiny 5 on 5 fights because a system is full of civilian traffic. (He said his target would be to have 100 vs 100 space battles at the top end)

For some reason the title of this post makes me want to make a thread called "Job Listings" .

Certainly civilians are not executives. They exist primarily for our aesthetic benefit, and are justified if they serve some useful purpose to not just us humans, but the AI players too.

As I described in my expansion on Haulers, Haulers can serve as a way for static AI to exchange materials with one another without requiring the contracting of intermediaries.

Now I do like the idea of migrations and evacuations, these can serve not only aesthetically pleasing purposes, but can be meaningful in expansion.

Not much has been said about planetary mechanics, but I assume that in keeping up parallels, I will assume that workers when owned by planets will be turned into "population." The population to worker ratio seems like it would be rather high, but I believe it was said somewhere that planetary population would be 1,000,000 to 1 worker and 100,000,000 to 1 executive. With migration, just as players can redistribute their assets (ships and workers) among various projects, planetary colonies and their owners can thus distribute, buy, or sell their "population" assets to various locations.

For the civilian entities, which are not in migration, I think they should still serve their planet some purpose. These can be labeled anything you like ie pleasure cruise, and require specialized assets ie luxury accommodations, but they should serve a real role for the planetary AI or else why would they do anything with it?

My own suggestion, though meager, is that these civilians are the planet's way of exploring. they ride in ships that go on special missions to go to point X and back, gaining value along the way, and the ship which carries them gets paid for their safe return. to prevent the ship from selling them to any port, the passengers are most valuable at their origin point. of course, not returning these passengers to their home world would absolutely infuriate the planet...

UI aside, I think 'pleasure' trips would actually be considered a commodity sink. For example, you're transporting drugs (legal drugs or illegal drugs) to a station/planet/whatever. This station/planet may have an excess of such commodity. Civilians may then get word of it and transport to the location and 'consume' the resources.

This creates both an economic need and sustains the planet/station's request for such commodities.

So instead of sending a ship to pick up commodities and consume it, people would transport themselves to the locations to consume it. Kind of like the reverse of taking the commodities to the people.

DWMagus wrote:UI aside, I think 'pleasure' trips would actually be considered a commodity sink. For example, you're transporting drugs (legal drugs or illegal drugs) to a station/planet/whatever. This station/planet may have an excess of such commodity. Civilians may then get word of it and transport to the location and 'consume' the resources.

This creates both an economic need and sustains the planet/station's request for such commodities.

So instead of sending a ship to pick up commodities and consume it, people would transport themselves to the locations to consume it. Kind of like the reverse of taking the commodities to the people.

A space drug cartel? I think that thread of Job Listings is now required.

Idunno wrote:

DWMagus wrote:UI aside, I think 'pleasure' trips would actually be considered a commodity sink. For example, you're transporting drugs (legal drugs or illegal drugs) to a station/planet/whatever. This station/planet may have an excess of such commodity. Civilians may then get word of it and transport to the location and 'consume' the resources.

This creates both an economic need and sustains the planet/station's request for such commodities.

So instead of sending a ship to pick up commodities and consume it, people would transport themselves to the locations to consume it. Kind of like the reverse of taking the commodities to the people.

A space drug cartel? I think that thread of Job Listings is now required.

Heh.

I also meant, what happens if a certain sector is importing quite a bit of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and everyone wants to flock from all over to get their hands on one.

DWMagus wrote:

Idunno wrote:

DWMagus wrote:UI aside, I think 'pleasure' trips would actually be considered a commodity sink. For example, you're transporting drugs (legal drugs or illegal drugs) to a station/planet/whatever. This station/planet may have an excess of such commodity. Civilians may then get word of it and transport to the location and 'consume' the resources.

This creates both an economic need and sustains the planet/station's request for such commodities.

So instead of sending a ship to pick up commodities and consume it, people would transport themselves to the locations to consume it. Kind of like the reverse of taking the commodities to the people.

A space drug cartel? I think that thread of Job Listings is now required.

Heh.

I also meant, what happens if a certain sector is importing quite a bit of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and everyone wants to flock from all over to get their hands on one.

Space arms dealer too? Where does this come from DWMagus? Seriously, I want the source of your creativity .

Zanteogo wrote:Credits have to be "made" somewhere at some point however. The most logical place for this in on planets. (like how governments print money)

Um, no. Let's not do this. Inflation is a horrible, horrible thing. I don't want to have to pay 1,000,000,000,000,000cr for a stick of gum, late game.

All you really have to do is make sure that none of the credits actually disappear. Then you have a constant amount at all times.

Zanteogo wrote:One thing however, Josh has said there will need to be some sort of limit to how many ships can be in a single system at one due to engine and computer limits. I really don't want to see my space battles being forced into tiny 5 on 5 fights because a system is full of civilian traffic. (He said his target would be to have 100 vs 100 space battles at the top end)

Simple, if you're using the system I put down here... Just scale it so that civilian traffic raises planet/station happiness faster, and scale the ship-per-resource count accordingly.

Talvieno wrote: Um, no. Let's not do this. Inflation is a horrible, horrible thing. I don't want to have to pay 1,000,000,000,000,000cr for a stick of gum, late game.

All you really have to do is make sure that none of the credits actually disappear. Then you have a constant amount at all times.

Well, I agree inflation needs to be controlled. There should be a limit on how much or fast planets create credits.

Also, if AI perma death is possible, then it's also possible credits could be lost over time and need to be recovered.

Zanteogo wrote:One thing however, Josh has said there will need to be some sort of limit to how many ships can be in a single system at one due to engine and computer limits. I really don't want to see my space battles being forced into tiny 5 on 5 fights because a system is full of civilian traffic. (He said his target would be to have 100 vs 100 space battles at the top end)

Talvieno wrote: Simple, if you're using the system I put down here... Just scale it so that civilian traffic raises planet/station happiness faster, and scale the ship-per-resource count accordingly.

So... how does this get around the system cap on number of ships? Sorry, I don't understand. (but want too!)