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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#46
S46 wrote:
Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:13 am
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:24 pm
what if the feds and cardassians go to war? will the two components simply open fire on each other or is there some way to handle that they are sitting on the same power supply under the same shields?
Well then it turns into a scene of Autobots VS Decepticons on cybertron... ...An internal war that could lead to the collapse and abandoning of the Megastation.


And this is a procedural game, so there will be infinitely varied shapes, sizes and forms of megastations anyway.
but how is that supposed to work when on-station politics are abstracted away (Read: not in the game) as per CSE's statement?
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#48
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:36 am
[...]
but how is that supposed to work when on-station politics are abstracted away (Read: not in the game) as per CSE's statement?
That megastation can evolve naturally from economic interest in lowering the cost to share ressources as transportation cost decreases. Then, like any collection of NPV, they can attack each other or not (similar to several ships). For safety reasons, elements of the mega station will probably be pretty able to function alone (with a crippled economy), so nothing fundamentally different from a collection of station in the same system in this point.

You want more complex politics? Be my guest - politics can be added to see if the deal is politically (on top of economically) interesting. But I do not think we should target to this level of detail.
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#49
CSE wrote:
Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:48 am
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:36 am
[...]
but how is that supposed to work when on-station politics are abstracted away (Read: not in the game) as per CSE's statement?
That megastation can evolve naturally from economic interest in lowering the cost to share ressources as transportation cost decreases. Then, like any collection of NPV, they can attack each other or not (similar to several ships). For safety reasons, elements of the mega station will probably be pretty able to function alone (with a crippled economy), so nothing fundamentally different from a collection of station in the same system in this point.


You still arent answering my questions about how to handle additions and relation changes of station members.

Can i just weld my components to the station without talking to anyone?
CSE wrote: You want more complex politics? Be my guest - politics can be added to see if the deal is politically (on top of economically) interesting. But I do not think we should target to this level of detail.
I dont want to have more complex politics. Im asking you how the politics that already have to be in the game for a dynamic universe get applied to megastations.

Factions can change their relations to each other (else you couldnt start or stop a war)
And factions can add to megastations.

Thus components of megastations can change relationship to each other, including war.
So how to handle that?
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#50
Maybe a mega station is formed out of alliances between several factions and when an alliance breaks apart the weaker faction must either flee the station or have its members (those living on the station) absorbed by its rivals.
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#52
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:01 am
Thus components of megastations can change relationship to each other, including war.
So how to handle that?
If it is handled for planets, then similarly for mega-stations (how do you decide if a second colony can come on the planet). It is also similar to the decision to build another, independant station in the same region as an existing base of another faction. As we don't know the level of details of the simulation, no answer make sense. As illustration, I give you one possible answer to your problem; don't look for holes or details that you are not happy with (but you are welcome to propose improvements for the sake of the discussion); it is not a final design as again, we don't know enough for it to be possible - just look if you think something like this is acceptable to create interesting behaviors:

The mega station is a graph, i.e. each component has defined neighbors. The decision to attach to a neighbor (or to initially build your sector of the station attached to an existing neighbor sector) is taken when both fractions agree that it is a positive contract, like any delivery contract. This is a decision for a profit against costs, including some risks ("trust" means loosing control) if the profits inclde the sharing of ressources.
The graph can also represent physical space coordinates if desired to render the shape and realistically limit which neighbors can be connected (and a maximum number of connection), but it is not necessary.
The connection to further neighbors in the mega station is optional and similar, as one fraction does not need to be connected to more than one other fraction to be inside the mega station; as more connection mitigate the risk of severance (see below) and is not very expensive, usually it is interesting to increase connectivity for all parties.
The shared use of ressources is again similar. I can decide to buy water from a faction which is connected (directly or indirectly) with my faction, and buyer and seller deal similarly as with all commerce dealings.

The severing of a connection is again similar - one fraction can decide it alone if the benefits (e.g. weaken the other faction you are at war with) > costs. For this reason, it is advised (and usual) to have several connections with the mega station, as in this case a single connection drop has few consequences for shared ressources. If a faction severes a connection to a neighbor, its own neighbors will probably take it seriously as a threat to the mega-structure that they all need, and may retaliate - therefore the cost of severance is not negligible.

So basically a long chain of cost incl. risks/benefit decision, without central authority. The cost of a connection must be low enough so that it is compensated with the savings in trade without space-transportation; sharing ressources to the point of not being able to function independantly would be a resonable cost/benefit (due to the high risk) only in the case of several peaceful neighbors that have a very positive reputation with your faction!

From this you can add arbitrary complexity, like a cost for connection (I allow you to connect with me against payment) or taxes for goods/service transit, but this is probably out of scope from a basically space-based game where this is only a background ambiance...


This is only one possible, economically driven, way to realize it. There are many others, like a fully political one: a majority vote of members to accept a new member (each fraction vote according to benefit/cost) and a similar (2/3) majority vote to exclude somebody, with an automatic severance of all links to a faction that willingly severs one link without appropriate vote.
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#53
CSE wrote:
Wed Dec 13, 2017 2:38 am
If it is handled for planets, then similarly for mega-stations (how do you decide if a second colony can come on the planet).
you need to handle a whole lot less with planetary colonies. they dont share shield and hull :P
its easy assaulting an individual planetary colony, but good luck trying to attack a single segment of a composite station without getting the shields of everyone down and thus angering everyone
CSE wrote:
Wed Dec 13, 2017 2:38 am
It is also similar to the decision to build another, independant station in the same region as an existing base of another faction. As we don't know the level of details of the simulation, no answer make sense. As illustration, I give you one possible answer to your problem; don't look for holes or details that you are not happy with (but you are welcome to propose improvements for the sake of the discussion); it is not a final design as again, we don't know enough for it to be possible - just look if you think something like this is acceptable to create interesting behaviors:
the problem i see is that composite stations are much much more tightly interconnected than planetary colonies which requires much much more systems to handle.
with two colonies on opposite sides of the pretty large planets you have a big separation between the locations and physical influence ranges of the colonies which prevents that anyone can shut off service for everyone else when they decide that they want to.
when the colony on the other side decides that i dont get any more landings they have to get ships over to my side and enforce their blockade, which would be a positively hostile act that requires a commitment to the hostile attitude.
even if i dont like them, i can buid my own defences against such an occurence and prevent them from doing anything ontowards my stuff.

but with a shared station someone turning on the shields and preventing everyone from docking (if shields do that) isnt trivial to differentiate between a legitimate self defense purpose and an hostile action towards the other factions in the complex.
and if you manage to get the AI to tell it apart, how to handle when someone goes rogue?
just shoot the station until the shields go down?
how to handle one section just starting to fire on nearby traffic? (besides just ... shooting the station again)

and dont come with "trust" again. ideal circumstances dont exist. if it doesnt work in the worst case it doesnt work.
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#54
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:33 pm
but with a shared station someone turning on the shields and preventing everyone from docking (if shields do that) isnt trivial to differentiate between a legitimate self defense purpose and an hostile action towards the other factions in the complex.
and if you manage to get the AI to tell it apart, how to handle when someone goes rogue?
just shoot the station until the shields go down?
how to handle one section just starting to fire on nearby traffic? (besides just ... shooting the station again)
Well the shield one is easy - if you believe that we can make shields, than it's not difficult to believe that they may have sections or opening - so there is not a single on/off button for the whole station.

The shooting one has several options:
- attacking the station anywhere, because of the interconnection, it basically attacking all sections, so you will have lot's of pissed of factions, aka this forces you to use sometimes something else then your lasers to fix problems - interesting gameplay element ;)
- mega station are detailed enough to have in the model of the station parts for each faction, and then whatever gets hit is damaged and unhappy with you. The other may see you as a threat as well and act accordingly if they are "friend" or "dependant" due to connections, to the guy you shot.
- ...

If a sector attacks you, your best action is to land on another sector (and solve the problem with diplomacy or so; this is assuming you are not enemy of everybody and are allowed to land somewhere; If not, then you can just shoot, it won't change your status). Or shoot very precisely if the model allows (see above), making again an interesting gameplay element.

All-in-all it adds interesting gameplay elements.
Strategically, beging part of a mega station indirectly and partly protects you from attacks from space. But it reduces your freedom as you need good contact with other factions to thrive.
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#55
So to TL;DR your statements: "its functionally identical tl a bunch of stations just sitting next to each other and throwing containers at each other"

Because there is literally no advantage but transportation in joining up forces that way.
I cant rely on that stronger dude two sections further for protection because nothing is shared.
I cant get a supersized factory module and get power from somewhere else because nothing is shared.

And i still have all the pains of having to share close space with other factions
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Re: S46's mega suggestion thread (will edit whenever something new pops up from out of my brain)

#56
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Jan 26, 2018 5:32 pm
So to TL;DR your statements: "its functionally identical tl a bunch of stations just sitting next to each other and throwing containers at each other"

Because there is literally no advantage but transportation in joining up forces that way.
I cant rely on that stronger dude two sections further for protection because nothing is shared.
I cant get a supersized factory module and get power from somewhere else because nothing is shared.

And i still have all the pains of having to share close space with other factions
I guess we don't speak the same language. This is absolutely not the TL;DR.

The TL;DR is: in one of the possible model that I described, you get indirectly protection from the others because any inaccurate shot that the attacker shoots will anger them; and/or because you are important due to connectivity (remember the graph) and shared resource. It may not be absolute protection, though, so you may want to specially make a contract of defence with a sector with good ships.
It is possible to share resources with simple supply contracts and therefore to live above your own production capability (use more energy than you produce and pay for it).
And you do have the pains of close space, which is why it is a gameplay elements as it has positive and negative sides!
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