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[Shadowlord]

However, it does feel to throw out realism when I get to colonise lava/gas planet...

I don't get this. Its entirely possible to colonize a gas giant or lava planet with the right technology. Why does it seem unrealistic?

How do you suppose we build a structure when the ground itself is not solid? I know it's science fiction, but in my personal view, it's taking it a bit too far. The planet should be terraformable, but not habitable.

Also slightly off topic but Legend of Pegasus looks really interesting. The combat is like sims and the ship customisation is deeper. The catch is they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

Why does the colony have to be on the ground? A structure which is buoyant in the atmosphere would suffice, or even an orbital station 'colony'. There are hundreds of ways to do this given sufficient technology and imagination. I mean Star Wars imagined a floating city way back in 1977 with bespin's cloud city. It balanced itself with repulsors iirc and had a long stabilizer pod which reached deep into the atmosphere.

Even better than repulsors, on a gas giant - or even Venus - oxygen will be a lifting gas starting at a certain height which depends on the planet's atmosphere (on venus you can have approximately standard atmospheric pressure around this point as well, IIRC). You really only need to build your city with a standard atmosphere, and build it to withstand the wind in the very upper atmosphere, and it should only sink to where its mass and buoyancy are balanced (unless of course there is no such point, as on Earth, due to the external atmosphere being as dense or less dense than the internal atmosphere of the floating city, etc).

P.S. I haven't tried Endless Space myself. I hated GalCiv2 and the ship designer in it, but mostly the flavorless meaningless technologies and the exploitable game rules. I love SoTS with all the expansions, however, including the tech tree and ship designer.

[Rez]

Seems like you wouldn't want to design a habitat that puts itself in a worse position if it starts venting air.

[Shadowlord]

So you wouldn't ever build a habitat in space then? To live is to risk.

[Rez]

Venting air in space is the loss of your oxygen.

Venting air in a floating habitat in a gas giant is the loss of your oxygen and the loss of your buoyancy.  If you're on a planet where floating a habitat on the clouds is an option, you probably don't want to be below the clouds.

So, not only is your habitat venting air, but it's also falling toward the bottom of the gravity well that has a massive pressure-differential between that of your colony and of the surrounding gas or liquid.

Not saying you can't do it, but you're better off looking at how submarines deal with buoyancy than hot air balloons.

[Aptus]

Lack of oxygen and your city crashing into the depths of a gas giant is just another word for adventure, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!

[forsaken1111]

In fact if your habitat is buoyant in the atmosphere you would never 'vent' oxygen at all. Instead the native atmosphere would begin spilling into your habitat because the pressure outside is higher. It would be rather like running a submarine. You could even have open areas at the bottom with positive pressure environments to keep the native atmosphere out and allow shuttles to enter and leave without much/any spillage of your atmosphere.

[Draco18s]

P.S. I haven't tried Endless Space myself. I hated GalCiv2 and the ship designer in it, but mostly the flavorless meaningless technologies and the exploitable game rules. I love SoTS with all the expansions, however, including the tech tree and ship designer.

The rejoice, for ES isn't GalCiv2!
It's more like MOO

In fact if your habitat is buoyant in the atmosphere you would never 'vent' oxygen at all.

Hooray Crush Depth!

[Sirian]

So i bought this game and started playing vs a normal AI ... The first time, the AI won by having way more territory than me (it was one of the 2 victory conditions allowed), and i noticed that i didnt change the tax rate which seems to be too high by default. So i started a new game in a huge galaxy, deactivating all victory conditions except the one where you conquer the home planet, and this time i went bankrumpt around turn 100. Turns out those system upgrades i was building had an upkeep (i thought it was just a one time cost).

So basically am i just supposed to build a few select upgrades where it's most efficient and colonize every system ever ? My playstyle tends to be about focusing on a few systems and upgrading them as much as possible, and then colonizing a new one, but it doesn't seem to be the way to go here... Which also means i don't think i really like this game. I wish there was a 4X where you get to really control in depth what happens on your planets, what is being built, mineral surveys, etc... kinda like a mix of 4X and RTS. Here planets (or even systems) feel like nodes to capture with a couple randomized features, and everything that's interesting is abstracted.

I mean, planets are interesting because they are huge and there could be hundreds of things to discover on each of them, sprawling infrastructures to build and organize, ressources to manage, many settlements, etc... But no, instead it seems that every game is made so that you can only choose a production focus and that's about it. Isn't anyone else disappointed by that ?

[Aklyon]

BUild what you want and think you need, most everything can be deconstructed for less costs. THe only thing I aloways build everywhere is N-way Fusion.

[cerapa]

I mean, planets are interesting because they are huge and there could be hundreds of things to discover on each of them, sprawling infrastructures to build and organize, ressources to manage, many settlements, etc... But no, instead it seems that every game is made so that you can only choose a production focus and that's about it. Isn't anyone else disappointed by that ?

1 word: Micromanagement.
A game like that would mostly be centralized to a couple(if not just one) planet, or it would simply be overwhelming. And 4X games arent famous for their lack of planets. Either a game is washed down in some way, or its micromanagement hell. The golden centre is difficult to pin down.

As for strategy, there are many ways to do things. Some people expand only to the best spots and run everything at the highest happiness for the FIDS bonuses, some expand like hell until their happiness is at a breaking point and some go 0 taxes and simply construct dust. A good rule of the thumb though is not to colonize planets with harsh negative approval, and not to take a shitty 1 lava planet system. There might be some mathematical sweet spot somewhere regarding expansion, but I personally havent hit it.

Also, dont build dust improvements that arent actually gonna go positive, dont build defenses where you dont need them, dont build trade buildings when you dont have anyone to trade with and dont build influence improvements unless people are being assholes about blocking your routes. Improve your FIDS as much as you can without crashing your economy. And build happiness improvements everywhere so you can bump up your tax rate, they more than pay for themselves. Supplement your economy by building dust if you need to.


And on another topic, endless difficulty is pretty freaking hard. The United Empire just rolled into one of my systems with 7 15 ship fleets. My 45 production cost(abundance + 50% reduced cost = 1.4 production missiles) missile destroyers should take em out though, once I put every one of my systems into full production. I can churn out a 15 ship fleet in a single turn in my home system alone.

[Draco18s]

BUild what you want and think you need, most everything can be deconstructed for less costs. THe only thing I aloways build everywhere is N-way Fusion.

My "build everywhere: list:

N-way fusion plants (because duh)
Planetary Institute (pays for itself all the way down to a 25% tax rate)
Hydrosequencing (pays for itself)
Non-baryonic Shell (pays for itself in most systems)
Self-replicating houses (in any system with 2 or more planets should pay for itself)
Public-Private partnerships (2 dust a turn to get piles of research?  Yes please)
Magnetic Field Generators (3 dust for FORTY science?  YES PLEASE)
Psychological Insulation (1 pop per planet + 1 per moon for a mere 4 dust?  very few systems would not want that as it should pay for itself)
Predictive Logistics (5 dust for 2 production per pop?  Yes please.  Should pay for itself)

A little more conditional:

[Happiness boosters, as needed, tends to be at least Infinite Supermarkets on most planets]
 - Colonial Rights.  This is pretty much a "put everywhere" as long as I can get the system's happiness above 80%.  Which given the other happiness boosters, is doable.
Interplanetary Transport Network (in high-production systems, making benefit of the +20%)
Endothermic Structures (if I get at least 2.5 times dust for the extra pop over it's cost, then it pays for itself)

[Dariush]

What happens with food if the system hit its maximum capacity? Also how is the time till the next person is born calculated?

[Draco18s]

What happens with food if the system hit its maximum capacity? Also how is the time till the next person is born calculated?

If a system is at max population, the population growth is "stable" and no new population will be born.  Although it's been postulated that excess food at this point does contribute to overpopulation disapproval.

[cerapa]

What happens with food if the system hit its maximum capacity? Also how is the time till the next person is born calculated?

Nothing happens to the food. If your systems are full, then just change away from farm exploitations and demolish food improvements. The exception is the lategame improvement that turns all surplus food into production(1-1 ratio). Sadly I dont know the calculations, but I heard that it was consistant with a hidden civ style system.

[Draco18s]

What happens with food if the system hit its maximum capacity? Also how is the time till the next person is born calculated?

Nothing happens to the food. If your systems are full, then just change away from farm exploitations and demolish food improvements. The exception is the lategame improvement that turns all surplus food into production(1-1 ratio). Sadly I dont know the calculations, but I heard that it was consistant with a hidden civ style system.

1 to 2, actually.  There's another improvement that DOUBLES surplus food.