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[Il Palazzo]

Judging by the artefacts I'm digging up, the Republic had the means of 'harvesting gravity' for free energy, so all that liquid stuff seems superfluous.

[EuchreJack]

There might be military or political reasons to colonize worlds that would be useless otherwise. Alternatively, maybe they were in the process of being terraformed or something. Still, it would be nice to get a reason for the colonization in the planet generator.

I think its more logistics reasons.  The Warp Drive in the setting had a limited range: In order to colonize that new Siwa world, you have to set up one or more hubs on less desirable worlds to get there.  If you're lucky, that new Cerberus world will have valuable minerals.  Note in the lore that most of the effort in the Galactic Republic was focused on expanding outward and not so much on developing what they had.   I'm actually surprised more worlds aren't essentially truck stops.

We're introducing some bias here - we get to pick what hellholes get generated, and TBH barren planets with little or no atmosphere aren't terribly interesting. In principle, I'd assume most of the Galactic Republic was Limos, etc. and the reason we see 3b people crammed into domes under sulfuric acid rain while 23m tetrapods rampage through the surrounding toxic jungle... is because we kept rolling new worlds until we got that abomination.

I'd add, though, that Liquid Energy seemed a bit nebulous in the fluff (though perhaps I've just forgotten what sort of phlebotinum it is), so perhaps all these vicious hellscapes formerly produced the junk before everyone forgot how to make it.

This does make me want to do a "planetary survey" of just randomly generating 100 worlds and cataloging them.  Would that number be sufficient for statistical analysis?

[Dostoevsky]

That raises an question in itself - is the random planet generator actually weighted at all towards likelihood of being a colony world? I kind of doubt it, and figure it's just random-random. (Don't recall the manual describing the rubric.)

Also, based on my experience the initial planet position/tilt/etc. (that first screen) has a really heavy weight on the subsequent range of outcomes, which makes sense but also might make a pile of random worlds more about that first page?

Would be worth raising the question on the official forums for those who have an account, though - the dev may respond?

[EuchreJack]

I'd be surprised if it didn't get buried on their forum.

I have an account, but I'm not really sure of the question.

[E. Albright]

I've reported two issues and the dev responded to both, but I haven't seen interactions from him WRT simple discussions/suggestions.

[EuchreJack]

I've reported two issues and the dev responded to both, but I haven't seen interactions from him WRT simple discussions/suggestions.

Yeah, he seems kinda busy to comment on lore.  It's more likely to see a response in a couple months, although I don't know how mysterious everything is supposed to be.  I sort of think that he doesn't want to answer any pointed questions about the inner workings, but that could be just me.  He has been spending a lot of time putting out fires and filling out features.

Hence my hesitation on the right question: Too direct/accusatory might be avoided, whereas too vague/speculative might be ignored.

[Dostoevsky]

I think the question is whether the random planet generation is weighted in any way (e.g. for AU distance from star is it random or err towards the goldilocks zone).

Honestly though it's not a critically important question, and as you say the dev has quite a lot on their hands already.

[E. Albright]

AU seems weighted somewhat towards Goldilocks - different classes get different aims, but temperature is always gonna end up in the -75C to 75C degrees or so range (ish? I think?), after star class and age is accounted for. That could mean 0.2 AU, or it could mean 50AU+.

[Majestic7]

Mmmh trying for Goldilocks is plausible for colonization, but it would be fun to have real outlier hellworlds sometimes. Colonized for strategic reasons, stuff like a world that is always hundreds of degrees hot, baked with radiation from a gas giant or so cold gasses freeze. Fighting on them would be pretty hard, though, considering habitation would be underground and so forth.

Does the game already take enviromental factors in account when applying casualties? Like, if the atmosphere is totally toxic or vacuum, slighter injuries would likely kill people than in a friendly enviroment. Breaching your suit or vehicle might be straight deadly versus just scary.

[nautilu]

Restricting logistics even more is the wrong direction to go. After so many hours I realized its a logistics puzzle, not a wargame. Which I dont mind, but major factions should have access to 'raider' troops that use barely any logistics. Right now you can declare war, but nothing happens until you build that road/rail right up to their door. Even then you better have the economy to get a few tanks to their capital. Free towns should be more valuable.

Games end too soon for any interesting tactics to take place. You can barely supply a front line, nevermind an encirclement action.
Maybe the option of playing a broken down world where there are random supply depots and run down bases scattered across the map, to jumpstart wars.

[EuchreJack]

If you played People's Tactics, then you know that the logistics puzzle is the root of the sort of game that this dev specializes in.  If logistics weren't a major factor, you'd be playing someone else's game.

Your ideas are pretty good, although I'd modify the idea of 'raider' troops to adopt the Offensive supplies feature of HOI4, in essence allow the player to build units that store more resources, so they can survive longer out-of-supply.  There are leader skills that help with supply usage (mostly food).

I love the idea of random supply depots and run down bases on the map.  It makes sense that these abandoned worlds would have warehouses full of trucks that just need to be dug out and fixed up.  It's also a mistake that any minor faction with a city doesn't at least have a private transportation hub.  I understand their logistics aren't modeled in-game, but they would at least need something to aid in their private trading with other factions, or hauling back loot if they're raiders.

Honestly, shouldn't free folk settlements also contribute to the logistics network?  I mean, it should be easy to find a bunch of people willing to help load/unload the trucks (supply depot), and hire some traders to help ferry supplies (truck depot).  Maybe like half of whatever the private versions would be, at least.

[E. Albright]

The issue with further logistics restrictions has more to do with how computationally expensive they are than a keen desire to do so. Still, it's really annoying that roadbuilds must precede every campaign - we had some vigorous debate on their forums about the problems that causes with a couple of decisions/events where you get units cut off from everything next to a village or asset who then starve to death when they'd previously been self-sufficient.

It's even worse if you annex/unify with a minor and inherit 20+ stacks of militia; suddenly all these units that had survived just fine on their own are out of supply and starving to death unless you extend your logistics network to them or create a new SHQ (and even with a new SHQ they'll probably starve).

[nautilu]

Supreme ruler solves this problem with supply trucks and villages add to the logistical supply if connected by road. If navies and planes are added to the game they can be used to deliver supplies as well. Biological planets should have some scavenging value. Minors break the game because they dont use supply. They should either use supply or use units that dont need supply so you arent screwed when you inherit them.

[EuchreJack]

Biological planets should have some scavenging value.

They do, there is a skill for that.  But it's tied to the leader, so unless the SHQ commander has it, the militia won't benefit from it.  Although, militia should be a little less strict on the starvation rules in general, as they would presumably be getting at least some supplies from Militia HQ and be more likely to be used to living on the land.

The issue with further logistics restrictions has more to do with how computationally expensive they are than a keen desire to do so. Still, it's really annoying that roadbuilds must precede every campaign - we had some vigorous debate on their forums about the problems that causes with a couple of decisions/events where you get units cut off from everything next to a village or asset who then starve to death when they'd previously been self-sufficient.

I actually like that logistics need to proceed the campaign, it reminds me of the expansion of the Roman Republic/Empire.  They had to build roads before/during their campaigns, and set up their logistics.  WWII had similar issues with keeping front-line units supplied with oil.

It's even worse if you annex/unify with a minor and inherit 20+ stacks of militia; suddenly all these units that had survived just fine on their own are out of supply and starving to death unless you extend your logistics network to them or create a new SHQ (and even with a new SHQ they'll probably starve).

Personally, this makes sense to me.  You just killed off the logistics network that was supplying them: if you want to keep those FREE units, you now need to start supplying them.  Might make more sense if we thought of them deserting instead of dying off.  The problem is that the supply situation is immediate, not giving the player any breathing room to really fix it.  At least one free turn of supply (I dunno, program new units in a newly conquered zone to not have to pay supply costs for one turn) would be a pretty decent idea.

[E. Albright]

The thing is, these are peaceful diplomatic takeovers rather than hostile conquest, so you shouldn't have just killed off the logistics network, you should have taken it over. Their former ruler just became your new governor, after all, so it's not like it's a full-blown regime change; it's a re-alignment.