Colony rush and range suggestions

from GalCiv2 Forums
Something which has bugged me all that way back to the original release of Gal Civ 2 is that it seems more viable to load up on colony ships and dart them right into the unknown to find colonizable planets than it is to scout out for good planets and then go for them which makes a bit more sense. That and space seems incredibly small as range is hardly an issue since every planet and starbase increases how far you can travel making support rarely needed on ships.

Anyway the simple solution to the problem would be to have a prerequisite tech for the colony module. Make planets and starbases not automatically count in distance calculations for range. Planets should only count to the max distance a ship can travel if there is a starport. Star bases should have an added module before they count towards max distance. And increase the cost of starbases a bit so rush buying them right after grabbing a planet should be a bit more pricey. This way to get planets more distant from your home planet you need to either stuff more support on your colony ships or build more starports.

Another cool addition but probably would take more work would be to leave how habitable a planet it partially unknown. After just seeing a planet it'd only show if it was uninhabitable, barely habitable, or habitable with the exact planet class unknown. To figure out the exact class you'd need to have a ship with a survey module scan it. This would add a bit more exploration feel to initial stages and make it a bit harder to decide which planets to colonize without doing a bit of scouting first and gives the survey module a bit more use.

One last thing that would be cool is when setting up a game if you had an option to tweak the distance calculations for range so you can adjust how worthwhile the life support stuff .
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, yes, yes and YES! Prereq for the Colony module would greatly help to slow things down, I've always wondered why planets without Starports add to range, and life support is so useless currently beyond researching the tech for the passive bonus...

Range bonuses should be a fair bit smaller (ships without life support should basically be stranded at the planet they are built on, IMO, with a little freedom to intercept nearby enemies but not much more than that)... And I'm always all for anything that makes Survey modules more useful.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Adding a prereq for a colony module would only insure that it was the first thing researched in almost any conceivable circumstances, or beginning tech points would be used to cover it. Unless you set up so that your PQ4 is the only other planet you will get, you NEED to be able to put out colonies as rapidly as possible. This idea would delay the colony rush for MAYBE 2 or 3 turns, unless you made the tech murderously expensive.

For planets without starports, that simply means they can't BUILD ships, not that they can't offer logistical support to them. For underdeveloped planets, smaller ships could simply land to reprovision, and presumably larger ships would have shuttles or cargo lighters or something. For a current comparison, not every port has shipyards, but that doesn't mean they can't run a cargo terminal   

As for range, I play a Super Hive custom race. Anything that limits everyone else's range makes my bonus all that more attractive. The only ships I use with support modules are high speed survey ships, and occasionally specialized speedy constructors.

AFAIK, the range values are moddable. Perhaps you could look into that.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Perhaps a single, relatively small scale change is in order:

Instead of the ship range being (shipSupportModules + rangeRacialAbility), turn it into (shipSupportModules * (100% + rangeRacialAbility)), so that the new range abilities you get in the techs and ability bonuses amplify the effects of your support modules instead of setting the baseline.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First off, the main thing that needs to go away is the unnoted range boost. If you build a ship and put no life support at all on it, it should basically be trapped on the planet you built it on, only able to travel a few parsecs away, not all the way to the next sector.

Secondly, I like the idea of planets needing Starports to boost range because, again, it makes range actually matter (or at least make how fast you can build a starport actually matter) and gives a reasonable penalty for building a planet without a starport.

The point is, Life Support right now isn't really useful beyond the passive bonus and maybe slapping one module on for ships that need to travel really far.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For planets without starports, that simply means they can't BUILD ships, not that they can't offer logistical support to them. For underdeveloped planets, smaller ships could simply land to reprovision, and presumably larger ships would have shuttles or cargo lighters or something. For a current comparison, not every port has shipyards, but that doesn't mean they can't run a cargo terminal   
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While this is true, we're comparing real life to game mechanics here. If you want to compare, then, okay, a planet doesn't need to have a starport, but a ship needs to actually orbit the planet for a turn (or perhaps a "resupply move" which takes one of its moves away) in order to re-focus it's range on that planet.

I don't think that's going to happen, so making the starport requirement is more likely to work.

Plus, though it is in the game, Starport = shipyard as Port = (naval) shipyard. In other words, starports are really places for ships to land, they're only used in this game as places where ships are built.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For planets without starports, that simply means they can't BUILD ships, not that they can't offer logistical support to them. For underdeveloped planets, smaller ships could simply land to reprovision, and presumably larger ships would have shuttles or cargo lighters or something. For a current comparison, not every port has shipyards, but that doesn't mean they can't run a cargo terminal   


While this is true, we're comparing real life to game mechanics here. If you want to compare, then, okay, a planet doesn't need to have a starport, but a ship needs to actually orbit the planet for a turn (or perhaps a "resupply move" which takes one of its moves away) in order to re-focus it's range on that planet.

I don't think that's going to happen, so making the starport requirement is more likely to work.

Plus, though it is in the game, Starport = shipyard as Port = (naval) shipyard. In other words, starports are really places for ships to land, they're only used in this game as places where ships are built.
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Other TBS games I've played had similar mechanics to that, but with an additional problem - each ship/fleet could only go x# of turns without resupplying. If GalCiv went that way, actual distance wouldn't matter at all, only the number of turns that ship had been away from a planet. Not necessarily a bad way of doing things, but it would require a massive overhaul to implement.

Back to the point, though. You do realize that the AI builds a starport on every planet, right? Any limitation based on building starports will only serve to annoy the player, the AI will be entirely unaffected. Just like the suggested tech prereq for a colony module, this requirement would only slow down a colony rush a turn or two, unless you made starports ruinously expensive to rush-buy.

First off, the main thing that needs to go away is the unnoted range boost. If you build a ship and put no life support at all on it, it should basically be trapped on the planet you built it on, only able to travel a few parsecs away, not all the way to the next sector.
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It's not really unnoted, it's a base component of the hull. Your basic hull provides minimal engines, life support, hit points (if applicable), and sensors - the same way the base colony building provides a baseline level of food, morale, manufacturing, and research capability. It's intended to provide the very basic necessities to make a functional unit.

At present, the basic range given by the base hull is scaled pretty severely with map size. I wouldn't mind if base range was cut maybe 10% for tiny/small maps, and then scaled up a bit for medium/large, and kept at that level for the bigger maps, along with Starstriker1's suggested tweek. It would address the issue in question, but not be game-breaking on small maps.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good ideas Lenara!
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, the unnoted boost is around .7 sectors and is NOT noted as part of the hull. Example: A small hull claims to have a base range of .2. If you build a "blank" small hull, it will have a listed range of .4 (not sure where the extra .2 comes from). However, it will be able to travel nearby 1.5 sectors from the nearest planet, which is quite a lot more than a range of .4.