First let me say, I hate constructor spam. I'm not big on micro and I see this as a lot of micro, over and over and it makes me choose basically between infrastructure and capability.
My issue here is that this is one of the places GalCiv needs to improve and while if I remember correctly Paul made a comment on one of the dev streams about and improvement to how starbases worked but I don't believe he said what it was. So here is my suggestion, treat starbase modules like buildings. When an update becomes available the starbase starts building the next step in the chain like the the basic factory automatically updating to the xeno factory, the worlds in the starbase's area of effect contribute production to do build it, say 10% or it becomes an update in one or all of the worlds build queues. For starbases that do not have worlds in their area of effect to support them buy the modules, I would thing very few people would object to just paying upgrade their archaeological or mining starbases or tie them to a sponsor.
This allows at slower speeds to build your infrastructure and your capability at the same time, removes the annoying micro of sending constructors to all your starbases every time you unlock an upgrade and makes late game starbase construction much easier. Additionally this might allow military starbases to remain useful later in the game. Edit: I think I meant to add buying modules would allow for faster builds as well but got distracted.
Lol i send huge hulls with 5 constuctor modules or more on it and tell them to fly my pretties!
EXACTLY
Pair it with a Rally Point and it's nearly a Fire and Forget situation.
One thing that GCII had was the option to turn on automatic upgrades for starbases. I presume that will be one of the options available once "Starbase Options" is turned on. Once that happens, all one has to do is build a multiple constructor ship at a shipyard (or queue them up) and then forget all about them. No fuss, no muss.
Until one realizes they've put too many constructors in a starbase and they've been sitting there, twiddling their thumbs, for 20 turns. But one can't have everything, I suppose.
Gal Civ 2 had Miner ships that would go out and mine the asteroid belts.Why not make the Constructors a Permanent ship similar to the way the GC2 Miner worked? it could go out and spend X many turns to build or upgrade a starbase/starport.
Each constructor could then have a X level support value while traveling or not building and an X+Y support level while building... the more you build the more it costs you.
Or we could make use of Freighters to ferry goods from planets to the starbases or even starports. If we could use freighters to support trade within our own civ rather than only with other nations it could have some pretty interesting factors for the game....
Including perhaps having specialized modules like "Cruise liner" or "Factory Support vessel" etc etc etc.
I don't want set growth either, I want to be able to build fast if I want to do so but I think its a poor choice to have to spend military production to build civil infrastructure when you could spend civil production to build civil infrastructure.
So how about this, leave constructors for military modules and put starbase then the civilian modules on the planetary build queues. Tie starbases to planets like shipyards but attached to social production. They just don't shut down when unsponsored, they just can't build more modules until a sponsor is attached. Use the same decay rate for production sent to a distant shipyard.
Problem with this is, the starbases that are far away from any colonized planet. Even taking in strategic choices like forward range increasing starbases/influence starbase warfare out of the equation, you still have resource starbases (both mining and precursor) that will often times be far far away from any planet. Upgrading those would be far more of a PITA in this proposal to upgrade than the current "constructor spam", IMO.
Especially on a map like Tight Clusters or Spiral, where the nearest planet could be hundreds of tiles away.
I dislike the idea that ships are purely military. Yes the way GC does the economy all shipyard production is controlled by the military production slider... but this is already a misnomer as colony ships are not military.. nor are freighters, or survey ships etc...
In thinking about it more I think the best option would be to be able to build permanent "factory ships" that can go out and build stations. The factory ship constructors can be given several options.A build starbase (200credits)B Build starport (150 credits)C Upgrade starbase (credits based on the type of upgrade)D. Build supply ship (100 Credits)
Supply ships would function based on the current tech level and scale with improvements but in general you would then link x starbase or starport with y planet. the support ship level could be set based on the logistics level of the empire and would function similar to the current trade links. Building more supply ships creates more supply to the starbase. the "upgrades" would then be build in a build queue similar to the starports and could be rushed just like any other build feature.
Once a starbase is fully upgraded the excess support ships can be assigned to a new starbase... or can be sold for scrap, or used to support military/civil/social projects and boost the power of the station.
This would also allow starports to be supported by multiple planets that are currently "outside the cost effective range" of the planets supporting it. It would only requre the player to build the support network.
Yes this increases the micromanagement to a level... but it also lowers the ship spam and makes for strategic choices for support and supply.
Leave my constructor fairies alone! I want to continue to send them out like da zerg!
Then just buy the module. My problem isn't just the spam, which isn't so bad when you can put multiple modules on a ship but I still hate the wasted production for the hull, but that I can only spend military production to build starbases then its a choice between a fleet, colonizing and infrastructure. I get why colony ships are military production but not economic, cultural, mining and resource starbases.
I could live with this.
yes that is a good solution. I tried that tonight. Put 7 constructors on a huge hull and I had the pragmatic improvement, each construction pod builds twice as much. So 14 pods on one trip.
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