[Idea] Alternative to pollution

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PsyRamius
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[Idea] Alternative to pollution

Post by PsyRamius » Thu Aug 07, 2008 2:10 am

Long time lurker, first time poster. Anyway.

As I understand it, pollution was introduced to keep players from camping out offline, and continuing to reap the rewards of colonies indefinitely. The core of the idea being, if you don't periodically deal with your planet, it should eventually collapse.

Now as I understand it, high pollution causes environmental disasters that in turn crush moral. So why have the middle man of pollution? People seem to almost universally hate it, and if the goal is to keep people maintaining their worlds, then why not do that directly?

Proposal:
A new value called Distant Leadership or something named similarly. This value is the number of hours since the planet owner, or a company representative has been to the planet. This value takes -.01 away from the moral calculations for each hour away. One day, and the planet has a -.24 applied.

Visiting the planet will adjust the planet value +.30 once every 24 hours with a cap of +0.30

A corporate member visit could be half that, requiring two or more corporate members to maintain moral levels.

Player charisma could also effect the value created by a visit.

In this way, unless a person logs in regularly, eventually planet moral will plummet, as it does with environmental disasters. Additionally, regular inattention will require regular attention to fix. Even a quick visit from a dignitary is enough to let the people know you still care. Planets with heavy player involvement will get a small temporary bonus.

The rates above are arbitrary, and could even be affected by government type when landing. So landing on a prison planet only restores +.24 where as in a socialistic planet may raise it +.34. In this way continued attention with the right government would eventually offset a protracted absence. If these values are too small, or too large to have the desired effect, they could be tweaked to find the correct balance.

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NeatLogs
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Post by NeatLogs » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:50 am

Alright.
I like that you have to visit regularly to make sure it doesn't all go downhill.
I like that there isn't a hard cap to when the colony is utterly irredeemable.
I like that it will still be harder for larger empires.
I like that you can get a positive modifier out of it. In fact, if we removed the potential to get a positive modifier, a lot more people would complain.

Numbers may need tweaking, but that's alright.

But:
How are you going to replicate the different rates of pollution different biomes currently have?
You've got rid of the money requirement, which many people will like, but maybe not the devs.
Once you approach a certain number of days of being absent, your colony is going to be in serious pits. With the current system, it's more like a sudden drop off a plateau rather than your slide down the mountain. Some people might like the cliff better, since they can see the point of no return, as opposed to guessing when the colony has just about slid too much.

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Turkey
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Post by Turkey » Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:49 am

This is similar to an idea I had shortly before I quit, but I assumed it would meet opposition due to introducing another variable to maintain. If done right, that shouldn't be an issue.

Pollution serves two purposes: consuming fuel proportional to empire size, and countering the tax revenue generated by colonies. This Distant Leadership concept offers an alternative to the first purpose, but not the second. So it can't replace pollution entirely.

I propose the following alterations:
-Pollution and cleaning remain a feature, but has an autoclean option which deducts money from the treasury to keep pollution at a minimum. This leaves the economy balance unchanged.
-Entering the sector with friendly planets counts as a visit, you don't have to land on the planets involved. This means loyalty trips can be done quickly, and with autopilot.

Numbers need tweaking to determine visit frequency of course :)

PsyRamius
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Post by PsyRamius » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:15 pm

How are you going to replicate the different rates of pollution different biomes currently have?
Apply a population multiplier and tweak the degradation/reward levels by planet type.
You've got rid of the money requirement, which many people will like, but maybe not the devs.
I don't see why these two things were tied together in the first place. If there is a problem with too much money being put out through taxes, then lower the effective rate, raise the amount of moral damage done by taxes, and put a lower cap on interest payments. I think it's a harder job for the devs to balance the additional variable of pollution than just tweaking the rates that are actually causing the problem. Kinda like swallowing the spider to catch a fly.

Once you approach a certain number of days of being absent, your colony is going to be in serious pits. With the current system, it's more like a sudden drop off a plateau rather than your slide down the mountain. Some people might like the cliff better, since they can see the point of no return, as opposed to guessing when the colony has just about slid too much.
Interesting point. I can see why people like the cliff, it is just another excuse to avoid your colony. The effect however could be set to scale, so that the penalty increases the longer you are away from the colony, and the importance of a visit likewise increases, to better simulate the cliff effect.

Other things could be done besides landing to more quickly pull your colony from the 'serious pits'. For example, doing things that improve moral while there, such as adding consumable resources, (Oil, Meds, etc), lowering taxes, changing government, etc.
-Pollution and cleaning remain a feature, but has an autoclean option which deducts money from the treasury to keep pollution at a minimum. This leaves the economy balance unchanged.
See "I don't see why these two things were tied together in the first place."
-Entering the sector with friendly planets counts as a visit, you don't have to land on the planets involved. This means loyalty trips can be done quickly, and with autopilot.
I don't like that. It is much too easy, and ends up not costing any fuel or time. Besides, when was the last time you got excited about the president flying over your city. I could see it having a partial effect, but not the same as an actual visit.

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Post by Elemayo » Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:10 am

I don't like that. It is much too easy, and ends up not costing any fuel or time. Besides, when was the last time you got excited about the president flying over your city. I could see it having a partial effect, but not the same as an actual visit.
I love this idea. It would be awesome to simulate pollution in a better way.

However, I'd like to take 'time' out of the equation. One reason people dread cleaning pollution is because it's micromanaging, and that, for the most part, isn't fun at all. It would be wonderful, for us to just click a button and have our resources drained instantly, rather than having to take 2-3 hours out of our day to 'Work'.

Obviously a button to do that would be a bit impractical, and a little extreme, but I like Turkey's idea of just being able to fly through the system to get the moral bonus.

This way, it would take much less time, to get the same effect.

Some people may decide to land on their planet anyway, to ensure that everything is stable and lookin' good. Maybe throw in an added bonus for people who do land on their colonies. Say .30 for flyin' through, but .45 for landing. Going off your original numbers of course.

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Turkey
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Post by Turkey » Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:54 am

Not taking up as much time is the whole point. That's the main reason people hate pollution (isn't it?). It'll still require almost as much fuel as you'll have to travel system-to-system. Won't take the 1 point for landing on each planet, but that's a minor difference.

The money and maintenance are together in pollution for historical reasons: When permas came in with all the old rebang mechanics, colonies, cash and fuel were all overly abundant. Pollution was the answer to solve all of them.
There's no reason to keep it that way, of course.
Reducing the tax output and/or increasing morale effect of taxes (same thing, different scale) would work for permas, but would have significant repercussions on rebangs as well.

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ericman
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Post by ericman » Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:38 pm

to.much.fuel.worse.then.cleaning.bad.

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