New Ideas for Colonization

[Jeb]

Ok, well this is my first topic post so go easy. My oldest account was Achilles (back too long ago when P1 was active), now it is "Allah" on HC (sorry Muslims, was the first thing i thought of and haven't had 5k tokens yet).I have an idea for making new choices for the colonies. I'm sure I will meet strong controversy, but please, if you do not think this would be a good idea, provide an argument as to why not - I enjoy criticism and will reshape my ideas if needed.

Colony Specialization
This idea came to me when I was thinking how hard it is for me (who is now rejoining HC and the game in general) to find adequate weapons and hardware for people with few colonies and even fewer specialized colonies (Cash cows, weapon farms, pop. farms). The idea is this: the ability or choice to create a bonus to a certain aspect of building fledgling colonies. This would be chosen very early in the colony's "life span" - with the building of the biodome level 2. Choosing, for example, a Military Colony would incur a negative penalty to the reproduction speed, and increase taxation, harvest, and weapon production - much like prison-type government, but the set is permanent and provides larger boosts and penalties.

Colony Specialization Paths (Name - Bonuses//Penalties || Reason)

Military - + 30% [construction] ; +30% [military] ; +20% [taxation yield] ; +15% [harvest] ; +10% [researching: discoveries] ; +15% [laser and solar cannon firing speed] // -25% [morale AND reproduction] ; -20% [deployable defenses, 125 - 25 = 100] ; Closes the ability to research environment ; If used with Prison-type government, morale automatically drains by 25/hour to prevent (on estimate) colonies that produce upwards of 75 nukes a day ; Closes the ability to research all but "harvest" researches to prevent Mili.T. or Adv.Aero level 5 colonies producing upwards of 100 nukes a day (estimate)

REASON Most colonies can be taken by a single, extremely well experience pilot - as a builder who warred Bartimaeus (on HC) i know this firsthand - and all colonies can be taken by a well experience team of pilots. This will deter invaders further, though it will not be much use at all for other purposes as the population and morale bonuses will be detrimental to colony taxation.

Independent Revenue Settlement - +75% [taxation yield] ; +25% [morale AND reproduction] ; +40% [deployable defenses, 125 +25 +25 = 175] ; -25% [military] ; -35% [weapon speed] ; Closes the ability for the Democracy government ; Closes the paths for morale or reproduction researches ; If the morale is reaches below 500 - after going beyond - taxes immediately stop, and the money gathered is spent. In addition to this, if given enough time, the colony will flee to the U.N. which will reclaim it within three days. ; Closes the ability to manufacture "weapons" in the Weapons Factory, only "Defenses" (Cannons and Mines), and at severely reduced speeds. ; Decreased equipment harvest.

REASON Cash colonies often do not produce enough cash to be truly useful. In my experience, they are generally in well defended systems. I think this is a good compromise to fortify the classic cash colony's speed, as well as it's power (The deployability bonus) while compensating with the military and weapons speed decreases. It obviously can't be a Democracy, and cannot research morale or reproduction for obvious reasons. The 500 morale penalty is set to prevent players from leaving for large amounts of time to come back to a few systems bursting with cash. The U.N. bonus is in addition to the 500-penalty, so after it reaches 500 you have three days to fix it or the U.N. reclaims it and reforms it into a Military-type colony (yes, that's with the extra fifty defenses if they aren't removed). The manufacture of defenses will multiplied by a 1/10th fraction.

Notes:

IGP's can be developed to have the net bonuses of both types
Colonies will be capped at 15,000 population
Normal colonies can still be made

[Dr.Strangelove]

I liked the idea of choosing "Specialization Paths". I think so much can be done with this that will improve the game. I got a bit lost in your detail though....attention span and all that. I would disagree that the bonus should be permanent. I think that everytime it changes owner, it can change Specialization Path.
I dont like the idea of capping the pop of planets at 15k. Classic homeworlds has a cap on pop and as much as I like classic, thats where the cap belongs and should stay.

[M2-Destroyer]

My oldest account was Achilles (back too long ago when P1 was active), now it is "Allah" on HC

Sigh .. I suppose it is still better than someone calling their account Jesus and making a corp called Jesus and Friends.

THAT was irritating.

[Jeb]

Strangelove

I liked the idea of choosing "Specialization Paths". I think so much can be done with this that will improve the game. I got a bit lost in your detail though....attention span and all that. I would disagree that the bonus should be permanent. I think that everytime it changes owner, it can change Specialization Path.
I dont like the idea of capping the pop of planets at 15k.

I think a 25k colony, even with the deficits in military strength, would be too strong (I'm speaking of course about the IRS-type). While it would be incredibly weak at 5-15k i think after that it would be extremely hard, especially if the deployment limit was increased to 175. And I don't think a cap on population would matter much for a Military colony, as it would be extremely hard to get past that with the morale and reproduction nerfed.

[JuliusCaesar]

Sounds interesting, though the percent firgures you mentioned would make both cols really op, and I feel that part of the joys of building is being forced to manage several cols at once for desired results, which would be too simplified with those high figures.

[JuliusCaesar]

My oldest account was Achilles (back too long ago when P1 was active), now it is "Allah" on HC

Sigh .. I suppose it is still better than someone calling their account Jesus and making a corp called Jesus and Friends.

THAT was irritating.

was that on battle royale?

[Jeb]

Yeah maybe they would be overpowered but wheres the fun in simply capping col after col with a gem here or there? maybe if it was restricted to a certain amount of colonies that could specialize that would help - so they would truly have to be gems

[ArdRhys4]

I like this. It is a step towards a more diversified galaxy. /approve (fix the numbers a bit though).

[JuliusCaesar]

On a similar note... Why not make building more glamerous and rewarding? For small corps it is a necessity, yet once they get to middling size it becomes a bit more efficient to vade, and for the majority (but not all), more fun and rewarding. Some kind of bonus for holding a col that you or your Corp built (morale,production,repro rate, etc.) would make building seem a bit more attractive, and more cols built means more vading targets