Plus, there are the Offworld support ships. Some AIs have 4 of them in the orbit of their planets with focus on production. But please, give us more input. Maybe you have a great idea, we are not aware of.
I kind of meant resouses or production. When I start to get a LOT of planets it can start to become overwhelming. I just felt if I could have some solar systems work as a cluster it would help keep things simple. Set up a planet after it has reached max population and max infrastructure to send its resources to another planet.
Hello, The new Master Of Orion has a similar concept: Let's say you have 3 planets in a solar system and has invented a certain technology, you are able to Export the goods to one central planet. Ship building goes much faster and the contributing planets are creating taxes, research points etc. like before. The concept is not trading them, but exporting them instead. I've used this a lot while paying the new MOO.
Exactly except take it a step further and have it be several solar systems shipping to a single system.
I am not sure if this fits in the structure and concept of the game. You have to keep in mind that such feature must be in line with the other game elements. Limited to a solar system it could be a good addon.
I guess in Galciv IV you could feed a main planet with the output of colony planets from far away. Those colonies are automatically administrated, you just give a rought guide what they should produce and then they do it automatically. AFAIR there is even attrition if the feeding colonies are too far away, but its a nice concept because it reduces micro while maintaining epic empire size.
I dont normaly bother with freighters, but I think the colony support of other colonies is already built into the game via the bonus given for max ecology, civil engineering and ship building... no planets would have all three bonuses though so you need to choose carefully before commiting, I always max out civil engineering first as I find it the most effective in the early game...
I guess its not about "something is already built in somehow..." Its about the concrete mechanic of 90% of empire planets are subject to a different rules set due to a specific tribute paying mechanic. This is IMO not in the scope of ISG, or at least on a limited way (asteroid outposts are feeding worlds) Introducing such a mechanic fully, would change the game alot. I am not sure if it is worth the effort because average ISG has not hundreds of planets to administrate but a best a few dozen.
As I said I dont generally use freighters, to my mind their unnecesary to the game that I play, this is precisely because the game involves mechanics which allows the player to do a similar thing without having to build frieghters and assigning them to a particular task, asteroid belts are assigned to research... In my case this involves building support ships and developing infratructure for civil and eco engineering bonuses, by comparison a large asteroid belt with frieghter (1ssp) can supply 90 production bonus (60+30 if robotic factory built) to a specific world, a single support ship (4ssp) can supply 50-100max production bonus to all planets in a system to which its assigned. Civil engineering 6 will provide a 750 building production bonus divided amongst the colonys of the empire, ie 7 worlds means each one gets a 100+ building production bonus, if two worlds have Civ6 200+ etc. A single frieghter will only supply a single world... assuming there was a limit of 100 production (as per support ships) it would take 6 frieghters (6ssp) to supply the same production of one support ship to a system with 6 worlds, and you would have to take that production away from the planet supplying production as well. So Support ships take the place of freighters within systems, and can spread that support to other systems as they rely partially on empire infrastucture for their production bonuses. I cant say why they decided on this system but it seems to work for me... However I do see your point, to my mind it would be best to do away with seperate freighters entirely as is, as you cant destroy them and they have no physical representation in the game and are only a paper fleet. But retain freighter routes for colonists and asteroid explotations, increase this to include trade bettween systems and add in pirate activitys that can directly impact these routes... Edit later, been thinking and I think this will have a knock on effect on AI fleet size, essentially I think AI fleets will be larger as a result potentially making the game more difficult in the earlier game, this is because in my observation the AI will almost invariably pick production from asteroids rather then research or volatiles. No freighters will mean more SSP for warships but also support ships so AI systems could potentially develop quicker if they chose that option, ship building speed up etc, which would contribute to even more warships/support ships.... Colonists would also be effected since you would no longer need to build transports but merely set a route from a suitable fully popped world to increase the pop of another, this in itself could have consequences on colony growth, income and production beyond what the current system does...
It's an interesting idea, and I'm sure it would be workable. However, I'm not sure it's a good idea from a balancing perspective. If you have a system with three decent planets, you already have something special and powerful. Making it into essentially a super-producing planet might be a bit much.
