So another CMDR and I were having a discussion about "What if the factions could have a 'colonization' phase where they expand to an uninhabited system and generate a station?" I figured that the code wouldn't allow that but my friend says procedural generation code for that would be easy to implement in the roughest sense (barring any balancing issues or creative reasons and etc.) I kinda also want to know as well now. What does everyone else think? Dev opinions welcome of course!
Procedurally Generated Stations? Are They Possible?
- Thread starter Gyraxis
- Start date
There's no technical reason it couldn't be done - system populations and stations can be added with a server restart (and indeed without, but not necessarily as cleanly) - and while that has so far been a process under Frontier's manual control, whether Frontier presses a button, or Frontier writes some code to press a button in particular circumstances, is not an important distinction as far as "is it possible?" goes.
Obviously the balancing and creative issues are much more significant, which is presumably why it hasn't yet been implemented. (I would prefer to see ways to develop - or de-develop - existing systems being prioritised over procedural colonisation mechanisms, since there are already enough systems around in general)
Obviously the balancing and creative issues are much more significant, which is presumably why it hasn't yet been implemented. (I would prefer to see ways to develop - or de-develop - existing systems being prioritised over procedural colonisation mechanisms, since there are already enough systems around in general)
I still dream about seeing the BGS growing that robust. But the BGS isn't untouched from release, they keep working on it even though we don't have the full picture or information, as seen by how some awesome members of the community show us some tests that prove something drastically changed across patches.
Something that I also dream about are how there's not enough station variation except for a few templates for different economies, so BGS work would potentially fill up extra stuff for stations which would also show visually, like extra commodity-X factories for specialization within that station, or even more fluff things like a player faction structure that just adds some personality to it. We are going to have a huge part of the universe opened when Odyssey releases and we get station legs, potentially revealing so much more from a station than its exterior and docking area.
Something that I also dream about are how there's not enough station variation except for a few templates for different economies, so BGS work would potentially fill up extra stuff for stations which would also show visually, like extra commodity-X factories for specialization within that station, or even more fluff things like a player faction structure that just adds some personality to it. We are going to have a huge part of the universe opened when Odyssey releases and we get station legs, potentially revealing so much more from a station than its exterior and docking area.
If you are going to start adding new Colonies, you also need to be able to upgrade existing systems from Colonies to more usefull types.
Its a game and its simple software and its manipulated by players who min/max. There is not a hope in hell that the process can be balanced, you either end up with an ever expanding bubble of pointless single system stations, or a smaller bubble full of shiney large pads with full services and Pop in the Billions.
Oh, and nobody would be happy. The rules would be wrong, and everyone would say its too grindy (regardless of what they delivered).
Its a game and its simple software and its manipulated by players who min/max. There is not a hope in hell that the process can be balanced, you either end up with an ever expanding bubble of pointless single system stations, or a smaller bubble full of shiney large pads with full services and Pop in the Billions.
Oh, and nobody would be happy. The rules would be wrong, and everyone would say its too grindy (regardless of what they delivered).
Yeah... that's the dream right there. You could baseline systems to, if left unattended, "normalise" around an average population and wealth based on the quantity of stations in it... and have each station contribute a portion of that population.
Then I'd love to see things like Famine, Outbreak and Civil Unrest cause population decline... if a population declines enough, stations gradually go into the "repair" state, except to distinguish it from the actual "repair" state, make it derelict, so kinda functional like one under repair.
Meanwhile, negative security and economic states affect a system's wealth. The lower their wealth, the lower the average population that can be supported becomes, and so that causes decline as well. Of course, the lower the population declines, the easier it is to bring things back from that brink, and eventually left alone it stabilises again.
Of course, positive states such as boom, civil liberty and stuff would have positive effects, and the reverse would happen. Positive economy stimulates growth, but fail to maintain that high economy, and you slingshot back down. Sustain it long enough and you get things like the "Tech Breakthrough" state to increase outfitting/shipyard options, and maybe even make certain goods not normally available, available on the market.
Hopes and dreams. But auto-colonization... that's not really on the radar for me when there's so much more that could be done with what's currently there.
Edit: you know what i really wish the bgs and, heck, ED as a whole operated more like?
Sid Meiers: Pirates. Although there's some aspects that would be necessarily transparent to the player, the ebb and flow of colonies in that is what I'd consider the "gold standard" even today.
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I would like in-system colonization and development. Instead of colonizing a new system, just building more stations, expanding outposts into coriolis or orbis, settling the planets... So as space becomes more crowded, instead of focusing on expansions and filling every void, we could insted focus on making our part of the galaxy the wealthiest one, the most developed one. See a small 2k pop system grow into the tens of millions, maybe terraform a planet, so on and so forth. That's really what I want to see.
It could also tie together with my old idea for mission generation: dynamically classifying systems as core, frontier or outpost systems depending on how many other populated systems they were surrounded by. It really should be robust or it would get ugly. Perhaps try it on Colonia first.
It'd be neat if expansions that didn't find a place to expand to (all the nearby systems full up, etc) would cause the system they're expanding from to become more developed with extra outposts, increased population, eventually larger stations to suit the population, and so on, then finally when the system is considered "fully developed" and has enough population/stations to exploit all the bodies in it, it'll strike out to the nearest uninhabited system that isn't just a star and plonk an outpost down, with the expanding faction in charge and maybe a couple more new native ones generated just to stop them going into perma-expansion from being the sole faction in a system.
Might have been an interesting alternative to invasions.
Might have been an interesting alternative to invasions.