Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
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the bems could not move pop which ment you had to have ships running around just to move pop to a mining colony. I never saw the need,but I could not convince Vern.
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BEM is a newer addition to the game. In the old days you needed to build cargo SHPs to move everything. I think POP were excluded primarily for gameplay reasons so you could not save them from capture as they are a more limited resource compared to raw materials or produced items. A question for the community to weigh in on
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I never talked about it with Vern, but my impression was that beamers were added to handle a certain kind of regular cargo-shipping need. It was intended to make in-system bulk cargo movements easier, without completely removing the need for space transportation. I can take it or leave it. Either people build big cargo ships to move equipment out to colonies, or they build big beamer networks to power expansion. We could make this an option for each new game.
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Beamer's were invented simply to reduce a huge number of orders.
This argues strongly for the capability of Beamer's to transport population.
That being said personally, I favor the necessity of moving the population
the old-fashioned way.
ADN's, MRG's, STP's ,Standing orders ,and the ever useful Templates in the DESIGNER,
were also a very effective way or reducing the amount of orders necessay to
translate an idea into a action.
I believe many aspects of the game benifit from less bookkeepping\,and more action.
That concept ,(possibly along with less population) would make the game considerably easier and faster. I'm not sure we want each game to last the 70+ turns it was taking.
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I like the idea of Beamers to support the theme and the simulation. I don't like the idea of creating a hack in the game model to simplify order-writing.
If we want to simplify order-writing, make the UI much better.
- set up freighters that PUP/TFR cargos on a regular schedule
- set up freighter "pools" that automatically respond to requests for PUP/TFR
- abstract freight-shipping into a resource pool, shipping X mass/vol units throughout your empire automatically
- use drag-and-drop UI to order freight transfers
If we want beamers, make them fit the theme:
- super-beamers that beam everything
- regular-beamers that can't beam people
- low-tech beamers that can only beam raw materials
- allow for beamer interception or interference or redirection or hijacking
- allow beaming of soldiers onto enemy colonies
Lots of possibilities in terms of game-play!
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Personally I like Beamer's that can move everything except people.
When you're not allowed to beam people, enemy skirmishes will always have the possibility, or even just the threat, of capturing the one element of the game that is difficult to generate or replace, which is of course population. Struggling to capture enemy population, is a valid alternative pathway to victory, and produces many extremely interesting turns or scenarios in the game.
I must also say I'm completely intrigued by the prospect of drag-and-drop interfaces, this could save so much work I couldn't help wondering does the drag-and-drop amount always have to be 100% of the supply or can you drag a lesser quantities say any number percent.
I found that the easier it got to build different kinds of ships, I would find different uses for them or different theaters of warfare to engage the them, hopefully, always coming up with the right answer to counter the enemy configuration.
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