Fwurg

[Chriz]

I have been doing a lot of thinking and calculations on the double upgrading of zones. Since this is a highly specialized project it will require expensive technology and as discussed on the write-a-thon it should be and endgame option that is worse than normal zone upgrades. My proposal is based on normal zone upgrades with three additional factors. The normal zone upgrade has a repay time of 80 based on the repay time totem pole created by Brend. (1000 /( 50 labour * 0,25 ) ) For this second upgrade I added 250 to the normal upgrade cost, making it 1250 without natural life and 750 with natural life.

I believe it is best to split the technology that is required in the six rare Elements types, where each technology is used for upgrading the raw material zone and for the products that process this raw material. For this calculation I added an additional 125 / zone in technology cost. With 20 zone applications per player, 125 and amortization over 4 players this will be 20 * 125 * 4 = 10 000 for one of the six technologies.

To conclude this the upgrade will make the zone consume an additional 5 , effectively giving the zone only 45 extra labour with this upgrade.

The final repay time calculation for this project on a basic zone without natural life is: 1000 for the zone upgrade + 250 additional cost + 125 technology cost / ((50 labour - 5 ) * 0,25 = 122 .

I created the technologies and special projects for and .

For and the products that contain it:

Nano Technology Rare Elements Orientation

With breakthroughs in the field of nano technology the complete rare elements production chain can be improved with another step.

This technology allows the construction of the 'Rare Elements Nano Technology Facilities' upgrade.

Cost: 10 000 / 8
Prerequisites: Extra-dimensional Detector Arrays

Rare Elements Nano Technology Facilities

By deploying the advances in nano technology in the production line of zones that harvest or process rare elements the production efficiency can be improved.

This upgrade increases the production bonus of the zone by +50. The zone consumes an additional 5 with this upgrade. This upgrade can be applied to any , , and zone.

This upgrade counts as the 'Second zone upgrade' that follows after Improved Production. A zone can only have one 'second zone upgrade' at any time.

Cost: 1250 on a zone without natural life and 750 on a zone with natural life.
Prerequisites:Nano Technology Rare Elements Orientation

For and the products that contain it:

Crystalline Microprocessor Orientation

By developing microprocessors the complete crystals production chain can be improved with another step.

This technology allows the construction of the 'Crystalline Microprocessor Facilities' upgrade.

Cost: 10 000 / 8
Prerequisites: High-Level Sensor Fusion

Crystalline Microprocessor Facilities

By deploying the advances in crystalline microprocessor technology in the production line of zones that harvest or process crystals the production efficiency can be improved.

This upgrade increases the production bonus of the zone by +50. The zone consumes an additional 5 with this upgrade. This upgrade can be applied to any , , and zone.

This upgrade counts as the 'Second zone upgrade' that follows after Improved Production. A zone can only have one 'second zone upgrade' at any time.

Cost: 1250 on a zone without natural life and 750 on a zone with natural life.
Prerequisites: Crystalline Microprocessor Orientation

[Stuiter]

These techs look okay.
But I think that there should be a limit at how much you can produced and not jut making more and more upgrades.
So what do you think is the limit 2 or 3 upgrades?

[Fedor]

To Stuiter:
I think that any higher upgrades such as 3rd upgrade could be made unfeasable by giving them a higher repay time because you're paying for double stacking, though I think that if we do ever come up with 3rd upgrades they should have an interesting trick that makes them more than just a 3rd upgrade.


Personally I only have one problem with this.
The upgrade costs 1250 on a normal zone, and then 750 on a zone with natural life. The description for natural life includes this:

planets with natural life may construct new zones and upgrade them for half the regular price.

This would be a technology that breaks that simple rule and adds an exception to it, which I don't really like if we can avoid it.

This can be avoided easily in 2 ways, decreasing the cost of a natural life upgrade to 625 or increasing the cost of the upgrade to 1500 .

The first option will not affect the calculation for your costs at all, but will make it slightly better for people with a lot of natural life. But this difference is very small and this already happens with 1st upgrades.

The second option will invariably give it a higher repay time than 122 , 1000 for the zone upgrade + 500 more additional cost + 125 technology cost / ((50 labour - 5 ) * 0,25 = 144 . You could return the repay time to 130 by removing the additional power cost, but I like the shifting of cost to power.

Based on this my suggestion would be to just make the upgrade slightly better for natural life, reducing the cost to 625 for the upgrade on a planet with natural life, in order to make the second upgrade fit with the original description of natural life and make less exceptions.

[Brend]

First off, there is a bit of a problem with the rules on Natural Life. I have opened a proposal for that.

Secondly, I propose to drop the whole Natural Life discount on these advanced projects. I don't think that the ability to hold cows outside of the facility really reduces the cost of high-tech nano facilities... Furthermore, Natural Life is required for the support of corporations, and corporations already double the output of any upgrade. Most likely, the double upgrade will be corporated at some point in time, doubling the output (and thereby halving the costs :P)

Thirdly, I would very much like to see these technologies in a more extensive technology tree (or forest). Having them immediately behind a 500 foundation tech makes them a bit strange -- if they remain this accessible (even though they cost 10 000 a piece) they are not high tech, they are just expensive.

Fourth, I agree with Stuiter that we should carefully watch the stacking. I think that this second upgrade is fine, but that possible further direct increases should come with some serious strings attached.

[Brend]

I would like to offer an alternative way to approach the double stacking concept.

I think that just having an expensive technology that unlocks an extra upgrade is just stacking up more plusses. +50 in this case. I would like to give this some more weight, and have people commit to actually going for the increased focus that a double stack creates, instead of just having more plusses on everything...

I really like the proposed idea of having double upgrade per industry, this gives very neat industry sectors with a little overlap:









My proposal is the following: In a Star Wars setting, everything is better if it is 'orbital'. Planets are regularly rough and populated with all manner of creatures, while all high-tech facilities seem to be orbital. I would like to take a page from the book of this idea, and partially fluff the double upgrades as high-tech orbital manufacturing facilities.

Proposal

There will be a technology allowing the construction of a 'Space Elevator' zone. This zone has a discount on planets that don't have an atmosphere. The Space Elevator will generate 2 orbital capacity. Then, after researching the correct technologies double upgrades can be constructed, but only on planets that have a space elevator.

The usage of a zone for the Space Elevator and the discount on planets without an atmosphere both serve to make the double upgrades more attractive on and worlds. Because a zone on a will usually generator more labour than those or , and because most and have no atmosphere.

I would estimate the prices and upkeep at something like this (technologies calculated based on the just activated tech transfer cost rules):

• Space Elevator (the technology): 3000 , 6
• Space Elevator (the zone): 1500 + 200 (500 + 100 on worlds without atmosphere)

• Industry Research unlocking the Industry Upgrade and Double Upgrade (a technology): 6000 , 6
• Double Upgrade (zone upgrade): 1500 (1000 on worlds without atmosphere)

The Space Elevator zone consumes 30 . The double upgrade on a zone will add +50 production, and an increased power consumption of 5 .

Assuming that you will need to build two space elevators and two industry upgrades on them (since you will most likely do this on two worlds), with these values, the double upgrades will break even on worlds without atmosphere at (period for worlds with atmosphere inside of braces):

Large Planet: 114.88 (163.50 )
Medium Planets: 141.52 (194.43 )
Small Planets: 255.20 (326.40 )

As you can see, my proposal strongly favours worlds without atmosphere. Making them better for a change!

[Gerben]

I like this suggestion as made by Brend, instead of further favouring the 'Eden' worlds, this proposal offers an alternative to terraforming by means of the space elevator. In my opinion that is a good development, while we still remain close to the original idea as proposed by Chris.

[Dragonmaster352]

Also Orbital elevators are extremely cool. :D

And lets not forget the other possibilities for cool techs that could make use of this.

[Stuiter]

I agree with Dragonmaster, good alternative.

[Brend]

For the record, the Space Elevator tech will have Astroengineering as prerequisite, and the industry techs will have the Space Elevator tech as a prerequisite.

With four people in favour of this, and nearly 4 weeks of silence, I propose to put these technologies and upgrades on the wiki in the coming weekend. Unless objections are voiced, of course.

[Brend]

Chris points that it would be good to make a more official proposal before putting it on the wiki. He also points out the fact that the Industry Upgrade (and its cost) are not yet detailed.

Me and Chriz will work on an official proposal in the coming week.

[Brend]

Chriz and I worked on the proposal. We did some calculations, and found a way to make the project a little more attractive for small and medium planets, while keeping the cost roughly the same for large planets. Below you will find the final technologies, zones and zone upgrades as we envision them.

Orbital Lifting Mechanics (technology)

Traditional surface-to-orbit transportation is highly dependent on manual lifting of cargo with cargo tugs or other space-worthy vehicles. The overhead of lifting large volumes and masses prevents the normal industrial process from taking advantage of the lower gravity in orbit. Space Elevators allow for more efficient transport of matter into orbit.

This technology allows the construction of industrial-scale space elevators. The exact implementation of the elevator mechanism is dependent upon the world and the demands placed on the elevator. Regardless of the mechanism used, the space elevator greatly increases the amount of mass that can be brought into space and back to the surface.

This technology unlocks the Space Elevator special project zone.

Cost: 2000 / 6
Prerequisites: Astroengineering

Space Elevator (zone)

Industrial size Space Elevators can be constructed with several mechanisms. Local conditions such as gravity, atmospheric conditions, regulations regarding safety, pollution and material use strongly influence the available options. Favourites are anti-grav boosting and magnetic ribbon acceleration.

This support zone improves the connection between orbital platforms, docking rings and such. The Space Elevator generates 2 orbital capacity. Next to the normal 10 the Space Elevator consumes another 5 per zone on the world (including the Space Elevator zone itself). For example, a Space Elevator on a small planet consumes 45 (10 for the zone itself, and an additional 7 times 5).

The Space Elevator is easier to construct on worlds without an atmosphere.

Cost : 500 + 100 (1500 + 200 on worlds with atmosphere)

The following technology (Orbital <Material> Processing) and zone upgrade (<Material> Processing Platforms) are available in six flavours. The flavours (indicated in the names with '<Material>') are as shown below:

"Crystals"
"Gasses"
"Metals"
"Organics"
"Rare Elements"
"Information"

Orbital <Material> Processing (technology)

Low-gravity environments offer several advantages to both the pre-processing raw materials and processing of raw materials into products.

This technology allows the construction of <Material> Processing Platforms and the Orbital Processing Cluster zone upgrade.

Cost: 4000 / 4
Prerequisites: Orbital Lifting Mechanics

<Material> Processing Platforms (zone upgrade)

The high-tech infrastructure necessary for large-scale processing platforms can only be set up with the aid of Space Elevators to facilitate surface-to-orbit lifting. And even then the processes can only be made profitable with significant investments in both equipment and know-how.

The <Material> Processing Platforms is an upgrade that can only be applied to the Space Elevator zone. Once constructed it allows the construction of the Orbital Processing Cluster upgrade on all zones in the <Material> industry. It is possible to construct multiple <Material> Processing Platforms on a Space Elevator, one for each industry.

The <Material> Processing Platforms upgrade costs 200 per zone.

Orbital Processing Cluster (zone upgrade)

Industrial processes can be optimized by taking advantage of the available low-gravity environment. A dedicated cluster of orbital processing plants can increase throughput and quality.

The Orbital Processing Cluster is an upgrade that can be only applied to First Tier and Second Tier. This upgrade can only be applied once one a zone, and only on zones for which the associated Processing Platforms are available. This upgrade gives the zone +50 production.

Zones upgraded with this upgrade consume an additional 5 .

The upgrade costs 750 on regular zones. On a planet with any kind of atmosphere the cost is only 1250 .

As you can see, several costs have been changed to be 'per zone', and the commitment to a specific industry has been increased. This makes small planets slightly more profitable than the previous version, while keeping large planets roughly the same (again, worlds with atmosphere inside braces):

Large Planet: 114.31 (168.33 )
Medium Planets: 133.61 (191.67 )
Small Planets: 210.83 (285.00 )

For clarity: the upgrades that have a cost 'per zone' (Space Elevator and <Material> Processing Platforms) use the amount of zones on the world. So you can't get a Space Elevator by claiming that you'll only be upgrading half of the zones... Either you commit, or you don't.

I'll leave this open for another week, but I'll assume that since this proposal isn't that different from the previous one, most proponents of that one agree with this one as well.

[Fedor]

Indeed, this looks good to me.

[Brend]

Ok. I have added the following pages:

• Orbital Lifting Mechanics
• Space Elevator
• Orbital Crystals Processing
• Crystals Processing Platforms
• Orbital Gasses Processing
• Gasses Processing Platforms
• Orbital Metals Processing
• Metals Processing Platforms
• Orbital Organics Processing
• Organics Processing Platforms
• Orbital Rare Elements Processing
• Rare Elements Processing Platforms
• Orbital Information Processing
• Information Processing Platforms
• Orbital Processing Cluster

The images are not yet customized per industry.