What's surplus food good for? - Endless Space

What's surplus food good for?

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merkaba954

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merkaba954

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 12:56:18 PM

definately need to be able to distribute food. i have 2 systems really close to my home system that are all lava planets and their food production is terrible but they make a lot of production ability but the problem is they get population really really slow. surplus food only seems to promote faster growth on a planet so if it has low food it takes forever to gain population.

my home system has something like 80 food that isnt doing anything now cause the system also has max population unless i build colony ships but then 2 turns and its full population again.

i hope there is more dust improvements cause systems that have low population is hard to improve the system because you end up having negative dust income which makes the system unhappy which also slows the growth of the system, and because of the negative income of dust it is counter productive to make more food improvements cause it makes you go more and more in debt with dust

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duncandun

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duncandun

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13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 7:12:28 AM

nefloyd wrote:
Ah, I noticed there's "Adaptive Industrial Systems" via "Dust Virtualization" way deep in the adaptive science tree...converts all surplus food into tech at 1:1 ratio. so that's a possibility.

wow i really missed that, my last game I was a science madman. The topend techs were only 3-4 turns of research, and most of my systems had 500-700 food production ontop of the 500-600 tech production(My best system was 900 food 1100 production 1k science and 450 dust, 45 pop system lol

. IF I had that I would have been able to do everything in 1 turn! crazy.

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cdog

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cdog

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13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 3:07:31 AM

Sarissofoi wrote:

Whole design more food faster growth is bad in my opinion. Food number should be enough or not. So lack offood lead to starvation when if you have enough food you can normally develop.

Population growth should be based on planet quality laws improvments morale etc.

It should be possible then transfer food and population but for that it is needed for change in food/population growth system.

They could do something like this, but as you say they would have to change the whole system, and again it would render most of the food production buildings useless.

I actually like how it is, as a terran or ocean planet is very nice to have in a virgin system for the early population growth you can get. Whereas a system with a bunch of volcanics, barren or asteroids, while amazing for production, will take a long time to develop because of the low food production. If you could transport population you could just have a "growth" system/planet (even if growth was dependant on morale, planet type and improvments) that feeds people to all your new colonies. Exactly like everyone did in MOO2.

edit- I just remembered in MOO2 there was travel time involved with moving colonists. If they had travel time and a cost (since we don't have transport ships) to move colonists that might be alright

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BlazerMortis

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BlazerMortis

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13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 2:56:12 AM

Remscar wrote:
It's also for feeding your fat hero's.

lol! at least it's good for that. haha

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davea

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davea

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13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 2:47:19 AM

Yes, you can rebuild the specialization at any time. It costs; but you can do it. So you can specialize in food till you reach the pop cap, then switch to industry or something else.

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Doomstar

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Doomstar

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13 years ago

May 7, 2012, 2:26:10 AM

I haven't tried yet (only got the game yesterday) but can you change the specialisation of a world? For instance from the agriculture boost to Industry/Science/Dust? Might be a way of offsetting the problem of excess for until any other changes are made to the game.

Hmm, I need an avatar...

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BlueTemplar

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BlueTemplar

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13 years ago

May 6, 2012, 8:58:37 PM

Yes, it's me. You can't use outside images in the forum yet, so I can't use my usual avatar...

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Sarissofoi

Old

Sarissofoi

Old

13 years ago

May 6, 2012, 7:37:43 PM

There is no transfer population option.

BTW Anyone try to transport population using colony ships? In simple try to add some population using colony ships on colonized worlds?

Whole design more food faster growth is bad in my opinion. Food number should be enough or not. So lack offood lead to starvation when if you have enough food you can normally develop.

Population growth should be based on planet quality laws improvments morale etc.

It should be possible then transfer food and population but for that it is needed for change in food/population growth system.

BTW Greetings Templar. Are you that Templar that I see on Kerb forum?

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BlueTemplar

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BlueTemplar

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13 years ago

May 6, 2012, 4:25:08 PM

Indeed, for instance I have a system with 170 extra food, with 16 pop and 52% growth per turn (2 turns for a new pop). If I could transfer this food to new size 1 planets, I could add around +600% growth total to them (+6 pop per turn), which is 12 times more efficient! That would break the game...

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cdog

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cdog

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 6:46:15 PM

I feel that if food could be transferred between systems one could simply just have 1 or 2 agriculture systems that feed the entire empire. In itself this isn't a problem, but since food surplus is tied to population growth it would be too easy to exploit.

It could be reworked in a few ways; less food production overall (this way you would essentially be forced to use food transports like in MOO2) or as merkaba954 said just have diminishing returns. So sending 10 food only 8 arrives, send 20/14, 30/18, 40/20 and maybe cap it at some point.

I don't mind how it is currently though. I worry that food transfers would make many of the food production building much less useful and lead to rapidly growing colonies.

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kazi

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kazi

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13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 5:47:51 PM

Yeah, food is really good for expansion. Its just a shame that it doesn't get transferred between systems.

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TNSe

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TNSe

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 5, 2012, 5:39:24 PM

I would like to see a boost to *EMPIRE* Approval for excess food. (Ie, all planets get an Empire Approval bonus the next turn when you have excess food).

Gather up all the Excess food, Divide by empire population * 100.

In my current game, I have 1312 excess food, 205 population * 2 => 1312 / (205 * 100) * 100% = 6.4% Empire Approval Bonus to all planets next turn.

Do note, that if you have a cumulative approval system like this, you could potentially get a runaway loop, it would need to be capped, or simply only be able to remove the Current penalty you get from Empire. (I have -9.9 Empire Approval in this game)

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merkaba954

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merkaba954

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 2:31:37 PM

Mainah wrote:
Morale bonuses for extra food would be nice, or some amount of intra-empire trade, though tied to a scale of diminishing returns.

yes definately need a diminishing returns of some kind, but without a doubt there would be transports hauling food between systems,

cant expect people to land on a planet to colonize and be able to sustain themselves immediately but the empire also wouldnt just leave them to starve if they were in a system that was definately aimed at becoming an industrial system instead of a farm world,

if the system u are going to colonize you would of course colonize the terran and ocean planets first then move on to the production worlds but in the situation when there isnt an ocean or terran planet there u would need support to survive or realistically they would never be able to actually colonize that system

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Xenos

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Xenos

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 2:29:51 PM

Jhurko wrote:
That would be very interesting. This issue was solved with a transports system in MOO2, sending the surplus food to where it was needed, and even then, you could get into trouble if not put an eye to the food production on some planets.

This. It doesn't make any sense for a galactic empire to rely only on local food production.

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Ebrim

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Ebrim

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 1:52:35 PM

Morale bonuses for extra food would be nice, or some amount of intra-empire trade, though tied to a scale of diminishing returns.

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MT4K

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MT4K

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 1:04:16 PM

I agree. Realistically you would be trading between your own systems all the food and such and so it would be logical that any surplus food should get transported to developing colonies. Which in turn would then make specialising a system to food production becomes very useful. If they don't want it to become perhaps too easy to just create a single food production system. You can have it where the further a planet the less surplus it receives or something.

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AONomad

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AONomad

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 1:16:14 AM

Hey guys, just picked this game up on Steam, it's amazing and can't wait for the full release. Just one thing that's bothering me is I can't figure out what surplus food is good for (higher production lets you produce more, higher money spend more, higher science research more...). There's a ton of research upgrades to increase it but don't know why I would want to. I'm only around 3 hours into my first game, so maybe I just haven't played enough, but feels like I'm missing something.

----

Consolidating another question I had into the same thread, is there a way to change production order without canceling what's being produced? Tried looking around for an option but couldn't find anything.

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Sarissofoi

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Sarissofoi

Old

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 12:41:44 PM

In old good Master of Orion 2 surplus food were sold for cash. Also if you have fraighters it was distributed beetwen your colonies with no enough food.

Problem is that in MoO II surplus food not give colony any benefit to population growth.

It was only we have enough food - all is ok - or we dont have enough food -> starvation.

With food distributed beetwen colonies there are more possibilities for difrent style of gameplay.

You will can for example make specialized food production(or other types) colonies and send this food to other specialized like industry type colonies.

It also would make more sense in general - like you can colonize hostile but rich with minerals planet with technology but still you need to send most of the food from outside.

Colony blockades or pirate raids will have more effect in this setup.

Overall I think that there should be done something with that.

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lravenwing

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lravenwing

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 11:49:39 AM

Surplus food should either add to income or to morale (or both). As it stands now it seems to be just a wasted resource. Alternatively part of it should go to empire pool and be redistributed between other systems. It seems to make little sense that my galactic empire is able to pool all of the money together but is unable to redistribute food to systems that require it.

Ahh, all of that was already said before. This is what I get for forgetting to post and coming back an hour later.

At this point I usually just use the high food production systems to build big colonization fleets and colonizing all of the planets in new system in one go. Makes quite a bit of difference if you move 4 pop instead of one in first turn. I just wish I could also use colonizers to move pop freely between already colonized systems.

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shugyosha

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shugyosha

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 11:32:14 AM

Getting surplus food to other colonies would be a realistic and interesting way to deal with surplus. Even if the food freighters are not visible, buildable or manageable in the game, blockading a system to deny it to deliver or receive food would be a valid strategy.

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Jhurko

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Jhurko

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 11:07:44 AM

That would be very interesting. This issue was solved with a transports system in MOO2, sending the surplus food to where it was needed, and even then, you could get into trouble if not put an eye to the food production on some planets.

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AgentKI7KO

Sheredyn Survivor

AgentKI7KO

Sheredyn Survivor

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 8:15:56 AM

I believe some heroes with Admin/Labor that have talents that give a flat +Food and +Production, they are great for jumpstarting colonies in systems.

Problem is that when you're at that stage, starting a colony is trivial enough as it is anyway.

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Remscar

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Remscar

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 5:23:59 AM

merkaba954 wrote:
Hopefully they implement something that will cause excess food surplus to get exported to other systems possibly? Cause my home system is like makin a crap load of food but then new colonies that don't have a terran or ocean planet in them you need to build a food exploit or faem first jist to get them to a point of happiness that causes pop growth faster than 20 turns lol. Now my only issue is tech that helps make more money. I need to study tje tech trees more to find stuff that increases dust gathering rate.

Low income in a system seems to tie to system morale which then ties to its production rate and growth rate. The happier the system tje faster they populate so a system with all lava planets is slow to grow lol

That's actually a good idea. I've had population problems with some systems that just suck with agriculture.

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merkaba954

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merkaba954

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 5:06:36 AM

Hopefully they implement something that will cause excess food surplus to get exported to other systems possibly? Cause my home system is like makin a crap load of food but then new colonies that don't have a terran or ocean planet in them you need to build a food exploit or faem first jist to get them to a point of happiness that causes pop growth faster than 20 turns lol. Now my only issue is tech that helps make more money. I need to study tje tech trees more to find stuff that increases dust gathering rate.

Low income in a system seems to tie to system morale which then ties to its production rate and growth rate. The happier the system tje faster they populate so a system with all lava planets is slow to grow lol

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Remscar

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Remscar

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 4:51:01 AM

It's also for feeding your fat hero's.

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AONomad

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AONomad

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 4:23:14 AM

Thanks for the replies guys, sheds some light on game mechanics, wasn't expecting it to be that way. It makes sense, just threw me off guard a bit haha. Now just to undo all those food exploitations...

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nefloyd

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nefloyd

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 3:46:41 AM

Ah you shouldn't have edited out the portion about how it completely negates population growth if you build it. that seems like something that shouldn't happen

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AgentKI7KO

Sheredyn Survivor

AgentKI7KO

Sheredyn Survivor

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 3:40:12 AM

^ What he said. Population growth stops when you have the tech, but if this an issue just scrap the improvement until you're back to pop cap.

EDIT: Re-editing the part about population growth stopping when you have the tech.

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nefloyd

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nefloyd

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13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 3:38:05 AM

Ah, I noticed there's "Adaptive Industrial Systems" via "Dust Virtualization" way deep in the adaptive science tree...converts all surplus food into tech at 1:1 ratio. so that's a possibility.

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nefloyd

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nefloyd

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 2:49:50 AM

Yes, that works IF you still have population points left to fill. Is surplus food good for anything once populations are maxed? Just score padding? I mean, I've got a system right now (and I don't have much research done in the Diplo/Trade tree) with over 200 extra food/turn, thanks to it having a huge planet with hydromiel (+3/p) and several empire/monopoly bonuses, and that's obv. without even using the farm exploitation.

Production is great to crank up, obviously, so you can pump out new upgrades/ships asap, and it can spill over to science or dust, each of which is useful to increase because they are a galaxy-wide resource. It seems that extra food, however, is just wasted, which means you'd want to have just barely enough to population cap your system. That's a design decision - I don't have a problem with it, just curious if that's the case and plans to stay that way. I could see wanting to build farms early on and swapping them out for prod/sci/dust as you get bonuses/multipliers.

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Nousagi

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Nousagi

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 1:29:38 AM

Food increase your population on your planet and a higher population (the blue symbols left side of the planet) give you a extra point in science, production etc. Example: you see in the description "Industry: +1 per (blue symbol) on Lava". If you have 5 of 7 population on a lava planet so you get +5 on production.

And your other question: In the future you can change the order per "drag and drop". Someone had the same question before.

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Radagar

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Radagar

Newcomer

13 years ago

May 4, 2012, 1:23:02 AM

AONomad wrote:
Hey guys, just picked this game up on Steam, it's amazing and can't wait for the full release. Just one thing that's bothering me is I can't figure out what surplus food is good for (higher production lets you produce more, higher money spend more, higher science research more...). There's a ton of research upgrades to increase it but don't know why I would want to. I'm only around 3 hours into my first game, so maybe I just haven't played enough, but feels like I'm missing something.

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Consolidating another question I had into the same thread, is there a way to change production order without canceling what's being produced? Tried looking around for an option but couldn't find anything.

Production order cant be changed yet but the devs are implementing it. Extra food should increase your population growth rate in the system I do believe.

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