The system we have is functional, don't get me wrong, but it does have some flaws. My main point is that food acts vastly different from the other resources and I just wanted to show how it could be brought back in line.



Specifically, there is virtually no penalty to colonizing as many systems as you can get your hands on at the moment and I fear that that oversimplifies the game.



I think that part of the problem is that, at the moment, most improvements are geared toward boosting the productivity of the population. If they focused instead, as a few do, on producing resources directly then you would have the choice between building your empire's industry or growing your population, etc. Right now population is by far the most important thing to have because everything comes from it.



On a side note, do you agree that the Sophons should have an Ocean homeworld?

Why not make food something collectible? have a food stockpile bar that feeds your pop and allow those transport ships to manually ship food to other worlds. We can have systems dedicated to nothing but production that get their food delivered to them by a system that overproduces food and delivers it to the forge system. Food should be an empire wide resource and be necessary for a thriving industry base. If you automated the delivery ships or just made it abstract the prospect of managing food supplies with population size is friggin awesome!



You should be able to ship excess pop and food to other worlds to speed up colonies but add an ever increasing food demand. Imagine having a system that pumps out 2-3 dreads a turn but is completely dependent on another system being dedicated to feeding it and now imagine someone has blockaded your breadbasket system! Your forge system would be up in arms with starvation and riots as you fought to clear lines of supply. You could of course balance your systems to counter this but with great risks come great rewards!

1. This would be great absolutely great.



2. No, that would make bread baskets all too powerful.



3. I like it the way it is, feels balanced enough for now.



4. This is the time to regear the economy and burn your food producing exploitations and enhancements if you want.



Don't forget that there is another way to grow a system -- heroes -- that is incredibly fast and overpowered.

4 is not a good idea. 1 is allright, to populate new systems fast. 3, I suggested on another topic aswell. 2 won't change anything.



More on 3; food requirement for "next population" aswell as the food consumption should increase more and more in my opinion. Right now, I have a system with 55+ population, generating 4500 food each turn, aswell as 2500 industry and 2200 science. Industry and science costs go up, but food requirements doesn't as far as I can tell.