Zones; what is good, what needs to be fixed before 4.0

[Thiend]

This won't be half as long as posts I've made in the past about stuff like this, I just wanted to say something about it and I don't want to put it in the S09 announcement (although it's obviously related).

We've been told the purpose of zones is largely as a framework for later improvements and customization based on your empire. I really do like that, and I don't mind adding something currently pretty pointless (as I've said in the beta threads, buildings are capable of doing everything zones do now) for future benefit. Not least because it means getting zones to work won't be tied to the new mechanics when they are introduced.

However, I have one major non-presentation concern that I really, really don't want to see make it to live. Zones have added the ability to make better mixed outputs, but they've removed entirely the OPTION to also only add to one output anywhere that it can mix. I can mix unity and research, and that's really cool, but I can't then add to unity without adding to research. That's the most benign example, but it pulls off of other jobs for jobs I didn't want and that screws up my economy badly. Sometimes in a way that isn't quickly reversed, because if they move up a strata I can't quickly move them back down.

That has to be addressed before 4.0 releases (or in the release). I find that completely intolerable, it's an enormous QoL loss. Zones aren't currently necessary for anything, and they ARE currently detrimental to something.

Besides that I'm basically happy with the core (re)design of 4.0. But that specifically has got to go.

 

[Mmklop_]

Haven't tried since the first beta, but I think perhaps we should be able to have multiple types of the same zone. I don't see why a spacefaring civilization wouldn't be able to hyperspecialize a planet into producing consumer goods for example. I think it would lead to interesting choices, where you can either keep your planets generalized, or specialize them for increased economy of scale, but at the cost of needing to use trade to bring in other resources.

 

[Newbee53]

Haven't tried since the first beta, but I think perhaps we should be able to have multiple types of the same zone. I don't see why a spacefaring civilization wouldn't be able to hyperspecialize a planet into producing consumer goods for example. I think it would lead to interesting choices, where you can either keep your planets generalized, or specialize them for increased economy of scale, but at the cost of needing to use trade to bring in other resources.

you can. it adds more jobs, not more building slots.

On the main thing, the big issue I see with allowing the upgrade of one zone over another is that it would basically end zones.

I think a better solution would be to move all the 'produces resources' zones to an 'industrial district' and keep all the 'end product' type zones in the urban district. The issue is that such a set up might not have anything more than alloys and cg in the industrial district for right now. I'm hoping that the next Beta related Dev Dairy will talk about this problem. its also possible that the devs are looking at this and saying 'yes its annoying for people. but its not that big of a deal.' And if that is true, I'd like to know it. especially if their is a planned feature that they've not told us about yet.

 

[Thiend]

you can. it adds more jobs, not more building slots.

On the main thing, the big issue I see with allowing the upgrade of one zone over another is that it would basically end zones.

I think a better solution would be to move all the 'produces resources' zones to an 'industrial district' and keep all the 'end product' type zones in the urban district. The issue is that such a set up might not have anything more than alloys and cg in the industrial district for right now. I'm hoping that the next Beta related Dev Dairy will talk about this problem. its also possible that the devs are looking at this and saying 'yes its annoying for people. but its not that big of a deal.' And if that is true, I'd like to know it. especially if their is a planned feature that they've not told us about yet.

That... is at least a close enough fix to tolerate. I'd still need to adjust some jobs, but it resolves the issue of changing strata and allows increasing production of the input resources without also increasing their use.

It's not perfect, I'd like something better and I don't mean that as an insult, but it fixes it "enough" that I'd be able to play 4.0.

 

[Ryika]

It's an interesting problem, because I think there is no obvious, good fix in the system as it currently is.

There are workarounds (a building that decreases the jobs from a zone, for some kind of bonus for example), but I kind of think that for things to work out well, the whole system needs to be rethought a bit. It kind of goes against the idea of zones, but I feel like we should be improving zones for more specific jobs, not adding districts for an equal amount of jobs from all three zones.

I do still like the proposition that was made in the other thread, where districts and zones essentially swap places in a way.

 

[Newbee53]

That... is at least a close enough fix to tolerate. I'd still need to adjust some jobs, but it resolves the issue of changing strata and allows increasing production of the input resources without also increasing their use.

I'm not fully certain that there is a fix for this problem that isn't 'undo everything.' And it goes against basic human nature--and the nature of corporations--to decide that months off work simply isn't viable. And while I understand that this could be really bad for a lot of people, it doesn't take away my personal enjoyment. Right now, the main thing that is driving me nuts is the unemployment/growth/pop demotion bug thing.

With the apparently desire to have less buildings on planets with fewer unique zones--so 3 sperate urban zones, instead of 3 of the same zone--I'm not certain how much of a solution one can get.

 

[tappi]

you can. it adds more jobs, not more building slots.

On the main thing, the big issue I see with allowing the upgrade of one zone over another is that it would basically end zones.

I think a better solution would be to move all the 'produces resources' zones to an 'industrial district' and keep all the 'end product' type zones in the urban district. The issue is that such a set up might not have anything more than alloys and cg in the industrial district for right now. I'm hoping that the next Beta related Dev Dairy will talk about this problem. its also possible that the devs are looking at this and saying 'yes its annoying for people. but its not that big of a deal.' And if that is true, I'd like to know it. especially if their is a planned feature that they've not told us about yet.

I mean it does also add more building slots, you just can't use those building slots in most cases as most zone types don't have more than 3 or 4 buildings. The only one I've felt necessary to have the extra slots is research zones as you have 3 base buildings (3 levels of research station), the science ministry building (don't remember the name, it's the dome shaped one) and astral thread building. I assume future dark matter drawing would go here as well or something similar, but yeah.

I do also hope they'll comment on the current feel of zones/districts and the plans on them. I personally don't have that big of complaints on it, but we do need more granular control on how many jobs each zone produces.

 

[Newbee53]

The only one I've felt necessary to have the extra slots is research zones as you have 3 base buildings (3 levels of research station), the science ministry building (don't remember the name, it's the dome shaped one) and astral thread building. I assume future dark matter drawing would go here as well or something similar, but yeah.

I can't remember where, but somewhere the devs said their plan was to have 6 buildings for each zone so you couldn't have all of them on the same planet. Or at least in the same zone.

I thought having two of the same zone was supposed to only give more jobs per city. I wonder if something changed or they haven't implemented that setup yet. Can't remember if I've doubled up on the same planet yet.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Maybe you could get a bit more control by having the colony designation shift jobs around kind of like how the industrial designations currently work. So if the planet has unity, alloys, and research zones, choosing the unity world designation would double your unity jobs while halving your alloy and research jobs.

 

[tappi]

I can't remember where, but somewhere the devs said their plan was to have 6 buildings for each zone so you couldn't have all of them on the same planet. Or at least in the same zone.

I thought having two of the same zone was supposed to only give more jobs per city. I wonder if something changed or they haven't implemented that setup yet. Can't remember if I've doubled up on the same planet yet.

Yeah I fully expect more buildings to be released, this comment is just from my experience with the current build.

Can't say I remember them talk about limiting extra zones to jobs only, it's not how they work currently (could just be cause raw mechanic) but I don't think they should remove the building slots from the extra districts. The building slots are already kinda too limiting as we speak I feel. I could be willing to change my opinion depending on what buildings get added and so.

 

[Newbee53]

Maybe you could get a bit more control by having the colony designation shift jobs around kind of like how the industrial designations currently work. So if the planet has unity, alloys, and research zones, choosing the unity world designation would double your unity jobs while halving your alloy and research jobs.

Now I want an 'interesting' button along with funny and like. I'll think about this and see if it works in my mind.

Can't say I remember them talk about limiting extra zones to jobs only, it's not how they work currently (could just be cause raw mechanic) but I don't think they should remove the building slots from the extra districts

Your right, they probably shouldn't. I think that might have been stated before the release of the beta. However, I've not got the time to dig so whatever.

 

[GnoSIS]

The problem with the design and the beta, is that players start with 1 colony, but the system is built more towards having 4-8 colonies. You curse yourself of not being able to do what you want with 1 colony. While on 3.x your capital could do everything at once.

Then the problem is also that if you triple zone production of anything or any combination, that you won't have space for goverment buildings and amenities if you build up the planet.

Also, in the mid game, where you will have specific designations and triple or double zone a specific production/activity, you will aslso miss out on having many district slots empty, but then again, that was also a 3.X problem.

 

[WoodenP]

Let's look at what 4.0 "Phoenix" is setting out to do:

1. Address late game lag with the introduction of pop groups.
2. Address late game lag with the removal of trade lanes.
3. Improve population growth and immigration with the introduction of pop groups.
4. New player guidance and pacing with the focus system.
5. "Quality of life improvements" (as specified on the original dev diary).

Someone explain to me how zones relate or help with any of that.

They don't. Cut them.

 

[Newbee53]

Let's look at what 4.0 "Phoenix" is setting out to do:

1. Address late game lag with the introduction of pop groups.
2. Address late game lag with the removal of trade lanes.
3. Improve population growth and immigration with the introduction of pop groups.
4. New player guidance and pacing with the focus system.
5. "Quality of life improvements" (as specified on the original dev diary).

Someone explain to me how zones relate or help with any of that.

(They don't. Cut them.)

One of the primary intents of zones is to provide more long term flexibility to the development of planets. Not all of that potential will be reached in the initial implementations where we're trying to make the systems similar to the 3.x economy.

Benefits that we see include:

1. More ability to customize your Urban Districts. Where before you had City Districts and Industrial Districts, with a designation toggle to switch your Industrial Districts between Forge and Factory, we no longer need to create extremely specialized zones for other resources - you can make your picks yourself. Want Research and Unity? Go for it.
2. Use that to create unique Zones based on planetary features, to make different planets feel more interesting and unique. In one of next week's beta updates, the Betharian Fields planetary feature will let you shift miner output from Minerals to Energy as a prototype of this. I expect we'll have a lot more as we take advantage of the system more in 4.1/4.2.
3. Create a clearer distinction between Districts and Buildings. (Though admittedly we've backed off on this a bit.) Districts provide jobs, Zones change which jobs, Buildings modify jobs.

Amenities shouldn't be a Zone though. The beta's shown that clearly enough already - they need to be provided in a different manner

Not that Zones are primarily being designed to do stuff right now but are laying the groundwork for future updates. given they clearly have a year's worth of planning--and possibly even more--it's clear that they felt it was best to make all the changes now. Probably best to make major backend changes all at the same time because you've already got all the people working on that side of the program.

 

[WoodenP]

Not that Zones are primarily being designed to do stuff right now but are laying the groundwork for future updates. given they clearly have a year's worth of planning--and possibly even more--it's clear that they felt it was best to make all the changes now. Probably best to make major backend changes all at the same time because you've already got all the people working on that side of the program.

Nonsense. Large changes are obviously best released one at a time so each can be measured and refined on it's own terms.

 

[cerberus189]

honestly, my main problem is like you said, you cant create one job without it making others. a idea i suggested is add a option to make it so creating new jobs does not allow people to work the jobs until you go to management and edit the slider. this will allow u to add more jobs without it creating the other jobs and will stop the problem of pops auto moving from worker to the new jobs leaving ur base jobs unworked

 

[tappi]

honestly, my main problem is like you said, you cant create one job without it making others. a idea i suggested is add a option to make it so creating new jobs does not allow people to work the jobs until you go to management and edit the slider. this will allow u to add more jobs without it creating the other jobs and will stop the problem of pops auto moving from worker to the new jobs leaving ur base jobs unworked

While a possible solution, I feel like this would be unnecessarily clunky.

 

[Newbee53]

Nonsense. Large changes are obviously best released one at a time so each can be measured and refined on it's own terms.

Only if you have infante people to throw at a problem. The programmers all have different skills, and if the people you need to work on the zones rework are also the people you need to work on the shroud rework than you can't do both at the same time. So you have to schedule them for different points in time.

Right now, all their teams are working on backend stuff, and stuff for bio-rework. if they need their backend teams to work on the UI elements for the shroud rework and that is the rework they need the zones for--don't know making assumptions--the zones have to be done first.

Also, a large part of this scheduling is getting people to buy the game. Bio-rework and psionic re-work must be done soon, or people will get upset about those two not having the same number of interesting decisions as cybernetic and synth.

Also, they almost certainly don't want every update to include changes to the entire game. they want to keep those changes in as few updates as possible. if this was just pops. and the next one was just planet building you know they would push away people for changing things 'all the time.'

Then you have the other big problem. They only have so many programmers and they can only do so much work each day. And its not like any one programmer can do every job that needs to be done either. For all we know if they don't do all the reworks now, they simply won't be able to do the pop one for another year, because the people with those skills will have to be used somewhere else. for example, maybe the people reworking bio-ascension and related mechanics are the one's doing the pop rework. and so the people doing the zone rework are either doing that or nothing at all.

That makes sense to me, because if you are changing up pop-modding to allow for the clone version, then you probably want to make that less annoying for everyone. And if cloning means you have multiple species reproducing, then you probably want that pop group rework for everyone else at the same time.

The worst thing for a company to do is to have some of their people without a full days worth of work.

I guess my point here is that we don't know everything that goes into these decisions so shouldn't be second guessing them based on things we don't know about. especially the order of things. For all we know, they are in early design stages of latter reworks and can't start programing on them yet. And thus can't combine biogenesis with something else.

honestly, my main problem is like you said, you cant create one job without it making others. a idea i suggested is add a option to make it so creating new jobs does not allow people to work the jobs until you go to management and edit the slider. this will allow u to add more jobs without it creating the other jobs and will stop the problem of pops auto moving from worker to the new jobs leaving ur base jobs unworked

I'd be complaining about having to go into my management tab every time I built a new job and it 'free all jobs' or scroll around to find a new one. clunky and annoying, I think. There should be a solution out there somewhere. but that is not it.

 

[Calvax]

Someone explain to me how zones relate or help with any of that.

They don't. Cut them.

As others have said zones are laying a foundation. But even if the devs suddenly agreed that they need to completely remove them it's not like they can just press the delete key and be ready for 4.0's release. This has been in the works for a long time (they were teasing the custodians were working on something big long before christmas last year) and has been designed in conjunction with the new pops systems. There's no way a beta would ever cause the devs to 180 and magic up enough man hours of developer time to redesign it in the time left.

I was quite wary of zones at first but honestly as more bugs are being shaken out the beta they're not that big a deal. They probably will take several patches to finesse but sans the bugs and balancing making it difficult to use them I don't think they're fundamentally bad and worth chucking. One common criticism is that if you have a mixed planet it's hard to make just the jobs you want, but that seems entirely the intent. Specialised planets won't have that problem so now there will be more of a choice to think "do I boost my research and alloy jobs or just one of them" and you go to different planets for that.

 

[HFY]

Only if you have infante people to throw at a problem.

We probably do have some very young players.