For the optional automation, what about being able to designate the various worlds directly as Agri/Forge/Tech/etc. and then, as long as automation is activated the governor A.I. will develop the world according to your designation.
You mean a system to focus the development on a smaller scale than a sector? Like, doing what every other 4x Game does? I mean even the new colony management system is a more or less a copy of what the Civ series does for years. And not really a good one, at that. So no, that'll not not happen, because Pdox never copied a system from other games in a good way. They always try to go their own way, which isn't bad per se, but when they copy something, they often try to change or fix parts of their copy, that never were broken in the first place. For example, Pdox made a civ like colonymanagement, with their own touch.
But by doing that, they implemented some quirks, that weren't really necessary. Like the housing system. It would've been enough, if they'd implemented overcrowding, and one or two buildings to fight overcrowding. As an example:
Let's say, every colony can sustain a certain number of pops without being overcrowded. Lets say:
Planet size x 2
Once that is reached, you need a building to increase that cap again, the planet size would be an easy to use number. If you again reach the cap, you need to build an other building, to increase it again by the planet size. So in the end every colony would be able to sustain a POP count of four times the planet size. Everything that goes over that will count as overcrowding and produce unhappiness. Same with the stratas. What sounded like a good idea fails, partially, because it is not implemented good enough. Firstly, there is the problem that it doesn't add anything of value to the game. It may sound good in theory, and it may work, but the way Pdox implemented it, it does not. You have no tool to influence of which strata a new pop will be, you have no influence of when a pop will be promoted or demoted to another strata
But, it will generate unhappiness if a pop of a certain strata is unemployed, even so there are free jobs in an other strata, simply because it takes forever for one pop to get promoted or demoted. Just having jobs, and pops working on those jobs would have been enough. Pops that are flagged as slaves, will get substracted a certain amount of happiness by default. If there are no free jobs, a pop will automatically produce unhappiness. On top of that are going bonuses and maluses of other modificators, like faction, living conditions and so on. But, at least in my opinion, stratas weren't a good idea, because they do not add anything of value. So, in short: Pdox copied a well used system, and tried to "improve" it, without thinking of its usefullness, or if it really adds another, meaningfull, layer to the game. On top of that are the Pdox typical bugs, which do their part to worsen the situtation even more.
I really anticipated 2.2 and Megacorp. But so far I find it really difficult to like all of the changes. Playing anykind of machine empire is sheer torment, because it takes forever to get new pops. Machine Species are just bugged to a point, where having more than one, makes it impossible to control which are being built, because Population control does not function properly. The sector system is pure agony, without tweeks in form of a personal mod, and to use the outliner with more than 10 colonies and an UI-scaling mod is nothing more than torture. The trading routes are just awkward. Why do even the most distant parts of my empire try to directly conect with my capital instead of the sector capital or the nearest starbase? Why does every *** starbase generate a trade route, even if it doesn't has a *** trade module? Why did they trade a semi functioning sector automation that at least in theory could work without further player intervention, against a semi functioning sector automation that not even in theory would work without the player intervening regularly, because it needs more money?
I anticipated the patch, because it brought changes that were long overdue, along with bugfixes, that were also overdue. But instead of making things better, they got worse and the anticipated changes are either not functioning properly, or they do, but in a bad way. I have no doubt, that the sector system would work near flawlessly, if it would've been done right. I have no doubt that the new colonysystem would work flawlessly, if it would've been done right.
But they didn't and I partially blame christmas for that, because if they would've taken more time to do things right, everything would've fallen into place, and it would've worked as it should've from the beginning. But so, they released it shortly befor christmas, properly hopeing to sell a few more copies, it's christmas after all, and they rushed things. At least I hope that this is what happend, because if not, this wouldn't really be in Paradox's favor.
So, enough ranting for today, gotta catch my train
