Migration Mechanism - How it could work

[MichaelJanuary]

Please read this as being for RESETTLEMENT.
This has nothing to do with auto-migration.


SIMPLISTIC PROPOSAL

1. Ordering a pop to resettle from Planet A to Planet B initiates the construction of a TRANSPORT (see armies) on Planet A.
2. Each pop requires 1 transport. Thus resettling 10 pops will queue up 10 transports to be built. (see build queues).
3. The pop(s) being resettled are flagged as migrating. Their production (if they are employed) declines over time.
4. On completion of a transport, the pop is 'magically' relocates to Planet B.
5. The transport is destroyed (its a single use vessel).
6. To be really nasty - pop growth could stop while the transport was under construction .... this would prevent random nastiness like a new pop arriving on your planet that you were de-populating.

WHAT THE .... ???

• Planets can queue up multiple transports, but only build one at a time. This limits the rate at which pops can be resettled.
• The cost and time for the transport can vary according to the quality of the accommodations (cheap transports for slaves or cattle, first-class passenger liners for citizens, private yachts with swimming pools for rulers).
• Transports would NOT be colony ships. They don't need built-in construction equipment, survival or survey equipment or any of the stuff you'd need to establish a new colony. They just have to get the pops to a destination. Once.
• Planet B can receive pops from multiple planets, so can be filled up quite quickly, but each sending planet can only send one pop at a time, limited to transport construction speed.
• While building transports, the planet can not build other construction, naturally.
• No clutter of the space lanes.
• Empires with only 1 or 2 high population worlds (game start) will be limited in how fast they can resettle a new colony, while an empire with dozens of feeder planets can quickly populate a new planet (late game).

BUT WHAT ABOUT .... ?

• It can still be possible to put in place planetary decisions such as 'super fast transport construction speed for X years, but no other construction allowed'.
  • This way you can de-populate a planet fairly fast, but not do anything else while that is ongoing.
  • This decision could cost influence.
  • There would still be no INSTANT de-population of a planet.
• Should the planet have a a Shipyard or Passenger Transit module, this could increase the build speed (or reduce costs) of the transports by substantial margins. But its not a requirement.
• If you're a slaver on a raiding mission, you would still have to invade the planet, enact a decision, and build as many transports as possible before the planet gets recaptured. The defending empire, wouldn't be subject to the loss of an entire planets population if they recaptured it fairly quickly.