Thoughts on long term system stat changes

[phkb]

I thought this deserved it's own thread. And part of my goal here is do a bit of "thinking out loud."

Can systems change? I guess that's the first question to ask. If your answer for your personal Ooniverse is "No", then there's probably no point in reading further. Otherwise, read on.

Now, I'm not contemplating wholesale changes across the board. But small changes that take place over time.

For some of the system stats, there is a natural progression. TL 1/2/3/4/etc. GDP and Population as well. But other stats aren't as obvious. Would the next state of an anarchy be feudal? With the right stimulus, it could go straight to multigov, dictatorship or democracy. And any of the system types could devolve to multi-gov, or even anarchy. Is there any natural progression with government type, or is it purely down to the thing that is influencing them? ie One type of influence could push a multigov towards confederacy, while a different type could push it to anarchy.

It's the kind of the same with economy: If an agricultural world was aiming to be a "better" agricultural world, would they progress from "Poor Ag" to "Avr Ag" to "Rich Ag" and then to "Mainly Ag"? It feels like a downgrade after they made it to "Rich Ag"? And which is the better agricultural producer: "Rich Ag", or "Poor Ag"? So, if we're not following the straight number sequence for economy, how could an agricultural economy change? Would they all be aiming to become industrial? I don't think that makes sense, although perhaps for a "Mainly Ag" they might want to head in an industrial direction.

Part of the problem is with the economy descriptions. "Poor Ag" is a, well, poor description for an economy that is solely based on agriculture. Stranger's "SW Economy" addresses this by relabeling it "Extereme Ag", which kind of makes sense.

Anyway, my point is, it's not clear that a system with eco = 7 (Poor Ag) will be aiming to become eco 6 (Average Ag), and so on.

I think those are the main stats that lend themselves to change. Things like "species" I think are a little different, so I'll exclude that one for the moment.

Now, to try to limit how far we push this, I'm not looking at any particular influencer here. There could be lots of them, from a number of sources. I'm purely looking at how change might progress for any given system. And hopefully, the end result will be a template I can use for future development. That is, it's all very well building a system around a straight numerical increase or decrease to a value. But if it's clear such a system needs to be more complex than that, I'd like to identify as many of the complexities as I can before I commit to data design.

[Cody]

<scratches head - resumes listening to Pink Floyd's Eclipse>

[Redspear]

I think this might be a case of a very fine question that doesn't easily lead to a very useful answer.

You highlight the simple numerical progression inherited from elite, where a poor industrial is essentially more 'evolved' than a rich agricultural. I think that works as long as they are static.

Imagine a real world economy (I'd rather we didn't but...) as well as status there is also potential, be it lacking or otherwise.

A 'rich' system may have already reached its zenith but then so may a 'poor' system depending upon its resources.

Not every change is progressive though. Even a short history (of almost anything) should evidence that. It's also quite possible (even likely) that one system's advancement could lead to the regression of others.

Civil war and disease were thrown in randomly to elite but if you want to take them seriously then not only is any such system being highly successful a minor miracle but one growing into such a system (i.e. where the disasters predate the growth) would seem borderline incredible.

Governance is perhaps even more of a minefield. Shouldn't nearby trading partners exert influence? And if they do then isn't it likely to lead to an agglomeration of similar systems?

This is what happened with piracy when neighbours were allowed to exert influence and I think it's fair to say that even most of those who still think it was a good idea agree that its implementation had undesirable consequences.

Advancement in the numerical scale was really an advancement in safety rather than society. Yes, there is a correlation with tech level and productivity but not necessarily with either classical liberty or equality. Which one has the more significant societal influence? Does that change upon achieving a certain tech level or governance?

If we imagine a Galactic sector/map evolving, rather than just a system, then do we expect it to progress? It might and indeed it probably has but would it be uniform in that progression? Would there be 'casualty' systems, potentially even ones that dropped off the GalCop map? Is that partly why each 'galaxy' is just a small hub of neighbours trying to get a bit of the profit from a central hub?

Is tech level no less correlated with danger than it is with government? This isn't evidenced on a system by system basis but it could be on a much larger scale. Imagine if piracy everywhere dropped. Tech level equates to access to military hardware so couldn't/shouldn't that drop in response to reduced piracy.

This is a potential minefield that makes an interesting simulation but (by my flawed estimation at least) a crummy game environment.

So my first thought is not to touch it at all, even with the proverbial bargepole, but if I haven't put you off then my next suggestion would be that whatever you do, throw in some random.

Each map 'works' to a greater or lesser extent because of its variance. Any predictable, logical evolution is likely to endanger that. Unless systems a just cycled round e.g. democracy to corporate to anarchy then we risk destabilising them from a gameplay perspective.

Randomisation doesn't necessarily solve this but it does prevent a 'settling' resulting from whatever evolutionary rules have been predetermined.

[Redspear]

I further suspect that your basic idea correlates well with map size. More systems, less problems with changing them.

If each Galactic map were significantly bigger (say x4) then each additional system would be providing a tiny degree of insurance against the map losing its utility.

If the player had to travel further in order to maintain that utility then that becones gameplay (as long as it can relatively easily still be found).

[hiran]

Nice idea.

How likely would it be for a galaxy of 256 stars to witness a supernova or birth of a new star? Yet I believe that is beyond the scope of OXPs.

Bit to come back to the original intent of the thread:
Could progression through tech levels or agricultural levels be based on the trading that the world sees?
If not enough traders pickup goods they fall behind. If lots of trading is performed they would increase their wealth?

Somehow I'd like to look at trade globally, not just in every pilot's local installation of Ooniverse.

[Redspear]

I think it's the case that the 256 is a hard-coded limit. So never mind adding extra map space or anything like that, there isn't 'room' allocated for even one more system.

This has led to oxps commandeering systems rather than adding them. Which approach causes the most disruption is perhaps a matter of opinion but I'd certainly like to have systems without inhabitants (and therefore without main stations). A bridge that the player could only cross by the use of either fuel scooping or diving into another's wormhole.

[arquebus]

My first reaction to the question is - the time scale of the game doesn't really accommodate it even mattering. There's virtually nothing that could happen on the ground, in space or in the pilot's seat that would affect any kind of change in system stats. Especially nothing from the pilot's seat, which is really the only part that matters for gameplay. Unless the perspective of Oolite is to shift from "I'm a nobody" to "I'm the puppetmaster of the universe."

My second reaction is more in the spirit of the question.

While on the whole I think there could be cases made for generalizable progressions from one gov type to another (for example), history shows us that this generalization is routinely broken in (much more) interesting ways.

The Russian Revolution took us from a highly authoritarian feudal system to an equally highly authoritarian pseudo-collectivist system. We can argue the nuances of whether Soviet governance was "Communist" or not (it wasn't), but it remains the case that most of industry - modern and pre-modern - was nationalized and collectivized. Within the confines of Oolite, that would mean a transition from Feudal to Communist. And once the Soviet Union collapsed, government (through corruption) reoriented itself rather quickly into a state run by oligarchs, which means it went from Communist to Corporate.

Other examples apply. Haiti went from Democratic to Anarchy in the past couple of years. The U.S. is teetering between Democratic and Corporate. South Africa went from (functionally) Dictatorship to Democratic. Virtually all the European countries went from Democratic to Confederate.

In other words, as with most things, narrative cases can be made for pretty much any transition between two states (pun intended). Heck, the Great Leap Forward - though it took longer than intended - took China from Poor Agricultural to Rich Industrial (nationally if not locally) in roughly two generations. Similar events occurred for South Korea and Japan, and even faster.

You can make anything taste good with a little seasoning.

[Redspear]

@ arquebus
Good answer!

While on the whole I think there could be cases made for generalizable progressions from one gov type to another (for example), history shows us that this generalization is routinely broken in (much more) interesting ways.

Agreed.

We can argue the nuances of whether Soviet governance was "Communist" or not (it wasn't)

but it remains the case that most of industry - modern and pre-modern - was nationalized and collectivized.

Care to elaborate? I'm not disagreeing with you, just curiuos.
I mean, industry is collectivist in some sense by necessity and if it operates within or in cooperation with (via taxes) a nation state then in some ways it's nationalised but I'm guessing that you mean something more?

And once the Soviet Union collapsed, government (through corruption) reoriented itself rather quickly into a state run by oligarchs, which means it went from Communist to Corporate.

Just like the 'communist' issue, there's the ideology and the reality which don't necessarily always match. I think an oligarchy is fairly clear wheras corporate as a government type rather less so. Plutarchy perhaps?
Does an oligarchy in fact have more in common with a confederacy with the latter being essentially the same idea but on a (conceptually at least) larger scale?

Politics gets pretty confusing, pretty fast and that's my only point here. It can be fun to discuss how the definitions might work within the game however.

You can make anything taste good with a little seasoning.

Or a lot, sometimes it takes a lot

[arquebus]

For the Soviet Union, the "collectivized" industry was probably more advertising/internal propaganda than anything else. Really the goal was nationalization, which is to say, control (not only economic exploitation - i.e., taxes) by government authority. There are traces of "collectivism" in Soviet industry in that fairly often oversight authority was delegated to people lower on the rungs than you'd find in a more intentionally capitalist environment. (Realistically, especially under Stalin, they just ran out of middle managers, and had to pull up from the lower rungs.) But more broadly, the "collectivism" of Soviet industry was about instilling in the people at least the *belief* that decision-making and profit-reaping was collective - in other words, "we're all in this together, stand or fall equally."

As for post-Soviet Russia and post-Soviet states, plutocracy really is a better descriptor, but there's no Oolite equivalent for that. The closest might be Dictatorship, but that's not *quite* what's going on in the post-Soviet states. I went with Corporate only because the fundamental goals of the plutocracy are economic rather than social or cultural. (And for that reason I also lightly painted the U.S. with the Corporate brush.)

The distinction between oligarchy and confederation I think is more straightforward. Oligarchy is rule by a few individuals; if you get too big or the top end of your government gets too complex, it's definitionally no longer an oligarchy. Oolite-wise, the closest analogue would be Feudal (although Feudal implies a few things that oligarchy does not).

For Oolite's Confederation, I think you'd have to set it alongside Multi-Governmental. If you have to distinguish the two, I think the best way to do so would be to say that Confederation is a Multi-Government where the individual governments are in an alliance that binds them both internally and externally, such that their laws have limiting parameters that apply to all of the governments. So in the real world, by this definition, I think Confederation would apply to the U.S. states and to the European Union countries. To a lesser extent the countries of the African Union, as well, as part of their charter is a human rights declaration. (Most of the rest of that charter is about international relations.)

[phkb]

Well, at least that's clear.

phkb's todo list:
- work out method of allowing systems to change over time

[Redspear]

As for post-Soviet Russia and post-Soviet states, plutocracy really is a better descriptor, but there's no Oolite equivalent for that. The closest might be Dictatorship, but that's not *quite* what's going on in the post-Soviet states. I went with Corporate only because the fundamental goals of the plutocracy are economic rather than social or cultural. (And for that reason I also lightly painted the U.S. with the Corporate brush.)

In elite/oolite, I see corporate states as something like the East India Company, not because I think that's what the word necessarily means but rather because I find it more amusing to imagine.

The distinction between oligarchy and confederation I think is more straightforward. Oligarchy is rule by a few individuals; if you get too big or the top end of your government gets too complex, it's definitionally no longer an oligarchy.

You're absolutely right with your emphasis on the few but then what constitutes the 'few' is relativistic.

I suppose if it were a confedaracy of dictatorships rather than of democracies then that would be quite different but even in the latter I can see a comparison. If each citizen (of the many) is effectively having matters decided upon by a panel (the few), all but one of whom they have no influrence upon the election of (whether by vote or utilisation of services), then that sounds rather like an oligarchy.

If not then where exactly is the cut off?

It also sounds like a multi-government of course but I'm not trying to be obtuse, just to highlight that systems can overlap in confusing ways. Perhaps because they're not all exclusive terms.

Anyway, I understand your point better now, so thanks for the clarification.

Well, at least that's clear.

Sorry

[Cholmondely]

I think the idea is a good one.



But.



Our lore tells us that things are not improving. Rather, they are in decline.

States should be getting poorer, the number of anarchies increasing, the numbers of pirates and thargoids increasing. GalCop forces getting less effective.

There will, of course, be exceptions. But the overall trend should be downwards.

The Golden Age is behind us, and in front of us is a decline into chaos.


And this of course fits in with with player's ship becoming more invulnerable and his skills improving. So the game maintains its challenge.

[arquebus]

Perhaps all of my long-windedness is to say that I think a mechanic for systems changing over time is maybe easier than it first appears. Because there are clear real world cases where sudden shifts occur (rather than slow evolution), you could tie into the galactic news stuff and have actual revolutions etc. happen via news items that then change the situation in a system. (This is exactly what Astrox Imperium does.) Change along the rich/poor agri/ind axes would be out of scope for the most part (takes too long), though perhaps sudden catastrophic drops might make sense - earthquakes, weird anomalies, etc. No need to come up with a mechanic for smooth/gradual change when the more interesting cases are sudden and often unexpected.

[Redspear]

Is there any natural progression with government type, or is it purely down to the thing that is influencing them? ie One type of influence could push a multigov towards confederacy, while a different type could push it to anarchy.

It's the kind of the same with economy: If an agricultural world was aiming to be a "better" agricultural world, would they progress from "Poor Ag" to "Avr Ag" to "Rich Ag" and then to "Mainly Ag"?

The original post was imagining a progression.

But...

States should be getting poorer, the number of anarchies increasing, the numbers of pirates and thargoids increasing. GalCop forces getting less effective.

There will, of course, be exceptions. But the overall trend should be downwards.

The Golden Age is behind us, and in front of us is a decline into chaos.


And this of course fits in with with player's ship becoming more invulnerable and his skills improving. So the game maintains its challenge.

the more interesting cases are sudden and often unexpected.

These are both good points.

I suppose the obvious question might be what do we want to get from this?

Cholmondely makes the point that we could get a difficulty scaling alongside (even if not quite keeping up with) player progression. Whether one agrees with it or not that represents a goal to such changes.

So what's the goal with this proposed change?
If it's just a feature then what are the benefits from it?

If one system, somewhere amongst 256 changes then what do we want from it?
Sudden trading opportunities?
Boon in passenger missions?

Would the player motivation be to help or exploit or both?

I personally find oolite's credit progression to be too easy and too fast to benefit from such things. On the other side, the only real benefit of a crash would likely be to force the player out of a milk run.

What I do like about Cholmondely's suggestion however is that there's nothing to exploit just more to suffer when the time is right.

Remember however that if tech level drops so that we lose the highest tech systems everywhere then equipment issues become important.

I still don't think that the idea works well with oolite's 8-bit galaxy model. But for anyone who does then what do you want from it? What are the imagined benefits?

[Cholmondely]

I'd been musing about this a bit.

Things are generally going to pot. A bit like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

So what would one expect to see?

Which systems are most likely to suffer? Which systems are most likely to be able to keep the flag flying?


Here is a broad-brushstroke scenario which will need some critique.


1) Factors for change

Premisses
Trade makes all involved richer

Corporate states are nasty but stable as long as they can make money
Democracies are kinder and more stable (easy to throw out a bad government if people recognise it as such)
Confederacies and Multi-Govs are mixes of Cooporates/Democracies/Dictatorships/Commies/Feudals and possibly even "ideological" anarchies rather than festering disastrous ones.
Dictatorships rely on nationalism. They may well invade a neighbour but will not generally try and convert it to junta fascism or Imperialism.
Commies are happy to spread the gospel and subvert whoever they can (thinking of the USSR - not of modern China - which acts more like a "dictatorship")
Feudals are the last ditch against the onslaught of barbarism (which is how it began in Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire).
Anarchies are festering hell holes (Sudan? Somalia?) and not the sort of thing which Bakunin et al dreamed of.

Piracy will increase. Thargoid attacks will increase. (implied in the Lore, but not included in the Vanilla Game Code).



a) Factors for improvement:
Trade (but this is clobbered if not protected - see below).
General progress in science/technology.



b) Factors for deterioration:
Piracy (clobbers trade)
Thargoids (clobber trade)
Unrest in the system (due to poverty/corruption/featherbedded fatcats/commie inflitration) itself leading either to anarchy/multi gov or to strongmen stepping in (feudal/commie/dictatorships). Or just leading to police being concentrated on matters on the planet and starting to ignore the pirates which would lead to further poverty.
General deterioration might well prevent new scientific/technological discoveries being implemented unless they happened on Ceesxe or equivalent. The inventor might not afford the passage to get there or might die en-route.


2) Where would one expect change?

Trade would generally become more dangerous except between the safest richer systems. Profits in dangerous areas would increase as would mortality rates.



Politics
The safest of the richest systems can protect themselves. That is where I would expect to find Redspear's beloved Viper Interceptors (nowhere else, GalCop ceases to be able to afford them and they are no longer found outside of the Ceesxes and their ilk), and the ensuing marmalization of any pirates/Thargoids who show their noses. They might get richer, they could certainly expect to increase their TL levels.

The poorest systems would get poorer, less stable and start losing TL. Trade with them would become more dangerous and much more lucrative for those surviving. More anarchies would start appearing at this level.

Average systems would also get a little poorer, a little less stable and start losing TL. They would fare better if in stable neighbourhoods.

Rich unsafe systems (Ensoreus et al) would start declining. They would stay Corporates unless the rot set in badly, but might fall to Commie influence or become Democracies or Dictatorships etc. Unlikely to transition to anarchies/feudals unless a massive disaster transpires.



Gameplay

GalCop becomes poorer as tax revenues dwindle.

Convoys OXPs: Fewer lone traders except in safer systems. Convoys only in anarchies et al.

Pirates in unsafe systems (no/few GalCops) would cluster at the Witchpoint and then close to the planet/orbital stations. Since they could not cover all possible routes between the two they would focus at the termini. In numbers, to clobber the convoys.

Unsure about Bounty Hunters. Would the systems focus their money on their own defence forces (Junta Enforcers/Military Rays/Ceesxe-only Viper Interceptors etc) - or would they just pay out bounties (more "bounty-laden" ships but possibly smaller amounts on each)?

GalCops become rarer and less well equipped.
Anarchy OXP: It can no longer afford Sentinel Bases in anarchies - they all become Pirate bases
Leviathan OXP: Leviathans become rarer (their equipment becomes even more expensive, and some equipment ceases appearing for sale).

Rock Hermits: Pirate Coves start appearing in poorer non-anarchies.

As things got worse, the richer systems might well succumb to the "Eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we might die" mentality. Religion would get stronger and try to counteract this.


There will of course be many more effects than just these...