New Project System will be in next update! - Blog here!
Hey everyone! While we’re hard at work on the military system, with the ongoing UI overhaul, it gives us a chance to really look at every system and make sure we’re on the right track. One of the systems we’re going to update in .8.3.1 is the Project system.
So while we like the Project System as a whole, what’s not really working is how ADM is distributed and used among Projects. Basically, we want to make it much less confusing about where ADM comes from, and especially why it’s not always available.
Under the old system, ADM (which is basically the resource that builds Projects and represents manpower/specialized equipment/labor/etc) and is generated by planets with Admin districts, is utilized by a chain moving upward. So for example, if you wanted to assign a province governor to a Project in order to utilize a lot of ADM in only one slot (your Project Administrator can only have as many contributors as they have ADM rating) it would basically ‘suck’ all of the system governor’s ADM, which they would collect from their viceroys in their system.
All well and good, but what was difficult was that basically if you stuck a province governor on a Project, you were almost stuck unless you had another Province that had a governor that was willing to send ADM to the Project. And the UI didn’t make it clear at all that if you added a system governor, say, that it would take the ADM of that system’s planet viceroy that you’d already added, nor did it give an explanation of why so many leaders had 0 effective ADM.
So we decided to totally redesign the ADM system. It is still used for Projects, but there will now be an empire-wide pool of ADM that is tapped for Projects (you will see this number on the resource bar on the upper-right, next to your Gross Empire Product) Your House Holdings and Holdings that are Allied or Vassals with you will contribute 100% of their generated ADM to that pool, while Houses who are Cooperative, Indifferent, or Cold War will contribute 50%. Houses in Limited or Total War will not contribute to the pool!
Now, you can have as many Projects as the ADM rating of your Domestic Prime, plus 1, but they will all draw from the same pool. (Houses will have their own ADM pool based on their Holdings, which will also prevent the issue of you taking all of a House’s ADM so they can’t do anything) You will be able to assign a priority to Projects that determine what ratio of the pool they will get. You can set to Very High, High, Normal, Low, Very Low, or Pause. (You can do this after the Project starts, but it will cost 1 AP.)
If the Project is a Province Project, the ADM will be modified by the Province Governor’s Government Skill as a simple %. So if the skill was a 70, then the Project would actually get 70% of the allocated ADM from the pool as the effective ADM used. If the Project is a System or Planet Project, then the remaining pool will be further modified by the System Governor’s Government Skill. So you can see it’s usually more effective to build province Projects when you can, although they will be more expensive.
So here's an example: Say all of the ADM generated by all of your planets totaled 500 (to make it easy). All of your Houses are indifferent or worse except for one who is in a Limited War with you. Those 4 Houses' 50% contribution totals 250 ADM and is added to the pool for a total ADM Project pool of 750.
Your Domestic Prime has an ADM rating of 3, meaning that you can have up to 4 Projects going at once (3 ADM + 1) Your first Project always uses 100% of your pool, your second Project uses 50% (while the other Project drops to 50%, and so forth). So for your first Project, you wish to colonize a Planet. This costs 1000 ADM, so since there are no other Projects pulling ADM from the pool, the whole 750 ADM goes to the province that the planet is located in. In this case, the Province Governor's Government Rating is 50, meaning that only 50% of the ADM is actually allocated effectively to the Project, so that leaves 375 ADM (50% of 750). The remaining ADM now goes to the system governor to allocate to the Project in the system. They have a rating of 75, meaning 75% of the remaining 375 makes it to the Project (281 rounded down). This is what is used for the ADM per turn when calculating time, so all things being equal, and if no other Projects are started, then it would take 4 turns (1 year) to colonize this Planet, excluding fleet travel time.
And that’s it! Now you don’t have to worry about assigning ADM chains to Projects – they simply draw from the same pool, and you’ll know exactly how much ADM the Project will be getting when you start it. Now your Contributors will just contribute funds towards the Projects, as they do now.
We’re looking to streamline the design where possible, and this is one area where we think players will appreciate!
-Steve
So while we like the Project System as a whole, what’s not really working is how ADM is distributed and used among Projects. Basically, we want to make it much less confusing about where ADM comes from, and especially why it’s not always available.
Under the old system, ADM (which is basically the resource that builds Projects and represents manpower/specialized equipment/labor/etc) and is generated by planets with Admin districts, is utilized by a chain moving upward. So for example, if you wanted to assign a province governor to a Project in order to utilize a lot of ADM in only one slot (your Project Administrator can only have as many contributors as they have ADM rating) it would basically ‘suck’ all of the system governor’s ADM, which they would collect from their viceroys in their system.
All well and good, but what was difficult was that basically if you stuck a province governor on a Project, you were almost stuck unless you had another Province that had a governor that was willing to send ADM to the Project. And the UI didn’t make it clear at all that if you added a system governor, say, that it would take the ADM of that system’s planet viceroy that you’d already added, nor did it give an explanation of why so many leaders had 0 effective ADM.
So we decided to totally redesign the ADM system. It is still used for Projects, but there will now be an empire-wide pool of ADM that is tapped for Projects (you will see this number on the resource bar on the upper-right, next to your Gross Empire Product) Your House Holdings and Holdings that are Allied or Vassals with you will contribute 100% of their generated ADM to that pool, while Houses who are Cooperative, Indifferent, or Cold War will contribute 50%. Houses in Limited or Total War will not contribute to the pool!
Now, you can have as many Projects as the ADM rating of your Domestic Prime, plus 1, but they will all draw from the same pool. (Houses will have their own ADM pool based on their Holdings, which will also prevent the issue of you taking all of a House’s ADM so they can’t do anything) You will be able to assign a priority to Projects that determine what ratio of the pool they will get. You can set to Very High, High, Normal, Low, Very Low, or Pause. (You can do this after the Project starts, but it will cost 1 AP.)
If the Project is a Province Project, the ADM will be modified by the Province Governor’s Government Skill as a simple %. So if the skill was a 70, then the Project would actually get 70% of the allocated ADM from the pool as the effective ADM used. If the Project is a System or Planet Project, then the remaining pool will be further modified by the System Governor’s Government Skill. So you can see it’s usually more effective to build province Projects when you can, although they will be more expensive.
So here's an example: Say all of the ADM generated by all of your planets totaled 500 (to make it easy). All of your Houses are indifferent or worse except for one who is in a Limited War with you. Those 4 Houses' 50% contribution totals 250 ADM and is added to the pool for a total ADM Project pool of 750.
Your Domestic Prime has an ADM rating of 3, meaning that you can have up to 4 Projects going at once (3 ADM + 1) Your first Project always uses 100% of your pool, your second Project uses 50% (while the other Project drops to 50%, and so forth). So for your first Project, you wish to colonize a Planet. This costs 1000 ADM, so since there are no other Projects pulling ADM from the pool, the whole 750 ADM goes to the province that the planet is located in. In this case, the Province Governor's Government Rating is 50, meaning that only 50% of the ADM is actually allocated effectively to the Project, so that leaves 375 ADM (50% of 750). The remaining ADM now goes to the system governor to allocate to the Project in the system. They have a rating of 75, meaning 75% of the remaining 375 makes it to the Project (281 rounded down). This is what is used for the ADM per turn when calculating time, so all things being equal, and if no other Projects are started, then it would take 4 turns (1 year) to colonize this Planet, excluding fleet travel time.
And that’s it! Now you don’t have to worry about assigning ADM chains to Projects – they simply draw from the same pool, and you’ll know exactly how much ADM the Project will be getting when you start it. Now your Contributors will just contribute funds towards the Projects, as they do now.
We’re looking to streamline the design where possible, and this is one area where we think players will appreciate!
-Steve