How is Starports separate from planets not a dual queue?

It is still a dual queue but implemented significantly differently than in GalCiv II, I will try to find the exact FrogBoy quote I was thinking about.

I miss the dual queue 

Why can't it build two farms at the same time on the same planet? Do we only have a single construction unit in the whole planet??? Not realistic!

With the current AI, a single queue or two hundred queues wouldn't make a difference. Not having tried multiplayer, cannot comment on that aspect. That said, so far I haven't missed the double queue. Having starport as some kind of station, could be quite nice though.

Once the game advances to its next iteration I think I would dearly miss the dual-build queues. I loved how you had to wrestle whether to build a starport on a planet or dedicate it to research, culture, or wealth, and then even if you built a starport you could decide to focus on social, military, or research whilst balancing resources depending on the micro/meso/macro environment at the time. I personally would love to see the separate off-planet starport as the (advanced) starship queue, I can vaguely recall something ingame alluding to this already (can't remember which tech off the top of my head). The next question would be whether an advanced off-planet starport would be vulnerable to attack/raids in which case would it need to become part of starbases (and have in-built defenses etc).

Not really.Most 4x games only have 1 queue and it cuts down on micromanagement each turn.

I like dual as I want to build buildinga and ship at a same time to save lot of my time and turns rather than one, mostly I go building first then ship if need and taken too many turns.

I like the flow with a single queue.  With dual queues, you don't always wanto keep them full.  Plus the way manufacturing gets created and used is stupidly complicated AS IS.

I would prefer a dual production queue.  Placing the ship building queue on an orbiting space port / space dock / yada is not important to me.  However, a space port (Distant worlds style) would be very cool.  Sometimes a planet might be controlled by one side, and their space port occupied by enemy.  Interesting.  Ground combat bonus if you have control of the skies / spaceport?

I think the biggest issues I have with the system revolve around potential pacing and a feeling on inefficiency.

While I had no real issues with pacing during this first alpha iteration, It was still pretty evident to me that it will completely change the pacing of all stages of the game in comparison to GC2. Call me an old timer, but it did bother me that unless I had the money to build ships outright (which was rare in alpha admittedly) it feels like you're being artificially stunted in your ability to develop. Choosing between a farm or a colony ship for upwards of a dozen turns bothered me somewhat.

That said, I believe this issue is re-enforced by the inefficiency I mentioned earlier. I think the problem resolves not so much around a single build queue, but rather the GC2 rule that still applies to the GC3 way of queuing items. Specifically, Starports.

The construction of Starports to unlock a planet's ability to produce star-ships is a hurdle that makes the system falter. I'm fine with 1 build queue, I'm fine with having to decide between a ship or a building (as much as i get the "it's not GC2" feeling), but having to devote time to construct a Starport, just to allow me to build ships with the exact same queue feels totally inefficient and I can see leading to a pacing crawl.
I think all the problems with a single build queue would be eliminated by removing the Starport requirement. It's then MUCH less of a commitment timewise to begin constructing ships, when you already have to commit time to building them over social projects.


Though while this will alleviate the queue, I feel it detracts a GC feel. I think Starports are a pivotal part of the Sci-Fi feel of GC over, say, Civ V and to this point I really REALLY like the idea of external starports that are built on a hex near planets and can be given manufacturing points from planets in range (Think asteroids in GC2) to construct ships. Improvements to starports with constructors, plus higher populations and more colonies in range all add to the strategy of placement and development of starports.
I would imagine that you would have as many ship building star ports in space as you may have had ship building planets in GC2.


Though, then again, how do you avoid issues with losing all your starbases, and being unable to build more ships...even with 100 planets? 

Brad Wardell from the future: "I am glad we kept the dual queue. Why would Stardock spend time working on something the players didn't want. What would the player gain by taking that away? Did I ever say how I almost made A BIG long term mistake by making one queue and cluttering the planet screen with ships AND improvements."

I think the UI sucks right now and needs to be reorganized. back in galciv2 it was CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, SLIDE and everything was where it needed to be. I don't care how it's done, I want the queues back to normal working order. I felt with one queue with ships and improvements it didn't flow right, and I wasn't getting enough done and kept forgetting to build ships. Also the glaciv2 UI was better and easier to use, and that was though trail and err over time and player feedback. I hope this game is fated to have a similar result.

 (EDIT for MaxWars EDIT : I am just saying that it sucks in regards to its development. its new and will be better but not now, it version one.)

DARCA

I must be in the minority, because dual building was so hideously inefficient in GC2 I almost never used it - and when I did either the ship or the building was bought, not built. Sometimes both were.

Mostly I'd set a 1/39/60 and queue buildings. When I ran out of buildings all the points defaulted to the shipyard; if a new upgrade became available the planet automatically reverted to building that, then shifted back to ships again. Later in the game I'd just go 100% ships and buy any buildings I needed.

And of course most of my planets didn't have starports at all, or did for a while and then got built over.

While I'm not having a problem with the single queue right now, I think I'll begin to miss having two queues once the AI has some teeth. Then again, they'd only have one queue as well--and so the real question, to me, is how will it affect how quickly the game progresses (pace) and how much time will be required micromanaging my colonies (ease of use).

I totally agree. Unless a mechanism can be put in place to make peace-to-wartime transitions happen without an, "oh crap, I've got to rearrange the queue on my 50 military production colonies!" moment, I suspect I will not find a single queue intuitive.

These are my thoughts exactly. Instead of one planet with a starport supporting a system (or multiple systems), you could have a starport base that services and is supplied by multiple planets, using range from planet and other factors (such as modules and other starbase bonuses) to determine starport production capability. And like planets and starbases, the starport could garrison a fleet to protect it.

And not to go too far off topic, but having external, space-based starports could open up other strategic possibilities:

(This is just a crazy idea) Perhaps "deep space" starports could be constructed by building a starport and then surrounding it by economy starbases (bonus to production acting as industry supply to the starport). Or, perhaps a starbase module could function as a supply chain, extending the range at which a planet can give production points to a starport. On the one hand, such a feature could make single starports draw supply from multiple systems connected by economy starbases equipped with supply-chain modules. On the other hand, this could make "hidden" placement of starports in uninhabitable regions of space a viable strategy, as your opponents would have to try to figure out where and how to eliminate your fleet production.