That could be game-breaking in some specific circumstances. At least in GC2, I always ran a very heavy influence game, to the point where someone colonizing a planet near me would not even get a zone of control, so they wouldn't ever be able to build anything from that planet. Constructor spam, maybe, but that's it.  Minor civs would have to be exempt from this, since they can't generate a ZOC or fight back against anyone else's.

Extreme endgame, there is literally NO area outside my ZOC - the entire Immense map is colored a homogeneous greyish tan if I turn on the influence map. Not that any of the AIs are in a position to build anything at that point, but even if they were they wouldn't be able to.

That was my understanding. However, I agree with Peregrin - creating a shipyard in (or moving one into) an place where you don't have open borders, should be an IMMEDIATE act of war. No time delay, and should get you a big negative modifier with other Civs, too.

On the other hand, I see nothing inherently wrong with being able to set up a shipyard in ENEMY territory (i.e. someone you're already at war with), because that's just smart logistics.

I guess  influence starbases would be needed as borders change and get closer to your borders,... or the neutral borders start edging away.

I think this is a good idea: a penalty above and beyond the distance penalty for not in your territory/in enemy territory, especially given the precedent of being able to build starbases is enemy territory. I guess I can see being able to build a fleet in enemy territory as long as it is inefficient.

im not sure if the details have been worked out yet but I believe the shipyard has 1 hp and no defenses. As-well I believe they said anymore then 6 tiles away from a "sponsor" planet causes a reduction to the resources delivered to the shipyard

if you have the resources to protect a shipyard as well as the manufacturing output to get a reasonable amount of production from a shipyard in enemy territory then its to late for the other civ anyway.

on the other hand we saw resource lines from sponsor to shipyard in the dev stream shouldent another civ be able to disrupt those lines?

plop a military ship on top of one and it stops the flow of resources.

drop a freighter on top of one and it siphons off an amount of resources equal to x credits per turn.

place a special harvester unit over a line and it redirects it to one of your shipyards

the last two would depend on how the resource's are transferred in game terms as well as some level of stealth/espionage ability 

I kind of like the fixed limit except for if there are 2 planets within 2 tiles of each other say earth and mars

and looking at earth and mars let’s say I’m playing humans and haven’t colonized mars for some reason or another and you come along and colonize it should i just give up half of my ZOC just because you took a planet right next to mine?

i disagree if i have closed borders with you meaning "Hey you kids Git off my lawn" and you build a star base in my ZOC that is declaration of war in my terms... in fact simply sending that constructor across my boundary after I’ve said stay out i consider declaration of war let alone something as aggressive as building a base inside my ZOC

now having open borders i would accept as allowing ships and constructors through but would still be declaration of war unless you had a further treaty, that said you could build bases this would apply to shipyards as well since they appear to have two modes a move mode and a build mode you could move a shipyard through my space however if you changed to build mode would count as a declaration of war

pre-existing structures should not count IMO they were built before the ZOC expansion and it’s the act of constructing a base i see as aggressive

however further attempts to upgrade it while it’s in my territory might require some discussion

I agree here for the most part unfortunately a lot of people me included would like to see some kind of growth mechanic and the influence as a natural border is probably fairly easy to code essentially just a check of whose influence is highest

i would like to make influence a more "invisible mechanic" or at least less predominant 

here are my thoughts on a different system

each tile has a boundary value,

boundary value is calculated by influence and the presence/passage of military ships through/around the tile

once you reach a certain threshold you can put a claim in on the tile

anyone else who has reached a certain threshold can either dispute or post a counter claim

at the end of every game year (or whenever the U.P. if it’s still in the game meets) all claims and disputes will be discussed

there should be a maximum number of tiles you can claim per year so that you don’t just max influence and claim them all in a rush year

influence itself should be partially limited by boundary’s as in it starts to drop off at about 2-3 tiles away from your border. with the exception of along established trade routes this would cause your borders to expand faster along trade routes then just outward in general which makes sense in my opinion

I have to say Influence makes intuitive sense to me.  We can (and will) argue about balance mechanisms, but the concept works.  The space you can control enough to claim and tax is yours.  The physics of star travel makes those borders very porous, but they still have economic and political effect.  I like that the boundaries exist and that they are so porous, it is part of the gameplay and character of GalCiv I enjoy.

I do remember some sort of a revenue from sectors I controlled, but I don't remember the mechanics of it. Was it tourism?

Personally I always found that an "Influence Victory" was too easy and ended the game before I was ready to stop playing, I always disabled it at game start-up.  I had to resort to building cultural starbases in games to halt and reverse the cultural growth of other races.

The thing this thread seems to miss, is that starbases were frequently used just to expand the travel distance for discovery and trade benefits.  Okay, if the United Planets Forum passed the resolution you had to pay the tax on the starbase, but it was generally worth it to reach and trade with the race that is beyond the race's "territory" in which the starbase is built.  And yes, the only non-aggressive starbase to build, out of a range of 3 types, was an Influence starbase. 

Personally I'd like to see the whole Influence mechanic scrapped and the Trading system overhauled and enhanced, at least enough so that the above objective could be achieved with a *Trading Starbase* [built from constructors of course).  Then you could , say, trade with planets within a radius of X, Y or Z hexes dependent upon Galaxy/Universe size as well as using it as a stepping-stone to other races.

Also If we're having Starports built in the solar system of the planet, the corollary is that we no longer can or have to build a Starport on the planetary surface in the planetary management screen.  The implication is that you have one already built near your homeworld and that you have to build one in every solar system that you colonize.  Do the Dev's realise that where a solar system has more than 1 inhabitable planet they could be colonized by 2 races so leading to there being 2 starports being built [1 for each race] ?  If *Influence* is retained then that would lead to War pretty much inevitably and it's not a far-fetched scenario.

while you don't have to build one per starsystem the current suggested reduction in resources delivered to starport ( anything more then 6 tiles) suggests that one star port per solar system will be the most effecient ( unless you happen to have 2 solar systems really close together 

So nice to be right for once Wer900.  Please expand on your ideas of *citizen culture/loyalty/race* so that I can understand them better and explain how *influence* being planetary based, will travel along trade routes or what effect you are seeking to achieve.

My idea of *Trading Starbases* needs enhancing by being able to upgrade them with Constructors and Technology that enables them to expand their reach to trade with additional solar systems and expand the range of travel for other ships whatever the size of the game universe.

Then again, why not make them Multi-purpose  starbases, because if your trading with surrounding planets you're also going to need to conduct at least some basic form of Diplomacy, and I think it is utter foolishness if you can't enhance Starbases and Starports with at least some level of Defensive Weaponry if not the full ability to turn them into an antagonistic Military Outpost if, during the normal game progression, that area of Space becomes Hostile for any number of reasons.  It's just sound Economics not to duplicate a space installation from scratch, when you could just add the necessary module(s) to an existing item of Space infrastructure.

Is anyone with me and up for this ?

Sure, but you're not pissing off your neighbours either. Unlike military and influencer starbases, economic starbases are completely non-threatening. You can even build them within the territory of other races without fear of repercussions. That's very useful, if you want good relations with your neighbours.

Why would you do that? From mid-game on, starbase defences in GalCiv 2 were a complete waste of resources. You're better off sending a fleet of warships, if you absolutely have to protect that starbase.

Are you sure, that you are not thinking of Space Empires or another game? The only purpose of the starport in GalCiv 2 was to enable a planet to build ships.

Maybe a dev will answer this, but here are two reasons I could think of:

1. the devs wanted to first see our reactions to the single-queue mechanic.

2. the shipyard-mechanic is a new design-idea (it was first mentioned here, and a rough concept was added at the start of April to the Founder's Vault), and the devs hadn't had time to implement it for the start of the alpha.

The dual-queue is already going to return. It's one of the big points of the new shipyard-mechanic.

I would like to see shipyards be required to be within a fixed distance of a player-owned structure - either a planet or a starbase.

I would also like to see a "residential and recreation" module that would be required to support 1 shipyard or 5 mining operations.  You then have a line from the mine/shipyard that represents where those people go to rest, recreate, and procreate and then - for shipyards - lines of supply from participating supply worlds and mines.

Aside from the supply aspects the R&R module could be a - albeit likely small - source of revenue.

It would also be cool for starbases to act in a similar manner to shipyards.  They would have their own production queue and supply planets and be able to build modules without having to send a constructor out.

I would maybe also enforce a concept of patrolled supply lines such that the lines drawn between a planet (or resource) and its target yard/base could only go through your territory (and other friendly territory with the proper agreements) - not neutral territory.  Isolated bases (yards would still require a nearby support base) could still be supplied by constructors.  Taking it a little further auto-supply could be forced to go directly to bases only and then the bases would supply their attached yards (a planet would have an implied base - maybe physically realized on the map).  Planets would simply indicate the split for home vs base and then each base would split between itself (for modules) and yard(s) [which brings up how do resources get divided in a one planet - multiple yards scenario].  The bases would then have storage for unused materials - and warehouse modules with which to store them.  Capturing a starbase would capture some or all of the warehoused material.  

You can build a constructor module which simply stores a fixed amount of production if you wanted to re-allocate.  I would prefer also that using a constructor to offload production does not consume the constructor - but that it would have to go to a shipyard to refill - either from inventory or in lieu of ship production.  The material cost of the ship would not have to be recovered.  During actual construction only the material cost would be required but the ship could remain to fill up or be immediately sent elsewhere to obtain resources.

I dislike the implied ability to "material rush" that this allows but it isn't any different than the "money rush" feature already present.  I do not know whether adding a separate "time to build" metric for everything would be beneficial but I think it should be considered - even if only addressing the "money rush" mechanic.

--David Johnston