Population cap

Version of game.

TA the standard planet pop cap (not home world) is now 8.00b. DL/DA it was 6.00b

The maximum population on a planet is based purely on the amount of food production on that planet (colony and capital tiles give some food). Though low PQ planets will not naturally grow to their full potential (you can fill them with transports). More details on that here.

I think it might be interesting if they did not link PQ with pop cap for two reasons off the top of my head.

1) Lets say you have 2 planets both are 10QP and one is a desert planet and one is a temperate planet. The desert planet has 10 usuable tile because of all the flast space BUT no one want to live there because it a desert. So for that world have the cap 10 onstead of 16. What taxpayer wants to pay tax to live in a desert. The temperate planet has 10 usuable tiles but would have a pop cap of 16. Hey, it’s a nice place to live.

2) It would make ‘reading’ what other races have in pop harder to do. If I see a race that has 2 planets of 4PQ I KNOW they have 16 (8 and 8) total pop (not including farms). Lets say I have 3 planets of 4PQ, I then know I can out ‘attrition’ them if you will because I will have 8 billion more pop to work with. It would be much harder to get a read on an opponent if there was a range for QP populations

PQ is not directly linked right now, except for the low PQ growth cap. Farms control the cap. To change this would take control of your empire out of your hands. Managing morale would become impossible except on a planet-by-planet basis.

I get what you are saying, but I think you are missing the point a little. My point was that all 4QP planets BEGIN 8.00b cap. I was just asking, why? Aren't all planets different? (DO NOT include farms, racial bonuses, etc into the equation. Lets compare these planets to U.S. cities. Take take any 2 cities with roughly the same amount of people in it at any given time. Say the first city, we'll call it Dallas, has 4 mil people. I you did a census 80% of those people would be full-time residents. Now lets Las Vegas has 4 mil people in it. Only 30% of the people are full-time residents.

Your assumption is flawed. As I said in the other topic, the permanent population of Vegas is mcuh higher than you assume - closer to 90% than 30%.

As a note, it was unnecessary and counterproductive to post this in three different places. One would have sufficed, and made arguing easier.

Ok. Whatever. Forget Vegas.
You are still missing the point. Why do 4QP planets always have a starting pop cap of 8.00. Is it not reasonable think that the pop cap could vary? Say, 6.00-10.00 for a 4QP planet? I think this would be a good idea, just not on homeworlds.

It's a reasonable assumption that humans will eventually swarm any environment they find themselves in. More importantly, the game mechanics don't assume your population = total planet population. Your population consists of the total number of taxpaying citizens on the planet - the population growth statement that comes up at some quarterly reports days as much, as humans cannot possibly reproduce at the rates that planets grow. It's that more people are becoming citizens instead of merely living there. Given that, it's not surprizing there is an arbitrary cap on the number of citizens on any planet.

IMO this would not add anything to the game. Yes, it may be random at colonization, but it would be leveled out with farms before too long. Even the AI would probably adjust without really noticing.

Cool, I get ya. Maybe I'm just a little board with seeing 4PQ-8.00b planets. C'mon now, do you even consider droping a colony ship on a 4QP early on? No, me neither. But, if there was the possibility that planet had a 16.00b pop cap to start even with only 4 tiles.....
I'm just saying, in a type of game where we all try to break the it down as mathematically as we can, why not add a simple variable to even add more to the game. I'd mod the it myself if I could but I'm still in school just learning how to do it.

Because colony ships carry with them production capacity for that much food.

Ok, so by that reasoning, if colony ships are the things that bring the ammount of food production, why dont they have modules that can start your new world with a greater capacity?

Because that is not the way they designed the game! IF you want it to work that way, make a request. ONCE.