Metal: thoughts and suggestions

Less is more competitive. Causes a player to strictly use his metal intelligently, and manage his economy. IMO, also doesn't stress one economy against another with both being limited in lower scale, it just stressed what one does with the metal earned. Generally, it could land somewhere higher than it is now, but it won't be lots of metal being the standard.

Yeah I'm not saying the current amounts are perfect, but letting everyone set thier own numbers at this stage wouldn't help the task of finding that good 'standard'.

Mike

Oh, that, yeah. Idk, it would let people play with more numbers at once, eventually people will find something they like. Worse case scenario, we get 6 different popular amounts that large groups of people tend to like. Anyway, I don't see a reason not to implement it, but default number should be set by uber and random generated systems should use default number.

I'm not saying they shouldn't implement it ever, I'm saying that implementing it right now would not help them figure out the default number, there would just be way, way too much static in the 'feedback'.

As a group we honestly can't be trusted with that kind of power and still work towards finding that prized 'default' value.

Mike

Whilst the previous metal levels were somewhat over the top, I think they're too low now; the sites are too far apart and each site is too sparsely populated. Rather than making games more intense and competitive as some people have said, I think this change makes them more dull and tedious. I've tried starting over a dozen games against the AI this evening already to get a feel for the build and have abandoned every one almost immediately. The reason being that every time it's taken what feels like ages just to get the first 3-4 metal sites up. Then for each subsequent single metal site it's a really long hike for a bot or two. You can't build anything else whilst this early set-up is going on else you just tank the economy. It's really slowed the game down in my opinion.

I used to find it exciting to see a nice clump of metal here and another clump there, it was a driving motivation to expand. It made the game feel fast-paced and got the blood pumping. In addition, these were obviously spots that would be fought over, which made the games more intense and competitive. With just a handful of isolated single metal sites on the entire hemisphere of the planet, where's the motivation?

I know what your saying, and I do agree that there should be a few more metal clumps, but I do like the distribution right now. It is starting to force players to be

1) Agressive in expansion and takingg key areas, leaving other metal spots alone that they can't defend. Training them in map control and strategy

2)Helps with players having to keep an eye on Econ which I think is one of the most important elements of the game. The emphasis on this with the new default metal spots in good in my opinion.

Saying that I think clumps should be available at starting areas, and occasionally between spawns that players want to fight over control. But before was too many and you could build up (at least in my experience) to quickly. The other problem you had was there were so manyy that players didn't have to expand to the back of players bases cause they already had enough metal to fight on the front lines.

But I digress. Current metal should stay.

Well I like the metal sliders in the planetary generator. It will give way more control and diversity to how games play out and what strategy to choose. I Hope to see them functional soon. Keep up the good work Uber!

I'll admit to having similar thoughts. The real reason they aren't implemented yet though is that I'm rethinking how metal is distributed completely from the ground up. This wouldn't be a bad place if people have ideas on that.

Part of it is also implementation trickiness. It's now part of the planet gen process which means I don't have a lot of good info about the map type, number of players etc. So it may be turned into a multi phase thing with various parts happening. For example maybe it lays down X number of clusters and then removes them if there are less players. Etc.

Yeah I can see how that'd be tricky. Off the top of my head, is there any way of doing it post generation or post lobby that would let it account for things like number of players/planets/whatever is applicable?

Mike

I've only played <1 game, but a number of the metal spots that were generated were not usable. Some showed red when I tried to place the extractor over them, and others that didn't show red still wouldn't let me build an extractor.

This is a known problem with the how the metal spawns. Generally its becase they are too close to eachother or are in/on/under a piece of terrain that is inaccesible to buildings.

Based on Nuetrino saying he'll rework how they spawn these issues should be fixed in the process.

I think there should be a generator algorithm for fair distribution of metal from starting points and also around planet's land masses and water.

Maybe also one for clustered metal blobs in a pattern where you can always cap all of them with advanced extractors, just to have some very important areas to fight over.


Perhaps those fair generators should not be the default ones, since the generated metal will probably look very artificial, arranged according to a geometric pattern. Many people might dislike that. Just make them something players who want to play competitively can enable, and put an unfair generator that looks aesthetically pleasing as default.


PS: Optimally, you should be able to decide to set and verify those things in the game lobby, overriding even manually created resource placement. It's often part of pre-game talk to figure sensible game rules out for the players involved, and re-hosting after a trip to the map editor isn't very ideal.

(Arguably, you might also require pretty powerful settings dialogs when doing this right. Numerical, hierarchical settings, with the ability to have completely different configurables for the various metal generators and with the ability to stack multiple of the same generators or remove some that were already in the map... I think you'll end up with the whole map editor, in fact?)

That might be a good compromise, if competitive players want more symmetrical and homogeneous metal layouts. Whereas casual players will almost certainly appreciate fighting over or protecting resource-rich terrain features (and variation between planets would spice up the Galactic War).

I would really like to so more metal overall. I think halfway between the alpha and the current version is a good point to reassess.

the problem right now is, that most spots cannot be built on, if youre on a wrong planet xD

additionally, it might be interesting to change the metal distribution on a system level, e.g. having a set of average rich planets vs. a range with poor metal less rocks and abundantly rich planets.

if you are thinking about a multi-step metal generation, is it possible at planet generation time to just define the areas where metal spots are theoretically possible (placement-wise with respect to terrain) and move the actual distribution to the settings of the game lobby? There all information about the game are accessible and the game starter could even have last minute influence without recreating a different system.

I stand by what I said early that a reduced volume of metal makes sure players have a reason to expand and create conflict in key areas forcing players to fight for control over areas as well as restricts tactics like small single base turtles. But it does create a host of new problems that aren't forseen and have been stressed by the community. I've been playing quite a few games of the new build and now firmly beloeve botb sides are right and the metal sight generation is indeed broken now and needs an overhul. The main prpblems are as follows:

---Basic sum up of problems---

1)Starting metal

There is not enough metal by starting points. Even when given multiple bases players are often given not enough metal to start a decent economy to get basic factories and troops going. I've been on 3-4 scale planets where both my spawns only had one metal within it then a walk to the next two barely making giving me enough to start. And occasionally I don't even get that. It's been stated before that a player needs at least 3 metals to start a decent economy and start manufacturing building up a decent base. The problem is nothing is set up to give players this minimum within a relatively easy distance from their start. Especially important when the imbalance of a random good spawn comes into play.

2) The distance and density between metal sights:

I like the idea of spreading out metal and making players expand and secure map control but the ratio between how far a player has to risk spreading thin and what they are getting. Many times I'm using up far to many resources and stalling my economy over two metal spots try to keep it from another player. Which is a good thing. But not for the little I get from it. I have to make a tactical decision not to get those points, but the other player will make the same choice and it actually kills what you try to achieve. There needs to enough of a reward for a player to want to venture out. Not turtle and fight for every inch to get the site.

3) Players won't expand into already claimed territory because it is a hassle.

This is almost a separate issue but I believe it has been made worse by the thinning out metal. What was once a hassle to micro engineers to reclaim an enemy extractor and then build my own, is mutiplied when there is only one, or i took at a few and they are far apart. Making the player constantly micro some fabs to get some extractors up. That may not be anywhere near your base or could be defended. This being streamlined in many ways would help fix the problem of players wanting to fight and take over another players map control, rather letting half of it sit there because there is something else blocking it. It basically cripples tactile expansion and is immense frustrating.

---Solutions----

Though I liked have them more spread out the biggest problems came out to what the player starts with (which is more often than not very little), and little payoff for taking 'strategic locations'. Coupled with the damnable extractor wreckage problem.

There are a few ways to solve this.

Easy (but not preferred say to do this) b

Keep the current style of layout, thinning them out even more. And boosting the extractors out put to balance mechanics. Then numbers and econ wouldn't be a problem and i could see players fighting over strategic locations.

Hard (preferred):

Create a system that can generate different patterns of clumped metals spread out of the world. These clumps would contain 3-6 metal in its current form and be placed strategically of the planet. The metal themselves would be relatively close together while the clumps will be distant to each other . The clumps would then be easily discernible as placed of interest and no single metal would exist between. Clumps could also be positioned relative to where players start to add context relevant points of interest, hopefully triggering more engagements. Players would also have a clump (3-4) at their starting location to get them up to speed. This system however requires metal to be placed after the planets are generated and when the players start the game taking into account number of players and where their start points are (start points may need to be spread out a little more in certain scenarios.

Neutrino said he was considering redoing the metal generation system and I hope he takes this into account. A context sensitive system would be much enjoyed that adds to tactic options rather than hinders it by making it a choir.

Removing enemy capture annoyance:

And finally two systems could both remove the hinderence of trying and taking enemy extractor sites.

1) There is no extractor wreckage so players can immediately build on top of it. (preferred )

2) Extractors can be built or qued on top of wreckage but the fabs would automatically reclaim it.

Thanks for reading and I can only hope that Uber considers a safe compromise between the two versions/groups on this issue and implements them. Keep posting your ideas down since it can all be considered and helps. Just make sure the devs see this! CHEERS!


Notes:

@kryovow: This could be fixed in neutrino’s overhaul. Which he should very much do.

@asgo: I agree this feature would be cool, but it would have to be designed correctly and would have to use the context sensitive generation that I stated above after players begin to load in. Starting planet(s) (if there are additions to the game that allow players to start on different planets) should be default, while select other planets can be rich or poor. And to add to this ctr+n could be removed from planets which you or noone else is on to add to exporation and make orbital transports even more vital since you’ll probably need a few of them.

You should realy script it to create ~4 or so metal spots around a players spawn (perhaps even after a player has choosen it, so it creates 4 points around the commander), also any other metal point thats allredy there (from the normal mass spot creation) should be removed, that way all players start with ~4 metal spots.

Other then that im realy happy with the current way its done.

I renamed the thread to Metal: thoughts and suggestions

I agree on a fixed number of metal spots around a players spawn. This way it's way more fair where you start. I also think there should be more little groups of metal distribution of the planet. This way it is more affordable to defend it. I'm talking about groups of 3-6 metal spots. At this moment i think metal spots are to widely spread over the planet. this makes it really hard to defend it against bombers and bots. If there are little groups of metal it is more worth it to build some defense.

Other suggestion:
Smaller planets should have a way higher ratio of metal especially on the spawn starting positions (if it will get implemented) than bigger planets that makes it more interesting to play on size 1-2 planets.