Metal Planets - Should Metal Extractors Be Buildable Anywhere?

What if there was a possibility to build "experimental"-mexes (T3) on metal planets and nowhere else? This way you'd still have metal spots you need to fight over, but an advantage that only metal planets bring.

Ofc you'd have to build those (probably very expensive) T3 mexes first.

Btw, I'm all against building mex everywhere. I disliked metal fabricators in SupCom, too. Because with those there practically was no limiting factor (except space) as to how far your economy could grow. And that made fighting over metal spots a bit irrelevant imo.

Or......super metal spots on metal worlds.

I don't remember if I have already mentioned this here but here goes:

Mex's should be buildable everywhere, including on non-metal planets. TA had resource maps which was great because it let lava maps have a general metal richness all over the map, not just the metal spots.

To balance metal planets, we can make the richness of extractable metal fairly low so that even though you can build anywhere, you will have to build a lot more in order to take advantage of it.

If that is a response to my post I suggest re-reading it.

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It still applies for any world, if one world allows you to build mex's anywhere and gives more metal per extractor then another world then it becomes a game of space management to concrete the whole thing with mexs in order to have a runaway economy that cannot be matched.

Building them everywhere is not fun over a solar system where one world gives more resources then another because then it becomes a more static game of sim city turtleathon!

Please no. Money maps suck. In a game like this, with multi-planet battles and all, all the "it was fun in TA" arguments become moot. It was fun in TA because it had a classic RTS setup for maps. It sucks for PA because battles between procedural planets.


If you want to make a high-tech war (which is what those maps mostly were for in TA), put you and an AI on a different planet. If needed, put the AI on a size 100 planet and yourself on a size 1000.

For every time it'd be useful to be able to get a tiny metal output from a mex planted on non-metal spot ground, there will be a hundred when you'll just be annoyed because you now have to zoom in and click directly on the metal spot. You do a lot of ordering mexxes that are near the horizon, where accurate building placement is difficult. Even without the economic problems, mexxes everywhere on non-metal planets is going to take effort to implement (currently no resource map layer in the map generation code) for an option 95% of players are going to turn off the third or fourth time they accidentally build a metal extractor slightly in the wrong place so it doesn't get full output and are forced to reclaim and rebuilt it.

i realize the implications of economy balance if mexes can be built anywhere on a metal planet, but disallowing such makes a metal planet a novelty and nothing more.

it makes sense to me that these would be niche planets that are rare in games, and when they do appear, would be the focal point of the match.

In advance, sorry for the dissertation, the following is a reply to a perfectly valid idea, meanwhile I toss a few more in, for this poll is not as black and white as yes or no, there are many ways that mining anywhere on metal planets could be implemented that encompasses a balancing approach, with the easiest of which being have it be a check-able option (perfectly valid and easy to implement I am sure).

War is not fair, balance is still possible.

Essentially it could operate similarly to:


Back to the topic at hand, there are many options that can be done, with one of which leaving things as they are (specific metal extraction points on metal planets).

This game speaks uniqueness though, and the above answer is boring, there has to be alternatives that can be balanced or incorporated into game modes.

One:
One instance that would please everyone probably would be points along the metal planets have different hardness's, some areas being unable to be mined (without heating it up (more tech/special mining upgrades or even higher tech building units (that are the tech that can make the higher quality tech that looks more or less the same) maybe? (that way new models are avoided but simple changes in tech allow it)).
For instance Emperor Battle for Dune had areas that are build only (plateaus), but the resources were down on dessert surface (the resources had slow regeneration, here that could be cast aside... later idea for metal planets).
As seen to an extent in the following video at 6:58 (the orange powder on the sand is the spice/currency/resource).


Two:
Another option could be allow metal planets to be mined out (however unrealistic it may be), it comes down to: sure you can spam mines, but the planet will deplete (and maybe collapse on itself, and mining one part of it could literally collapse that part of the planet (the idea of structural integrity?).

If one thinks it would be ok for a metal planet to collapse due to depletion (which can help keep (a) player(s) from becoming unstoppable in normal games (unless teamed up on, more than 2 teams... for the fact that everyone wants the metal planets to themselves it would work)), then players would have to balance a quick influx of metal, wanting a lazer super-weapon and the planets structural integrity all at once, after all one wouldn't want so thin a planet that it would collapse on itself.

From there it would be cool if a metal planets physics changed if enough resources as more resources are moved off planet.

Going off all that one could literally encompass the sense of a death star and have it so the planet has to be mined out before one can convert it to a planet buster, assuming it is a small planet this would work, if one likes that idea then one can advocate splitting up larger tier metal planets into smaller ones, making multiple of them if you would, or making a giant one, etc. but have all of them take forever to make, so that in those 40 player games it becomes intense and a lot of work to protect such a project, but everyone would be in awe to see it done (for I am sure it would so rarely be done due to my faith in the balancing schema and the pressure applied.

Basically the planet collapse and the fact that everyone wants the metal planets would yield balancing and only an advantage to the party that comes out on top for a short time, for if they overdue it they may lose everything they built on it, maybe get sucked into the sun or other planets orbits, collapse when thrusters are applied due to instability? etc.

For those who like realism in there fiction (which is fine and dandy) , all the above would work even if a metal planet had a molten core because the games pace and one is removing metal, thus the pressure the metal creates is removed (metal conducts) so it doesn't take long to cool off; maybe even gain some energy from it?

Three:
Another idea would be metal planets production slows as time goes on due to whatever reason you decide to tell yourself or that is made up (harder metal, further distance to extract material from, structural integrity?), so it does not matter how many of them there are.

From the above one could also advocate one should have to transport mass/energy from planet to planet via storage units, this makes teleporters valid for economic fluidity (although should be slow to build). Doing this also can make metal planets strategicness not very valid until mid-late game (due to the resources being more or less planets locked).

Four:
Alternatively, things could be left as they are, and special maps could be made where one to a few people get a metal planet, and a few to many (remember 40 players later on), get other planets. So those few have a handicap, but they have to annihilate sparse opponents that are many in numbers and microing capabilities, and we all know microing can makeup for resource gaps.

For the above the flag of allowing players to have the option of multiple starting planets (multiple planetary starting points for a commander to start at).

From the above there could be an option for each team to have it's own starting planet(s), and maybe have bridging planets that start of unclaimed that teams can use to move from one teams area to another (differences in velocity and elliptical paths can allow for some interesting team groupings and multi-team based annihilation).

If this game will be allowed to be modded (steam workshop?), then imagine the aods, compstomps, and all the game modes from others carried over, so implementing the simple boolean flag of allow for anywhere mass extractors for metal planets (and maybe even planet busters (ultimate super weapon), metal planet resource depletion, etc.), as many flags that don't impact the programming too much should be allowed, and at least some of them toggle (if not all) (there could be a toggle between easy setup (usual setup parameters in it), and advanced (most everything if not everything)).

Thank you for reading this dissertation if you so chose to.

In summery all the flags that are easily implemented for game diversification should be, especially if one desires this to go into the steam workshop/be modded, thus if it has to be black and white I vote pro additional flags (such as harvesting anywhere on a metal planet). I would like at add an additional thought not elsewhere in this posting: if we can toggle the flags in game creation (or even a step further, if over 65% support the flag change within a game (voting), with a minimum of 50% of each teams population then it can be changed).

This isn't about whether a Metal planet is a novelty or not. The idea has been from the start that they're Deathstars so it's not a problem to begin with.

Not a whole lot has to be said on Modding this game since it's high up the priority list of Uber anyway.

A moneymap is bad for the game, and if someone mods it in (i don't think it's more than a couple of lines of code in the Extractor placement part) then it's fine by me, because someone downloads that mod by choice.

If Uber puts it in, then people will think "even the makes think it's fine" and you won't be able to find a lot of games without moneymaps.

The idea of a King of the Hill is fine. I would encourage it even. I think the SystemEditor is the new "Game type" button. But it can be done in different forms, especially since a Moneymap "Hill" means that whoever controls it, can hold it more and more easily.

Note that the following is a abridged quote:

I must respectfully disagree with you.

Any map should have the option for how the metal planets should be handled, the post that is right before the 1 I am quoting you on (my own post that is), discusses how the money planets can be handled, including in game.

Maybe I should have included into the voting schema that the initial game creator should have veto power and that the rest of the players with can override that veto.


This thread's poll is proof that there will be plenty of non-money map games for it is neck and neck with voting, with that of those against it being slightly larger, thus your second paragraph/statement is a fallacy, for I am certain those half of the people will host/join games that are non-money map games (assuming that this went into implementation in its' black and white way (not have spin-offs such as I suggested in an attempt to realistically appease all parties hopefully)).

Finally, assuming I am wrong and that you are right, if it is so feared that this game would become nothing but money maps, then wouldn't that speak volumes to those who are making it that it is what is wanted, thus should be implemented?

Note: I am for a flag that can be checked for creating a game whether or not metal planets are minable anywhere; I am not for it being implemented as we're forced to have every game with a metal planet be a money map. If we have only a black and white option, I would lean the way of leave it as it is now, but I do not believe the question at hand is as two sided as the poll stands.

230 people out of at least 44,000 is nothing more than circumstantial.

Mike

Popular and good are not synonyms nor do they have a direct correlation.

The vast majority of players will always pick the easiest solution. Hell, on TA i played on metal maps most of the time, and only in retrospect do i realize that i ruined my own fun. It's the job of the player to beat the game with the given tools, and moneymaps are simply perfect tools. If it's a mod, it increases the threshold of actually using the moneymap unlike the whole "uber added it so they want us to use it".


This poll has 200 votes which tells me that by far not everyone voted. Hell, i checked Uber's "well known" statistics and i'm in the top 10 (or 20?). It just shows that most backers simply are not here. i've checked this thread enough to see that the votes also come in bursts, so tomorrow the entire vote could've swung.

So the main reason extractors aren't buildable all over a metal planet is to balance them with regards to other planets in the system. I don't have an objection to trying this or making some options to allow it under certain conditions.

Make a certain type of extractor only available on metal planets, give it like +50 or something.

If your goal is to increase the metal value of these planets, surely it'd be better to increase the density of points, and not introduce a specialist building?

Another option would be to just be able to build mex on the equator, have the metal return reduced form the extractors. Depending on the size of the planet would determine how thick the stip of mineable metal would be.

You could actually balance this by making extractors return, say 0.1 or 0.01 depending how big the the planet is. The bigger the planet then the more extractors you need to build around the equator to gather the same amount of metal. You could adjust the income so that if you completely cover the equator with mex then it would be equivalent to controlling a full non-metal planet.

This would actually solve the issue of being able to build anywhere on a metal planet. Thoughts?