Just a thought on economy

As a long time rts fan, ive seen a lot of economy models for rts games, and i want to point out the two big ones:

the starcraft 2 approach which says, you have x resources and you gather at a rate of v but there is a total of y resources on the map . you can only buy a unit if you have z many resouces.

-pros- you cant really screw up your economy and you are guaranteed what you payed for
-cons- its a click fest to see who can click faster and its a waiting game for unit production.

the supreme commander and planetary annihilation approach of units cost is taken from income and if you are in the red with income the deficit is taken from storage or build times are scaled proportunetly

-pros- you are always producing something, and massive armies are made quickly
-cons-you can stall your whole economy, and the winner is the one with more production capabily, not micromanagment kills.

Anyone else feel like it seems silly that you can stall your economy? dont get me wrong, i prefer it over starcraft but i almost feel a mix would be better (NO im not talking about supreme commander 2 economy as it was a disaster in my opinion but dont let chris taylor know that because i still love the guys)

what about this?

forget storage, forget going into the red with your economy.

if you have v amount of income, you can have 1 t1 faber build infinetly
if you have v2 amount you can have 1 t2 faber build infinetly
if you have x amount of income, you can power 1 land factory indefinetly
if you have y amount you can power 1 air factory indefinetly
ect

if you cant power a facility infinetly, you cant use the facilty unless you power another down.

thoughts?

If a fabber/Factory/whatever can only ever be ON or OFF, how do you decide what goes Off if you "run out of Power"?

If you had 50 Fabbers working and a Generator gets destroyed, which Fabber turns off?

Stalling in SupCom isn't really as crazy as it sounds, it's just a punishment for not doing things properly, you have a similar thing going on in Starcraft, when if you over-saturate a Mineral Patch or Geyser you lose a lot of potential income.

I prefer the idea of a stalling economy because it encourages base expansion and a bit more strategic thought, and it also allows you to continue building things in the situations where you might need them most. However I can see where you are coming from, I don't think it's a bad Idea. Unfortunately it can probably get quite micro heavy to keep your most important things building.

Also, with the economy that PA currently has, you can shut down factories to improve your economy anyway, so the idea just seems to be a direct downgrade from what we currently have.

Also worth mentioning that by ditching storage you also toss out a lot of depth from the Economy.

Mike

Yeah, storing up resources really helps when attempting to rebuild a destroyed factory line is essential for keeping lost resource time.

Efficiency loses big time if you waste.

perhaps its just me then, i just don't like the idea of someone rushing their expansion slightly faster than me winning do to a few extra factory's, though i guess that's what asteroids are for?

i suppose stalling does add some more elements to the game, and i know i can already pause production of a factory to free up my economy but it feels like i have already lost when i have to do that.

Maybe a way to provide a massive stimulus to your economy might be a way to go?

Economic efficiency rarely wins battles in my opinion.....well as long as both players are roughly even in it that is.

well, getting a better economy efficiency than your opponent could really tip the scales in your favor.

Only if by a large amount, because if both players are floating around 98-99% efficiency then a eco advantage won't matter all that much. (As long as the economy's are the same size.)

well of course.

But, I beg your pardon, how comes that a *slightly faster expansion* of your opponent can make such a big difference? Perhaps it is not the eco the real issue.

I dont get the 'click fest' comments on starcraft
I played up to diamond 1v1 in sc2 (random), i played tons of TA and supcom and SOSE and now play some PA...

TA, Supcom and esp esp esp PA are far more click fests than any other rts out there.
PA is maddeningly overwhelming, literally no matter how fast you click, you could have clicked faster. No matter how much you do, you could have done more. The actions/growth of a PA game is almost unlimited and will only go up.

Now i dont think its a negative thing mind you, just pointing out the facts, and the ignorant misconception that starcraft is nothing but a click fest.

The trick is that is pretty simple, scale. Starcraft doesn't have as much going on, but it is designed to require player attention for "Micro"(more so in some areas than other) where as in PA, its not so much designed to require attention, but because there is just so much going on, armies clashing, bases to build, new planets to claim that you always have something to do.

It's similar but divergent in many of the finer details. Also PA still has a lot to do in terms of UI, things like multiple viewports and Multi-monitor support and just good UI will go a long way to helping the player do things without feeling completely overwhelmed.

Mike

uncrustable wrote: PA is maddeningly overwhelming, literally no matter how fast you click, you could have clicked faster. No matter how much you do, you could have done more. The actions/growth of a PA game is almost unlimited and will only go up.

I totally agree with this and it is the reason for most of my posts on the forum. This game requires more APM than any other game I have ever played to actually be a high level competitive player. If you want to screw around with 1 planet and "maybe" win then I guess this doesnt apply to you. If you are trying to beat your opponents, then it does apply to you. I suggested less metal deposits and lower energy output from generators. Both of these will lower the APM required on multiple planets.

Ok.

So I play on a 1920x1080 monitor.

The UI mods I have installed make my screen WAY too busy.

Multi window really is not going to be a crutch until you have multiple monitors

As I see it, the PA economy never stalls. To me a "stall" implies some kind of economic crash has occurred, like if metal makers needed energy to run then running out of energy would stall your whole economy. PA doesn't do that.

The worst you can do in PA is spread your economy too thin. It's not stalled, it's just that you have 30 fabricators trying to do work when there's only enough income to power 5 of them fully. Your economy is still "full blast" in the sense that your income is still fine; you're just spreading it too thin.

I also disagree that the winner is the one with more production. I think the winner is usually the guy who found the weakness in his enemy before the enemy found his. For example, you have more production than I do but you don't have nearly enough fighters or flak guns. I go bomb a bunch of your T2 energy buildings. Or I bomb your anti-nuke and nuke you. I've won a couple of FFAs against people who, at their peak, outproduced me by quite a lot but were just bizarrely bad at using their nukes (in an "I don't even understand what you were aiming for" sort of way).

A better economy tends to grant that person more options, but they still need to grasp those options and capitalize on them. Higher production doesn't automatically do that for you.

@udra, i agree with your assessment in less metal deposits with higher output and more generators with less output, but disagree pa is a click fest like starcraft 2. let me explain what i meant with my sc2 comment.

starcraft 2 economy works like this. i dont have the resource, i cant even que a unit, and to take advantage of my resources, i need resouce gathers. my income is therefore, effected by the number of units i have working the mines, and too many is actually counter productive because they get stuck on turning it in. to top that, unit management includes activating special abilitys and micro management of units.

PA differs as there is little to micro, you built your metal, do not worry about gathering it, build your factorys, dont worry if you have enough resources as we will slow production as neccessary, place your troops in a stratigically sound position (no micro management of skills)

plus with area commands, you can set up so much more in less clicks than starcraft without the waiting on the resources part. it becomes more of a "what's next" mentality rather than a "still waiting on that factory" game.

I like the idea of less metal spots with more output... but I don't like the idea of even more generator spam... I would like larger generators generating more energy but cost more. meaning I would need less generators but they are more valuable.

I don't know why I have to dedicate so much build power to get build power.... It's kind of redundant... yet if I don't do that and switch to full unit production and then run into a commander, all my units die and my opponent can now out produce me and win, meaning I have to dedicate a tonne of resources to generating more resources or I'll likely lose...

Why don't we reduce the need to spam so much energy and metal extractors and make them less abundant but far more valuable, creating points of value for players to attack and defend. Right now bases are so spread out with energy, metal and factories spammed everywhere that attacking any one place is no different than attacking anywhere else.

darac wrote: I would like larger generators generating more energy but cost more. meaning I would need less generators but they are more valuable.

I think your idea about more expensive generators in place of making them produce less energy could be better. The issue with that is if there are less metal deposits and you have less metal then building more expensive energy generators might be difficult. Although, that might not be a bad thing. Both ways could probably work out well and your idea might be better.

Just to clarify, the idea is that t1 generators would be more like t2 generators, they can power a bunch of buildings, like say, radar, a few defences and 5-10 factories or fabricators. Right now they don't even power a single fabricator and players need to carpet the map with them to grow their economy. I'd like to see less spam and more thought put into base building.