Should resources be tracked per planet/moon

I still disagree. That is, if you are talking about having mass and energy as global and local respectively.

I think that by the stage in the game where it would become functional the amount of surplus energy being generated will be huge and destroying a few generators in one location will not make whole worlds go on and off like a bad Christmas decoration... Unless the player has chosen the strategy of clustering together all his energy generating structures in one place. In which case, that is his own fault that his economy has been toppled.

I don't see why energy can't be the same. It's still down to the player to manage his economy. There's only two resources, it's not rocket science.

If anything, that's a prime example of why universal energy is a BAD idea. If it's so easy to overbuild energy and become immune to any sort of energy based catastrophe, anywhere, ever, then it loses value as a mechanic. Any world can provide energy while expansion is NEEDED to get metal. Energy, in effect, becomes a trivial resource, something that gets spammed on a few backwater worlds and promptly forgotten.

By tying squishy, explosive generators to a planet, every planet suddenly becomes a target for sabotage. Base building carries more weight and risk. A giant gun or nuke defense can be shut down without committing to a huge battle. A flying world can be stopped dead in its tracks. Energy can't be stashed away from danger, never to see combat. New tactics and weaknesses exist. It's easy to see that having a liability on a planetary level can add good depth to the game.

Because they use energy to teleport the mass on site? Any number of excuses can be used. What I'm more interested in though, is why you think galaxy wide energy is a good idea. So far, the only message I'm getting is "because it can be". Well, so can metal, except for metal there's no real reason it can't work. For energy, galaxy-wide access presents a lot of issues.

Besides, if two resources are behaving the same way, then why not just have one? I believe TA:Kingdoms tried that...

Local economy is a bad idea.

With a local economy, even a partial one, once someone is entrenched on a planet the only way to get rid of them is to destroy the whole planet. If you have a global economy then its possible to assault the base and stand a chance.

It's ridiculous to state that attacking someones economy wont have a benefit because they have a global economy, simply because if you're not using your economy to the fullest how are you meant to be competitive. If you've destroyed some of it, that WILL slow them down.

i am just amazed people think juggling dozens and dozens of local economies would be fun in a real-time game? i wanna smash tanks together, not be constantly ensuring im using each and every territory to its maximum economic advantage. i just can't see how it would be manageable.

I... what... how do I even... is it opposite day? Is Nov 1 the day where people flip their lives around in some sort of bizzare ritual of self discovery? Am I now a pretty little princess, prancing around on unicorns and giving candy to starving orphans from my hoverbike?

No. Wrong. If someone has a bigger base with access to the entire empire's worth of metal and energy, you CAN'T BEAT HIM. He can build faster, build better, and build more, every single time. It's stacked. You're screwed. It doesn't matter what you bring, because he already starts with everything fully intact and already pumping a billion units to push you off. GTFOutta that world.

If someone has a huge base with access to the entire empire's worth of metal, and then you kill its power, it's DEAD. Kaput. Finished. It doesn't matter how much stuff he has, or how many factories there are, or how many turrets are built up. They're useless. Non functional. Free kills. Roll over his base, advance straight to go, collect $200. Suddenly an impossible defense is impossibly easy.

That's what a local resource can do.

Okay. First you take the builder unit, and then you click on the power button, and then you find an empty spot of ground and click. If nothing happens, you never look at it again. That's pretty much the entire tutorial.

You're not explaining how you do that when you've got NO resources on that planet at all. Oh wait, thats because you cant.

You're also implying that the only thing that matters is economy, that better strategies cannot be more efficient than worse ones. Which... would make for a boring strategy game.

It is! It really is opposite day! Okay, it works like this:
A) COMMANDER. (That's the guy the game is centered around, FYI)
B) Build base.
C) War.

Or if energy is in short supply:
A) Drop engineers (They're like commanders, but like, tiny and without guns and stuff)
B) Build generators
C) Build base
D) War.

That's all of what, 2 minutes(hypothetically, of course) to get established on a second world? Add an extra 30 seconds if only engies are involved.

I also fixed your quotes to establish a better understanding of the discussion at hand. Like it?

so how does one expand to, say, two planets at the same time? As you have said, the commander is the only unit capable of generating energy and mass. So when you land on a planet you start with nothing.

No bobuncles, you clearly have no idea how to string an idea together and discussing this with you is a waste of my time.

If you can fly units to planets, why not use some sort of structure to link together the interplanetary economy? I mean, we have plans for orbital solar power plants that would send the energy back to earth via microwaves in real life, and mass drivers flinging packets of material across interstellar space aren't that far-fetched. Obviously, we aren't going to fling commanders and engineers all on their own off to assault enemy bases with no assistance-though that does suggest an interesting idea for a strategy.

How does 'Pre-fabricated base' sound to you? Build the artillery, turrets, radar, and generators for a firebase, then launch them to a forward position to have your engineers quickly assemble them to fire and level the enemy base.

Metal extractors that are free, and power plants that only cost metal.

Of course there's the option of reclaiming your foe's burning wrecks too.

Don't engineers in TA and SC have storage and produce a limited amount of metal/mass and energy?

I think there was even a strategy in SC that had sub commanders being mobile battery's for resources.

SO I don't imagine resources being a problem for a local economy to begin with, and even then you have reclaiming trees and rocks for resources.

Its just when you get to the point where the rest of your economy means nothing because the local economy cuts it off, witch would be a little silly and would make holding ground kinda pointless.

In Sup1/FA, engineers (and factories) were mass and energy storage. Only a tiny amount, albeit storage none the less.


Also, what if both local and global economic models have massive massive problems?

Nobody should be assuming that one definitely will work, and that the other definitely won't.

Indeed.

It should be obvious that if you launch a single commander or engineer with even infinitely large storage to something, it's still going to take a long *** time to build anything substantial. I would like to remind everyone that it's not swearing if you are talking about stretch-donkeys. But the point remains-builders are not good for much on their own without some sort of logistical tail.

If you are going to throw up a base on a planet pretty well owned by someone else, and they oppose it, you're going to have a fight on your hands, and if your ability to fight is limited by how much you can pipe in, then things become harder. Possibly much harder, depending on how and why the resources get moved around. Again, I am very much in favor of interplanetary resource exchange-I just think that it should be some sort of network stitched together by the player, much like their energy and metal extraction plans. And this does open up a new layer of strategy-cut the power transmitters and suddenly a base is stuttering, shields flickering on and off, laser turrets unpowered and oh dear, is that a Rock incoming?

Ultimately, the issue boils down to 1. Do players want to manage transport of resources? And 2. Is this a layer of complexity that improves the gameplay or detracts from it?

Thanks vehrec for looking at it from another perspective.

Oh and bullet, we're kinda up **** creek if neither local or global economies are fun.

But we do launch single commanders...

I think that resources per planet would be good, and you would have a global resource pool, that would be designated by which planets have a trade structure. This would launch cargo ships, so if you can destroy an enemy's cargo ships it cuts off their economy for a short time. A planet without a trade structure would have it's own local storage. Have global storage as an option though. However, engineers should have their own "local" resource pool, that they bring with them wherever they go, so if your economy runs dry, your engineer doesn't. This would make establishing a beachhead easier, as you wouldn't have to wait for cargo units to arrive.

you know i'm on the fence about this one, part of me likes the idea of each planet / body, developing its own resources and contributing a portion to an overall resource system (Like a Tax) and the other half of me just wants whats familiar, to work with the mechanisms that i know.

honestly i dont think i can choose between the two without playtesting a version of each and seeing which is the more fun / interesting of the two mechanics

We do, but generally not in the face of the opposition. Human players are not the Campaign AI-if they detect a base under construction or an inbound commander pod, they are going to wipe it out.

There are other ramifications as well-if someone already has an asteroid or moon with any amount of a base on it, how are you going to dislodge them? In theory, this ought to be the domain of Orbital units, space battleships thrusting over to lay down a shattering barrage of Ortillery, while their starfighters take off to knock back your battleships. But maybe there will be other options, like the pre-fabbed base components I mentioned to accelerate on-site construction via pre-building all the parts of a base inside your existing base before shipping them out. Or maybe there are troops you can shoot into space that land under their own power and stomp over to demolish Moonbase Alpha. This is a pre-alpha game, who can tell what the final strategic shape will look like?