Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials, etc)

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

@ledarsi:
Again i am on your thought with the need of 2 ressources like you mentioned.

I Just dont get why the Nanogel, if u can achieve exactly the same as your 1mass 1energy
Nanogel with a Unit that needs instead of 1 nanogel: 1mass and 1 Energy AND IT IS NOT GETTING THIS FROM THE GLOBAL MASS OR ENERGY COUNTER, it can only drain it from his own little build in storage.
This has one big benefit, diffrent units and different actions could have different coverage. mainly in the rate of metal vs energy. So you are able to adabt to different Situations and differen planet layouts can lead to different unit mixtures.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Oh, I see. So your preferred system is the slightly more complex counting system of each builder having an internal metal and energy count. This allows them to build things with arbitrary metal/energy costs, at the cost of additional complexity.

Yes, this is quite similar to having a merged nanogel internal resource, but slightly more complex. I don't see a large advantage to having this possibility, and I don't think it justifies the additional complexity of accounting metal and energy separately in builders. There is already a quite lengthy thread about equivalence of metal, energy, and build-time, with many advantages in simplicity at little cost of strategic depth.

The largest advantage is that if a unit costs 1000 metal, it will automatically cost 1000 energy and 1000 build time. As a result, constructing this unit using a build power source with 10 build-power (per second, presumably) will always cost 10 metal and 10 energy per second, and finish the construction in 100 seconds. More expensive items take longer to build, but cost the same constant drain during construction, based on how much build power is being applied. Simple and elegant.

I think that it should be possible to have units having either an internal energy or internal nanogel count, but with the exception of a potential few, quite complex units, there is little advantage to the complexity of having both in the same unit at once. Some units might have an energy count, other units would use a nanogel count, and some units will have neither and function totally independently.

Using the nanogel system, a unit with 10 build power will deplete its internal nanogel reserves by 10 per second, and construct anything in the game at the same nanogel drain rate, with more expensive items taking longer.

It appears we are 99% on the same page, but disagree on whether metal, energy, and build time should be strongly correlated. I think 1 metal = 1 energy = 1 build time. Some things might just use energy, however, such as firing a laser or running a metal maker (which might also consume nanogel, but yield more metal than it consumes indirectly, with a large energy price).

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Now you finaly got me.
Can
Rest
...
Now

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

This conversation is sounding an awful lot like the previous war over local vs. global resources.

Giving localized resources a different name doesn't change what it is.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

...you're right, I ended up with "make metal a physical, movable stuff" while trying to streamline the nanogel idea. Funny thing.
That said, I'll argue that physical metal is better than nanogel because adding a fourth resource (should I really count buildpower as a resource?) feels unnecessary while you can obtain most of the effects (logistics gameplay) by changing how metal works. After all, you still have the fast, fragile expansion of metal, while differentiating it more from how energy works.
Though I'd be happy with a simple global economy anyway.

As a side note, you should check Kernel Panic, a Spring game working without resources, for the other extreme.
Basically, you have a few main points and a few secondary points. On the main points (you begin with one), you have a factory that automatically produce anything you queue. On the secondary points, you have a factory that automatically produce base fighting units (or stuff like a 90s-reloading nuke silo instead).
So it's pure map control.
Needless to say I hope to see a multi-planetary Kernel Panic mod for PA.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Yeah. That's the idea. Combine the local resource so that the local resource is the universal 'logistics resource' used to resupply units, as well as build structures and produce units.

Not exactly being subtle about it.

Having an internal metal count is basically the same thing, except construction then costs internal metal and global energy. Also workable, but it seems less elegant.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Actually it's quite an elegant combination of the two. No need to worry about transferring mass & energy from that asteroid to your main base, while still incorporating an element of localized logistics via the need to create and manage larger amounts of nanoGel.

This differs from simple factories building units in that it keeps your units tied to your infrastructure once they're built. And even better, it gives the careful player an opening in assaulting a planet by giving him the opportunity to attack an area that is less well supplied than another area.

There would need to be some kind of UI to show how much gel you've got in an area, and how fast you can replenish it and how much that would cost and so on though.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

I do get the feeling Nanogel may be overly complex.

While I love the idea of a location based economy it needs to be kept simple,
to me Supreme commander was always a game about macro and less micro builder and supplies.

Games like wargame: European escalation work well with supplies due to the game type; small skirmishes where you have a fixed number of units.
Supreme commander (and PA in my mind) have never been about this, they have been about managing a large scale war. Generals don’t send 10 supply trucks with an squad as a lower level commander will organize it for them.
- sorry for sounding rantish, after reading 14 plus pages this has gotten to me...-

Something like Anno 2070's resource supply line I could see working. Where supply depots in area automatically link and share resources but different islands have independent supplies.
A system where storage projects a build area and can be linked via supply routes (be it planes, pipes, microwave dishes or all three at diffrent stages...) to automatically equalise\ transfer set amounts of supplies to a faraway depot is something I would fully support.
Builders in a depots build area can automatically use resources to build structures; any factory will automatically use these. however if the supply chain is cut, (ant air, blowing up pipes/ microwave dishes) the depot will slowly run out of resources unless anther rout can be made.
Same for between planets, Mass drivers which automatically fire to keep my economy going would be amazing... (See about page 3)

Units in my option fall under the above wargame argument, its ok if they use a set amount of resources to fire etc, or say need to be in range of a depot to repair or build but as an all seeing commander I shouldn’t have to worry about a tank running out of shells. If it does I am replacing lower ranked officers

I'll go back to lurking now...
P.S. I am aware this doesnt solve how to set up far depots however I am sure we can make a deployable unit for that... (or even mass drivers to fire a slug over there...)

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Who says there's any advantage to that? Zero-K may have not discovered the importance of separate resources, but it absolutely happened in other games. There was a need for vital infrastructure, which is represented with a high metal cost. There was a need for building infrastructure quickly, which was done with low build time. There was a need for high build time, as a way to control game pacing on key units (like engineers). There was a need for things that demand extra energy(either in queue or on the field), as it displaces the cost and risk to infrastructure, as well as being a tech barrier.

TotalA had as many combinations between metal:energy use:build time as there were units. Did these differences need to be detailed down to such a level? Of course not. No one cares that a Core construction plane had 9286 construction time, only that they were brutally slow to build. Did the ratios between costs provide broad brush strokes to emphasize what was important to the game(and when)? You bet they did.

Splitting up three resources only to process them back into a single resource is pointless. If I wanted a single resource game, I'd go play Kingdoms.

~~~~~~~~~
The point of localized resources and supply chains, is to place a burden on the attacker to benefit the defender. Colonized territory is already going to be well fortified and a hassle to assault. The more difficult it is to put resources on the front, the easier it is to have resources on the defense. I wonder why you think this is a good thing?

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

You are totally wrong if you think generals aren't concerned about logistics, including supply lines. Logistics is one of, if not THE most important large scale strategic consideration for fighting a war. Case in point for the modern US military- actively maintaining the supply route through Pakistan is ESSENTIAL in order to mount sustained operations in Afghanistan. It's the shooting the bullets and the explosions that the low-ranking officers take care of, and generals ignore.

The general orders a country/region/city be taken (probably for political, economic, or logistical reasons to facilitate either political or economic objectives), the colonel tells the majors/captains where to put their large forces. The captains tell the lieutenants where to put their little forces, and the lieutenants tell the enlisted men where to run and in what general direction to shoot.

Still, I do agree that players should paint in broad strokes, and be thinking about supply lines and not individual supply units. This is likely a UI or AI-automation need so that units that need supplies get them. It is the player's job to ensure they are where they need to be, in a big picture sense. Such as building tons of depots on the right continent (or even the right planet) choosing to develop certain outposts or interior bases, or build or develop beachheads on enemy continents/planets, etc.


Resource Cost Normalization

With respect to the normalization of resource costs- this has been discussed at length in other threads. It is true that if you allow arbitrary cost assignment, you have the ability to do things like make certain units cost a lot of energy but be cheap on metal, or take a very long time to build while being cheap. However it isn't worth how complex it is- it's quite complex, makes managing an economy somewhat mysterious, especially to inexperienced players, and that kind of differentiation isn't super interesting- although it is somewhat interesting. If you haven't tried Zero-K, I think you should, as Zero-K implements this cost normalization system quite well.

Having a non-normalized cost system, like in TA, results in an extremely complex economic picture, and makes economic management quite an opaque process. For a fixed buildpower factory or constructor, the metal and energy drain for such constructions will differ, and may differ on a unit-by-unit basis. Essentially the player must experiment and memorize how much per second each of these units and structures actually drains to build with each constructor type, and with different numbers of constructors (potentially of mixed types).

The simplicity of having a uniform cost structure is a very strong reason to support it. It allows a specific builder to always spend the same amount of resources, regardless of what it is building. A unit with 6 build power will always spend 6 metal and 6 energy per second, regardless of what structure it is building, what factory it is assisting to build what unit, and regardless of how many constructors of any type or build power are assisting. Ten constructors of this type will always drain 60 regardless of what they are building or assisting. A constructor with 6 build power and a constructor with 10 will simply add to yield 16 build power on any construction, and a constant drain of 16.

Think for a minute how convenient this property of having universally constant drain = BP, considering you have your economic strength represented to you as a constant income. You have an income of 30 metal and 40 energy per second to spend. Using a uniform cost system this just means you need 30 total build power from any source to be operating simultaneously. You might have 2 factories at 5 BP each, four constructors with 4 BP each, and a commander with 10 BP. So, you decide to run the factories, the commander, and two of the four constructors. In a much later game situation, when you have a huge economy, with both huge income and huge expenses, the same property also greatly simplifies management. If your net surplus is +20 metal and some huge number of energy, then you only need to get 20 more BP active. This would be exactly 4 factories or 5 engineers using our previous numbers, no matter what they build.

The "tech" requirement you speak of is not actually a technological requirement as the term is usually used- that it gets "unlocked" by having a research or tech structure. It has a high energy cost, which you could build, but can only effectively afford if you have a lot of resources. Consequently, you require development in order to be able to afford the unit, which takes time, emulating "research" to "unlock" the unit. This dynamic is equally well captured by simply giving the unit a high cost. The player must expand to more mexes and construct more energy to be able to afford a more expensive unit in quantity, rather than just building a large quantity of energy (which itself costs metal). However the core mechanic of "macro-development to afford expensive-asset" remains perfectly intact.

Similarly, making something cheap but take an exceptionally long time to build is also equally well represented simply by making the unit more expensive. With a smaller amount of build power, this project will take longer to build, while only draining the same rate you are spending on anything else. Something with 10 build power will finish a 100 build time project in 10 seconds at a constant drain of 10. Make it ten times more expensive, and the same constructor will take ten times longer to build it, but at exactly the same constant drain. Granted, this mechanic might not be exactly the same as having a different cost per time, but it's close enough that the vastly simplified unified cost assignment system is superior.

The real question, which is always the question about game mechanics or units or features, or almost anything, is how much depth it adds, at the cost of how much complexity. Elegance is great depth with little complexity, and should be the target.

It just seems to me that having arbitrary cost assignments is paying quite a bit of surface complexity, and doesn't actually buy much depth.


Logistics & Attacking/Defending

Lastly, I disagree that introducing logistics only benefits the defender, at the expense of the attacker. It makes attacking a more complicated process than simply A-moving a unit blob, absolutely. It is intended to make attacking more positional, longer-duration, with more variable game states than your units alone, in addition to being more thought-intensive, and more strategic.

However it also makes defending more positional and strategic, since your defenders are advantaged where they have supplies, and suffer the same disadvantages as attackers in places where they are lack supplies (or have inferior logistics range or capacity). The attacker can select poorly defended, or poorly supplied targets. Also, the defenders' effectiveness also depends on their available supplies, which the attacker can limit. For example, a far-advanced defensive position may be vulnerable to being cut off from behind, and starved out, just to name one possible application.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

This is my point, and the point behind my argument. Even if I did phrase it badly
For me this game has supply lines in the form of a route through Pakistan, not as a builder who carries 20 BU, or a tank with 50 shells.

The real question I am seeing here is not so much about resources - most of these comments lately seem to be about having a fixed ratio- but what effect should supplies have on units and how will commanders deliver said supplies.
I love the idea of making a player build forward bases to support his/her attack, Perhaps we can look at having unit transport trains to move units around the planet, building only working when in supply, or repairs only when in a supply area.
The important thing for me is they are things that if not done won’t ruin the game for a beginner, you don’t need to use forward bases but they will definitely be an advantage for prolonged average to pro player combat.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Also, fixed cost ratio doesn't makes the difference between metal and energy disappear. First, metal is still obtained very differently from energy (map control instead of expensive structures). Also, unlike metal, energy is used for many other things, like special abilities, superweapon firing, even get more metal... Metal is a construction resource, energy is a general resource.
But we digress...

The main challenge with having logistics here is probably the AI. If units can be smart enough so the player can simply give broad orders, it could be great. But if units have to be micromanaged to be efficient, or even simply more efficient than the base AI (so you would still have to do it to be competitive), then it would fail.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

As long as logistics can be turned on/off then I don't really care. Otherwise if I wanted to play a microeconomic game then I would play Widelands instead (the opensource remake of Settlers 2 or so).

Per planet/moon/asteroid resources are fine with me. You don't really need a supply ship to move these around. Just make a blob of mass, give a thermal shield and shoot it towards another planet (if it is the same solar system). I mean you're just transferring mass, you don't need it to retain specific shape so no harm done in brutal landing .

Edit: maybe some deccelaration thrusters should be present so that the "landing" doesn't make a huge impact crater :twisted:

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Well, that's kind of a supply dropship for me. Doesn't even have to be reusable.

I'd be curious to try both during the beta, to see if one is better (or if both could be kept as separate game modes), but I fear that it would be too much work for Uber to develop two versions of the economy. So I hope that it will be possible to mod it without the AI breaking down.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

This.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Okay. But logistic challenges already exist in the form of building bases and delivering units to the front. Any level of complexity beyond that only serves as a burden on offense, a burden on the player, and a burden on blowing things up.

It's also a strong reason to reject it. A single resource system can only capture one facet of unit design: a unit's cost represents how good it is. It can not account for anything else.

No. It's not. The only thing a single cost can alter is the quality of a unit, nothing more. This creates a game system where there are no economic tradeoffs. A player can not choose a cheap, high tech unit, just as he can not have an expensive, low tech unit. In other words, tech levels don't exist. They can't exist, because game pacing can not be derived on expense alone.

Zero-K embraces it. Tech choices are not based on cost factors, but instead are done through a complex factory-faction system. That's good for it, I suppose. It works within the confines of the game. But the solution creates an undeniably different feel from other titles. So much so in fact, that he transition from TotalA to Supcom certainly seemed less jarring than the transition from TotalA to 0K.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

No offense, but you sound like my exaggerated characterization of Call of Duty kiddies who just want to blow stuff up. To use a more analogous game, this is like saying Chess is fun because of all the capturing.

Strategy games are battles of wits, and RTS games are fast, complicated, and typically have limited information. So there are many more kinds of pieces, you can't see all your opponent's pieces or moves, and time spent idle, thinking, is time spent (unlike chess). Blowing "stuff" up generally doesn't make the game interesting. It is the decision to destroy a specific target, and the need to commit some of your own resources to do it, and the success or failure of your gambit, and the endless possible variations of play and counterplay, that is what makes the game interesting.

I would respond to your argument that logistics concerns are just 'burdens' to say, why not completely do away with the economy? It's just a burden that gets in the way of attacking and blowing stuff up. Let's just have units spawn constantly, no resource gathering required. There will be a lot more action, a lot more attacking and confrontation, and a lot more stuff getting blown up.

We don't do this because adding additional dimensions of play creates more factors for players to make decisions. These additional layers add factors players must consider, create more decisions to make, and give significance to events on the board, and thus to players' decisions and actions. An obvious example is map control providing metal to let you produce more hardware. So much gameplay falls out of adding this simple 'burden' that it should be imposed on the players. Adding an economy adds a huge realm of play that defines the modern RTS. Adding logistics is a similarly large addition, with similarly large implications.

Look, this is not a single resource system. Just standardizing the ratio of costs of a two-resource system. Metal requires map control, energy requires building expensive energy-generating structures. There are two resources.

The suggestion is that all units' metal costs be set equal to their energy costs and build time. In TA, your garden-variety unit had a ratio of about 10 to 1 for energy cost to metal cost, but it was a pretty decent approximation for the value of metal relative to the value of energy. Instead of making a solar generator make 20, why not make it make 2, but decrease the costs of everything by a factor of 10? This has literally no gameplay effects, but is simpler. And now we have mexes producing 2 metal, and solars producing 2 energy.

Standardizing the costs of production standardizes the drain to build. So a factory with a build power of 6 means you need three metal extractors and three solar generators. This is such a gain in simplicity and ease of management compared to TA, without really changing much, that I am surprised it is controversial.

Yes, the ability to assign arbitrary costs lets you do things like have a really cheap unit that just takes forever to build, which you can't do if you standardize costs. But is that really such an interesting possibility? The unit's drain per buildpower will be tiny, so you can just throw TONS of build power at it to reduce its build time, and spend at a drain consistent with producing anything else, and in a similar timeframe.

I don't see what you're arguing with this section. It really seems like you fundamentally do not understand the proposed suggestion. It is not a one-resource economy. There are TWO resources with different modes of acquisition and expenditure. However all production should cost the same number of each.

Your assertion that there are no economic tradeoffs is.... preposterous. Am I missing something about your argument?

It has also been established that PA will have two tech levels, like TA. You can in fact have cheap high tech units, and expensive low tech units. However I would argue that the cheap high tech units should be comparable in power-scale to the low tech units (but likely more specialized, or with other weaknesses... such as being logistically intensive), and not strictly better, more efficient units than lower tech versions.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Am I correct in my understanding that what you're suggesting means that 1 metal and 1 energy = 1 Buildpower in that the resources are still represented and tracked on the UI but when building, they are consumed in equal quantities?

So then, the resources themselves and how they're acquired aren't really altered, just how they're implemented. As the units themselves are arbitrary anyway, (in a 10 to 1 ratio how much energy and how much mass is being represented here?) what's to say that having equal units of either resource being applied to your purposes shouldn't make sense? It's simpler to understand without sacrificing much of anything, really.

This makes sense to me and sounds like a great idea.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Yes, gecko, exactly. They are still generated and consumed independently. But costs are simplified so buildings and units cost the same number. Redefining the value of 1 metal or 1 energy, and adjusting sources and costs to match, has zero gameplay effect, but is simpler. This includes the build time cost/resource as well. This change simplifies the economy, and has no gameplay consequences, and seems like an obvious strict improvement.



Once this is done, there is a second simplifying design change which is to assign all metal costs to equal all energy and build time costs expressly. So anything that costs 100 metal will always cost 100 energy and 100 build time. As opposed to allowing 100 metal/200 energy/100 build time for one unit and 200m/100e/100bt for another.

This change does have some gameplay consequences. But they're not actually very significant, important, or strategically interesting.

Suppose we have two units. Unit A costs 100m/100e/100bt. Unit B costs 100m/100e/10,000bt. B takes 100 times longer to build than A. An undeniably significant difference.

However, in practice, you aren't so much concerned with the total cost of the unit as you are with its practical construction. If you use a 10 build power constructor, you will drain 1/1000th of B's total metal and energy cost per second, or 0.1m/0.1e. Or, you will drain 1/10th of A's total cost per second, or 10m/10e.

If you want to build B, the obvious thing to do is just throw a ton of constructors at producing it. This will cause you to drain more resources, and finish each unit in a more timely manner. The only interesting difference here is the fact you spent some money on more assist-constructors.


As you can imagine, this hugely simplified example using neat powers of ten, which is already somewhat complicated, gets nightmarish when we're talking completely arbitrary, ugly numbers like a Stumpy in TA: 165 metal, 1246 energy, and 2404 build time. Do you actually know how much building this unit will drain from your economy when you order it to be built?

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

That can be said to be a UI issue as well, SupCom/FA helped in this regard by showing the costs and the base drain-rate based on the builder/factory in question. Obviously this get a bit complicated when you add on assisting engineers and such.

Mike