storage

If I'm not mistaken, T1 engineers in TA produced about +8 energy (kbot) when stationary, including when they were nano-lathing. They would build whatever structure they were building at a "discounted" rate of 8 energy from the energy they were producing themselves. If they were building a windmill, they would use -4 power constructing so they would still be netting +4 power (+8-4=+4). However, if they were building a solar plant, they would use -16 power for a net of -8 power (obviously +8-16=-8). So an engineer's build rate varied (I use "build rate" as a descriptor, not a term).

The issue of landing on a new planet and not having energy could be worked around by having an engineer produce just enough power to build its lowest level energy generator at full build rate. That way, you could build a higher level facility, but you would stall due to the lack of energy being produced by the single engineer.

they didn't actually build at a discount rate so much that the display showed the net value (generation - current use), so you are basically right but using incorrect terminology.

Something to be wary of when increasing the resource generation of something that is not primarily a resource generator is that will this unit be used for that secondary purpose? will it just be more effective to spam engineers early on than power plants, I doubt it but especially with mass production, lots could begin doubling as a metal maker. Like SCU supported economies from particularly long games of sup com (although from memory an engineering SCU takes over 20 minutes to make its money back).

Alternatives to this are the ability to create eggs as part of the landers which serve as rudimentary storage, or a special bridging generator that is not generally cost or space effective but can get you that little bit you need to get going.

of course this is assuming segmented economies which seems unlikely if they are going with a simpler bend on streaming economies (where as this is more complex).

my bad
What I was thinking about it was that it'd connect the planetary economy to the system economy- essentially plopping it all together. (I didn't mean a physical transport, just something that connects the economies). Then that would provide the 'beachhead' into the next planetary area that you'd have to defend while setting up- similar to RL invasions-ish.

I just thought that having a global economy didn't make as much sense.

Where and when did I say they have to be complex.
And, just so you know, building energy grid in Perimeter or Universe at War: Earth Assault war never boring.

At the moment I find that, likely being low on the totem pole of SupCom FA players in general, managing one theater of war is hard enough assuming there is more going on in that theater than just build projects. I would imagine managing 2-3 theaters could be very confusing. This of course could all be effected by what kind of UI we get, and what kind of information we have access to, but for now, I'm just going to assume that fighting on multiple fronts across a solar system can be a headache all on its own. Having 3 separate economies for each separate theater would probably compound that. If you're fighting a war on each planet, that would roughly translate to me as playing three matches of SupCom: FA simultaneously. Of course it won't be exactly the same, since your opponent will be dealing with the same issue, but having to worry about micromanaging 3 separate economies on 3 planets at once doesn't sound terribly fun. Granted, this might be a worst case scenario, but for now I'll assume that this would be a problem people encounter regularly.

Imagine that every time you wanted to take over a cluster of metal/mass extractors miles away from your base on the same map in SupCom or TA or what have you, you'd have to also build power generators and such because your main base power was inaccessible from that far away. That would be very annoying and would slow the game down as well as make expansion harder for anyone since power generators could quickly be taken down by invading forces to stop a metal extractor from being built, or used. You'd essentially have to make a small base every time you wanted metal/mass. Extractors are already pretty easy to kill, but the difficulty is in keeping them defended which I think provides for plenty enough strategy already. Making distance a factor for the economy across planets seems equally silly to me. I'm sure that expansion across the solar system won't be as simple as moving an engineer over to a metal/mass location either, so I think it's likely that solar system-wide expansion will be difficult enough on its own to provide plenty of strategy and dynamic to the gameplay to satisfy.

The easiest, and maybe best solution to that could be to make economies universal, which would mean that you wouldn't have to start from scratch every time you touched down on a planet. But as people have pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean that your economy is as readily accessible there as on your main base. You need build units and factories to utilize it, and time is also a factor. It's not like having an awesome economy means you can land on any defended planet you want and easily take it over just because your economy is better. That will be hard enough with a universal economy, it doesn't need to be harder by making economies segregated.

My point is, I don't think this kind of gameplay would be best focusing so much on the economy, because I think it's plenty complicated and dynamic enough to have to wage a war across multiple planets. I don't know exactly how it will work, but like I said, I highly doubt moving planet-to-planet will be as easy as moving units across ground, sea, or air. Given that warring across the solar system seems to be the name of the game, I think it's best for the developers to focus on how planet and solar system-wide combat will be implemented to effect how the game is played, not on making economies harder to manage on every planet to do the same.

Well logistics can work.

Settlers worked with logistics. There(i talk about I and II never played later versions) you even can't babysit one transporter .
All you can do to optimze your eco was the layout of the ways and where you build your warehouses and how many free workers you had.
Edit: Just realized Settlers was a kinda streaming economy.

Also the micro-monsters from blizzard have automated logistics. Or what do you think the transport of vespin and minerals by workers(stacraft 1+2) or wood and gold (warcraft) is.
And those are full or half automated.

So if Blizzard can cook up a system where the player dont has to micro every worker/transporter individually(the whole time). I am pretty confident uber could make a nice working thing if they would try.

I suppose the best thing we could do is try it, perhaps during alpha if the developers weren't sure, and I have a feeling they have a good idea of how they want that to work at this point already. I have a feeling that even a well-implemented logistics system could have a large impact on how people play, and the biggest question I have is whether or not that is a good thing. I would still rather see complexity added to the game via other means rather than the economy, but it's worth trying to see if that method creates more interesting gameplay strategies.

Keep in mind that Settlers was a city-building game with some minor combat elements, not the other way around. At least the first few of the bunch, and I didn't find the later ones to have a very exciting combat system either, for as far as I played them.

You never said they have to be complex. I said they are complex if you try to aproximate reality and I said that if you add too much complexity to a game, say by adding a logistics system where there is no real need for it, it becomes a chore to play that game.
Well I only played perimeter but that game is a very good example for a game build around a logistics system. In perimeter it's all about attacking the energy network of your opponent to maybe even take over part of his base or at least severely cripple his production capabilities.
PA is about building lots of bots and shooting the hell out of your opponent. A perimeter style logistics aproach just dosn't feel right in my opinion.

Yellow

That doesn't change the fact that full or half automated logistics work in a game. That was what i was pointing out.

It is a example against the: 'i have everything to micro with logistics enabled.' faction .
Also Starcraft is no simcity.
Or the harvesters in Dune, CnC.

It is just not a valid argument, imo. It depends on the implementation.

If it will make the game better or worse is a part that is
1 very subjective
2 we(i) just dont know, cuz we can't comprehend PA with logistics, with PA without.

But we are free to speculate.
And on topic. If there is a logistics system as i suggested (for tryout) in the logistics thread you will need storage.

Well yes, it works in 'a game'. That doesn't mean it'll work in all of them. I mean; solving puzzles to advance works in some games, but I don't want to push statues around just to give orders to my tanks. Logistics work in games that focus heavily on logistics (like the Settlers, which revolves entirely around it) but they don't work in a game that already revolves around something entirely different.

That's the danger here; you don't want the game to revolve around two different things.

That also doesn't mean it will not work.

Well large scale and asteroids are allready two things PA evolves around, so we are doomed the game wont work......

We can speculate all we want, but it looks like this discussion could be winding down to a point where only hard data would satisfy either party. Either that, or Uber will/has already made the decision for us. I'd like to see how it plays out both ways personally, because I have a feeling either system could create scenarios where players are bypassing certain fundamental aspects of the game simply because of how the economy works.

And now let me remind me of a system I was proposing. Each planet has its own economy which was not much different from that in TA. But using automated supply lines(which can be a single building per planet or a building per link with other planet, up to preference) will make the economy of linked planets aggregated, so attacking supply lines will simply sever the planet from economy on other planets, which gives the possibility of the economical blockade of the planet. An it isn't THAT complex for a player. As for complexity for developer... it isn't our right to judge.