I have been thinking about the livestream from may 17th. At one point you guys mentioned Metal points, I assumed you were talking about points like in supreme commander where you can put an extractor on it and it's all nice. What if you could put some sort of zone, where you can have as many extractors as you like but their productivity varies depending on the zone, the only example I can think of is the mining and resource allocation in the most recent Simcity game.
This was discussed before. I think it was agreed that this would cause players to try and pack as many extractors onto the metal zone as possible, creating unneeded micro for maximum output. Metal points instead of zones are simply easier.
Yeah this was tried in Spring and without getting into the specifics it wasn't conducive to good gameplay.
This was also present in TA, you could pack extractors on the larger (they looked more full of metal) mass plots to try and get more mass. I prefer points where I throw down 1 extractor and be done with it
Personally I think it should be open to choice. having said that, it would be cool for big explosions to potentially reveal more mining points within an area?
How can it be a choice? If putting more extractors on a metal deposit gets you more metal, everyone would do it (or lose). It's only the illusion of choice.
There's another possible implementation of area-based resource allocation: All platet or asteroid surface is covered by a resource gradient, like a heightmap but for metal output. Each extractor have circular extraction area. Amount of extracted resources is proportional to volume of the figure constructed by extension of each point of the area up to a height determined by by resource gradient. Programmatically, it's not very hard to calculate. If multiple extraction areas cross each other, overlapping parts (or their output) are split in a way when each area gets an equal share of overlapped area. Given this, resource output depends on summary extraction area and summary resource intensity within that area. Pros: Easy to depict with eco overlay drawing gradient and extraction areas over the surfaces. Resembles natural resource allocation much closer than points and gives much more flexibility in recource placement, for example, allows to model ore veins. Intuitive, explaned to novice by a single rule: place extractors where values are high, try to not overlap. Cons: Kinda non-trivial solution to optimal covering of a given area: 6-around-1 overlapping that resolves into hexagonal grid or non-overlapping that leave small fragments uncovered. However, that is not an actual gameplay problem.
I actually thought of a similar system for Naval Based Mass Extractors in Supreme Commander. Random concentrations of metal would be generated all across the sea, and you could place Mexes outside of a certain range of one another. I'm open to this, so long as there is an option to revert to the normal 1 extractor 1 point system we're all used to, in case it tanks.
Yeap it is as much as choice as building linked metal dumps to your mexes is in SupCom. Not a choice. Unless losing is a valuable choice.
Let's think back to Supreme Commander's energy-to-mass converters, though. You could spamclick those everywhere and, as long as you had tons of energy, it amounted to the same effect as what we get from the metal converters at this point. I think the way they're doing it currently is pretty well one of the better ways of doing it, but I would, personally, make the buildings explode in a grandiose fashion when destroyed, highly damaging or destroying nearby buildings, making packing them in together a risk/reward trade-off.
This is like TA: Springs metal, but they gave the choice to mappers to decide if they wanted discreet spots. I liked it
Awww man. I loved SupCom but the damn set mass extractor areas made me go crazy, especially when playing with a rush timer. I love having my bases organized D:
THIS. I always hated that. I would reclaim the mexes when I had my mass converters set up just so my base wasn't EVERYWHERE.
...You guys do realize that it is not only better to have a spread-out, chaotic base, but it is also strategically ideal. For example, if you pack all of your energy generators into a "farm", and your base gets nuked, you are out of energy, and essentially have to restart your economy from the very beginning. Another thing is AA towers, if you have them all packed into a milk-carton shaped formation, not only will they be busted up by Bombers, they'll be more apparent to enemies sizing up your base. Having a chaotic, spread-out base might mean your enemy would pass over those twenty individual AA towers and make a few "Sacrifices" to your mass economy in the form of bombers.
