An idea for a simplified, yet more dynamic economy based on using a much simpler metric system and possibly allows for more dynamic economy expansion. So why is it we have a metal and energy pricing setup that is so varied when dealing with a drain economy system? numbers like 25 metal and 35 energy over a amount of time is difficult to wrap your head around when trying to expand. Whats worse is if you have a deficit in resources, its harder to understand exactly how many extra extractors or generators you need to stabilize your economy. Why not use a simpler metric system in all? The idea, what if we simplify the numbers to a system to something like, you have 1 t1 extractor, therefore you have an income of 1 metal which can supply 1 t1 land factory indefinitely. This would tie down resources to a factory and not individual units and having smaller numbers to play with is easier to understand. this is an oversimplification of course as such a system would remove the need for storage which i am in favor of keeping. IDEALY IT WOULD BE CLOSER TO THIS: A more realistic balance to keep storage in play would be 1 metal = 1 t1 production, meaning if i have 1 metal in storage and no income i can only produce 1 t1 unit from any land factory and no additional units can be made till i have some income. This of course can be diversified to have varied prices on each type of unit to keep some complexity in the game To demonstrate what i mean t1 bot unit = 2 metal t1 vehicle unit = 3 metal t1 air unit = 3 metal t1 naval unit = 4 metal t1 turret = 5 metal (one time cost obviously) As for energy, my thoughts run a little differently, although the previous system could apply here too. However, let me propose an alternate idea here. what if we removed power storage here all together? instead, what if the 'Energy Game' uses similar metrics (1 t1 generator powers 1 factory or 3 turrets) but requires yo to hook stuff up to a grid? This grid idea is extremely experimental, but it would work like this. you have three turrets and 1 t1 generator, you have to drag an icon atop your generator to each turret to 'attach it' to the generators grid. no power, no working turrets. The generator only needs to be on the same planet, no distance requirements. If this is too much to Handel manually, there could be a power manager that attaches generators to the grid automatically by allowing the player to prioritize production, defense, or whatever other category. Capturing a generator could also capture all structures attached to its grid, devastating a players own base with captured turrets or artillary. Both of these ideas lead to 2 new strategies, starvation, and surgical strikes. A player with less than optimal metal due to raids or poor planning will be starved and cannot achieve optimal production (a strategy to employ on players with more production capabilities then you). A player who attacks large clumps of generators can turn off massive parts of a players base through surgical strikes, which is effective against high macro players. At the very least this could be a good mod.... thoughts?
Dumbing down metal production and consumption can make it easier for the player, but it's a lot harder to balance. For something that costs 1 metal, you can't make it cost 1.2 metal; you need to double the metal consumption, which, in many cases, will make it too costly. The energy grid idea is neat, but it negates the point of having energy generators on a planet that you fully control, making interplanetary assaults rather pointless. They would have to be built on the battlefield, allowing them to be destroyed by enemy forces; there would be literally nothing on a fully controlled planet, besides metal extractors and storage. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "capturing" a generator; if there was a unit that could do that, it would have a niche role and I highly doubt it would be used for any reason beside its intended purpose. With that out of the way, it's a neat idea. If it were easier to balance, I could see it being an interesting mod.
Thanks, though i think you might have missed the point. The point was to remove the costs off of the units themselves, and add them to factory production as an over arching production cost for a factory to produce anything. this would make choice of unit production matter more on the aspects of the unit features rather then time before spam. Furthermore even changeing the numbers to double digits like 25, 30 is easier to math. Also the standard engineer can capture buildings i believe, no?
I see. With a few changes to the UI, that could be possible; I wouldn't mind seeing it in the stable build, but I think it's too large of a change for them to implement. It can reclaim a building, but not capture it.
The gist I'm getting from this is make the economy like Supreme Commander 2. If that's the case, that's a very bad idea. If I'm wrong, apologies.
Supreme Commander 2's economy was not where i was heading with this. supcom 2 had a stock pile economy like starcraft 2 where i can only buy what i have money for right now. furthermore supcom 2 had pricing for each unit individually. That is exactly the opposite of what i was proposing. In a nut shell, I'm proposing a simpler metric for cost and a flat cost of production for each type of factory. currently the economy at present is this: You have an income of x per second, unused income is added to a storage which is obviously a much larger number than x because x is per second. Each unit has a particular cost of C (which is useless to us as players because it is a total cost, not a rate like our income) to get the unit cost rate which can be deducted from our income we need to calculate D which is Y/T where T is the time it takes to produce a unit. The problem is no one does this math in real time on a per unit cost basis. Its too much to take in and we instead modify our production based on if a number is red or green (red meaning you already screwed up your economy) I'm suggesting instead of actually using this long *** winded equation to figure out if i have an economy large enough to have so many factories producing whatever units i need produced, why not just have the game calculate it for you? We can call this number a UNIT (aka the amount you subtract from your income when you have a unit in production) Whats more, why have the game calculate that for you on a unit by unit bases? Why not just make a flat production cost per factory type (ex. bot factory 1 metal UNIT to make ANY Bot unit, while a vehicle factory is 2 metal UNITS to make ANY Vehicle unit). This doesn't mean removing storage, we didn't touch that system, its still there, but rather than represent it's capacity in the amount of total metal stored, make it also represented in UNITS. This would mean balance would change of course but it would change to reflect the features of individual units, and emphasize the main current moment to moment issue of 'do i need a fast produced, massive and cheap army, or slow, elite, expensive army?' Whatever you decide, you know what factory you need, and you know how many you can have running at once, without needing to pull out a calculator every few seconds. if this doesn't make sense, i can try to make a simpler example if necessary.
