Another Economic Thought: matching mass and build times.

We already have this. It called the map, the factories and the number of engineers assigned to a job. This is how you manage your economy. If I want to expand the factories heading, I zoom in.

But it's not arbitrary at all. And what do you lose? List them for me.

The word arbitrary fits perfect because it is a restriction that is applied for no simulative reason. Now arbitrary has a lot of negative stigma but its not necessarily a bad word, it is a discriptive word. That the matching of mass to build time is arbitrary is a fact, but that doesn't make it inherantly bad just because of one descriptive word.

The losses are:

Low metal units: For example in the original TA Metal makers cost 0 mass, there for they also have 0 build time. All planes tended to have lower mass costs so they must then all build faster than other units.

Engineer assisting low metal units: Obviously if a unit doesn't cost much but should still take a decent time to build (ASF perhaps) then the factory would need to build slowly. assisting with engineers negates the balance change.

Engineers assisting high build time units: take for example the strat missile defence or launcher with their massive build times to stop spamming (as assiting while beneficial was not game changing). Because a missile would build slowly it must therefore cost a drasticaly increased amount to stop assitance, or it costs the same and they become spam tastic. As near as i can tell ZK gets around this by not letting you assist nuke launchers.

just off the top of my head

Can you list the gains for me?

Indeed, the ZK system fails on missle launchers and alike where the production needs to have high time costs without having to much impact on your economy. This is not only limited to missle launchers, but also effects late game buildings which require you to collect a decent amount of engineers first.

It also fails on dealing with an onchanging economy, if you run out of metal or energy, then you are screwed since the game will not allow you, to use your remaining resources in any way.

And tying metal / energy comsumption rate with the number of engineers causes even more problems, it makes it almost impossible to scale the exponential growing resource flow-rate without managing an also growing crowd of egineers. The economy in ZK is not designed to establish large bases or to grow beyond a certain point, so why to copy a system which is not designed to fit with a large scale game like PA?

Well thats why i'd like to know what the system gains the players. Obviously i am biased and wont be able to express such things with the phrasing they deserve.

Then don't make them cost zero mass any more. Balance aircraft with the dozen other degrees of freedom you have. Use a higher energy price, for example.

You're not listening, are you? I'm arguing that we abolish this form of balancing.

Why should a unit that doesn't cost much have a long build time? Is there a set of Laws of RTS Balance that I might be breaking? If you assume that a low mass plus long build time unit is a necessity, then I'd like you to objectively show that it is a necessity.

If you're just claiming that units balanced this way ought to be included in the game, but aren't a necessity, then I will remind you that they aren't a necessity. Not including them has advantages, which is why I made this thread.

I too would set nukes to be not assist-able. For things that must have long, or explicit, built times; then there should be one consistent rule - don't allow them to be assist-able.

Removal of one degree of balancing freedom that Uber could accidentally mis-wield and break balance.
Removal of one degree of freedom that could be gamed and abused by emergent gameplay.
Reduced learning curve for new players.
More consistent economic behaviour for all units, at all scales.

I'm torn... on the one hand, matching build time to mass/energy (and therefore build power = mass/energy "injected" into any unit per second) makes sense, conceptually.

However, I dislike the lack of definition it causes units to have. All units then only have one economic variable (energy). The reason I don't count mass as an economic variable is because in terms of balance, the build time is what is important.

I also dislike the extra emphasis it puts on mass, I can't help but feel that will make the game slippery slope - as soon as you lose some map control, it's very hard to regain it, since there's no possibility of switching to a high energy production base and making to low mass/high energy cost units to try and re-take ground. If you did that with the linked system, those units would be faster to build, and therefore would have to be weaker.
To me, this makes balancing even harder if you want to avoid minute advantages becoming insurmountable.

This sounds like a fairly bland game, to be honest. I don't see the first two points as issues, as that is actually a matter of testing & responding to player feedback. Bad balancing of this sort can occur regardless of the method used. The third & fourth are subjective, as any decrease in learning curve generally means a decrease in game complexity.

In any case, the energy costs per tick of construction are going to vary regardless, unless those too are made the same as mass. So linking the two doesn't remove the issue of player uncertainty as to per-tick construction costs for each unit.

So all aircraft, to compensate for their lower build time MUST cost more energy.

Okay so NO units are allowed have a longer build time to compensate for their other attributes. I will get onto the necessities later.

Ironicaly your one constant rule is actualy an exception to the general rule of assisting (all units and factories can be assisted, except [list of units]) but thats just somantics. But for any unit that might break the game if rushed it CAN NOT be assisted.

Mass/build time together is arguably harder to balance because the single number is twice as hard to figure out when determining the units cost. Even if it isn't twice as hard to work out it is still harder, and its a number that can still be wrong and if it is wrong the balance issue will be larger.

Regardless of whatever specifics we work out, this isn't actualy a point for or against either way as it can be just as broken for both.

Mostly the same answer as above. The only difference is that instead of an oversight from uber required, its an oversight from uber thats required and the players to figure it out.

This is a legitimate point and the main selling point of your system as far as i'm concerned. Personaly i've never met a person who had trouble learning the system but the internet says they're out there and thats a bigger sample size than me and my friends.

The only new upshot of this point is that engineers are a little more consistant, technicaly this could be seen as a benefit but i think it is incredibly minor. If a player has experience with the system they naturaly account for inconsistancies. After which point they probably rather being able to pick and choose where they want their inconsistancies to go.

Other than your learning curve your only issue seems to be that uber might balance the game wrong. Well i can tell you without any hesitation that when planitary annihilation is released, it will not be a balanced game. Tying their hands in an attempt to stop this is a fruitless endevour. but then they patch it and some of those balanced issues are fixed and a couple of new ones are raised. over time the game becomes more balanced and we all enjoy it.

Also you will notice that through my retorts in the top part i've done some words in all caps. this is because your system centers around the increased simplicity by reducing what the game can do. I maintain that maybe most things could use equal mass and build time, but forcing it on every unit hinders the game.

If you dumb down resources it will end up like SupCom2... on the other hand I hate massed enjys, though they make a good target for bombers, which is why I play Cybran and use enjy buildings.

I dont like FA games which use 20mins no rush and 2x res. The fact that I cannot micro to save my commanders life is nether here nor there, I could if I wanted to, I just keep forgetting to want to!!!

I dont want squared off cookie cutter builds, I want the chance to innovate and add stuff to make it go faster.

No. You assumed that an aircraft must contain less metal. If it takes as long as a tank to build, just let it have the same amount of metal as a tank. Alternatively, you could have read the words for and example. I used energy as an illustrative case. I never claimed that it was hard and fast.

A unit can easily have a longer build time to balance other attributes; it this just means they also have an increased metal cost. For some reason, you seem stuck on the notion that Unit X must absolutely cost y metal, and that it's the end of the world if it doesn't.

The general rule of assisting is a general rule. I believe it is fine to break that one from time to time. If a unit has a long build time to begin with, then it's moderately safe to assume that the long build time was placed there to prevent rushing in the first place.

I fail to see how matching metal and time becomes a problem here.

Lets continue arguing this point.

You claim that a single number is twice as hard to figure out. I challenge that claim, and I further claim that a single number is half as difficult. I dare you to prove me wrong.

Indeed. It could still be broken, but I believe that reducing the number of ways it can be broken will reduce the likelihood and severity of broken balances.

Simple: That single number represents two attributes, Mass and Build time, that in terms of gameplay have different effects if changed. However, you are restricted when balancing them by being forced to have them equal. This makes it harder to balance, not easier.

Well any unit that has a low build time MUST compensate for its low mass cost. Any unit with a low mass cost MUST compensate for its low build time. Any unit with a high mass cost MUST compensate for its high build time, etc.

What i actualy said was that i dont want to be FORCED to pay a premium or take detriments to a unit because its build time or mass cost was arbitrarily changed.

Once again, I don't want to be FORCED to be unable to assist anti nuke missiles when i would be otherwise capable of it because their build time is disparative to their mass cost. As the game progresses i want to be able to build multiple of those no rush things that i didn't have the capacity to rush early game.

I actualy claimed might be in between. but its not one number is it? its actualy two numbers that must be equal. meaning any change to one also effects the other. So the balancing is unchanged but you've got one hand tied behind your back (metaphoricaly of course). EDIT: stupid raevn beat me to the punch.

And of course you i can't prove you wrong you must be right... i looked into it and would you believe no academic studies have been done on this specific matter?

The complexity (i did ironicaly find a paper saying people enjoy complex games more) you lose is not worth the (debatable) decrease in amount of brokeness that will be fixed by patches or the decreased learning curve.

What are these effects? Your argument doesn't actually conclude anything.

It's not a compensation: they are almost one and the same.

And if they weren't arbitrarily changed, but changed deliberately and with good reason? You might be taking those premiums/penalties anyway as part of the natural balance process. Don't assume matching metal and time is the only cause of that.

Then build multiple of them.

You should have argued the exact opposite. My proposal prevents later-game items from being rushed. It never prevents earlier-game items from being used in larger numbers later.

No, you claimed that it would be worse and never easier. Want me to quote you? Here;

Cite me this paper, please. I'd like to have a read of it.

The ZK system fails on missle launchers and alike where the production needs to have high time costs without having to much impact on your economy. This is not only limited to missle launchers, but also effects late game buildings which require you to collect a decent amount of engineers first.

It also fails on dealing with an onchanging economy, if you run out of metal or energy, then you are screwed since the game will not allow you, to use your remaining resources in any way.

And tying metal / energy comsumption rate with the number of engineers causes even more problems, it makes it almost impossible to scale the exponential growing resource flow-rate without managing an also growing crowd of egineers. The economy in ZK is not designed to establish large bases or to grow beyond a certain point, so why to copy a system which is not designed to fit with a large scale game like PA?

Just give me ONE good argument except for the arguable "simplification".

As far as I can tell, locking build time and metal costs together would have the following effects:

1. The metal use per second per point of build time is fixed. If that ratio is 1 metal/s per point of build power, then if you have 100 build power on a project, you're going to be spending 100 metal/s, end of story. This makes distribution of resources very clear to the player.

2. Your metal income can be directly converted into the amount of total build power you can have working on any one project, energy permitting.

3. It reduces the number of things the player has to figure out on the fly.

All of these considered, I think that keeping buildtime and metal cost in proportion to each other might actually have some benefits. And I would go a step further and saying that having energy in proportion to buildtime would also be beneficial.

However, this should not be a hardcoded constraint. Rather, it should be used as a default. Generic unit X is going to cost Y metal/s and Z energy/s, regardless of its build time. Very straightforward. However, Uber is not constrained to those values, and can deviate from it when they feel it beneficial.

However, any such deviations should be systemic or otherwise obvious. For example, ground units use the default, air units have lower metal costs per point of buildtime and higher energy costs, and naval units have higher metal costs. This way you can look at your income and figure out how many air units you can build at once, or how many naval units, or how many ground units, since all units in a given class share these costs.

For exceptional units, they can deviate from that, too, but the unit should truly be exceptional.

Can't see why ZK economy wouldn't scale, what do you mean by that? Note that running out of metal results in more energy production being available to overdrive mexxes thus producing more metal. Running out of energy is bad, but it would be in any TA type game.

I do agree that it causes what could be viewed as a problem for missile launchers, as a result nukes for example are quite expensive in ZK (each individual missile costs 3000 metal). Then again maybe very powerful structures should have significant upkeep costs? ZK nukes are brutal.

Also consider that while expenditure is tied to buildpower, production rates of metal and energy are very different in ZK. Much more energy can be produced, but it's also used for other things than building, such as powering shields and cloaking devices.

Few people here have any experience with a fixed ratio system. Some of these statements are demonstrably wrong.

Assist the 1200second unit. I assume by mins you meant minerals from which I infer that you might not understand the basics of the flow economy system.

Firstly you can assist nuke launchers. Mainly if a unit is so great that everyone would spam it why not make it more expensive in general to the point which it is balanced. A comparatively low metal unit will just be thoughtlessly spammed slowly by everyone due to the lower metal impact on their economy.

Why do you assume this need?

The rest of the game can be balanced to reduce slippery slope. It is an independent problem.

Now on to my less back-up-able arguments and point of view.

Firstly can everyone stop mentioning simulationism or realism. If we are talking about systems of game balance I would rather remove assumptions that stem from those facets because realism does not imply good balance. So independently justify why we need units that cost different ratios of resources.

From where I am standing different resource cost ratios is a more complex system with 'arbitrary' different cost ratios. Variable ratio systems look undeniably more complex than a system in which two or three of the cost ratios are fixed. When designing a game I think adding complexity requires justification so instead of using tradition or realism explain why this needs to exist.

I know there are some justifications for the extra complexity but there are a lot of circular arguments. For example;

Sure if you set M=BT then you lose the ability to set the BT on low metal units high, that is sort of the point. But why is losing the ability to do that a bad thing.

There are real justifications which would be more useful to respond to. A significant point is that the variable ratios allow balance to restrict what you can build at different points in the game. So early on you build high metal things but later on you want to use your high levels of BP and energy to buy low metal units. Now I don't particularly like the sound of this system because it is a bit 'build-ordery' in that you get less freedom of unit choice and therefore strategy. Also maybe low metal aircraft are better late game hmm? Anyway my grievances aside this is a valid tool for balancing a game.

The system in which BP=M still has this balance lever to define when a unit should be built with either high or low energy cost. So I don't see how that system differs significantly in that regard. Sure with variable ratio you can have aircraft constrained by energy and nukes constrained by BP but in the end they effectively do the same role.

So some good points for BP=M=E
Now I'm going to argue for the full BP=M=E system because I can.

More diverse and creative strategies. For example people could try making aircraft early, they could try early nukes. Of course aircraft and nukes have to be balanced for their cost so something like a nuke early would be a large risk due to the inability for an early economy to build it rapidly.

More useful units late game. Energy and BP is unbounded in comparison to metal. Clearly the high energy or BP ratio units will be favoured later in the game. This makes the early game units weaker in comparison when I don't think they should be.

Simplicity. This point is always derided but it is fairly important. All things being equal, a simpler system is better because it takes less micro to manage and more people can understand it. This isn't really a point for BP=M=E because a similarly simple system can be made with variable ratios it's just never been done.

The more I read if defense of matching mass and build time, the less I like it, and I did not like it to begin with.

So far one of the problems is that there are some things that need to have a very long build time but not high cost to balance them (like nuclear missiles).

There is also the problem that this piratically mandates engineer spam at late game if late game structures are going to be expensive and T2 engineers will not make T1 engineers obsolete.

It makes high energy low metal units harder to balance as they will have shorter build times then they would otherwise. And given the variability of planet types, I think having varying unit costs is a good thing.

This is all for simplicity when the main issue is not if the system is simple (rate based is simple) but that people find it unintuitive (probably because most RTS games do not use it). Making metal = build time is no more intuitive then energy = build time, and is just as arbitrary as not doing either.

You forgott one very important point. Low metal units are usually support units, they are supposed to be weak, measured in battle strength, but offer you a different type of advantage in return. Also low metal units usually come with some type of permanent energy drain when completed which makes up for the lower costs. But you are not meant to spam them in early phases either!

After all, the metal value is related to the actual battle strength, BP and energy are completly unrelated and should never be mixed with that. Especially energy is a much more versatile resource as many strategical important abbilities rely on energy and BP is an overall indicator for the progress of the game - which is independent of the number of extractors you control!!!

What do you mean by this?

Is this something that applies only to engineers, or is it factories too?

Been addressed already. If you don't like how that's been addressed, then that's understandable.

The way I interpret that is;

• engineer spam is needed when 1) late-game structures are expensive, and 2) you want late-game structures built very quickly.

That just means that on some planets only some units are effective, and that on other planets a different set of units is effective. Unless it's something salient and obvious, like comparing a desert planet to a water planet, that's a very unintuitive and bad thing to have.

I'm not advocating the direct dumbing-down of the economy. I'm advocating making it more intuitive by lining two things up together. If you squint your eyes, and look at it from a funny angle; yes, it can be construed as dumbing-down.