Economy local to planets?

I think the idea in having no easy means of transferring economy between planets is precisely to keep economy local; it's something you consider as a strategic action and not just "i want to set up a farm planet and then not worry about using those resources anywhere".

That said, I can imagine easy UIs to transfer metal as needed.

Think scale here is the best I can add to this discussion at this point.

If you were playing on a really large planet map and you moved from your main base to say an island in order to get a strategic positioning advantage on your enemy, you wouldn't have to start completely from scratch. You would have all the resource gen of your main base to help you kick start your new base. No one at this point questions moving resources around on the planet itself, even though on some really large planets you might easily be extremely far away from any of your production facilities of your main base (both resource and unit type).

Same concept with satellite planets. The reason to put in a distance penalty is so that you do in fact need to build a local economy at some point, but it isn't necessarily critical to do so right off the bat. Especially if your invasion is little more then intentional harassment of a hostile planet.

The thing I am firmly against is arbitrary distance penalties. Having a real universal economy which has arbitrary penalties for construction in different places is extremely complicated. Suppose you have some local economy on a planet, but are also importing from two other planets? Do you have any idea how much that construction is actually costing? Probably not.

Suppose you want to build something on a moon which has some local economy, but not enough to cover the production rate. So you import from planet A, which is closer, but doesn't have as much economy as B. However it turns out, you are using all the surplus from A, and cutting into A's economy a bit as well. So you are incurring distance penalty X% from A, and also incurring a penalty of Y% for importing from B. It's just way too complex, for very little benefit.

Rather than having arbitrary penalties for distance, completely separate planets, and allow certain types of assets to make simple transfers. Logistics ships might just carry a big lump of mass from one planet to another. Building a mobile fusion and physically transporting the fusion to a planet, adding to its energy economy, is also simple.

Spending resources on logistics assets is a good thing, as you are incurring a "penalty" of resource efficiency by needing to spend resources to build assets that transport resources. However they are much simpler and more concrete than having esoteric modifiers. Keeping construction streamlined is very important. The player needs to be aware of why things cost what they do, and how the system to build things works.

None of the local economies describe sound like value added. I enjoy the local economy system of Zero K, but that's not a local economy but is instead an energy grid for enabling proper working facilities within the grid. An energy grid is an interesting mechanic that doesn't really fit TA which already has energy drain on mobile units which can't really rely on the grid and mega weapons which pay massive energy quantities to fire.

Thinking that you can cut a planet off from other planets a player controls is a joke. There are unit cannons in the game, nukes and asteroids.

If the enemy planet is easy prey, it will be with or without energy and mass available unless your attack force is a joke.

As stated previously, microing engineers and factories will provide more than enough micro in my mind to facilitate the effort required in gaining a foothold.

I think my biggest concern at this point is how do I keep an eye on my local asteroid belt for potential KEW, because I need to be able to nip that sort of thing in the butt. Also, I hope deep space (solar system to solar system) KEW aren't allowed, because I don't know how you would defend against that.

KISS with global please

Bast

PS. I want to conqueror a galaxy not get stuck with a miriad of separate battles to play each on different planets. My forces need to be a coehesive host and that means global economics.

PSS. Heck, I want to be able to share with all my allies in whatever game I am playing just like in TA, Supreme Commander and Spring. That won't happen with local economies.

BP is already a very localised resource. Shipping BP generators between planets or building them on site is already handled very intuitively.

I am unsure of why you are adding a layer of complexity on this. It would be extremely simple, imo. The tooltip of the unit/structure you are trying to build would tell you exactly how much in adjusted cost you would spend on your new satellite base.

It would be very clear, very in your face. A building that costs you say, 200 metal, 1000 energy, might now cost you 250 metal, 1200 energy. Streamed, of course. Sure it would add a drain on your "farm planet". That is the point. Players should be pushed into investing into a local economy, if for no other reason then to build up redundancy in case another planet in their chain gets destroyed. Even if this is accomplished through building a spaceport type structure to ferry in the new resources, creating an incentive to invest into infrastructure on a planet is pretty important in the long run.

Yes you are probably right about that complexity because multiplication per resource is more CPU intensive than summing the Sphere Of Influence local resources and calculating a transmission cost factor for the entire SOI. Mind you that will still have a CPU cost and depending on how sources fluctuate SOI sums would need updating at intervals and on certain events, also the SOI available production excess would need to be calculated by subtracting local resource use which all adds to the potential for micro lag spikes if not done efficiently and threaded on a different cpu core to unit movement and combat. etc etc Depends on the other cpu requirements created by the entire game engine and its capabilities, which is something only Uber can assess.

That point is I think a deep concern for every red blooded RTS player whatever their PC specs because in the end we all have to play MP with each other.

SNIP... on reflection I wrote too much...

After reading the entirety of this thread I’ve had a few ideas of my own on this topic. As a note, with the announcement of the Galactic War stretch goal my ideas are oriented towards developing a “awesome inducing” economy for that scale.

I certainly agree that there needs to be a form both Local and Global economies. Having only a global economy negates a lot of possible Macro strategic considerations. Similarly having a bunch of purely local economies adds a degree of tediousness as you must then micro a bunch of individual systems/planets to get the best use of all your resources. So as several ppl have already concluded a hybrid that allows for large scale strategic maneuvers without the limits of local econs is the only viable arrangement (or so I think).

Anyway my idea:

Each system (A sun with orbiting planets, moons, roids etc.) has a “local” economy. This closed system can share resource streams without hindrance (no need for rail guns, teleporters etc. to transport between orbiting bodies). One caveat to this could be such that a “gravity well” multiplier reduces the amount of mass/energy that can reach the other orbiting bodies. This effect would be represented by the cost of a unit being different on each orbital body in that system in proportion to the amount of resources streaming from each planet and how it’s affected by the gravity multiplier. In other words the logistics of moving resources around (micro) is incorporated by the game automatically.

Each system (or “local” economy) can also be connected to a “global” or galactic economy through a very expensive structure that can be built only once per system. This building connects the host planet to a global economy (via a wormhole or whatever, and requires a lot of energy to keep activated), which then can disseminate throughout the system (with applicable gravity multiplier).

But what of the issues of attacker vs entrenched defender? Wouldn’t the defender have the advantage of global resources while the attacker has whatever meager forces they can get in system? To solve that it could be made such that one orbital unit functions something like an interdictor: a certain number in orbit around an enemy world would disrupt the wormholes stability and reduce its throughput, get enough in orbit (proportional to the size of the planet?) and you can close it off all together (This would provide an advantage to placing the building on a high gravity well planet). Now with a space force blocking the flow of large scale resources to the system, the attacker can then concentrate on gaining a foothold in the system.

By making this “wormhole” building energetically expensive to operate it would largely negate the option of connecting every system you own directly to the Galactic economy (though it could be possible that those not directly connected could send a portion of their excess resources to a neighboring system that is). This provides an in-road for you (or your rivals) to attack logistical centers behind enemy lines. The energy expense could also go up exponentially with distance so you (or your enemy) cannot just set up a stronghold far removed from your main empire.

The main reason I like this type of set up (and I know it isn’t perfect) is that it provides incentive for executing sneak attacks and strategic maneuvers. Have an enemy nearby with a powerful outpost near one of your primary systems? Conduct a raid behind their lines that cuts off that system with the 3 gas giants that is feeding their entire galactic economy transport system! Want to hinder their production? Blockade their Metal world and remove their Mass advantage!

This does add a bit more in the way of complexity, but I believe that is a different beast than the issue of too much micro. I believe that this form of economy can be done behind the scenes with little to no input from the player and represented in an easily intuitive way. IMHO the galactic war option is more for those who enjoy that degree of strategy anyway, while a single system would fit those more interested in just the Mech on Mech action.

I wonder if Metal Worlds could be worked in to being an integral part of this.
What if they are the linchpins of your galactic empire?

Maybe they could be the most efficient means of travelling between systems, dragging your army and a vast pool of resources with them.
You'd likely need some other method(s) of travelling available lest all starting systems be forced to be seeded with one and making them something you can never 100% destroy.

I kinda like the idea of stumbling about until you find your dusty old metal world, fix her up real nice, and really get stomping around the galaxy with a vengeance.

I like eldorwanabe's idea of making units more expensive on poorly linked planets. It sounds like a good way to implement a semi-local system which penalises collecting resources on one planet and sending them to the other. A simple cost multiple is easier to think about than a tax system and should be equivalent.

Actually yes, hadn't favoured local resources due to complexity of micromanagement, but doing it that way would make it quite intuitive. I support this.

The problem with making units more expensive on poorly linked planets is that there are many factors going into unit production. What if there is a limited amount of local economy? Does the local economy count towards the normal cost, and imported resources have reduced effectiveness?

I think a better way to do this is to have planets be relatively isolated, with no automatic or intrinsic ability to move resources between them at all. You need to build logistics assets in order to move economy, such as building a fusion on one planet, and transporting that power plant to the destination planet, where it then bolsters your economy.

This is very simple, and cuts out any arbitrary penalties for resource transfer inefficiency. It also incurs a similar resource inefficiency penalty because you must spend resources to construct the transports. Additionally, spending more on transports lets you transfer more, faster.

If I understand correctly eldorwanabe's post suggested that the linking idea applied to the Galactic metagame, not in system. I am not going to comment on the metagame right now. In system he suggested this...

For the in system local economy eldorwanabe was proposing the same kind of no-micro system I am in favour of, which I agree with but suggested calculating costs based on gravity well rather than distance which is interesting. So the question would be what does that mean and what difference would it make?

The gravitational potential energy graph starts out steep and then flattens out which means all the cost is in getting the first few thousand kilometers but it doesnt increase as much after that, so using wild guesses to illustrate if your base was on Earth it would be 2x as hard to build on the Moon, 3x harder to build on Mars, 3.5x harder to build on Jupiter and 3.9x harder on Pluto, maxing out at 4x at infinity.

Whereas with distance multiplier you would find it increasing at a steady rate as you got further away so almost the same on the moon eg 1x harder but on Mars would vary between 1.05 and 1.25 depending on whether Mars was close by or on the other side of the sun. Jupiter 1.4 and 1.6, Pluto 3.8 and 4.0.

So it depends how you want it to play, do you want a gentle slope or strong curve. Do you want it to vary?

I quite like the gravity numbers as that would produce a strong local economy factor which got moderately high far away but would not get totally imbalanced. It would also provide a quick way to get that calculation done because calculating the multiplier could be done once between any two SOIs and would not need to be repeated whereas the distance factor would be continually changing if they were in orbit. So I think that is a win for eldorwannabe's method

They way boolybooly is interpreting my gravity well idea is slightly off. You have actually bent it more towards distance so allow me to clarify: With the idea that once you leave a gravity well it is relatively cheap to move around, each planet would just have a single multiplier that effects their excess recourse streams availability on other bodies. For example:

Planet A has a gravity of lets say 1g, so all excess resource streams (those resources not being used for production on that planet) from that planet becomes available to the system economy at a 0.7 multiplier (arbitrary at this point). That is if 100 Mass/sec is not being used on Planet A, any other orbital body in the system now has access to 70 Mass/sec. So if any other body is operating at a deficiency (trying to use more res/second than that body has its own facilities to create) it can look at the System economy and take what it needs from that. Similarly Planet B with a gravity of 0.5g has a multiplier of 0.8. Allowing 80% of its excess stream to be available to all other bodies.

In reality this like having all orbital bodies with their own economy, but also supplementing (or supplemented by) all your other planetary economies at a penalty. All this can be done automatically without any player input. And it seems pretty intuitive to me. More gravity = harder to escape = less res/sec to the rest of the system.

Also upon further examination I realized that changing the cost of a unit to represent this penalty is not an effective way of doing it. What that method would impose is that even if your current planet has the facilities to provide all that is needed to build a unit (res/sec) it would still cost differently than another planet you own that also has all the facilities required on it. In reality if each orbital body can provide all that is needed for its own activities the cost on each should be the same (or normalized to the units base cost, no penalty). The streaming idea that I stated above is far more elegant and intuitive. It always costs the same to build a given unit, but the rate at which that unit can be built wont necessarily be the same.

This method makes even more sense if you realize that an engineer builds units at a flat rate. If you have one engineer building something its unlikely that you would be maxing out your planets revenue. Adjusting the base cost would penalize some planets and give others an advantage for no apparent reason.

The Local planetary economy with a system streaming buffer is far more intuitive than unit cost adjustments.

Well I am sorry if I bent your paradigm eldorwanabe.

I agree that adjusting unit cost is not the answer to localisation. IMHO the "cost_to_stream" outside local is a better way and there is a question about how to decide the multiplier.

While a fixed multiplier is simpler and easier on the CPU I do prefer my interpretation of eldorwanabes gravity curve suggestion, because I would like it to cost more to send resources the further away you go. eg if you go to a distant gas giant it will cost more than an asteroid in orbit around your main base. But a flat rate would still provide localisation gameplay so I can see how it might meet with a programmers approval.

Not sure what you mean here, it is open to interpretation. Are you suggesting a restriction on the build rate as a result of the cost to stream? IMHO slower build times would annoy people, which I am not in favour of, having thought about it since an earlier post. IMHO it should just cost a lot more to build at max rate outside local and let the players weigh the cost v benefit. Which is why I see 0.7 as an example multiplier as a bit lowish IMHO. I would suggest being brave and having a big multiplier but no build time restriction and let the big drain on resources do the talking.

I'm not suggesting a build time penalty; I agree that would only be annoying. I was simply suggesting that should you try building Massive unit X (with an excess of engineers) on a little outpost that has only a few local resources, the availability of resources from the System economy stream should be your limiting factor, not your engineers build capacity/rate. This is in contrast to building the same unit with an excess of engineers on your "refinery" planet. The gravity wells, in effect, force you to pay a penalty for building away from your resource node. That’s what I mean by different build rate: the availability of resources, not the cost of building.

As for the rate, as I stated it’s a fairly arbitrary at this point. Not having a fuller picture of how things are set up makes discussing the absolute value of it rather moot as we have no context by which to balance it. Your thinking along the lines of an inverse exponential decay function, I'm thinking a flat rate. Personally I feel a flat rate is simpler for players to work with and better as its far less CPU intensive.