Economy System

And that Army is useless without something to Fight against, so instead of spending your own 'endless economy' on Asteroids to destroy the planet.

Mike

A) Asteroids
B) nukes
C) Artillery
D) When armies reach a certain scale, things are going to die. It does not matter if the K is a thousand to one. As long as that 'one' is a Commander, the game is over.

I think everything will depend on how long a PA round is expected to last on average.

If I can acquire any of those items you listed in an hour on average and end the game by killing the enemy commander, then great.

But if it takes 2+ hours on average in a typical PA round to do so, then I may have to find my RTS fix elsewhere.

I'm referring to a multiplayer round against another human being. Skirmish rounds can last ad infinitum, as one can simply save a skirmish round (I assume).

A lot of these kinds of pacing things are based off specific balance rather than mechanics.

So long as we know that we CAN acquire the asteroids, the balance will adjust to accommodate what Uber wants for the Meta-Game.

Mike

Why would anybody base their decision what they get their "fix" on on average play times when the game will obviously have the possibility to customize all of the mentioned criteria that influence playtime?

Ultimate turtle breaking tools are made to break turtles. They're intended as a last resort.

Typically, a defensive player sacrifices territory control. Take the map, get more resources, roll over the enemy and win. It's a pretty one sided battle.

By "meta-game", are you referring to how long a typical PA round will last?

Because I generally know how much free gaming time I have on average. I have limited free time because of general constraints on my time in real life. I work full time and generally do things other than play PC games. So I tend to fit games around my schedule, not the other way around.

hmm. the main difference from my idea is the overlap section and using a a more discrete metal map. the overlap part in specific i think is the key to making this type of system work.

Yes, that that is the intended game length for the average 'ranked' match.

That is where Custom/Skirmish games come in because you'll have full control over the system you're fighting in which will have a big effect on how long games last.

Mike

Sweet! Thanks for the explanation.

Now I just have to find a similarly time-strapped gamer who's got an hour or so to kill. Hopefully it won't be too hard when the time comes to play multiplayer PA.

Yeah I'm jumping in on the liking to build multiple factories. I loved playing SupCom offline had having a large base of factories with like 3 guys assisting, then I learned it really should be 1 factory with 100 engineers to stand a chance in online MP... the game became less fun. In PA assisting should help, but I enjoy the long transition time between a unit exiting and the factory starting up. Makes it so only throwing 1 or 2 fabs on to assist worth it (even then?). It is a nice balance. Forces people to expand out and produce war engines to conquer the galaxy! Not a factory to conquer the galaxy...

About endless economy, i mean the inifinite acceleration of ressource production.

This kind of production curve :


It is possible in TA get this kind of production curve, you just have to build nuclear reactors and advanced metal converters. You just need space to build.

So my worry is that, in a massive multiplayer some player will be potentially able to focus only on economy. After a moment, these players will reach a level of production so high that every construction even the most ultimate weapons will be easily affordable. So there is a risk to see in massive mutiplayer team game, after a moment (30 min or 1 h) asteroids raining on every planets (it will be fun to see it once, but not in every game).

So my question is what kind of balance mechanism will prevent those early ends ?

Two possible ways. Localise economy to planets (we've been told this isn't happening), and removing metal makers.

Simple solution, don't have metal makers. Problem solved.


Any other balance issues can be solved with numbers of metal spots on the map. Limited number of metal spots forces you to expand to keep growing your economy leading inevitable to conflict, either by expanding in enemy territory or by enemy raiders who attack your outspread mexes.

Agreed.

No metal makers. No metal planets.

Of course, the turtlers will protest like crazy. Then again, they probably can play games for 12 hours straight, if not longer.

You realize that this discussion is superfluous since these features are confirmed to be in the game since kickstarter?
The game will not be changed because you are fearing that it might be possible to have long games. There will be long games. You can play them or you can not. It's all up to you.

Sometimes it's not about individual choice. It's about available choices influencing the shape of the community itself.

Metal makers have never been confirmed, quite the contrary.
Metal planets have never been described as a planet with unlimited ressources.

As you said, the game is still alpha so the "unbalance"s of the game can't be judged yet - only the directions it is going.

Build power isn't "like" a resource - it is definitely a very important resource.

As far as factories go, I don't like to see the exploration of the technology tree be so cheap as in SupCom - it makes it too easy to reach any tech path we want.
But I don't like to see, either, we paying only for one factory and having the possibility to pump out units like crazy from there, like if we had 10 factories of those (usually by using Nano Turrets). This also makes it too cheap to increase the production levels.

Factories should be more expensive than in SupCom and it shouldn't be as easy to assist them with build-power.

Endless economy is one of the charms of TA, Spring and SupCom - the game can escalade into insane proportions. This is very much unlike, for example, Starcraft 2, where each pool of resources will last only for so long.

What you are describing is mostly a problem on how fast economies escalade. In Spring, people grew quite good at escalading the economy as fast as possible. If that is too fast, just make it slow.

Still, I see your point and I wonder if there shouldn't be a limit into economy escalation. I think a diminishing returns model could be good path to try, to allow you escalation but not endless escalation.