Economy

Re: Ecomomy

This is one of the things we are fixing about construction. I'm not ready to go into details about our system yet and it is pretty similar to the other games but we are drawing more distinction between energy and metal and how they are used. I think you guys will like it but I'm biased (it's actually a design Scathis came up with).

Re: Ecomomy

Awesome. I'm sure it'll be great. ^_^ Keep up the good work and have fun.

Re: Ecomomy

Humm, I am very curious about this! Grrrr teasing

Re: Ecomomy

He probably took lessons from Mecron over at Kerberos, makers of Sword of the Stars. ^_^ That guy could tease you like no-one else.

Re: Ecomomy

Love the Dark Archon avatar =)

It's kinda offtopic but it was mentioned a few times that the mousbuttons in TA are reversed to modern rts standards. But the fact is that TA is one of the most awesome games to ever have been made and the devs actually put in a button to change between ordering units around with rightclick or leftclick just check the interface options

Re: Ecomomy

Interesting. I can't help but speculate on this...

My guess is the paradigm will be along the lines of: "Mass to get you started, Energy to keep you running."

i.e. Mass is the primary resource to build stuff, with Energy a modest second, but everything you build will have an Energy drain.

So going down that rabbit hole, spun entirely out of cloth of my own making, mind you.

In that model what a critical question would be; when you run out of energy to regular what happens units?
That's opposed to "special" units with obvious energy draining features that could be auto-disabled (e.g. radar/stealth/shields if the game had them).

Do they grind to halt? Easy to distinguish/read during play but very harsh.
Do they fight at reduce effectiveness? Sounds fairer but hard to to distinguish/during play.
Do they slow down? Easy to distinguish/read during play, harsh, but perhaps fair.
Nothing! Seems unrealistic (not that that should matter).

I would actually lean towards the last, even though a regular unit has a drain, nothing should happen to them.
All the penalty should be to special abilities and further production.

Remember this is all speculation so don't get too bent out of shape if you don't like it coz I could be a million miles away from what Scathis has cooked up.
P.S. I'm glad to hear something slightly more concrete around Awesome Head Man's involvement than "consulting on design". Even if it's just "consulting on Eco design".

Re: Ecomomy

As long as extractors always get 100% max dibs on energy production, it's all good with me. Having them stall during a brownout is tragic.

There's no need to have everything demand energy. Typical units did not have any drain (or they used what they made), and it worked out just fine.

Energy drain counts as a "negative cost" which allows a unit to be cheaper, while offloading its cost elsewhere. There are few units that really need this. If their ability is particularly powerful (moving across worlds, cloak, etc.), then it makes sense. There's no reason to demand the full price on a defense turret that might never see battle, or on a jump ability that might get used once. The drain corresponds to the value of the ability (typically periodic use), rather than being assumed into every unit's full cost.

Take 2 units. One costs 250, but has an always working ability. One costs 200, but demands an extra 50 worth of energy to use its ability. Both armies initially cost the same to build up, but the latter is much cheaper to replace. It is also much more difficult to spam, as limited energy development will limit how many abilities can be used at once.

Re: Ecomomy

Evolution RTS v5.7* uses energy for controlling unit weapons fire, and metal for construction. It's a neat separation of resources, though at PA's scale that may require way too much energy production to work out nicely.

*This game changes fairly frequently, so I only know for sure that this is the energy mechanic at present. It may not be the mechanic anymore when you click the link.

This reminds me of the subtle difference between what happens when stalling in TA vs Sup Com - In Sup Com, your engineers constantly construct at a reduced percentage proportional to the deficit in resources. In TA, construction units would actually stop constructing for a proportional number of game ticks between bursts on normal building, rather than alter their rate of construction.
I'm not sure which I prefer, but the building animations in SupCom didn't change when stalling, and that both looked weird and made it hard to see if an opponent was low on resources. On the other hand, the TA method could be slightly frustrating when nearing completion of a building, but that's more psychological rather than having a gameplay impact (since it evens out anyway).

It's a high priority item to make sure the animation matcher what's happening with the construction.

in the scale example picture, i'm seeing 2 power generators that look really alike, but are not of the same height. Are you planning on making power generators stackable?