Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials, etc)

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

bobucles <3

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

I think it is something that should be in the game. But not as having a bazillion tons of trucks around driving fuel and ammo. Just as consumption of energy or metal, maybe with a little bit of stockpile per unit, to be aple to shot and/or move even if ur general depos are empty.

And this also naturally limits the ammount of units u can have. But also not finally. it would be more like:
You can have a medium size Army moving and shooting permanently related to ur income in energy and metall.
Or u can have a Large size Army that can move a bit and shot severall times. But u are not able to replenish all of it over a long periode of time.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Noooooo. Even turrets-that-require-energy from TA is a bad idea. And if all your units are shooting your resources - this will make eco unmaintainable. We don't need Planetary Tycoon, thanks.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Not all turrets need to draw energy, just some. And this worked out quite nicely in TA. The usefulness of the Sentinel was offset, for example, such that spamming them without an infrastructure would incur a bigger deficit than defensive benefit. (Of course, I'm thinking from the TA: Twilight perspective. Everybody knows that in OTA, missile towers are the only defense you use. ;-))

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

I think its a bit simplistic to eschew any form of logistics when dealing with extra-planetary conquest and fighting.

Frankly, the vast majority of war is logistics and whether any of us realize it or not an enormous amount of decision making in wars, even the cool bloody messy massed battles, were fought for logistical or resource reasons.

Market Garden in WW2 was an invasion that sought to grab bridges that were essential for moving into Germany quickly, but was also hampered by logistical nightmares along the way. Germany pushed into the Caucasus in Russia to try and access the oil rich territories behind the Russian lines to fuel their war effort.

Logistically Vietnam was a nightmare and realistically only made practical by the availability of Helicopters. Before Helos jungle fighting was some messy and difficult stuff largely because of the difficulty of moving resources. So Vietnam and jungles are not awesome, but Helicopters ARE awesome and some of the coolest stories about Vietnam I can remember reading were basically crazy Helicopter pilots doing crazy things to supply soldiers cut off or to keep them supplied and to allow them to do awesome things.

I know I know, I'm setting off all these big "REALISM NERD" warning lights, but I think its a bit disingenuous to think that any representation of logistics is just boring and not fun. If all we want is AWESOME then frankly thats a pretty shallow ambition for a game.

Fact is that well implemented carefully balanced logistical considerations actually flesh out the strategic and tactical options available to an attacker. The ability to break a turtle by attacking his logistical link to the rest of his empire lets you isolate groups of units. Poorly supplied means weaker defense.

A lot of this comes down of course to the unit balance. If a defense is as hard to break in this game as it is in real life then the advantage of being able to attack someone's logistical tie to the broader available resources could be decisive.

If the game is just about smashing wave after wave of robots against a wall of defenses and other robots and creating awesome explosions then things could be different for the cause of logistics.

Frankly I think since we wont be having space combat it brings a lot of question into how to flesh out the galactic aspect. Do you add a logistical satellite or some other kind of Hub unit so as to create a material tie to the empire and then make it into one of the things you can attack? Traditionally in RTS games if you're not attacking the enemy's units directly you're basically trying to attack either his resource acquisition capability and/or his unit production capability. Structures which support the spread of global resources into local territory, like on a moon or in orbit of another planet you just landed on for instance, could become like this.

I think its too early to discuss the specifics since they haven't outlined anything yet on how the gameplay is actually balanced, other than in philosophical discussion, but a logistical system need not be a nightmare just because traditionally games have always made it into one for the most part.

Just remember that these guys are aiming to redefine many ways that RTS games are designed because previous efforts in the rest of the industry have been pretty conservative and limited by tech decisions or tech availability. I think much of some people's prejudice against logistics is that they don't see it as interesting compared to the blowing stuff up part, but that could be said for absolutely everything that isn't specifically aimed at blowing stuff up. Even unit production can be boring if its not effectively designed.

So, maybe don't built turrets if you can't support firing them? Seems like a perfect way to create a balance against just literally turtling up. Defense costs you resources just like building units that die against those defenses.

Defense is pretty cheap if it costs nothing to arm those defenses. On the other hand the guy attacking you just lost out big because he spent a lot building the units that just died. Frankly turtling has always been the easy way out compared to having to actually attack. I think its attractive to make a defender pay a price for sitting idle. I mean if we're interested in awesome isn't this just motivating the defender to go out and attack rather than sit on his laurels?

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

SupCom artillery and most of the special ability like cloaking cost resources to use and fire.

And really how is a unit costing resources to fire any different then a unit costing resources to build?

The economy is bases on the flow of resources, and building army's and resource firing defenses will simply require more resources at any given time, thats why appropriate storage is important, for the times of high demand.

If you removes things like this, then how is there even an economy?

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

PFunk, I want you to know that there are actually quite a few people who agree with pretty much everything you just posted. However I think the logistics argument has already been lost. Which is somewhat frustrating because pretty much everyone arguing against it has no idea what logistics actually entails in terms of gameplay. It makes arguing with them rather like trying to beat a pigeon at chess.

Logistics as a gameplay dimension has the potential to add so much strategic depth to the game. Logistics allows for new types of units other than just varying amounts of HP and damage. It allows for different weapon and unit characteristics. It allows for weaker armies to defeat stronger ones through clever maneuvering and harassment. It allows units to be cut off. It allows units to be in peril even they aren't being actively attacked. It can make long-distance operations fundamentally different from close-in operations. It can create positional play due to access to supplies. It creates more game states- as otherwise powerful units might be supply-limited at the time. It allows for intermediary bases serving as resupply locations- which are worth defending for a function that would not otherwise exist. It populates the board with non-combat assets which are targets, creating harassment opportunities. There's no end to it.

But at the end of the day, there are a lot of players raised on Command and Conquer and Call of Duty, who find things that don't blow **** up to be boring. A resupply helicopter is just not flashy enough to be interesting to them. The fact that having such a helicopter might enable them to project power over a longer distance than using truck resupply is academic to them.

These are the people who love snipers in every shooter because they like the idea of being able to shoot an enemy who is unable to shoot back. And they don't realize that that is EXACTLY what a resupply helicopter lets you do. It lets you maintain the fighting effectiveness of a force which is closer to the enemy. Against an enemy using trucks (suppose he's scared of your fighters) this means you can park artillery within range of his base, and he is powerless to put similar guns within range of your base. They would run out of shells and be forced to fall back.

All these people posting about "awesome" think that big units, big explosions, and planet-killing weapons are "awesome." I, and most of the old-hand RTS gamers know that interesting gameplay dynamics, and tense decision-making are what makes a strategy game. A planet-killing weapon is going to be boring. Because it will most likely be another example of a prohibitively expensive endgame weapon: a massive commitment of resources that requires a long period of high-risk investment to achieve (or a way to end a game you won 20 minutes ago). GAMEPLAY makes or breaks a strategy game. Not the size of the explosions. And things like transport helicopters versus resupply trucks are what are actually awesome.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

I am not even sure where you were going with that, becuse the original CNC was far more complex then the later ones.

In particular Red Alert 1 shares more in common with TA then it does with Red Alert 3.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Logistics is actually one of the areas where Supcom was actually ahead of many of the games of its time, even though it was very rudimentary. The concept of ferry points and massively useful dropships meant that supply lines could be created on larger maps, moving units from their factories at home to the battlefront very rapidly. Suddenly there's more battlefield flexibility, and something critical to defend to maintain a real battlefield advantage. Sadly, it never reached its full potential, but it was a step in the right direction.

Zero K also has a basic logistics system set up with the power grid, and how it provides benefits with mining as well as powering high-energy defenses.

Taking it further and fleshing a proper system out for PA is something I'd love to see, provided it doesn't become hard to manage. It doesn't need to go quite as far as keeping units armed and fueled (though, who knows . . .), but a basic system would be nice.

To see an excellent implementation and how critical it can be, I suggest taking a look at the game Unity of Command. (It's turn-based, but has an excellent logistics model.)

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Agree with sylvester on Unity of Command as one logistics system that is excellent. It is also a simple logistics system. Another great logistics system is Wargame: European Escalation, which has ammo and fuel for all units, and they greatly contribute to its gameplay.

SupCom was a very ambitious game in many ways, including some logistics. In my opinion SupCom would have been greatly improved (especially on huge maps) by a more restrictive logistics system and better AI to automate repetitive logistical tasks, such as resupply, provided the supplies are available.

A Wargame-like logistics system would work very well with PA in my opinion. Supply units or supply structures distribute supplies automatically to any nearby units until they run out. PA can simply add buildings that build and store supplies.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

I'm glad there are people who agree. Frankly people don't even realize that so called Triple-A RTS games already do this somewhat. Company of Heroes allows you to do this by simply attacking someone's control points in a way that disturbs the contiguous linkages between territories held by one person. Doing so cuts them off from the resources that would be gathered from them otherwise. This is a great way to hurt someone's ability to pump out powerful units if the resources being denied happen to be a very important +10 Munitions point or an even more important +15 Fuel point. These points are frequently carefully monitored, but if you can find a weakspot somewhere else then you can still attack these positions without excitingly enough actually directly attacking them.

I think people think logistics are just trucks. Logistics are in actual fact everything in all war. Its what makes battles so important and the difference between ancient wars of pure annihilation and modern ones of convoluted inter-dependency.

Logistics allows us to give such wonderful power to the idea of positional fighting. It gives terrain value over other terrain for reasons other than thats where you built [Insert Important Thing].

One thing I enjoy about playing games that focus on these ideas is that I do tend to look at terrain and say to myself "This is where I want to control things. This has to be mine for my strategy to work". If the opponent sees this he can guess my strategy and we play a complex game of trying to out think one another. If he misses it then its all the better for me.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

You are missing the point. Some special units/structures may/should require mass/energy to operate (factories, artillery, shields, radars, stealth fields, nuke/anti-nuke silos, list go on), but talk is about all units.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

If it's any consolation nightnord, I agree with you that a flat drain from having assets is not good. It doesn't lead to any interesting decision making apart from build stuff-->build energy--> build more stuff.

I would be in favor of having units have an internal count of things like onboard energy, fuel, missiles, ammunition, etc. An individual unit that runs out will be disadvantaged in some way, such as being unable to fire the weapon that's dry.

Supplies can be replenished by standing in the vicinity of a resupply unit. Such as a supply truck or helicopter. These resupply units have limited capacity, however, and need to return to a big supply stockpile and resupply themselves before heading back to the front lines. Players might build supply depots which spend (some) resources to build supplies- such as ammo and missiles. Supply units (or even units directly) would return to these large supply stockpiles to replenish their supplies.

This allows a wide variety of new units to be created, with different logistics requirements, and with different weapon loadouts. For example, a main combat bot which can also fire a long range missile, but only carries two at a time in addition to its main guns. Or an air superiority fighter with a limited count of long-range missiles, after which it falls back on its nose-mounted cannon. Or making light tanks able to operate without fuel resupply for much longer than heavy tanks, even if their speed is comparable.

The important thing is to make this strategically and tactically significant and to limit player micromanagement of logistics. The player makes decisions about where to build a supply base, and their choice matters. However it is also important the player is not manually resupplying every unit. Strategically significant decision, not chore.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

As said i dont think that we need actuall little trucks driving aroudn fueling and ammoing everyone up.
But i like the idea of the upkeep, just because this would automatically limit the ammount of
reasonable useable units, by the ammount of res u gain.
And it adds a nice tactical and strategical level to the game.

Anyone ever played Battle Isle 3 with and without ammo and fuel consumtion?

This said one last thought from my side:
I want PA not to be the one with best apm wins, i want PA to be a adaptive decision making game, i want to have a feeling i imagine generals feel. I want to make plans in the game.
I want to encounter even after the 100th game new situations, and then thinking about them and then making decisions and then wining or losing a game.

I had enough of SC2 like games where u must learn 2 3 4 5 build learn the maps learn which build on which map against what other build to use. For me that is not fun that is just bull s***.
Conclusion if i have to individually select ammotrucks refill them at base send them to front, inform them wich unit first to ammo up.... ... sir then i dont want this.
But if i can have a system that adds a level of thinking to the game that implies tactics, like build less units but then be able to move with their all and shot permanetly all the time or have more units (with stockpiled energy in there batteries) which limits my abillity to move them all at once but increases my abillity to do dammage at a certain point of time and certain location(till batteries are empty)... ... then i would say sir give me more of this

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Fully agree with post above, if logistics should be implemented they should be in a way that fosters more thinking and more interesting strategies.

My thoughts on battle oriented logistics.
Having a system that isn't necessary to win (avoids the you must play it this way to win), While at the same time when using it you need to plan the movement of the army in more steps than 'A to B' all the while you open yourself up to more risk of harassment and also feeling the need of building outposts would be pretty fun mechanics.
1. I think that supplies only should be as an 'energy bar for boosted attack capability or other stuff/buffs', avoiding units turning useless, unnecessary microeing, and maybe also making the supply lines a non-necessary but good to use feature (as a trade in between mobility, attackpower and gameskills?).
2. Supply lines should be highly autonomous, like the ferry system in supcom.
3. Should foster need of building outposts. Maybe having buildings that works as silos, where the HQ needs to fill them up using supply lines?
4. maybe have certain units more dependant on this, it would be a very fun mechanic if you could turn one of the 'ultimate defence unit' into almost a pushover by starving it out in an isolated outpost, or an awesome raid unit that has to visit supply stops regularly to keep it's high speed?

Logistics in economic layer:
1. An HQ could act as a central hub for the supplylines or something similar, giving a sense of a 'planet capitol'
2. maybe having 'pipelines' between multistage buildings could give timeboosting synergies by building in certain ways, making base-building follow a more industrial look than chaotic, think 'assembly-lines'
3.Could make rescource refining mechanics more interesting in the same way as above

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

It is one of the best ideas for defenses there is. An energy price tag places a "negative cost" to a unit. This gives a lot more flexibility to its design.

Take for example two defenses. One costs 100 metal and is fully autonomous. Another costs 50 metal, but demands a generator worth 50 metal to function. Both defenses cost the same to work. However, the latter variant has half the price to set up. More defenses can be built without the expectation that they will all be used at the same time. On a round map, no one expects every defense to fire at once.

If a defense is not used, the player is not out a huge pile of resources. Energy can be used for anything, so it can simply be reallocated to some other use. There's less investment for defensive turrets overall.

In addition, the latter variant adds a strategic weakness to all base design. By targeting the enemy energy sources, an entire array of high yield defenses can be shut down. This kind of weakness is excellent to prevent turtles.

It also helps to prevent comm rushing. Base defenses are a huge component of a Comm rush, placing high yield defenses directly in the enemy's face. However a rush strategy has extremely little infrastructure (or protection for it). Without power, turrets can not fire, and the rush fails.

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Munition supply systems are a terrible idea. They amount to an APM and economic tax that doesn't mean much for the game. Army maintenance can already be handled by engineers, which improve the supply chain by repairing damaged units and reclaiming battle wreckage to build more units. It also only helps the defender, who naturally has easier access to supplies, in a game where defenders could have domain over entire worlds. They don't need any extra advantage.

The only time ammo/fuel counts matter are for strategic weapons and abilities (like nukes). For everything else, units are expendable and where their ammo comes from is largely irrelevant.

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If a unit demands access to a limited resource, energy is the way to go. It is a short lived resource that can be built anywhere and only costs money. Any energy disaster or excess is temporary, so any number of units can drain energy to power extra abilities or functions.

More exotic and dangerous abilities can demand extreme energy. The extra cost is represented with generators. In this way energy acts as a teching system, where a catch-all structure provides the price tag, and is an inherently juicy target to destroy. That way every single cost does not have to be loaded on the unit itself.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Ahh, well then I agree.

Normal tanks should cost resources to actually fire (I assume they scoop it off the floor, and then fabricate the shells they need).

But specialist units should.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

And you have two things doing same stuff, but for different price. So, to prevent "redundancy" you dislike so much, you shall remove all turrets that do not suck power to fire. And therefore as rule of thumb, to prevent rushing, if you want to build a turret, you do build a turret + pgen nearby. If its done for all turrets it will create difference for only very small period of time, but will increase clicks count required to build a turret. Useless mechanic.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

How so? You will have the balanced defenses, not great but cheap.

And the power costing defenses, really good but expensive.


Using all power costing defenses would be abhorrently expansive, but not using them at all would leave you with a sub-par defense.

Re: Logistics (ammo, fuel, electricity, building materials,

Given two equal turrets, one turret can ALWAYS reach a p-gen covered by an enemy turret, without fear of return fire.
X + 1 > X.
That minute difference in range is all the difference.

Also: D-Gun. Thanks for lining them up.

We've seen some pretty damn big power generators so far. It doesn't look like protecting them will be easy.
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Cheaper turrets mean that both sides will have an easier time setting up, for sure. However, the defender is helped more because he can preemptively turtle his starting zone for less cost, without the intent that every turret HAS to work. By comparison, the rusher is in a more exposed position due to sacrificing his starting economy, and his need to break the enemy front, and the fact that every d-gun kill is dealing far less overall damage.