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

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

Alright, this is a great basic idea. Let me try and fill in the skeleton a little differently than you did syox.

Nano-Material as Supplies

OK, first the lore background. In the distant future, nanomachines auto-assemble themselves to make absolutely anything you could conceivably want. The "green stuff" that nanolathes shoot, essentially. Players use metal and energy to manufacture these nano-assemblers into the green stuff. Call it what you will, nano-fluid, nanogel, whatever. The green stuff is supply. Let's go with nanogel for the moment.

There are base facilities that turn your raw resources (metal and energy) into nanogel. Let's call them supply depots. These facilities spend metal and energy to fill a large reserve of nanogel inside the building, which it distributes to other units within a limited range. The Commander should also manufacture supplies. Manufacturing costs metal and energy. 1 point of internal nanogel capacity costs 1 metal and 1 energy to fill.

Nanogel stores are local, carried inside your units and structures. So even if the game uses a universal metal and energy reserve, there is still positional economy and logistics to move supplies around. You need to have nanogel manufacturing in the area in order to efficiently build or produce units there.

Building Construction

Engineers use supplies/nanogel to build structures. Their internal nanogel storage represents the amount of materials they have ready to build. Engineers with insufficient reserves to finish a project may need to return to a depot to collect more materials to continue the construction. Alternatively, you could just send more engineers. This means there will be more nanogel capacity, and of course greater build power with which to build at a faster rate.

It is important to note that this means an engineer's ability to build depends on how much nanogel it has stored. Not on your economy (directly). The cost of construction is a continuous drain during the production of supplies. Engineers then take the supplies to the build site, and can build regardless of the current state of your economy. Your metal income can drop to zero, and that engineer can finish building as long as it has enough nanogel in its internal reserve.

This allows engineers to be much cheaper, as the engineer is only providing one piece of the puzzle needed to construct buildings. The cost is divided between depots and engineers, and there is actually room to make the entire process cheaper due to its localized nature. Building is less efficient at long distances, for example.

Engineers are also (naturally) able to build supply depot structures. Which means if you intend to build a large project it may be worthwhile to construct a supply depot first, which can use metal and energy from your grid to produce supplies, which it distributes to nearby engineers for building.

This naturally creates an incentive to build out across the map. And bases naturally spring up around supply depots because it is most efficient to build there.


Unit Production

Factories also consume nanogel to build units. The easiest way to ensure a factory has a ready supply of materials is to simply build it near a depot, which will constantly produce supplies (resources permitting) and feed them to the factory.

As with building construction, this allows splitting the cost of production between multiple types of assets. Rather than having a factory that costs 300, the game can have a factory that costs 100 in addition to a supply depot that costs 100, and chalk the other 100 up to the localization restriction.

Other base facilities may also consume supplies, such as artillery, missile launchers, heavy defenses, etc. The player will also want to build some extra supply manufacturing to use to keep units supplied, to repair units, and perhaps some in reserve so they can quickly react if they have something they need.

Suppose supply depots construct engineers? (perhaps the commander also) This means any supply base can, if the player decides to pump a few engineers and start making structures, be developed into a base with other facilities.


Resupply Units

Resupply units transport supplies. A truck or a helicopter that has internal nanogel storage would qualify. Despite being unable to consume its storage itself, these units are important for getting nanogel out to units in the field that are far away from a base or depot. They then return to a depot to be refilled.


Combat Units: Energy

I agree that not everything should cost metal to use/fire. So a simple system would be to have units with an internal energy count, which doesn't cost nanogel to refill- only energy. Energy sources and other units, possibly resupply units, engineers, etc. could allow you to recharge a unit's energy from your energy grid. No manufacturing or transport required.

A unit with an energy-based weapon and an onboard power generator might be completely supply-independent. If its energy generation capability is equal to its maximum energy use, then there's no need to even keep track of its energy storage.

However, a unit might also have the ability to expend more energy than it can constantly generate. These units will have internal energy storage which is depleted when they perform energy-intensive activities, and also constantly regenerates. Some units might have huge energy reserves compared to their energy generation ability, such as large beam weapons. They might be able to fire many times on a single charge, but take a long time to refill their own energy storage. This might encourage a player to build big laser turrets next to power generators to keep them powered, even in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of being resupplied with nanogel.

This is the difference between units using internal batteries, and units using fuel. Internal battery power only costs energy to refill. Fuel means the unit's movement runs on nanogel, and thus is expensive to refill. But due to the extra expense, units using fuel get a lot more power and performance on a fuel tank than a single battery charge would provide.


Combat Units: Nanogel

However supply-using units, such as those which use big or complex ammunition, need to be supplied with nanogel which they use to refill their ammo reserves. And nanogel costs metal (and energy) to manufacture. Indeed, any nanogel you spend on bullets and missiles might just as easily have gone to produce more units. So keeping a large, active army actually puts a dent in your ability to make that army even larger, a tendency that acts against snowballing.

Units using nanogel as fuel actually cost metal (indirectly) to operate. However their operation is independent of your present metal economy. Your metal income could tank, and these units continue to function on their internal reserves. And, even if you have metal to spare, if you have no supplies in the region, these units won't work. If your opponent is going for nanogel-fueled power units, you can disable them by destroying their supplies, cutting off their supply lines, encouraging your opponent to spend their nanogel on missiles, repairs, or whatever else, and cutting off their retreat.


Analysis

There are so many interesting effects from implementing a simple system such as "nanogel." Engineers build more efficiently when they have access to supplies. This encourages building out across the map, to control territory and expand your reach. Bases will naturally spring up around supply depots spaced around the map, since they are efficient to build near. These bases then create targets for the opponent to push out from their own bases to destroy. Engineers are cheaper and more numerous in order to make building more efficient, which also creates more targets for the enemy to destroy while harassing.

Armies' mobility and firepower are limited by their supply usage, allowing more diverse unit roles and more tactics for how to counter them. Stronger armies are more vulnerable to being deprived of logistics. Larger armies cost more to supply, acting to counter the snowball-syndrome typical to most RTS games.

Territory control based on how easy it is for your engineers to build as opposed to your opponent. Positional tactics for armies with limited reach, and which are more effective with access to supplies, creating a defender's advantage. Which the attacker can compensate for by spending on resupply units.


Conclusion

I could go on and on. I think this idea really has potential.

I do think I should reiterate- this idea is simple. Instead of spending metal and energy from your universal grid, engineers and structures use nanogel, which costs raw resources to manufacture.

The most immediate simplification is how intuitive the nanogel concept is for new players. Rather than having a difference in rates determine whether a unit or structure builds, and how quickly, the only factor is whether there is sufficient nanogel.

An engineer carrying 200 nanogel will always be able to build anything costing up to 200, regardless of the state of your economy. When empty, the engineer heads back to the depot to get more. This means a large group of engineers working together creates a worker train back and forth between the construction and the depot. More workers very obviously and intuitively makes the project faster, encouraging newer players to build more engineers. Which, as all TA and SupCom/FA players know, they should be doing anyway.

Intuitively newer players will manage their economy better, and the "stalling" problem for new players is effectively solved. Even later in the game, when newer players spend too much and slow down all their production simultaneously- this situation is represented and solved intuitively as well.

It's a simple system- in some ways even simpler than a universal flow economy for new players.

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

I like your ideas ledarsi.


One additional point to add to your nanogel is that there ought to be a good way to move the supplies around. The challenge of supply is that your main base would have a lot of supply production potential, so rather than building a supply generator out in your frontline base it should be cheaper to set up a supply chain from your base - with the obvious caveat that your supply chain can be interrupted.

I'm thinking something like the energy pylons in Zero-K.

The biggest challenge however, is how are you going to effectively display this information to the user so they can make informed decisions and not get stuck missing supplies when they need it? One thought I had was to show an aggregate of how long the selected units can fight effectively - select a group and the UI displays a small graph of potential damage over time.


On the topic of fuel, I think you'd have to test it. Fuel that made your planes slow down when they were empty was irritating already, I'm not sure it'd be helpful to apply a similar mechanic to ground units. Localized build resources and ammo is a better starting point imho.

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

There are a lot of ramifications of the above which I didn't delve into, of which transporting supplies is definitely an important one.

There are a few emergent ways this would actually take place without further elaboration. The first is that supply depots can transfer to other supply depots.

To prevent players from having to manually order resupply or transfer, a simple AI is needed to govern when resupply units or structures transfer supplies. The AI for this is very simple, though. Simply make each supply unit only transfer supplies to units which are carrying less supplies than itself.

The consequences of this simple swarm behavior are not entirely obvious. Essentially, depots or units within range of each other will automatically equalize their storage. For example, a base with 1000 and a base with zero will naturally transfer from the depot with more into the depot with less until they are equally distributed at 500 each, plus however much was generated by them both in the time it took to transfer, also evenly distributed. So the dense method would be to build depots within range of each other. But there are other, cheaper ways to get distance.

A pylon like in Zero-K would simply be a storage container structure. It doesn't produce supplies, and it has no function that consumes them. But it can transfer supplies to nearby units. Including other pylons/storages.

This means you can have a chain of depots, pylons, or any supply unit for that matter. If you use some of the supplies from one end, then the next one in the chain transfers some supplies to it to equalize their storage. And so on down the chain. Although this "pipeline" would have bandwidth limited by the transfer rate. A double-thick line of pylons would have double the bandwidth.

Resupply units would be used to transfer supplies over longer distances. Adding the UI functionality to create routes (move supplies from location/structure X to location/structure Y) and assign resupply units to those routes, like the ferry routes in SupCom, would be a useful feature.

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

It's not about how much work it is. It's about how much mess it will be. You see, problem is - if you add RPG elements into RTS you may end up with moba, but you may also end-up with SupCom2. Logistics on planetary scale sounds terrific. I suggest that community (part that wants it) may implement it as Mod - as you say it should be fairly easy. IF it will be cool, then Uber/some bigger mod may integrate it.

I feel like "suspicious" features should be implemented by community as mods and then integrated into mod-packs composing solid game experience.

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

That makes no scene, you may not like SC2 but at least get your facts straight when hating on it.

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

He's indirectly claiming that RPG elements are upgrades and bonuses.

I do agree with him here.

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

But you wouldn't say the same about Starcraft or Age of Empires would you?

Considering how they resent after every game, there is no progression like in a RPG, SO I do not agree with the comparison.

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

There can be no dispute that a lot of SupCom 2 is inspired by RPG elements. Square Enix being the publisher, I suppose they caused it. Hero commanders, gaining "research" also known as EXPERIENCE, by killing stuff. [prompting good players to self-destruct rather than fight losing battles to the death.... wat] So you can level u- I mean research upgrades. Yeah it was bad.

I fail to see any connection between logistics and RPG elements, though.

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

There's a trend with small-scale RTS games to pick up RPG elements. Yes, Starcraft is an example.

I don't particularly think unit progression is a healthy thing to have in great numbers for an RTS.

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

TA has absolutely no upgrades or research. Units' properties are completely constant throughout the game. The board changes by adding and removing pieces, the pieces themselves do not change. SupCom/FA and Zero K are almost perfect in this regard also, but the ACU/Commander can be upgraded.

PA will almost certainly follow the same general philosophy. Ideally with minimal commander upgrading as well.

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

I'll agree, it is quite difficult to have units you can't predict the strength of for a future encounter.

You often end up in a game where you guess the strength of the enemy and hope for the best in SupCom2.

Starcraft does is a hell of a lot better if it is going to be in the game, displaying all of the stats while not changing the units a great deal for the unit roles to become garbled.

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

As is right for a large scale RTS game.

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

I'm certainly hoping for that philosophy to continue.

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

@ledarsi:

You convinced me that logistics could add depth to the game, may lead to more strategical and tactical actions. But i cant see the benefit in adding this one out of 2 ressource. Even if it may be more narrative to load supplies (or a Nanogel or whatever) in a Unit then Metal and/or Energy. The thing i dont get: We start with 2 independent ressources(Metal and Energy), then out of that create on a fixed rate between Metal and Energy your Nanogel. But why if you want only one ressource, why then start with two?
We could also directly get the Nanogel from ressourcegainfacilities.
We have Metal and Energy(at least i think that) why not use them? All you wrote could also be achieved with Metal and Energy.
The only thing your Idea adds is another productionfacility.

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

Because metal can only be gained by controlling specific parts of the map, but can be built cheaply. Energy can be built anywhere, but is expensive, and its cost governs the exponential growth rate of your economy.

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

I also feel that metal should simply be skipped, instead of serving as an intermediary "transfer" resource between mexes and nanogel makers.

Which creates lots of interesting effects. Metal extractors become nanogel extractors, and are the main source of nanogel. Which means that raiders don't just attack enemy nexes, they can also attack supply lines that bring nanogel back to the base. Building factories around each nex becomes far more economically interesting, but it's also harder to defend, compared to an escorted supply truck.
Also, when reclaiming wreckage, you have to bring nanogel back to your base(s) to use it. And if you don't have enough nanogel storage around, you may choose to still reclaim and waste it instead of letting it to the enemy.
Also, what happens to destroyed nanogel storage? If the stuff doesn't disappear instantly, then when raiding supply lines/drops/storages you can try to bring some back.
Also, exchanging the stuff with allies means physically moving it.

Also, let's see is what effect it would have on interplanetary missions. As the Commander then produce (and store) nanogel, it suddenly makes sense why you send it instead of an engineer with that rocket to colonize a new planet. The engineer would run out of nanogel and stop. Unless it could build an extractor with its nanogel reserve, meaning that you have to drop it near one, and build it before, say, defences.
And when invading an enemy planet, it may be a good idea to send a few engineers and some big fat supply dropships to build a bridgehead along with the army. Meaning that you can build a base fast, but it will be expensive, you may offer lots of nanogel to the enemy if it doesn't work and the base still don't automagically have access to the full resources of your 6 other planets. Some of the problems evoked in the planetary tracked resources thread may be solved there.

Now, it makes the game quite a bit different from TA or SupCom. Is this evolution what we want for PA? I don't know. On one hand, it changes the beloved formula of the 2-resources flux economy. On the other hand, if opens new gameplay avenues and solve problems with interplanetary gameplay (problems that, obviously, weren't there with TA or SupCom).
And if in the end it's not for PA, then I sure hope something like that will be modded (and that the AI will be able to follow).

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

So you want something that cant be build anywhere and is expensive?

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

You can also call that metal use the same system for Metal AND Energy and it would be the same.

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

It doesn't change the fundamentals of the 2 resource flux economy.

Metal is gained by cheap metal extractors that you always build on any metal spots in controlled territory. Controlling the territory essentially causes it to generate metal for you, at basically no cost (some cost to build mex). The main cost of having a mex destroyed is the lost income from the time it spends dead while you send a builder to rebuild it. NOT the cost of the mex.

Energy is more available because you can build an unlimited quantity of it, since it can be built anywhere. However it is far more expensive to build than metal generating mexes. You have to build some starting energy, then expand to cap mexes in order to get the metal with which to build more energy, so you can spend more metal, etc. etc.

The requirement to build energy greatly slows your production EVEN THOUGH mexes are cheap. And the position-limited restriction of mexes encourages fighting over territory even though you can build energy anywhere.

Having a single resource means you have to pick one of these dynamics. Either territory control and fast development, or unlimited scaling and slow development due to expense and time.

Metal and energy are like reagents in a chemical reaction. Not enough of one or the other is limiting. Having two resources is completely different from having a single type of resource produced by expensive generators in only certain specified locations.

Having expensive and valuable position-restricted resourcing is totally dysfunctional. SupCom 2 mexes were 200 mass compared to 36 mass in FA (not to mention a tank in SupCom 2 costs 40 as opposed to about 100 for a basic unit in FA, so 1 mass is "bigger"). Because the mexes cost so much they made mexes have insane HP and be difficult to harass, with a single kill being quite a large economic blow. This made mexes take far too long to pay for themselves due to their high cost and low output, discouraging expansion and territory control. Rather than having moving frontiers of players capping mexes to try and eke out a resource advantage, players take only highly secure areas (if they can even afford to build on all the mexes they do control). There is little harass, but lots of cheesy play, and lots of waiting for macro and tech/research. It's terrible.

And having a build-anywhere one-resource system would be disastrous for obvious reasons. SPEED METAL ANYONE? You would just build an infinitely exponentially-growing economy without needing to capture any territory, or do anything. And then everyone can build unlimited amounts of anything, which is ridiculous and boring.

Let's not forget that you are using global metal and energy to create local supplies/nanogel. And this is being done using a flow system, where a supply depot drains metal and energy at a constant rate to create nanogel. There may be other sources using metal or energy also, this is just one critical system. The global resources are still being used to power construction and unit production. There is just an additional intermediary step.

Furthermore, there is still the possibility of metal makers or mex overdrive which spends excess energy to create metal, and does so inefficiently. Mexes are highly cheap and efficient, encouraging expansion and fighting over territory. However the possibility for an infinitely scaling exponential economy using high input costs and causing large inefficiency in return for potentially massive raw absolute output also exists.

The metal/energy system allows two different economic models. An extractor economy, which is mandatory in the early game, which is cheap and optimally efficient. And an energy-based economy, which has unlimited possible output, but its massive cost makes it only suitable once it is no longer cost-effective to expand to new mexes, or even to pay for a small army to push the enemy off some mexes. THEN you start building mass energy and energy->metal converters, by whatever mechanic desired.

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

I just realized:

A logistic system where every Unit has to carry its own little storage of Stuff.
Which it need for moving, firing, using his abilities.
Transport units collect the stuff at Stuffcreationbuldings, transport it to Storagebulding or the Units/Facilities that need Stuff, or fetch this Stuff for the units from the mentioned Storagebuildings.

1. Just reminds me of one game: Settlers
Which is a hint that it could work.

2. Is not absolute different from the autodrainsystem normal SCFA(just for the coverage not about if every unit or just some use stuff) has. Because if the logistics where nearly fully automated, maybe you only need to build the Transportunits and send them to a area where they automatically react to given needs.
Then the same thing is that the Ressources are still spend automatic, The difference is it has a Time delay and the deposit isnt global once extracted.