Nanogel: Economy & Logistics at Unlimited Scale

This is only if certain choices are made WRT supply depot function. I only skimmed the OP, but honestly the most logical function is to make a supply depot draw from a global resource pool at a fixed rate to produce a fixed amount of nanogel per second on demand. That is, if there is no nearby engineer or factory, it's not draining or storing. Period.

This also neatly obsoletes the engineer assisting issue; why have limited resource engineers that have to tank up periodically supply a factory when you can just hook a supply depot directly to your factory and get more build power?

Streamlining it for the player is key. The basic principle should be that as long as you have a fairly close supply depot, great pains should be taken to make players not care or about this behavior. The fun comes in the fact that this offers a central target to disrupt production with, AND that now your build rate is more-or-less independent of how many "buildy things" you have and more dependent on how quickly you can convert resources to be used. Plus the logistics of deploying to new locations adds decisions and constraints other than send buttload of engineers > ??? > profit.

While the concept of a localized resource used to build things holds potential (assuming that the AI and UI are good enough so you won't have to micro it), again I have to ask, why do you need a third resource? (Fourth, if you count buildpower)
Here, metal is used to create nanogel. Then why have metal at all? Metal extractors should directly produce nanogel instead, it would simplify things and make for nice supply lines between nexes and production zones/have production zones be placed in strategic places near extractors.

There is no real need to keep metal. Or, alternatively, directly make metal the local resource (if you will, rename nanogel into metal). It wouldn't change the gameplay much, but it would simplify and streamline things. And we have two really differentiated resources, more than in the previous TA-like where the biggest difference is the buildings used to produce it and where you can place them.
But then, things would only cost metal to build? That's one possibility. Another is to have builders consume energy while they are building things; that's kind of what Zero-K does with the 1m=1e=1bp thing.
In both cases, though, we have to remember that energy isn't used only to build stuff. Powering units, weapons and special abilities, producing more metal (be it by overdrive or another system, though simple metal makers don't strike me as a good idea), metal is what you build things with, energy is what makes them run. Again, more differentiation.

But for it to work, we have to have a top-notch AI and UI, allowing us to macro it efficiently and easily, something which may or may not be doable.

Edit: I had missed Rcix's last post, but the idea of a supply depot creating nanogel on demand is interesting. Though I'd still go with merging metal and nanogel, and make the depots being able to transfer metal to each-other. Questions like range and transfer rate could be adjusted later.
This way, you would have something closer to a global economy, which is easier to manage, but you would keep most of the interesting points that the localized resource brings. On the other hand, there would be less supply lines.

Some people keep saying that the Streaming ECO is hard to learn.
Some people want to make it way more complicated by introducing additions like nanogel.

I think it is fine as it is. I don't want to check up on every single base if I have enough resources or not. This whole concept changes the old well known system way way way too much imho.
Sounds more like a proposal for a total conversion mod.

Ctrl-C Ctrl-V:

Everything about local logistics ends up part of the game, by default.

The ability to use metal is completely dependent on having someone to use it. Thus, engineers and factories are the supply lines. The challenge of bringing units from backwater planets to the front line is no different than the burden of doing the same with raw resources. Using a transport to carry units to the front directly parallels the nanogel facility, which transports raw resources to build units on the front.

Nanogel can be summed up as: Yo dawg, I heard you liked logistics... so I put logistics in your logistics so you can stall while you stall.

Exactly. I think the best way to do this is to simply have full depots stop producing nanogel. Additional stance settings might be to turn off stockpiling, and thus only produce when a unit is pulling nanogel from the depot, or to turn off nanogel manufacture entirely.

An engineer that is standing within resupply range of a depot with nanogel can be continuously supplied, just like a factory sited within resupply range. They shouldn't need periodic resupply- it should be constantly routed to them, assuming the nanogel is available. If they are out of resupply range, then they have to periodically return to be refilled, however.

This guy gets it. Having a big blob of engineers does not automatically enable you to build anything you like using your entire economy from any and all metal and energy sources anywhere in the game.

The bald assertion that it is way more complicated is not productive or persuasive. I assert that it is much simpler, especially for players unfamiliar with the flow economy system.

A group of engineers with nanogel in the tank can always build, and a depot with nanogel in its reserves can always transfer it. When the engineer is empty, it returns to a depot to refill, and then goes back to work. There is a clear logic to construction. The flow economy is used to fill your depots, and does so in a more consistent, predictable manner than having expenses spike immediately upon production.

A universal economy is far more opaque, especially to players unfamiliar with it. Engineers everywhere draw from the same global pool, and it may be unclear where your resources are going, and why production is stalled, especially if you have many queued constructions, and assisted production queues with variable costs.

I get your point, but that is kind of an irrelevant philosophical argument. The gameplay of having independent engineers draw from a global pool is extremely different from having a localized resources, and the gameplay of having unlimited fuel and ammo differs immensely from having limited materiel and needing logistics to resupply them.

Nanogel could be a great idea. Maybe you should add a "should this be tested in Alpha?" poll, I'd vote for that.

Perhaps a more snappy/evocative name would be in order like 'nanogoo', 'utility fog', 'smartfog', 'smartgoo'. (Noob players: "You mean like my smartphone? Sweet!")

Isn't the capacity to building just your build power?

As important as I think logistics is, I am on the wall about whether this is a good way to implement a basic logistics structure. I do agree that making some third, arbitrary resource called "nanogel" is taking it a bit too far though. Stick with metal and energy, which is a nice, generalized system instead of adding a third system that has only one specific use.
I agree with Thorneel's suggestion to instead use one of the other resources as the limiting factor, especially if the game economy uses the 1 mass = 1 energy = 1 build concept. (Which I don't care for either, but it's a starting point.) While his suggestion to use mass makes the most logical sense, I think that from a gameplay perspective, energy might be the better route to go.

The reason energy would work better is that it's more ubiquitous, and has use for more units than just constructors. It also allows for a very simple implementation; If a unit that requires energy is within range of an energy provider, it gets the benefits of that energy. Also, I don't care for the concept of engineers having their own reserves, as it adds a level of unnecessary complexity to the system, much like the fuel system for planes in Supcom did. Instead, make it a binary system. Either you're in range of an energy provider and can construct at a greater rate, or you're out of range and can still construct, but at a reduced rate.
This also opens the possibility that certain weapons that consume energy can use the same system. If the unit/building is within range, they are more effective, otherwise, they lose effectiveness. (This system could present its own problems, but it is a starting point for combat logistics.)

The idea has its flaws, most notably that planetary invasions would be very dependent on an initial energy provider (connected to an offworld source), which means they can be shut down fairly effectively by a defender. (One could argue that this is a reason to give engineers their own reserves, but in that case the problem is worse. Destroy the nanogel supply and engineers become useless after a short time. Sure you can increase their reserves, but then it just becomes a war of attrition.) In any case, there are ways to mitigate this, most notably to make the commander an energy provider, increasing its usefulness in planetary invasions (as well as the risk).

The nice thing is that this system is a bit more simplified than nanogel, making it easier to learn, and it doesn't add a third resource. Also, the fact that something very similar has already been tested and found relatively effective in Zero K is a plus.

A localized resource is a fundamentally different kind of entity than a global resource. It's like comparing a person's bank account and a nation's economy- it's like counting trees and counting forests.

A local resource will be a de facto "third resource" even if it has the same name as one of the global resources.

Proposals like localized metal are essentially the same as nanogel, with a few small design changes. Such as having metal extractors be supply depots, or having all structures cost only metal to construct. The fundamental conceptual design of such a system is entirely the same, regardless of whether nanogel costs 1m/1e per 1 internal storage to create.

I assert that it is harder to manage. You will still be able to kill your economy by starting to build lots of stuff, since the engies will all draw nanogel from the depots.
In addtion you will have to check if you have enough depots everywhere where you want to build.
This will make it way harder to manage the resource-stream by assigned engies to construction-sites, since there will always have to be nanogel-depots nerby.
It will also be harder to see where immediate stall's are coming from since there might be a huge delay between a construction assignment to an engie and the first nanogel-consumption from a depot, since the engie will first travel to some depot to drain resources from it.
I.e. if you start a very expensive building engies will first draw from their internal storage. Only after that is emptied they will move to a depot to refill. A newby player who has yet to learn the system will not see any resource-drain until the engies reach the depot. Depending on depot positioning this will be delayed. So the player will just see that his resources are being drained. He will have to search for the depot in question and then search for the construction-site that causes the engies to use the depot.
In comparison with a global economy the player will instantly see how starting a big constrution results in a huge resource drain.

I think the best way to get rid of the "Where the **** are my resources going" problem is to simply add in a little view that shows the top 3 resource-consumptions. That should be enough to quickly find any big consumer.

But your suggestion is still really what we have already but with added hassle.

There are smarter ways of preventing a global economy from snowballing, and this suggestion of filling up on resources to back out and build up is beyond tedious.

If your point is to limit growth on unsecured worlds from the global economy then simply have a prerequisite per-planet resource structure to link full to the global economy, but to otherwise show the build speed of local engineers to something like 20% that it should be.

And if you really want to twist it in, then lower the build speed without lowering the resources drained per second on any world without the structure or the commander.


That way new worlds being invaded will be slow to build but still be a massive drain on one's resources until foothold is established, giving each side an objective in preventing and unleashing an invasion.

The better solution is to give players similar access to planets. This can be better normalized if Commanders are involved, as each player only starts with one. Pick a world, fly there, and it's too bad that you couldn't go anywhere else.

This is quite possibly the worst case scenario possible. An invasion is going to suffer every disadvantage possible, simply due to the defender already owning the world. A attacker needs the best access to resources possible to have a solid chance of victory.

Hardly. Engineers already represent their own local economy, simply by moving around. Want to focus on tanks? Put engineers on factories. Want to build a forward base? Put engineers on the front. They are just as vulnerable a target as any other structure, and they represent a direct link for using resources.

More engies == stronger link to central resources. It's that simple.

More things to track is never simpler. A player not only has to track how many resources the nanogel structures provide, but how much a nearby unit can use. Any unit which is not completely spending its reserves is wasting valuable resources that could have been extra structures or units. So now you have a system where every single factory, constructor, and supply node has to be individually tracked and used, lest the player gives himself a disadvantage.

Not only that, but your system does not account for priority. There is no direct link between a supply node and what projects it can support. Shutting any node down represents an arbitrary disconnect from the factories and engies that depend on it for resources.

Seriously. This system threatens to be so brutally complex that you still haven't figured out how complex it is going to be, after over a month of debate!

Going to say it's a very bad idea from what I can understand of it.

First problem I see. Nanogel seems to be 1 mass + 1 Energy = 1 Nanogel. Problem is in any game where you have two types of resource those resources get used in various amounts to help balance and differentiate game play. Going air control? less mass more energy than. Going naval? More mass, less energy. Why have 2 types of resources than if it's just going to be converted to one resource? Just have mass or metal or whatever you want to call it.

Second problem, It sounds like you're going for some sort of fuel tank system, where a constructor has to stop at the depot and ill it's tank on occasion. Additionally depots are going to be individually managed. This is supposed to be an RTS. I've seen systems like that in place in turn based empire builders. I've seen it only in Homeworld, though in that case the harvester unit had to fill up the mothership or carrier. It worked there do to the centralized nature of the gameplay. If that's not what you're suggesting than you can disregard this, but I have no interest in watching the fuel gauges of dozens of engineers in several bases simply so I can not look at 2 bars in the UI.

Third problem. Computer and internet logistics. That's a lot of extra information that needs to fly around. Does each player's computer need to know how much mass in each engineer and depot? Does the player need to see this so they can target the engineers and depots with the most nanogel stockpiled? It's probably minuscule, I'll admit, but these sort of things add up.

Another issue is it seems to move toward almost every other RTS in terms of resource structure, in that you stockpile now and spend later, rather than match incoming and outgoing streams. This resource model was part of what made TA and SupCom unique and set it apart and in some cases above other games of it's nature.

This is Planetary Annihilation, not Planetary Commander and it sure as hell isn't going to be PlanetCraft I hope. This idea is ultimately a solution to a problem that didn't exist in the first place.

I like the idea of metal representing the overall value of a unit. Many of the problems that happened in both TA and Supcom were due to having unit prices misrepresented in terms of the most important resource. Cheap air caused overpowered air, and expensive naval made for terrible navy. Zero-K did a very good job of clarifying how units should be priced in terms of metal.

The role of energy is completely separate. There are legitimate reasons for a unit to demand more or less in its construction, for a varying number of reasons. It does not have to be as arbitrary as TA or Supcom, but they did illustrate some nice trends. High tech units generally cost more energy, and low tech infrastructure demanded very little. The net result is that base building was easy, and higher tech can not be developed without a bigger base, no matter the metal cost of the units involved. ZK did not explore these options, unfortunately.

That's what I would prefer.

I was simply arguing against this idea for the local economy, as it seems very intensive.

I'll agree on the cheap air issue. It probably should be more expensive in terms of metal. Jet engines are pricey pieces of equipment. Seeing metal was the limited resource and you could power up nuclear plants anywhere. I wonder if limiting the really powerful energy plants to certain features would help balance out rampant energy production. For example, the geothermal vents found around planets actually produce more power than nuclear plants.

One of the things I loved about TA was the energy use for firing certain weapons. Yeah, you could load up on lots of artillery and point defence turrets, but you needed the power to fire them. Hell even some of the units needed power to fire their weapons, if I remember right that was one of the defining characteristics of many of the Core units as compared to Arm units. I never played ZK, and didn't play much of SupCom, so I mostly base my idea knowledge on TA.

I think a lot of the people in this thread are getting very lost by the abstract nature of the OP. Responses like igncom's and dusk108's make me think I need to clarify in a more concrete way, such as with an descriptive example.


Counting Resources & Building Depots

Suppose a metal extractor yields 1 metal per second. Suppose a solar generator yields 1 energy per second. Suppose further that a supply depot can spend 2 metal and 2 energy per second to increase its internal nanogel reserves by 2 per second.

This means for every two mexes you control, you should build two solar collectors (possibly more for energy expenses other than production), and these resourcing facilities allow you to constantly manufacture nanogel from one supply depot.

For every two mexes+solars you acquire, you can place an additional depot and manufacture constantly from it, regardless of where it is. The metal and energy reserves are different, and both global, meaning supply depots can be placed anywhere as long as you have enough of both metal and energy.

Where you choose to place your depots is a significant choice, as depots govern the production bandwidth you have at any particular location based on their density. Having more depots in one place gives you a stronger local economy, as well as additional local economic management options. Having more depots in more places gives you more locations where you can build, but to a lesser magnitude at each location.


Underspending & Hurrying Production

The depot manufacturing nanogel is a constant, predictable, low-level expense. If you aren't using any of its supplies, it gradually fills its reserves. However, nanogel that has already been produced can be transferred from the depot to engineers or other depots within resupply range at a very high rate. This means that extra build power can be used to produce very quickly if you have sufficient nanogel.

Suppose one depot can store 600 nanogel at maximum. At a rate of production of 2 nanogel per second it will take 300 seconds, or 5 minutes, for an empty depot to completely fill itself, assuming it transfers nothing to other units. A base not spending as much as it could will cause nanogel to be stockpiled.

A nanogel stockpile created by underspending can be spent rapidly by using additional buildpower, with no loss. And in the event that this stockpile has become maxed out, the depots stop spending resources to increase their stockpile. This is undesirable from an ideal local macro standpoint, but that metal and energy can be spent elsewhere.

The ability to store nanogel allows for rushing production using stockpiled nanogel and extra build power. In order to do this, you had to purchase more build power than you can constantly operate, and extra nanogel storage, but having both these assets allows you greater flexibility and reaction speed by rushing specific local projects.


Overspending & Insulated Economy

A base with four full depots will have 2,400 nanogel on hand. Throwing 120 build power at a project will allow you to spend all 2,400 nanogel in twenty seconds. However the depots only produce nanogel at a combined rate of 8 per second. So once the nanogel stockpiles are spent, you can only build at a constant rate of 8, despite having 120 build power, unless you build more supply depots.

However assisting with 240 build power does not crash your global economy because the depots are still only drawing down at a rate of 8 metal and 8 energy per second. You crashed the local economy hard, since you're trying to spend so much nanogel so quickly, and only have 8 being created per second locally. Other bases are unaffected by this one base trying to spend far more than it should.

The requirement to spend nanogel insulates your global economy from the actions of engineers, and smooths spikes in expenses into a nice even distribution over time. You can still build in bursts if you like, but your economy remains smooth, predictable, and impossible for any particular squad of engineers to crash.


Big Picture

Each depot provides two functions locally. Firstly, it increases local nanogel manufacturing rate, and thus increases the local sustainable production rate. Secondly, it stores nanogel, allowing burst production after periods of idleness with no inefficiency or loss, provided you have extra build power. However "idle" depots (perhaps they are full) drain no metal or energy, and those resources can be spent elsewhere.


Obviously the precise numbers will need to be determined by testing. The numbers above are for illustrative purposes only.

So you are adding a middleman into the economy to turn 2 resource types into 1.

Engineers have to fill up on resources to go and build.

That's retarded.

So by building more constructors, your spending more money.

That is not rushing any more then having stores for energy and metal, and then having more build power then your income per second.

Not only is that not rushing, that's just normal game play, but what you have done is make resources into a local thing, collecting resources is global, but spending them is based on where your stores are.

You are building an anno game.

Just like spending all of your stored resources in TA.....except engineers require to essentially 'refuel'.

This does not increase local production, but stores it in one place so you can spend it, like TA, or supcom, or command and conquer.

Burst production is really just spending your stored resources, like normal.

This middle man resource is really just a way to prevent engineers from building more then they can store when away from base.

Slowing expansion, making bases hugely vulnerable to attack even more so then usual by making the deports the only way of spending collected resources, and also degrading metal and energy to second class resources that are only collected for nano-gel but not for building, making them simple taps for how many deports you can build.

This idea is bad, plain old bad.

Having more depots in one place clearly does increase local production. Two depots constantly produce 4 nanogel, whereas ten depots constantly produce 20.

If a factory spends 4 nanogel per second, then two depots can constantly run one factory, completely ignoring all storage. And ten depots can constantly run five factories, also ignoring all storage.

Yes. Each base effectively has its own flow economy with nanogel, with income and expense, with the difference being added or subtracted from storage. Each base is a node as a component of a global economy based on metal and energy.

That is indeed one of the primary effects- it makes your economy positional. You can't just send a huge group of engineers anywhere, and build using economy from everywhere.

In order to spend your entire metal and energy economy in one place, you would need to have quite a lot of depots in the area.

I don't see how any of this must follow. Even if it did, I don't see why you think these things are bad, as it reads like a formulaic recitation of elements of the suggested system.

It doesn't necessarily have any impact on expansion rate- engineers can build depots. The cost of engineers, mexes, factories, and depots, are all negotiable and the costs of these things will have more impact on expansion than whether nanogel exists.

Depots do become the only way of spending resources, but nanogel can be used to make just as many things as you would otherwise. I don't see any build options being removed, or even materially altered in any way.

Metal and energy being "second class resources" is a very peculiar criticism. They are used to build everything in the game. Nanogel is a mechanic which helps to govern where these resources can be spent, and to what degree. You're actually fighting over metal spots and constructing energy economy.

Still not a fan of the idea. TA allowed you to build depots for each resource, that was fine, though they were considered rather useless. Your idea of basically tethering your production to these depots sounds like yet another idea ripped from the pages of starcraft, in this case what you're advocating for are basically pylons. Though rather than the powering mechanism it's this processing/storage. You seem to want to trade the streaming economy system for a save-then-spend system. You coached it as a saving for a rainy day scheme, but it isn't.

That the engineer needs to "fill" its tank first makes it a save-then-spend system. You need enough to build the building otherwise you have wasted trips back to the depot to refill, basically halting production. Keep in mind time is also a resource and wasted time means the building is more expensive, so if you don't have enough nanogel stockpiled you basically paid more for the same building (time wise) than you would have if you had the correct amount. Or you wait till you have enough nanogel in the bank then complete construction unhindered, exactly like every other RTS out there.