Persistent Resources

Since Galaxies are just so big, a game could basically just go on forever and i know that alot of people like quick games. So and idea like persistent resources could help.

THE IDEA
So you basically have to send a recon drone out to find a resource (oil, pretty blue rocks, etc.) pocket on a planet and when you find one you can set up shop there and build factories etc. Once the resources in that area are depleted, its gone, doesnt regenerate, doesnt come back. You would have to find a new pocket somewhere.

DIFFICULTIES/SETTINGS
IF you dont want this feature enabled on your game, you can change the difficulty (hard would have persistent resources, easy wouldnt) or maybe if you guys add a setting screen for each game/save you make you can toggle it on or off but still have an hard AI to fight.

This as been discussed before, many times over. Few people are fans of the idea because it's too much of a departure from the standard TA/SupCom economic model.

Before I say anything else, lets have some clarification:

Are you referring to Galactic War mode? or regular match/skirmish?
Are these resources special or just mass hotspots (aka not a new resource)?
Have you read the last thread regarding resource depletion?

1- yes, galactic war, the small skirmishes need the infinite resources
2- no, the normal resources, completely forgot that factories make resources out of air
3- no, idk which

read the second paragraph, best of both worlds

Saying something could be an option is not a valid argument for the inclusion of something.

Mike

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the current interpretation of how Galactic War works is somewhat similar to Total War or Star Wars Empire at War, with the galactic and the war bits played out separately.

Now that said, you point may not be a bad idea. From a strategic view, I wouldn't mind choosing my next invasion target with a little more depth than "the enemy is there, attack". It's a matter of figuring out what sort of things can be added to create strategic value, and what affect they should have on the actual fighting.

From my understanding that is correct, you go somewhere, play out the skirmish if required then get to move again.

Mike

Let's at least wait until some solid information about the galactic war is released before speculating how it's going to pan out.

It could very well be possible to adjust everything from galaxy size to number of enemy factions at play, if moving the campaign along quickly is what you want.

Persistent: Existing or remaining in the same state for an indefinitely long time
Metal patches that never run out is a persistant source of income.
A resource that becomes depleted is not a persistant source of income.

Whatever happened to the old idea of making maps that are high in reclaimable resources and have no mass spots? (This idea wouldn't work too well if you make energy limited too, as units that use energy for weapons/cloak/etc would become less useful.)

Yes, this topic has been beaten to death countless times.

Without some kind of unlimited resource, games can stall between worlds. That's a clear reason for planets to never run out of resources. However, PA is a game about fighting across multiple maps, which may be greatly disconnected from one another. The resource model is absolutely going to drive how conflict and economic growth works in the game.

A good way to encourage conflict is by placing the best resources on the worlds most likely to be contested. Fresh worlds, young worlds are ideal candidates for rich reserves of metal and will have greater chances for skirmishing between players. Pure battle represents a chance for reclamation, and existing scrap offers quick boosts on an economy that can otherwise only grow by reinvesting itself.

As the battles draw to a close, there is little need for the planet to remain enticing. This is the time for extractors to slow down. One might say that the rich ore veins have been depleted, forcing extractors to sift through a nigh-infinite source of low grade gravel. It is around this time that players will be driven to expand, seeking new fortune or having been driven off world through battle. The fight was its own reward, as it served its purpose of weathering down the planet's resources so they didn't all go to the enemy.

A major advantage of a devalued world is that it dampens the effect of an exponential economy. The main source of growth is through high risk expansion, rather than by min/maxing up a few turtled worlds. Metal makers offer a chance to keep depleted planets relevant by replacing easy metal with expensive high-risk metal, helping to establish weak points on an otherwise fortified world.

A decaying economy helps speed up the early game by giving a strong early boost to "kick start" things, and dampens the chaos of late game by keeping the economic scale manageable for mortal users. For example a well established 20-planet empire might have the value of 5 fresh worlds. It boosts mid-campaign conflict as there's every reason to add a fresh world to bring that economy up to 6, and every reason to have it denied. It boosts late campaigns as planetary economies become increasingly fragile and desirable to raid. The economy has to deal with a map scale that increases faster than it does, making metal and established infrastructure even more precious when an exponential economy would otherwise be impossible to spend.

The old economic model may have worked well enough for its day, but it only worked on a single map scale, where everyone had quick access to the same deposits. PA isn't single map scale. Deposit clusters will not only be separated by local terrain, but by huge tracts of empty void. The ongoing value of those deposits certainly should to be revisited, to make sure the PA economy can give the best gameplay experience possible.

What's with people believing the dynamics of the fundemental game must change just because we've moved to multiple planets/game boards?

If you're not expanding faster than your enemy, he will still eventually crush you through superior output.

Sigh, I was trying to shift the discussion to something new/more interesting but oh well.

TA/SupCom economics are generally of "control points" type. The only resource you do "dig up" is mass, energy is build from mass (by building generators).

So it's up to choice "we want to have big mass-per-second rate, but mass should deplete after some time", or "we want to have low mass-per-second rate, but mass should not deplete". First is about map raiding and leaving planets as soon as they deplete all their resources, with risk of stalling game, second is about map control.

Yes, SupCom got problem called "too-much-resources-to-spent". But PA will handle that - you may just build up few KEW's at once =)

I never played FA at anything but the amateur level (LAN with friends), but from what I remember - and with most other RTS - if you have too much money to spend, you've either already won or you're doing it wrong.

FA had bad thing called turtling =( Sometimes, on some maps, it degrades to smashing armies of experimentals, or nuke duel, or some other crap. Especially when teams are on par with each other and have a good map control.

But that's not a problem with eco system, that's a problem with unit system (and partly it's due to shields).

This essentially invalidates your post.
It's not a bad thing, because there's people who prefer playing strategy games with that tactic. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's bad.

Turtling != defensive play or techrush. Turtling is overdefense (either by map design or by overpowered eco of both sides). Of course there is people who like "no rush, no nuke, no arty" all-rage-exp parties, but... well... Let's say that I hope they are not target auditory for that game

Turtling gets its namesake from the turtle, a creature that wins battles by removing all vulnerable points from the outside world and hunkering down until the predator rage quits. It's pretty bad.

Players choose to turtle for a variety of reasons, the most important being that defense > offense. There are many ways to dampen pure defense as a viable strategy. One option is to limit the efficiency of base defenses. Many TotalA turrets needed energy to function, which became an exploitable weakness. Another is to have effective raiding units, such that dealing damage is always possible and viable. Supcom had turtle breakers in the form of endgame super weapons, which will likely exist as planet killers in PA.

The best, most effective way to kill a turtle, is to put game winning resources outside the base. Passive strategies are useless if you're broke.