Planetary Annihilation's Economy System

I approve scathis' resource system. Nicely done.

Looks awesome, as long as engies are less efficient than factories I think it'll all just come down to balance

This already exists though, it's called on/off and best of all, it's visible on the game map.

I completely agree with the point that a priority system would allow even more automated control of your base but that's not the only thing I take into account when thinking about the game. If that was the only goal we could completely remove the player from the equation or simply let them set the goals of the AI. Figuring out where the automation line lies is the key to this whole thing and I think a lot of people want to take the automation further than I am personally comfortable with. That's ok, I'm sure mods will show up to make the game more complicated but as I explained in my other post there are multiple reasons why I'm not a fan of these kinds of systems.

Ok, so let me see if i have this straight (coming mainly from TA, played supcom a wee bit).

As it stands, you can't have unit type A cost more metal and less energy to construct than unit type B.

In TA vehicles cost X metal and Y energy to produce for a given unit effectiveness.
Ships cost 2X metal and Y energy for the same unit effectiveness
Air cost X/2 metal and 2Y energy for the same unit effectivness

You can't do this (not saying it needs to) with the new model since engineers have a set metal:energy build output.

Building X metal worth of Kbots will cost Y energy
Building X metal worth of ships will cost Y energy
Building X metal worth of air will cost Y energy
Building X metal worth of anything will cost Y energy and take X/(metal out rate of constructor) seconds

There is no high metal/energy cost with low build time option.

Again from TA, Metal storage cost lots of metal, but built really fast.
Now build time is directly proportional to metal cost and nothing else (assuming no econ failure)

No judgments, just trying to make comparisons.

This assumes all constructors are the same. Each factory can have it's metal/s and energy/s numbers adjusted separately. And factories will be "more efficient" than engineers, otherwise the factories are meaningless.

I meant more of a "soft on/off", where you select which buildings should be switched off in case of a stall and they do so on their own when the **** hits the fan.

But like most of us i'm also fine with just having them grouped and switching them of manually if the need arises. I just thought it would be a subtle, non intrusive way to please the priority people. (And i also liked the idea)...

The economy system sounds really simple. While I agree that it will give the game a very nice flow, having only two different resources greatly reduces the ability for someone to starve his/her opponents. It kind of kills a tactic that I enjoy. This wouldn't be an issue for small scale RTS games (like Starcraft)... but since you will be colonizing many different worlds, it seems almost impossible to starve them of a particular type of resource.

To do that, you kill extractors, he can't build anything without Metal.

Mike

Starving your opponents hasn't been reduced in the least. As Knight said, you can still go after extractors. If you can somehow hit is energy, that's still a valid tactic as well since having less power than required prorates all construction. But just like in TA and supcom, hitting someone's power tends to be difficult; hitting extractors is much easier.

The issue may be that you're thinking that we'll still get energy at the same scale as we did in TA and supcom, making it impossible for your opponent to starve with millions of units of energy stored up. I doubt this will be the case; I imagine power will be gained and stored on a similar order of magnitude as metal.

The only difference being that it tends to be easier to defend because you can place them anywhere.

Mike

I guess what I'm trying to get at is with the scale and magnitude that PA is going to offer, knocking out a few extractors on several planets won't really make a dent in the resources, will it? Am I missing something?

My current conception is that trying to starve somebody of a resource on PA will be like trying to starve North America of cattle and grain, and Asia of rice. Resources will be over abundant, since I'm assuming there will be quite a bit of them per planet.

That's very hypothetical. What if you raid the hell out of them and make them explode?

I don't see how this is a function of the economy changes...

It is because it won't matter what you destroy. There will always be more for a player to harvest elsewhere.

If there were a couple slightly more rare resources, you can blow up their two sources of that resource opposed to having to blow up the couple dozen planets they have colonized... which I'm sure won't be possible at a single point in time.

So how can you expect to blow the hell out of somebodies resources and expect that to starve them if they will always have more elsewhere?

This is a concern I had as well, if resources are shared between planets, even blowing up a planet might not make a dent in a player's economy in a huge game. But consider that the same applies to really big maps in TA and supcom, you probably shouldn't play games with >3 or 4 planets with only 2 people

But that's been discussed to death, undeath, and all through the afterlife to reincarnation, and it's not on topic

Think of it this way, a 'Base' in SC is the same as a planet in PA, is killing a drone at a base going to put a big dent in the Eco? Not really, it has an effect of course, but it's not quite the same as killing 10 drones off. Not to mention that unlike SC the spots you can build extractors on are spread across the map, on a small portion of the planets total economical potential will be within your 'base' which makes raiding and territory control a heck of a lot more important, you should try playin FA as it'll give you a better idea of how it'll work out.

Also don't forget you won't always have an entire planet to yourself, even in a 1v1.

Mike

That's true. But what of the galactic-scaled matches? How many players will be able to play in those games (max player capacity)?

On the PA video a planet spanned more than two opposing player bases that covered less than half the planet. So a planet would be about equivalent to half a sc2 map.

As many as you like in theory, but as in SC on an 8v8 map, if you're left with a 2v2 because a bunch of players died, those players would have so many resources that blowing up planets (or firing nukes/making GC's) wouldn't be that expensive to do, so it balances out in the end

Also the video was a... VIDEO! *gasp* D=

The Gameplay Visualization is far from gospel, planet sizes will vary as well, the basic point in getting across is that it's all relative, yeah destroying an extractor or 2 isn't going to totally wreck an economy, but what about 10? What about just sending a KEW at the planet? I seriously think you are simultaneous using a too small focus on the problem and not considering all the potential factors at play.

The idea that removing an entire planet's economic output from the WON'T have any effect is just ridiculous.

Mike