Planetary Annihilation's Economy System

I didn't see this post earlier (or read most of the thread but) - but how does this work on larger scale i.e. multiple planets etc?

It's nice because the energy drain is constant. Reclaiming resources won't cause you to stall, therefore it DOES take care of itself. It's a perfectly cromulent system.

Trying to min/max every single drop of reclaim is a problem for every single game. If energy stalls, it's a problem. If it wastes energy, it's a problem. The latter issue is one of inefficiency, which is easy to address. The former problem is literally choking to death on resources, which makes no sense at all.

I like this economy model. Really looking forward to trying it out.

For those worried about interplanetary resource allocation and custom prioritisation strategies perhaps this might help?

A dedicated building per planet ("Resource Strategy Centre"?) with pre-set resource priority strategies (This depends on which units will actually use energy but for example: Pro-Tank-Production, Pro-Artillery, Pro-Construction...) which could be visualised a la C&C:Generals.
But also a mode which allows a set amount of resources to be transmitted to other planet RSCs which could be visualised as a big beam of light (also conveying bits of metal perhaps) shooting out into space (or incoming if receiving). This mode would result in an energy penalty when in use so not as efficient as using the on-site resources of course.

Gameplay scenario: Low on resources, player activates interplanetary support to help out a struggling or starting base.
Enemy can read this and employ KEWs or interplanetary invasion on nursing planet(s) or target on-site RSC.

What are your thoughts?

Couldn't we let modders handle prioritization?

It has nothing to do with uneven expense rates(by the way, Zero-K already equalises cost and build times), and you underestimate how erratic metal income can be. In a typical Balanced Annihilation or Forged Alliance game I am constantly gaining and losing metal extractors, and units are constantly dying, leaving wreckage for my construction units to suck up, creating massive spikes. Constantly going back and setting swathes of factories and contruction units on hold on top of this makes for a frustrating, terrible experience that seriously kills the fun.

You still have the same situation where the player who doesn't min-max his energy well eventually loses to an opponent who does. You haven't removed anything--all you've done is hide the difficulty curve. But you've also introduced this infuriating, un-fun, micro-intensive mechanic in the process.

Debatable. A player who has his entire base shut down from a reclaim-related energy stall is in a LOT of trouble. A player who isn't perfectly spending his energy is just a bit behind.

A player is under no obligation to demand more metal than he needs, and the fixed metal rates make this very easy to understand. The only reason he deliberately spends over the limit is to take advantage of extra metal bits gained through reclaim. You might realize the need to min/max every last ounce of E to win, but for most players why worry? Extra fab power is not a losing strategy, so keep the fabbers going. The extra overhead is a small price to pay to avoid a reclaim-stall.

Energy is actually a critical factor in determining Balanced Annihilation games and is not something you want to waste. Often commander d-gun skirmishes and laser tower assaults are determined by how much energy the players have. In Forged Alliance it's also similarly critical. Energy also equals metal because power plants cost metal.

If a game doesn't feel good to play on a competitive level then it's a sh!t game. It's the nature of games to compete in them.

This seems to hold very true to the original series; which has a very strong supporting community.

Glad to see that you guys aren't messing too much with the roots which made this epic in the first place.

Getting excited for some gameplay !!

I've been lurking and seeing how this topic would play out.
Just thought I'd take a moment to weigh in.


Removing the variation in build (resource sapping) rates for each type of unit/building from constructors sounds great! I'm super excited for this. I never really liked the old "variables" system.
Some people might accuse this as "dumbed down", but I don't think so.
It's more straight-forward, logical and most of all transparent.
It makes it easier to gauge WHAT is happening to your econ even if you don't know the game inside and out. I think that's a very, very welcome change.


I would like to echo support for what Mavor has mentioned multiple times, transparency.
"Transparency", things should be crystal clear from the visual side.
All cards should be on the table. Not just visible for the enemy, but also, ideally, make things easier for yourself from a control standpoint.

For example:
A simple glance from a metal maker shows on/off.
In an GUI system, we could extend this idea of conveyance to other units and buildings to show a unit's state (fire mode, reclaim, repair, etc).



Regarding the engineers to be on reclaim duty vs repair patrol.
May I offer a suggestion?
Extend the "reclaim" function to "route"?
Thus you can have the current Sup Com function of "repair and reclaim".
While the new function would allow you to set engineers to work reclaiming things from a battlefield only.

One way to better view economy is to actuall have a visual feedback what the engis are doing in th icons. Thats what you(at least me) will look at most after all.

During this early game, you also have a very small number of units to choose from. It should be fairly easy to keep your metal expenses perfectly lined up with the income, so there won't be any energy waste. It CAN hurt players, but it's something that matters far more at high skill levels than at low ones.

In a low skill game, players will just build more generators to pay for the inefficiency. So they have a few less tanks. That's not a terrible tradeoff to make things easy.

That's why I said the system is pretty good. What you're actually struggling with is that extra 5-10% inefficiency on the top. While it's easy to live with some inefficiency, it's very difficult to get rid of it entirely, as players strive for perfection. Sound familiar?

It's the nature of some games to compete in them, not all. It's not a universal truth, even if it should apply to PA to some extent.

Was TA or SupCom ever good on a competitive level?

Well, No. But people still play it on competitions

What do you mean by competitive?

It's an EXTREMELY competitive game among high level players. Far more competitive than starcraft IMO, just not very popular because it's much harder.

HAHAHA... This isn't exclusive to the early game. But even the first few minutes has a lot of things going on to keep track of.

There is nothing hard, nor interesting, about pausing the exact number of builders you need to accommodate every metal flux. It's another button the player has to push to perform the same amount of actions as before. It's pure mechanical tedium that no one actually likes doing. And unlike energy stalling, energy wastage from build power isn't readily apparent to newbies until (and if) they go find a guide on the internet telling them about it. So it's not easy to learn either.

'Games' where you don't compete are called toys. This is what Minecraft, Kerbal Space Program and OpenTTD are relegated to.

This.

The word game is most commonly defined as "an amusement or pastime".

While "game" is also commonly defined as a competitive activity it is not the only nor even the most common definition.

So theres no need for competition for it to be a game.

I was definitely thinking of games by one definition. But maybe it's the wrong term to use. How about sport?

Yes, sport is most commonly defined as being competitive.

If we quote you

and replace game with sport (or e-sport) it would make much more sense.


Do however note that games (such as PA) dosent nessesarly has to be a good e-sport to be a good game, so while me myself would find it preferable if its also a good e-sport (I belive i read that its important to Uber too somewhere), its not a must or even something that should take up to much of the devs attention.

Good for whom?
The player: I'd say that SupCom:FA was enjoyable to play at competitive level. Although personally I dislike the amount of practice you needed and the amount of memorization of buildorders on every map you played.
Open Palms is one of the hardest maps to play as you have to do manual reclaiming, balance your economy and expansion so that you don't expose your units unnecessarily or forget to incorporate air factory. If you know the optimal buildorders you can try to take advantage of that by expecting where enemy engineers will be and killing them with Light Assault bots or bombers. It adds to the metagame but you will most likely not be able to experience the metagame before you are at very high skill on Open Palms.

For the spectator:SupCom is not that fun to watch. It is hard to keep track of stuff that is important as players are likely to raid, attack and use bombers on several places at once. If you want to appreciate all the little things that skilled players do you usually need to watch the replay many times to see their actions.
If you are watching a cast, the commentator is likely to focus more on the troop movement rather than the fighting.
Battles in SupCom are usually fought over positions and players are either advancing or retreating with some projectile dodging mixed in but not very much micro. Once a fight commences the outcome is usually clear from the numbers and their positioning while the commentator are likely to focus on something else because the fight has already been decided and the interesting decisions that the players makes will be somewhere else than the actual fighting.
I find Starcraft 2 and especially Starcraft 1 much more enjoyable to watch even though I don't enjoy playing Starcraft.
The commentators can discuss the metagame and focus on what the players are trying to achieve with different builds and how they are trying to outsmart each other and once the fighting starts the focus is on the fighting and the decisions that the players make there.