Should resources be tracked per planet/moon

Oh man. Where to start? I'm certainly criticising your ability to see my side of the argument, but this is because you continually conflate different arguments together, or fail to grasp the underlying logical force of the ones offered. If I found your responses persuasive, or well-put-together, I'd have already said so - but this doesn't mean I'm against your ideas. You've taken the time to put together arguments, to discuss them in detail, and to attempt to respond to people on the other side of the debate. This is laudable. The only problem is that your skills in assembling these arguments isn't always where it needs to be.

Majorities don't make anything right by themselves, I don't feel that the poll above has anything meaningful to say on this or any other issue, and I'm pretty disinterested in whether I'm in a minority or a majority here. It has no bearing on the expression of ideas or on the standard of the debates here. These are the things that concern me. Nobody is winning points. I argue because I find the ideas interesting, and you do too. If you find debate tiresome, you'll get bored long before me; if you give up on the debate, this won't make me right, any more than it will make you wrong. In fact, we will both have failed.

You're within your rights to disagree with my suggested counterexamples. However, my counterexamples are not directed towards a particular genre of game, and are there to attack one of the key assumptions of your earlier argument: that players will not be able to play a game with hidden numbers in it, or where the game's mechanics operate behind the scenes in some sense. My examples were intended to display that games are full of hidden numbers, and also full of numbers that aren't always visible (which is similar, but not identical, quite - this was the gist behind the TA example, because all you have is a sum input and a sum output, not an itemised breakdown). I was also attempting to point out that this does not, in any way, prevent humans from interacting with games, or from learning about these hidden numbers. If you want to think about it in a larger sense, the universe is also full of hidden numbers - and the goal of human science has often been to discover these through various sorts of play. It is not, as you say, 'laughable' to have the exact numerical factors behind (say) resource factoring in a gravity-adjusted system-wide economy not immediately on display. So long as these numbers, and their function, can be intuited by the player there is no problem. And whether that intuition is possible will really only be apparent when the game gets made - but perhaps you would like to say more about the nature of that intuition? I only wished to indicate that it was far more plausible than you made out.

Your attack on my TA counterexample bears further scrutiny too. You talk about 3 engineers producing +1 mass, but of course the game's resource production was more messy than that , and didn't give you so many easy sums! Metal extractors could produce either (IIRC) 1.0, 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 metal per tick. Construction kbots and the like produced (again IIRC, these figures are so obscure that the wiki doesn't even bother to mention them! If they're drastically wrong, correct me) between about 0.1 and 0.3 metal per tick, with the commander producing +1. Then the production numbers weren't very nice either: I remember a T2 Plasma battery costing -16.8 to be built by a construction vehicle, but again, every vehicle built at different rates! So even to add up how much a given combination of extractors and engies gives, or how much a given combination of concurrent production costs, is a sum that would take you a good few seconds to work out, even if you gave it your undivided attention and weren't already queuing up the build orders! My point is that players don't do this on the fly: these hidden numbers are tricky to think about when an opponent is making a raid on your outlying mexes, but you're fairly sure that he's trying to draw you out of position to hit your resource core where you're desperately trying to rush-build your first T2 mex with all the spare engineers that aren't out sweeping metal for your temporarily blunted war effort...

This is why we have, in Starcraft as in Supcom and RTSes all over, the science of the build order - because it takes far more time to work out an optimal build order for a given gameplan on a given map than it does to execute it. Again, if this isn't a part of the game, I'll be disappointed. Figuring out good builds, and why they work, is a big part of my enjoyment of these games. But I think you're wrong to suggest that pro players have a perfect running total of their economies in their heads. We can discuss this further, if you wish.

Incidentally, Wolfdogg, I had neglected to say so up to this point - largely because I though it was obvious - you are 100% right about a global economy not prohibiting aggressive play, or over-encouraging defensive play. In fact, I see this as being largely independent of the local/global debate. If aggressive, harassing, active play isn't viable it will be a bad game, just as if the risk/reward balance of expansion were not set right. But these things can be altered by adding new and better ways of attacking (or defending), or adjusting the relative costs of expansion and aggression (or their risks!). Either system can be balanced to allow a free-flowing game that favours aggressive, active play over sedentary turtling or arbitrary overexpansion. I dislike turtling (it didn't work in FA, I don't want it to work here, and 1000 Mantis bots will back me on this) in any game that isn't specifically about base-building and build-footprint tetris. If PA becomes a 1-planet buildfest, I'll regret me my pledge. But that won't happen because the devs are on watch.

So in re: the complexity of the things we're dealing with here, the ideas I'm trying to convey are only difficult and complex when explained. These sorts of explanations are never entirely adequate, just as the ideas behind a piece of music, a work of art, are complex when broken down in isolation from the thing they attempt to describe. Games can express ideas far more complex than these effortlessly, with a grace and clarity that words cannot quite give them.

Oh, and I never said a thing about orbital units. Why would I, when I don't even know exactly how the planets they orbit are going to work?

OK first I've an apology to make: The reference to the orbital units was for the benefit of vectorjohn on page 20, not yourself.

Also, please don't complain about me 'conflating arguments' when I am simply responding in the same manner as yourself that you have been doing since page 19. If you wish I can go back to the numbered format so that it's easier for you to reference. That said, it's made little difference since you have only addressed a hand-full of the points I've made over the last few pages. Conflated or not.

With that out of the way let us continue.

1.) Let's forget about the poll. You say it's irrelevant and I say it isn't. We can agree to differ here. The point is that this thread continues to live purely because you and I are sustaining it. The poll and the rest of the contributions ended some time ago.

2.) I didn't come back here to 'win the thread'. Or points, as you describe them for that matter. I came to explain why local economy is not right for this game. The majority of people cannot be bothered to go into such detail on the matter and I feel that though the above mentioned poll and numerous posts in this topic tell the story, the global economy side of the debate has been under-represented. And since those have been thrown out for one reason or another, I felt it was right to come and put a proper argument across.

3.) We are both entitled to disagree with one another. That is what makes the world an interesting place. However, please try to disagree with the points in the context that I actually make them. I did not say that players would not be able to play the game. Quite the opposite. I said to the majority it would make little difference. I simply said that for the sake of the competitive players the economic structure needs to be transparent as it was in previous games. As for seeing your side of the argument, I think that, considering the size of this topic now at 200 replies, there is no misunderstanding your side of the argument.

4.)

Now you're just nit-picking. I thought it was obvious that I was just using arbitrary numbers to illustrate my point. You already grasped the fact that I was talking about build order and the fact that the rate of resource income is fixed and the system is transparent. I assume you deliberately misunderstood my point just for the purpose of the argument, since I am certain you are more than intelligent enough to have known what I was talking about.

5.)

I'm now at a complete loss as to what you are actually trying to convey. If the debate isn't about how the economy encourages or discourages certain types of play then what the hell were the first 19 pages about? Aside from the grounds of physics and the much conversed notion of the 'suspension of disbelief' that has been banded about the other various topics, I really don't see what else there really is to this argument. If the economic structure that you're talking about serves no purpose in terms of gameplay then why is it even relevant? Surely the game will be better for it all round if a system is used that is familiar to the player and the dev team don't have to waste their time reinventing the wheel?

6.)

As I described on page 19 you mean? I just can't understand why, when you have said all of these things that support my argument, that you still feel the need to promote local over a global economy. Weather local economy would work is irrelevant. I think we both know that the game would still be playable. It's just a matter of staying true to the archetype, appealing to the hardcore player as well as the casual player (to whom this debate holds little relevance) and making a well balanced, seamless and enjoyable game. This will in no small part be down to an economic model that promotes the kind of gameplay that keeps games fast paced, free-flowing and interesting.

EDITED: Missed the start off one of your quotes.

In fact while I'm at it, I would just like to expand on this a little:

1.) For starters, just a slight correction. If you go back and read my posts I think you will find that I was not suggesting -although it is true- that a global economy model would not prohibit aggressive play or over-encourage defensive play.
My point was actually that a local economic model would discourage aggressive play and encourage the player to play defensively. Concentrating his game more centrally to avoid being penalised for expanding his territory.

2.) I personally see how you would implement a local economic model as separate to this conversation. When I read the topic title "Should resources be tracked per planet/moon?", it suggests to me that the debate lies more about weather or not this is a good idea, rather than how it should be done. Though the lines between the two will inevitably cross periodically. To elaborate, I think that the types of gameplay encouraged/discouraged by the implications of the employed economic model are absolutely central to this debate.

3.) At least we are agreed that "if aggressive, harassing, active play isn't viable it will be a bad game". This is the driving force behind my argument for a global economic model. The game economy needs to promote gameplay that is dynamic, free-flowing and seamless. Above all else it needs to be fun and easy to understand! IMO gameplay is paramount and the focal point of this topic. If it was of no consequence to the gameplay, then we wouldn't even be having this debate.

4.) If I have interpreted this correctly then you're telling me here that the game can be balanced to allow for a local economic model without it impacting the gameplay in the way I suggest that it will. I just don't see the point if this is the case. Introducing something and then changing the way the entire game works just to neutralise it's effects on the gameplay seems crazy to me.

I think the point is that the gameplay will remain playable, but we will have the added benefit of resource/planetary location really meaning something...

But that's just it. The added benefit is that the player is penalised for leaving his starting planet and colonising different worlds. If he chooses to stay centralised and develop his world more then he loses less resource from transferring it between planets. It encourages the player to play defensively instead of expanding across multiple worlds.

Sure it makes planets feel like they are isolated from one another and I suppose that is what you are aiming for when you say making planetary location mean something. But the consequence of that is it divides the star system up, making each planet play like a separate map. For that reason you might as well just play a few individual games of Sup Com on different maps and you would get the same effect. For me the solar system is the map and the planets are like islands where players can move freely so that gameplay is dynamic, fluid and fast.

I'd much rather have a global system that encourages the player to expand and spread throughout the solar system by not punishing him for colonising worlds. It's a game about galactic war and annihilating planets. If players get taxed for expanding across the galaxy then how is that in the spirit of the game?

It's OK arguing that you could balance the local economy or reduce it's impact. But the thing is that if the effect is subtle then there's no point in having it in the first place, you know what I mean? Might as well just save your time and use a global economy that's so much easier to implement.

Not really, the point is that you can move resources between the planets, but you have to use something to do it. It doesn't happen magically or automatically. Therefore it isn't like individual games of SupCom, nor is it like one all encompassing global economy, there is more to it.

Indeed, as in along the lines I would agree with.

Firstly I see and I accept your point. I guess there have been many different suggestions made throughout the topic and yours is slightly different to the one I was specifically talking about. I was referring to was where there was a form of tax or loss based on streaming the resource from one planet to anther. In fact, if we think about it, even time is a form of tax imposed on the player.

Supposing, as you suggested, we use some sort of facility to send the resources between locations (tax free for arguments sake), then we have all sorts of other things to take into account. The cost of the structure (resource and time) is probably the main one and then in addition to that how the player would perform this action. This is not taking into account how the player is going to get the resource there to build anything in the first place. I am aware that some of this has been raised before. I think the option where the player is responsible for manually transferring resource is even worse than the idea that we could automatically stream resources.

Even if it was semi-autonomous, having a single structure that is responsible for linking the planet to the global resource pool makes it an obvious target that would basically bring an entire planet to it's knees far beyond destroying any other single structure possibly could. It's pretty unbalanced IMO. It would even encourage structure redundancy on behalf of the player to prevent this from happening, adding further cost in time, resource and build area. Simply saying "balance it" is getting old. There's so much to consider when compared to a global economy that just lends itself to this game.

I guess in the end we will only know by actually by testing it, test all the possibility's to give an accurate result for effectiveness.

(Personally I am under the assumption that if you do destroy an enemy's linking structure (And your commander is not present) then you generally should get destroyed, but if you still have you local economy for that 1 world, it most likely wont be the end of the world. (Ironic choice of words))

So I put to you again: If it is made so that the effect of this system is so negligible then why bother to include it in the first place?

If the primary objective of the system is to create a sense of being on different planets, there are so many other ways that this can be done without effecting gameplay. Things like graphics and effects, sounds and ambiance. Variety of terrain and planet types, weather effects, flora and fauna. All things that are likely to be in the game anyway. In the end if the system is implemented and this is all it is there for I suspect it will shortly become nothing more than a tedium for the player that has a negative effect on the game experience rather than a positive.

In the end you are right, of course.

Amen to that!

Random question. Is there a reason for multiple economies beyond realism?

*Edit: Being cool/awesome idea doesn't count.

About a dozen, try reading the last 22 pages if you want them all, here the most important ones:

• Stop the exponential growth at the border of a planet to prevent snowballing from one planet to the next at the moment ONE player reaches interplanetary phase.
• Counter balancing issues caused by the fact, that same planets are capable of producing close to INFINITE amounts of energy and/or metal.
• The transport of resources to a different world should not be cheaper than transporting units made from those resources. Otherwise reaction times become to low on the strategic point of view because you would be able to produce counter units whenever, wherever and in whatever masses you wanted. Being able to catch an enemy off hand is necessary for the gameplay, otherwise you will get stalemates which can only be solved by game ender class weapons.

I don't think you really thought this through. Unless you can send thousand unit armies onto an enemy planet in one giant wave, all a defender needs is a few factories on whatever planet. That's because as soon as they start being attacked, factories start producing an army and they can defeat the incoming enemy as they arrive.

If you do think that thousand unit invasions should be possible, then why is this even in space?

Also, the drain of the factories on the economy isn't important. If a player has their home planet covered in resource collectors, producing from the factories isn't a problem. If a player can't send 1000 unit invasions, then they certainly can't send 1000 unit invasions to multiple planets, so only one planet needs to be producing units at a time: the defending one.

Now that said, Of course Uber will come up with some way to make attacking work whichever economic model we get. I just argue that a global economy naturally leads to a difficulty in invading, less interesting strategy, and a more vanilla game.

I would think that a players ability to sneak units onto anthers planet is highly underrated, with the addition of jamming units you could quickly set up what you need (With or without global economy's) in order to keep a foot hold on a planet.

After all that's the whole point of the game, being able to create army's in minutes in no time at all. I would still find it unlikely that a player could effectively keep an eye on every part of a planet of theirs while also being able to play the game across the rest of a solar system.

It doesn't make the effect negligible! Did you not read the sentence you quoted? If you have a local economy then you might not be totally screwed if your linking structure is destroyed. Basically, if you actually invest something in a planet, it can survive being sniped. If it is entirely a unit production planet totally supplied by the resource link structure, then yes, losing that should totally incapacitate the planet because you used a dangerous (and maybe bad) strategy.

It's like in a game of SupCom if you put all your T3 power plants adjacent with no shields and someone comes in and snipes one. They all go up and your economy is screwed: totally your fault.

This is why I threw in the "few air units". They would patrol. A few medium level bombers would either be able to successfully defend or be shot down, either outcome alerting the defending player to fire up the war machine.

My point is exactly that you can create an army in minutes if all you do is leave behind a pile of factories on every planet. While the attacker is trying to put up their factories to get an army going, the defender already had them and is producing units. This in combination with a handful of defending patrolling aircraft makes a planet extremely hard to invade by building there.

Sorry all, for the stream of posts, I missed this during the weekend.

This is where counter-intelligance comes in, allowing players to 'shield' their early developments until they can easily snipe patrols, at witch point your garrison factory's might be matched by the invading ones.

Of course you have the advantage of defense, but you will still have the disadvantage of being surprised.

That how I see it happening anyway, but with enough of a garrison force it might be a lot harder, tools like raiding satellites and rocket transported aircraft might be in order but we have so may unknowns is hard to say.

Yeah, I suppose the number in "a few air units" would be important. This could work.

My only point with this is to illustrate how easy it could be to defend if you have unlimited resources (a la global economy) on the defending planet. A global economy gives very little benefit to an attacker and a huge benefit to the defender.

Until the attacker can get a factory up, then it will be very much balanced if both players have off world economy's.

As I am personally suggesting is possible, but It is open to interpretation.