Should resources be tracked per planet/moon

And Sins tends to have a problem with unstoppable, bottomless never-ending economies. Sins also was about playing on one map. You built a fleet and that was your army. It moved around (relatively) freely. It wasn't about fighting on the surfaces of individual planets, as if they were their own maps.

People also seemed to reject the idea of a third resource type, which was pretty crucial in Sins as well to give value to planets...

Point is it's hard to compare these games.

I rather like the idea of decreasing build time of units as you build more resource buildings on planets.

But there should be some incentive to build Mass Extractors, Mass Fabricators, and Energy Generators - or whatever resources Planetary Annihilation will have.

I don't want this to devolve to sending over a 100 Engineers to quickly set up a few tier 3 power plants, or whatever this game will have.

OK, I'm going to try and boost the yes vote, just to warn you...

IMHO local resource management is likely to increase the strategic richness as it increases depth and gives you more opportunities to out-plan and out-think your opponent. However I want to try and tackle the negatives, so I'll concentrate on what I think are the two main arguments against:

1. Too much micro

2. Too hard to invade an enemies planet

I'll also remind everyone that the only thing local resources prevents is you outbuilding your opponent on a planet where he owns the lion's share. So you couldn't parachute in a bunch of engineers and instabuild heavy weaponry on a planet you don't own.

1. Too much micro
OK, there well might be some micro associated with moving resources between planets, although 'ferry route' style UI may address that to some extent. But, none of that is actually necessary as the game will work perfectly well without any need to transport resources.
Think about it, if you ensure that your colonisation transport has similar capabilities to the Commander in terms of resource storage/production then each planet is like starting a new game. This just means you have to reach the planet before your opponent to gain the upper hand, which seems fair.

2. Too hard to invade an enemies planet
OK, well for a start, maybe it should be difficult to invade a planet you don't own, but of course that is not your only option.
Ground forces are normally only required to mop up, you should probably be attacking the planet first using a range of orbital and interplanetary weaponry first. Once you have softened up the defenses and scattered enough robot infantry around with your unit cannon, you can land and establish a beachhead.
You only need to set up an economy there if you feel it necessary to actually produce anything on the enemy planet. You could just keep ferrying units from your planets to affect the takeover.

I wouldn't worry about per planet resources being complicated. You never focus on more than one planet at a time, so there is one resource bar where it shows the "current" planet resources. On some overview mode (whatever they showed telling things to move between planet/moon), it could show the bar over each body.

The issue of transporting resources and starting beach heads *should* be difficult (imo). It is something you have to plan for, save up, etc. You can't just make a massive economy then sneak a swarm of engineers onto a random bare spot and build a giant base.

Instead, you could have something that is basically like a mobile mass/energy storage building. Maybe you have to build them on asteroids. Then you just include them in your invasion swarm.

Remember in SupCom how you could build ferry waypoints? You would build something similar from a resource base where you just set up a continuous supply of resources to be sent to some spot on the planet. I don't think it would be that complex.

Another way if that seems too hard is you could have some expensive building (like that cannon that fired infantry) and you just pick a planet you want it to send resources to. Then anyone you have on that planet gets supplied with resources.

Either way, a single global economy is going to greatly take away from the feeling of scale in these battles. It won't feel like going from planet to planet is a big deal at all, a main reason this looks fun. If you just want supreme commander but with kinetic bombardment, then have a single global economy.

Cheers vectorjohn, please feel free to vote

Oh I did, don't worry

I just think people worrying about complexity should be careful. There is another game where they thought the entire streamed economy added too much complexity and people didn't like it. That game was Supreme Commander 2, and it didn't even feel similar to Supreme Commander or TA.

Definitely! Complexity is good

There's a difference between changing the way the economy works and splitting up the economy into tiny shards which all need managing.

Ok, I have tentatively voted for yes...

Are you sure? What if it all goes wrong? It'll all be your fault! :lol:

I don't think they would be tiny shards. The demo video showed 3 total, although a larger game might have more. For things like asteroid bases, I don't see you sending a constant supply of resources, just an initial amount to get started.

As others might have mentioned, engineers should carry their own supply of resources like the commander, like maybe the equivalent of one or two storage containers so you could send *just* engineers to an asteroid and get started.

If this all ends up adding too many things, there is also the route of leaving out transports and instead having a "source" of resources like the infantry cannon that you just point at the place you want to send supplies to.

I really just want there to be a physical source of the resources that can be targetted if someone wants to disrupt supply lines. With a shared economy the target would be "all your enemy's bases" which equates to winning the game to disrupt supplies. With separate economies, the targets are places that supply a lot of resources or maybe even just transport centers (the cannons).

Mwuhahaha! Cry, ye puny mortals! Cry, about your pathetic game - ruined! Cry, about my evil masterplan - genius! Cry, until ye have no more tears, cry!

OK so a lot of valid and very good points here.

I like the idea of global resource. But I can't see how it would prevent the very large problem of snowballing. Most people are worried that the player with the most assets will win. I don't see that as an issue as that is how most of the sup com games have been in the past. Resources have always equalled victory. It might well be a non-issue.

There are several reasons for and against a global economy and most of them have already been discussed. However, here are a few more for your thoughts.

Just because economy is global doesn't mean that you can't cut off the resources from a beach head. But it has to be global because if it is too easy to stamp out an invasion then attacks on enemy planets become pointless and a waste of your economy. Having to start from scratch is going to end in disaster every time, but as it has been said; it has to be balanced.

The Uber guys have said already that they want most combat to be on planet. I for one don't want to see the game deteriorate to asteroid slinging and WMDs. It's got to be an attempt to avoid the same problems the sup com games suffered, where WMDS and game enders take place of strategy.

In fact that brings me to a valid point that I don't believe has been discussed: Nukes.

Supposing you are a well established commander and enemy units or even worse, an enemy commander lands planet-side. What are you going to do? Can you resist clicking that big red nuke button? How are Uber going to work around this issue? Not just nukes but any WMDs? In a split second the enemy commander is neutralised and it's game over. All to easy for my liking. So how do you allow for nukes and WMDs that are a necessary escalation of the players tech tree but still allow a commander to attack a hostile planet without instantly getting obliterated?

Galactic gates seems an obvious choice but as well as this you would also have to incorporate mobile anti nuke units and so on. Plus how do you get the gate there in the first place? Getting hit instantly with heavy arty as soon as you're on planet is another issue. No shields in the game might make this a serious problem for the attacking commander. Where as it is unrealistic to suggest that these threats are unfair, I do feel that the attacking commander needs some way of overcoming these threats.

Perhaps another option is to expand on the unit cannon idea. I'm thinking a building cannon of some description. Able to manufacture the core buildings for a base or a prefab template base for a beach head and fire them between planets. This way you could quickly establish a foot hold with which to mount an attack. While we're on the concept we could take it further. Why not use these cannons to fire not just buildings and units, but resources that can be received by a specific "landing pad" and reclaimed for use on the planet. Resources could then be fed from the global pool to the attacking commander and can be cut off by simply destroying the landing pad. This idea conforms more the the local economy idea.

Another one for the local economy idea is that if you have a global economy then every commander is just going to go straight in with the big units. Why fight small when you can go straight in with the heavy hitters? This means that after a certain stage, basically every conflict would miss out huge parts of the game and go straight to the top of the tech tree. A local economy would mean that battles would have to be fought from the bottom of the tech tree and therefore the game would benefit as a result. However, I still struggle to see how an attacking commander could stand a fighting chance against a well established defending force of a higher tech level without some kind of short cut system.

Uber must have something in mind and it's gonna have to be damn clever!

Actually, in light of the last part of my previous comment I think that there is room in the game for a little of both methods of.

If the game is to be controlled then the manner in which resources are made available to a commander must be relative.

For example, a global "pool" of resources will be available to each player to call from, but locally only the resources at hand will be available, supplemented of course by means of resource drops of some description from the global pool.

This means that the defending player would have the advantage of an existing steady resource income. While the attacking commander would have to rely on what he could acquire on site, supplemented by the resource drops. He would need to have units and possibly structures provided in a similar manner. Drop some units and structures in via the cannon to supplement the forces that are being built planet side.

One of the frequently mentioned dangers of local economies is the difficulty of invading a planet. There are a few reasons I don't think that would be an issue.

One, actual planets are really big. If someone spends all their time absolutely coating a planet in defenses, fine, that won't be easy to get in to. But it also means they probably did that instead of attacking or taking over other planets / bodies in the system. We already have this in RTS games, it is called turtling and it usually doesn't work. This player is going to be left with a fortress that is hard to invade, while their opponent will have unlimited resources and a solar system worth of asteroids and planets at their disposal. It may very well be that in this case, the only option is to nuke and asteroid smash, at least to soften the defenses. Seems ok to me, that's what usually happens to turtlers.

Another thing is that it *should* be hard to invade. It is like SupCom or TA on a continent or large island map. Your main base on your starting island is probably pretty hard to invade, and it may be necessary to soften up defenses with artillery of some kind. But there are all the other continents (or in this case, moons, planets and asteroids) with minor bases and outposts. These will probably not be entirely covered with defenses and an attacker could use a distraction (or nothing) to start a base on some unpopulated corner of the planet. Then ground battles ensue. Battling over ownership of all the resources in a solar system could be a back and forth struggle, and it would involve all the strategy goodness we love about this genre. The final planet annihilation is just the exclamation mark at the end.

Also, if you are going to be leading the charge onto a planet with your commander, I think you better be careful. There would have to be some sort of defense systems like mobile shields and anti missile. But I don't think sending in the commander is going to be the only way to invade. Probably engineers would be enough, but who knows. They just showed it in the video like it was the beginning of the game, that's how I saw it.

One more thing to help with invasions: They didn't show them, but I would be surprised if there aren't bigger more advanced units than basic infantry and tanks. These could be powerful but not like experimentals in SupCom. I would also think the commander isn't the only thing you can put in a rocket for the invasion. For big invasions you could set up a fleet of rockets with larger combat units for the initial push, sending small reinforcements with the cannon, and at the same time you're working on the beach head.

Well, regardless of which way it goes, just describing this makes me want to play this game right freaking now.

My answer is "I don't give a [...]"

I just want to kill enemy with asteroids.

(regarding wolfdogg's post)

Much regarding the beachhead scenarios would depend on the ability to see/monitor/scout areas. The kickstarter video made it look like you could see the entirety of the planet at any point. While this is what is shown, I very much doubt that's what it will end up as. I could see something along the lines of having scout planes like TA/SupCom for accurate visual data and something along the lines of the radars for general regional data. Along with that, there being something like orbital sensors to detect incoming enemies, though having to rely on the lower level ones for active recon.

Now the artillery option could be countered if the invading forces are enough around the curvature of the planet to avoid those. That or there being varying height levels, or just the raised rock formations(what looks like plateaus and full on mountains) from the video. This would have to effect that you couldn't attack immediately, but if a minor base/connection point was needed to hook up the forces to the resource network anyways it would have to be done regardless.

Nukes add a whole different issue. First off invading the planet would likely mean that there wouldn't have been a reason for a nuke system to have been built &/or stocked, as it should be VERY expensive to do. It could also be balanced if nukes were more like starcraft and needed to be lazed in or if it was VERY blatant and detectable that one had been launched and the general area that it might hit be shown, with something like a basic radar.

Now much of this depends on if the idea of having a kind of orbital module that you could use to establish a beachhead with, makes sense. I see this as being a limited link to the resource network with it also having a much larger storage system than just sending the commander. Which really would follow after first having attacking waves of units land to soften/defend the commander as it IS an enemy held planet.

Now some might say WHY have an orbital thing instead of having the unit cannon and the witnessed commander rocket setup? I say why not have both. The orbital module would have to be much more expensive and take longer to setup, thus giving the enemy an inkling of what might be being planned, but would come with basic defense for nukes. It would basically be an orbital/nuke defense and hub for orbital systems. This would give you the time to make that basic building that could act as a basic radar/resource storage and network up-link. It could also serve as a simple power field if such is added. It would also help protect your new base from being immediately KEW'd.

mecharius, you make some good points. I didn't think of the orbital platform, but that is a great way to counter nukes, as well as a good staging area for an invasion.

I would assume the defending player could shoot down the orbital platform. Maybe the way to shoot it down is with missiles from the ground, and those can be countered, but both require resources to do. So you could send in your platform and it could use all its resources to build missile defense, and then the defender would just have to send more at it.

I don't know how a game company settles on a design for something like this! These are hard choices!

Also, is it ready yet?

But you missed a point I was trying to make, I think. If an engineer has its own resources, at what point does it switch back to the global streaming economy? If an engineer is storing resources (or even if the resources are transported along with the engineer), what happens when they're destroyed? Do you lose resources? Ultimately it means tracking multiple sources for resources, and you're back at square one of the argument.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. It seems like people are focusing on resources and how resources should change, when thats not the problem; its establishing a beachhead. If you feel that it should be slow to control new territory on a new planet, a simpler solution would be to limit the means of getting engineers to the planet for construction.

Personally, I'm leaning in the other direction. Rushes should be possible, and offense should trump defense. Limitations on establishing a beachhead on an enemy-controlled planet would encourage turtling.

Galactic gates anyone?



Like what I've already posted in this thread, though buried, it solves a whole TON of issues with interplanetary play.

Unlike what I posted, it probably doesn't need to be limited to resources.Instead, could transport resources and units across the system.

The commander acting as it's own gate would be necessary, though only for resources.

Also, again unlike what I suggested, perhaps a dedicated 'gating' unit would need to be used to build on another world. The commander as one, and perhaps some other specialized units later on so that you don't risk your commander.

As for encouraging turtling. If you want a rush game, start on the same planet. If not, start separately. Also, I don't imagine interplanetary movement would be too difficult if you just send a gating unit to the enemy planet immediately and begin constructing a gate.