Should resources be tracked per planet/moon

Can't help but feel that at the centre of all this is the same issue that really does revolve around micro. Check out a different problem with a similar issue here: http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37223&start=40

It's not hard to see why it's a problem and I agree, that managing each planet as a stand alone economy is just going to detract from the game experience. There are games that are made for that and those of you who pledged your money hoping for something similar I feel will be pretty disappointed. All the previous games have had, what in essence, is a pretty simple economy structure and I really don't see why it can't work at this scale.

It is fact that the biggest economy wins in most conflicts because of obvious reasons. I can't imagine why you would necessary say having big economies is a problem. It fits in with the game vision. To a certain extent it happened in the previous games and wasn't a huge issue. I think the key is how relatively large your economy is as to how well the game will work at it's later stages.

Picture this:
1. The two remaining commanders at the end of the game each have 3 planets each. Economies are going to be similar and it's a fair fight.
2. Out of the two commanders remaining, one commander has 2 planets and the other guy has 4 planets. Is it fair to expect the guy with 4 planets to have a similar economy to the guy with 2? Only if he has no idea what he's doing.

I think this can accurately be compared to a player's share of the map in previous games. It's just a case of getting your head around the scale. In the end if you or your team have done bad and by the end you have a smaller share of the map I think it is reasonable to say that you have been bested and that you probably aren't going to win.

Uber want epic amounts of units and by keeping things simple it lets you concentrate on the important stuff; like huge battles and smashing asteroids into planets.

One thing to mention as it has not been said recently, is that the devs are not sure what they're going to do for a global/local economy. They've mentioned when they get the engine and stuffs running they wanted to try it out both ways, maybe with some twist so they can figure out what is best.

My point: The Devs are awesome, that is all, move along citizen

I think that's why we are having this poll and conversation. I think most of us pledged so we have a right to a say (not the final say by any means) and we all have the right to an opinion. I think the Devs will appreciate some of the topics discussed here and I do hope that they read them.

I'm not saying to stop, just something to keep in mind, and some newer people may have missed it in previous postings

Indeed. I think the new game should try at least something different with regards to the economy. If simplifying it makes it worse (SupCom 2), complicating it can only make it better! (Hurray for false logic)

The idea here is a means to that end. Perhaps we'll have a chance to see both options in action during the testing process.

I feel that this may be a good place to leave this thread until testing is underway of the two economic methods.

I agree with gleming. At the current stage we will just be arguing semantics and phrasing among ourselves as we have exhausted all available hard knowledge regarding econmy models for PA. Unfortunately the thread stopping would kill it as it gets buried under more more misc threads. If it could be put into a new category of 'waiting for further data' though then it could still be updated as more information is released.

I have to say that in general terms, everything being fully usable and developed, that the player with 4 should win. The issue comes from the fact that the player with 4 worlds will very likely not have fully developed all four. Especially as the many good ideas expressed in this post show a better path than a plain All Resources Can Go Every/Anywhere path. Heck if you really think about the time and micro involved in getting 4 planets up to decent production/harvesting(even with the ARCGE/A[pronounced as arc-gea] model) then it's actually more likely that player with a slightly lower number of better developed planets would win. As it would make sense that they could better split their attention among fewer targets. It would work quite similar to starcraft, where it takes a while at times to get up each new expansion to speed. This also doesn't take into account the percentage of time spent making units vs base construction. Realistically having ARCGE/A would mean that the players would be stressing their resources more than other systems. I haven't even mentioned anything about destroyed sections of planets. As lets be honest smaller asteroids wouldn't destroy planets they would just make large portions unusable, i.e. lava fields. Now moons being smashed into planets, that way leads to planetary destruction. Which should now make a debris field of large asteroids, but that is a whole different thread.

It's a good point, but I sort of get the impression that particularly where GW is concerned this won't be the case because the commander will have started on his own world and won that battle, just like his initial four comrades who eventually fell in battle and therefore handed over their planets and units in a 'auto-give mod' kind of way.
EDIT: What I mean here is that he won't have had to personally develop all the planets himself and therefore each should have a self sustaining economy-wise, provided not too much damage is sustained when the allied commander snuffs it of course! It largely depends on the players that came before him.

This is how I imagine GW would work. I don't know if it's what people generally expect?

What I am basically saying is that all things being equal and by virtue of winning battles the guy who ends up controlling the most planets should win. Pretty much like the commander who ends up controlling the majority of the map usually wins. As you quite correctly pointed out - mainly because of the resources available to him.

EDITED x4: Crying out loud, fingers please do as I command you!

Lol.
I wasn't thinking of the PA ladder-ish play when I was constructing my example. I was thinking of matches where the two commanders started on different worlds and expanded to open worlds. Honestly I never thought the 4 worlds with 2 commanders dueling would all be in the same system. It made sense for each duel to be in different systems to spread out the strain on all systems, as that would be a lot going on in 1 system. As otherwise it sounds more like a starcraft 2 4v4 ffa game at that point and that sounds crazy.
I feel I might be out of touch with the TA or SupCom that many here might be thinking of, as I never played against actual players and only did 1v1 vs AI. If PA is going to be a more pvp-esque(not sure if I spelled that correctly) diablo3 have to connect to play at all, I might not ever play then. It might be similar to LoL where I can only play against the AI in the 'training' to have any fun. I am not a pvp kind of guy, as I don't find that interesting in almost all situations. That would suck as I think I would love this game, but I feel I am going to have to step away from posting anymore as I am not capable of viewing or contributing to the discussion if the game is like that. I do apologize for apparent melodrama.

This might sound a little "Hey look at my amazing thread!11!1", but...

I posted an idea about how this might be dealt with.

I really think that lots of people are imagining this in the wrong way, so I want to illustrate with an example most RTSers are familiar with.

I assume you've all played/won a FFA on Roanoake's Abyss. For those who don't know what it is, Roanoake's Abyss is an island map with 6 main island where the protagonists start and a number of smaller islands scattered between.

When you kicked an opponent off his island and destroyed his base, did you ever feel that the only way to achieve this was to establish a foothold on his island and build factories on his island and build tanks from those factories in order to win a land war based soley on that island? No, of course not, in fact you won by using air/naval/amphibious/transports and you didn't have to build anything on his island in order to take it.

Now pretend that all the islands are planets/moons in PA. This approach will still be open to you in the form of orbital weaponry, unit cannons, interplanetary transports, interplanetary artillery. You won't have to build factories on the enemy planet in order to take it.

Those small scattered islands, well you mainly build mass extractors there and this concept would just require some mass drivers (Being voted for here). Mass drivers have a long and distinguished history in Sci-fi (Including Alastair Reynolds Blue Remembered Earth which I finished recently!)

You presumably never found it 'too much micro' to go through the bother of building mass extractors on islands you had captured on Roanoakes Abyss, so I don't see why it would be such a ballache now. You just need a colonisation unit with the same initial building abilities as your start game commander.

All this system prevents you from doing is putting down factories, or building static defenses on an island (planet) where you've got no resource. I'm sure you could easily win the game with a centralised production model building all of your units from a single planet.

Additionally what this system gives you is not having to put up with the difficult to swallow idea that you can mine mass on Pluto and use it to build tanks on Earth. (For the record, I'm not opposed to teleportation, but it should at least consume lots of energy)

So what you mean by "multiple economies" is "bother to build mass extractors where you can". In that case, I see no problem.

But that isn't what you said in your initial post. Or in the thread title.

I believe what I said was "a form of localised resources where you could draw instantly on resources produced on the local planet/moon, but you could not draw instantly on resources produced on remote bodies. "

That's why Mass drivers would be required to move mass from the planet with Mass extractors on to the planet with factories on.

Anyway, I'm glad I've successfully clarified and you can see no problem now

Well no, because there was no such resource distribution in your example 3 posts up.

Ok, lets suggest that you have a base on 2 different planets, 1 moon and 4 asteroids. One of those planets is your starting base. Are you suggesting that you have 7 different economies to manage? How would you stop that from being horribly confusing? How would you know if your asteroid producing nukes has run out of resource if you were focused on attacking the enemy on one of your planets?

It sounds cool from a design perspective, but frankly I don't see how this would be fun to play. It's a general rule for designers - if it's fun to design it's not fun to play.

The mass drivers move the mined mass from one planet to another. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

In a sense, although really it's a single economy with restrictions on the use of remote resource. Many of the bodies could just be producing mass to send back to your home planet where the units are being built, which is pretty simple, making the home planet mass/energy count the most important.

I'm guessing 1 small panel each to represent your main celestial bodies. There would need to be the possibility for the energy/mass stall style warning per body, I'm not denying that.

Are you completely happy with the mining on Pluto, building on Earth alternative?

yes.

Yes.

Also, I noticed you ignored the last part of my post.

Obviously I'm of the opposite opinion, and I'm trying to use my description of how I think it would work to convince you that it would enhance the experience as a whole.

Lets not forget the lesson of Supreme Commander 2. This is a quote from a Chris Taylor interview before the release of SupCom 2

Elsewhere though, Supreme Commander is getting simpler. In the first game it was as challenging to set up a functioning economy as it was to win a given skirmish. Now, Gas Powered Games have decided to "take the economy management off the table... You'll be able to play this like any other RTS," Chris says...

Yes.