Should the game have resource limit?

Just to clarify, you want a storage limit on the storage limit?

has anyone explained yet what the benefits to the gameplay are with storage? coz in supcom at least, i didnt see any.

Realism...... yeah that's about it.

Sorry bro, the streaming resource system was pretty neat. And the only way it works is if you don't get in the habit of saving up $10,000 to buy a $10,000 experimental... looking at you Supreme Commander 2.

Although I wouldn't mind some tech 2 mass and energy storage buildings.

Storage is a buffer between changes in your economy and changes in your production. If it's zero then any mistake crashes your economy, and if it's infinite, attacking someone's power does nothing. So it should be a number between those two.

Exactly this. I see no reason to change the system as it is in TA and its existing successors.

Also regarding energy storage, the current version of Forged Alliance requires you to build energy storage before you can overcharge. This is an interesting mechanic and to my knowledge universally considered to be a good thing.

storage isn't a buffer for anything (i am referring to supcom here).

1-it is simply more efficient to spend everything you're earning. "saving" mass for instance was a pointless exercise, and would lead you to lose against an opponent who was building units/investing in a stronger economy.

2-there's no reason to build energy storage in 99% of situations. another power generator was as good as a storage facility, because running +100 power was just as good as having thousands in the bank. killing power generators in this situation likewise achieved nothing, because taking an opponent from +100 to, say, +50 had no impact.

unless you were doing something truly exotic (brainsteel's awesome UEF ACU shield upgrade on theta comes to mind!) storage just wasn't as good as building more pgens.

yeah, it requires you to build a single energy storage for OC in early game. but ultimately not that important over the course of an entire match. i agree its a good idea for the early game, but is it really THAT important in the scheme of things? i mean, you have an entire unit that you only ever build 1 of each match?

That's just a matter of relative cost (and space/durability), and not anything inherent to the concept of storage. Storage in SC was more expensive and volatile than T1 PGens, so it was never a good choice. That one storage building only provided storage for its mass in PGens' output for one minute didn't help either.

nah i would say its inherent to the storage mechanic generally in the streaming economic model (as far as power goes). building more pgens practically acts as storage, because the +energy value allows you to build as if you had that energy in storage.

though i guess if you capped the +energy amount then storage could become useful?

The other thing is that T1 pgens are small (so you rarely lose a large amount of power in one go) and there aren't many things which can cause huge swings in power demand, because T3 artillery didn't enter into most games. If powering a artillery were ever actually a concern (8000 every 10 seconds for T3, 2000 every 20 for T2), storage suddenly becomes a lot more attractive than running at +4000 energy in the mid game. But artillery kind-of lost out to TMLs if people built it at all. No BLoDs in SC didn't help either.

I actually find that having a bunch of energy storage in reserve can be quite useful. I'm forever having too much or too little energy, for instance ending up on +300 or so after a big build or whatever, so having space to store a little more can be a handy thing to have

For instance, if you build about 4/5 energy storages, you have enough to upgrade your commander to T2 engineering without having to pause anything or build more power, assuming your power reserves were full before you start and your economy is even.

Bearing in mind that i'm by no means a top-level player here, it's just nice to have the option to increase your storage capacity, although I agree that in high level play it's only really used for mass adjacency or overcharge enabling.

Perhaps a more cost-effective storage building would make it a more viable strategy?

By resource limit I am taking it as storage facilities. In a flow rate economy good storage (not too much and not too little) can provide a proper balance to your economy in emergencies.

If you mean resource limit as in, Mass points have a given amount of mass and although you draw the mass at a given rate, at some point its gone? Please no.

if it is the second thing you said that would just be evil. as having a finite amount of resources in a solar system will be a problem towards the end game.

I voted no personally (If you mean limited storage space for resources and not limited overall resources)

But really if your not spending all of your income, your generally not doing it right.

Not doing it right?

Either that, or you could just have some less steady load on your economy, like artillery. You can't run them without energy storages. If they consume 2.000 energy per shot and require that energy within 2 seconds, then you would need to have a permanent overproduction of 1.000 energy per second. But if you know, that they only fire every 10 seconds, then you need an overproduction of only 200 energy per second and sufficient energy storages.

Storages allow you to deal with such situations, they release you from the pressure to have a perfectly balanced economy at every point in time. They buy you more time to react before your resources get wasted.

And they allow you to react faster. If your storages are close to full, you can quickly start additional constructions without having to pause your regular jobs first as your economy will be able to take the hit.

The same can be said for an economy without limit, as all unspent resources would be banked away and would be ready for spending.

But generally you shouldn't have excess resources in a RTS, unless your specifically saving for something all resources should be spent on building new units to win the battle, otherwise its like you never had them in the first place.

Updates on my opinion:

I think a purely flow-based economy could be interesting (not a poll option, just repeating an earlier comment). It won't really work due to the instantaneous costs of some units, like artillery and dgun.

Infinite storage seems a little ridiculous. It would be possible to stockpile several trillion Energy/Metal if you wanted to, which seems a little bizarre. Where does it go?

A resource cap sits between the two. It means you actually store your resources somewhere and can use one-time costs, but also means you must focus on using your resources optimally, which is a good mechanic to have in competitive matches.

There can always just be an option to remove resource limits for those people that just want to stockpile things.

Those units / systems could have individual capacitors to store what they need locally, and recharge that from the overall flow.

Ah, so one hurdle down. Still have the issue with:
- Storing resources in preparation for a costly build (temporary negative income without dropping below 0 total)
- Emergencies (eg: enemy/asteroid/nuke hits your economy section)

The only difference between flow and storage is that the latter provides a buffer. I don't really see a reason to remove that.

I like your idea for individual capacities. Watching the energy bar fling up and down was a little ridiculous. Units could just drain resources to store charge, then release when ready. Avoids the jumping values. Also lets you fire weapons without having the total charge required at any one time.

It was also a great way to know what was happening. Artillery gave singular big jumps to show that they were active, while a bunch of little hops was a sign that base defenses were active.