Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation)

May seem like a dumb question but I have not seen it discussed very often. That is how do the mechanics for Extractors work? Are we looking at similar to TA and Supcom where Deposits of Metal/Mass will be randomly generated through the map with some sort of user input to tell the system if the planet is to be rich or poor in its number of deposits? Or are we going to see something different?

The Conceptualisation video showed several extractors all lined up pumping up what ill assume as metal. Which got me thinking will be able to plant extractors anywhere and slowly over time have their output decreased as the worlds resources are used up?

Essentially I was just wondering if Uber planned to do the old tried and test route or try out something different that could be pretty cool.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

No details yet.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

The general expectation is that there will be specific metal deposits spread out over the planet (or asteroid) surface, like TA or SupCom. Discrete points present their own challenge (you need to be spread out over the map to control them), and there are situations where you might want to mitigate that for other reasons (e.g. very small asteroids, metal planets).

However as nanolathe points out, nothing is confirmed. We'll find out when Uber tell us what they've done

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

I would think that the places are randomly generated, but also that there is a bit of a higher consentration at your starting zone. I mean we always have this in theese kinds of games, right? 2-3 extractors, just to build your base around

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

I would have thought that the deposits were permanent, rather than expendable.

That is, until you smash an asteroid into the planet.

So semi-permanent.

Not sure whether there will be deposits on the asteroids themselves, or whether they would be limited to being on planets only? That has several advantages and disadvantages I can think of.

And what about gas giants?

Dammit brain. Shut up.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

Honestly, this seems to have more to do with resources allocation rather extractors themselves.

but as for the style I'd prefer to see, I'd like to see the SupCom style again, it's very user friendly., it's practically fool proof, want to build an extractor? You can EXACTLY HERE or EXACTLY THERE.

Mike

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

But then the AI only builds on the spots, and not be as stupid, or stupid in other ways. (AIs did that a lot in TA)

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

Personally I'm hoping that metal can only be found in certain spots, like TA. It changes the dynamic of the game so much when you can only get a certain resource from certain areas.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

This i think raises an interesting point. It is known that asteroid impacts are the main source of some of the heavy metals and rarer metals known to man from Impacts long ago. Whilst Asteroids are KEWs would/should a portion of their resource deposits be transferred and placed around the crater if it doesn't cause lava to rise to the surface.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

I think it removes someof the 'impact' a KEW is supposed to have. The interesting dynamic KEWs have is not just that you're sacrificing the engines you built to make it into a KEW, but also any resources that asteroid has(or had xD) and then to top it off you are potentially also removing an entire planet's worth of resources as well.

Plus the idea of giving an enemy planet more resources is just kinda awkward.

Mike

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

While the resources may be there, they aren't exactly useful as a molten crater or gigantic smoke cloud.

Re: Soo...... Extractors?

I would like for their to be 'clumps' of metal deposits. Like your starting location in SupCom.

This makes these locations more important and provides logical places to invest in new factories or defence turrets. Compared to the old style of dumping all factories in one mega-base where all their defences are.

Lone deposits scattered around the map should also exist as in previous games.

A sort of middle ground between the 'bases' in Starcraft and similar games, and the more distributed resources in other games.

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

I would like to see extractors (or a sub version of extractors) being able to be parked anywhere so you can make the best use of bad terrain. But what i would think would be a nice strategic element would be "rich" mineral/metal deposits scattered randomly about the planet (number set by planet generation could be 2 or 12 across the whole planet) where you might have to put a specialist extractor on that costs a mint but pays big dividends.

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

I don't follow what you mean here, Extractors can only be built on specific Metal spots across the map regardless of 'terrain'.

We've already had an entire thread on this; viewtopic.php?p=521827#p521827

My View is no thanks, it's not needed and needlessly complicates things.

Mike

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

The OP states

So if your enemy has you fox holed in you can make the best use of a bad situation by not having to roll over and die because a shiny mass / metal node isnt where you have been forced to retreat to.

BLEH i dont live on the forum so bleh.

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

The OP also wasn't sure exactly how the system worked for TA/SupCom, that got cleared up.

That's why I maintain resources like the Topic Index and the Confirmed Features List 2.0, so that people who aren't able to or just don't want to keep up with the forum can use those resources to hit all the main points and still be up-to-date.

Mike

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

It sounds a lot like a metal maker. It goes anywhere, it generates metal, but it has some other high cost or risk associated with it.

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

metal makers are great late game is you can protect your generators lol. In respect to KEWs its true that the resources would be useless if the crater is a molten hole in the ground but if its not i don't see why it couldn't become a focal point afterwards.

-Boom- awwweh damn my base is gone! best get my secondary base pumping out units to go capture the area back before my enemy does! sort of thing. I think it would be good to make craters interesting other than looking pretty.

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

I think how SupCom and TA did it would be best. Giving you some positioned around your start point allows you to get a base going quickly, however it should never be enough to maintain you in the long run. Set points forces players to expand if they want to maintain a large production of buildings/units.

Of course Mass/Metal fabricators would be able to overcome this for a player with a large and protected energy production set-up. How players go about it of ourselves depends on their strategy. Turtlers, might prefer fabricators because they can keep all their resources "in house" at a higher energy cost and other strategies of course have a slightly higher "risk" with many extractors that can be attacked.

As for asteroids being able to "spawn" resources around their impact craters? How feasible is this really, when the crater will no doubt make the area so damaged that nothing can be built there anyway. This would just make it a bit pointless, just taunt players with resources they can't get to

Re: Soo...... Extractors? (Discussion on Resource Allocation

In theory a crater would give you easier access to resources (à la strip mine), so I'd be perfectly happy for a crater to be a valid mine location. Especially if the crater contains what used to be valid resource locations until they got all blowed up

IIRC the early versions of Spring had an abstracted method for metal (similar to TA), where terrain had a "metal rich" value and extractors could be built anywhere (it also had a vision overlay which showed the metal value of terrain). Extractors built outside of a metal deposit just had a really tiny production (e.g. 0.1m/s instead of the 1.0+ from a proper deposit). TA would also let you build outside of the metal deposits for a tiny but non-zero income, and I suspect Spring was just following that model.

Personally I prefer the idiot-proofing of the SupCom method (extractors can only be built on deposits), but it is arguable that if you have specific deposits in a game that lets you blow deposits up (craters from KEWs), then you would want something to balance out the fact that you could end up with no usable deposits on a heavily contested landmass.

One option is metal makers (which have their own gameplay issues, as a turtle enabler), the other is to stop resource points from being fully destroyed by KEW impact, meaning you would want to implement some method of being able to mine craters.