There have been multiple threads discussing facets of the economy system, without putting them together. I think the economy discussion should be about the system as a whole, and that should make the gains from having a simple, streamlined system clear. This is one possible proposal, largely modeled on Zero K, and generalized over multiple planets with localized economies. From the top: Resource Creation The player controls metal spots on the map. Each one controlled produces 1 metal per second held. Metal extractors are cheap (20 metal?), and cannot be upgraded. Energy can be created through various sources, some built anywhere, others requiring specific locations. All energy sources also have a fixed output determined by mode of production. Different energy sources may have their effectiveness altered by conditions of a star system or planet, but will be uniform within a specific planet. Energy source effectiveness should use integer values, and be readily accessible to the player. Such as "Solar: 3; Wind; 2; Thermal: 1;..." to indicate that on this planet, each solar generator produces 3 energy per second, each wind farm produces 2 energy per second, etc. Production Everything in the game costs a fixed amount of metal to construct, and its energy and build time requirements always match its metal cost. All sources of build power have a fixed rate of production, and always consume the same amount of resources when constructing, regardless of what they are constructing. If a factory always spends 4 metal per second during construction, then you must have 4 running metal extractors and 4 energy per second (from any source) to build out of that factory indefinitely. Adding an engineer that builds at 2 metal per second will require 2 additional mexes and 2 additional energy per second, and will cause the factory to construct 50% faster, regardless of what it is building. Mobile constructors come in various types, including walker, vehicle, aircraft, etc. All mobile constructors are inefficient sources of build power for cost (especially compared to factories), but have the advantages of being able to move, and be reassigned to any type of construction project. Overdrive Metal income per metal extractor can be increased by overdriving mexes. All excess energy on that planet is distributed evenly between all extractors on that planet, increasing their metal output. Note that electing not to build large quantities of excess energy means each mex will still produce its base value of 1 metal per second. Individual extractors have diminishing returns as more energy is applied to them. Consequently, when at high levels of overdrive, adding an additional mex will increase your metal income by considerably more than adding more energy, as it will result in increased overdrive efficiency for every extractor you own on the planet. Overdrive is calculated by comparing the planet's base metal income (1 per mex) to that planet's total excess energy. As the amount of excess energy increases, the player receives additional metal income from overdrive. However, as the amount of energy increases even more, the amount of energy required to realize the same metal gain increases exponentially. The actual amount per mex is not that important, but can be derived by dividing the amount gained through overdrive by the number of mexes. This is the planet's overdrive multiplier. Each planet will have a global overdrive multiplier, representing the actual effective amount produced by each mex. This multiplier increases by building more energy (diminishing returns) and drops by capping more mexes, although your metal income still increases by doing so (accelerating returns, plus base mex income). Why Overdrive? Overdrive opens up the possibility of building expensive economy structures, while maintaining the importance of territory control. The most efficient way to acquire more metal is to control more territory, and thus more mexes. However, it is also possible to control less territory and construct economy to increase their output, with large upfront cost, and vulnerability of expensive economy assets like fusions or large energy farms. Additionally, as a player builds more energy structures, their potential gains from capping mexes actually increase dramatically, by spreading their overdrive over more mexes. Flat mass fabrication, by contrast, obviates the need for mexes as it becomes an increasingly large and independent economy. Overdrive also creates a natural increase in the value of mexes, which scales directly to the economy of a player. Between two well-developed players with territory and economy, the relative value of each mex naturally increases with their level of development, without the need for discrete upgrades. Furthermore, as one player gets ahead by building even more energy, their economy becomes less efficient unless they also cap more mexes.
How does energy storage factor into this? It seems that your system automatically converts all excess energy into metal at an increasingly poor exchange rate, so it would be impossible to fill energy storage. Having no lag time between running an energy deficit and losing shields/radar/stealth isn't a good idea, and it means weapons can't consume significant amounts of energy. Mexes requiring a small token baseline power input is also a thing which should stay. It meant that crashing your energy hurt even if you weren't running any energy-intensive systems, and removing that means hitting someone's power is less important.
Building storage increases the size of the buffer before you are excessing. If you have a buffer of 1000 energy, then any energy above 1000 is excess, and used for overdrive. If you suddenly acquired 1,000,000 storage, then any surplus energy is used to fill the storage until it is full. Then, you are excessing again, and it goes to overdrive. Excess energy is energy above your maximum storage, that in TA would just be wasted, deleted from existence. I am not actually sure that having mexes use a baseline amount of energy is worthwhile. It does mean stalling energy costs you metal, but is that really so interesting? It's a neat feature, but it would be much simpler to just have mexes produce their base metal for free, with energy being used to increase it.
I would go with an economy more like in TA. Resources are not streamlined but highly variable with the wishes of the planet and planetary system's creator(s). Production varies with what is being produced. Some of the other threads on economy: "Another Economic Thought: matching mass and build times." viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35752 "Metal, Energy, and Build Time" viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35873 "Rethinking the Resources - Energy" viewtopic.php?f=61&t=36285 "No more: 100 engineers around a factory" viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35489 Resource Creation: The player controls metal spots on the map. Each spot produces whatever the map maker (planet designer) wants it to (for most maps I would recommend a ratio of 1:4 of lowest production to highest). Metal extractors are cheap, and can be upgraded (though the upgrades are not cheap). Metal spots indicate the level of metal they will produce. A planet may have overall uniform metal deposits or it could have a wide variety of them. There are also energy resource spots on the map such as hydrocarbon deposits, active geothermal spots, or whatever. These vary like metal deposits (unlike in TA). Some planets may also have resources everywhere, such as the He3 in the atmosphere of a gas giant, the metal on the surface of a metal planet. These vary from planet to planet, and are set by the planet creator. Some planets may have variable resources such as wind power and solar power. Wind is not steady, varying erratically with time. Solar power only works during the day. Max, min and average energy for wind for a planet is indicated to the player. The factors for solar are indicated as well. There should also be power options that can be built anywhere and provide steady power. Call it whatever you want. It TA it was solar and fusion. Metal Makers may exist. If they do, they convert energy to metal at a fixed rate. Production Each unit has a fixed cost. Its build time, energy cost, and metal cost may vary from each other (like in TA, SupCom, and FA). Each unit capable of building has a fixed build power, though it can vary from unit to unit (i.e. aircraft build things more slowly). The cost of operating a factory or engineer/construction unit vary with what they are building. Build Power of multiple assisting units is added together (2 Construction K-Bots build something twice as fast as 1. 100 build something 100 times as fast). Engineers/Construction Units come in multiple types for different such as aircraft, naval, and vehicle. Build Power per cost varies with type. In general: Factories build things the fastest, next come Engineering Towers (if they exist), then naval, then land, and aircraft the build things the slowest. Overdrive There is no overdriving metal extractors. Excess energy is waisted.
Don't really want to see overdrive. Don't really see the need to match build time to mass cost. Don't really see the need for yet another thread on the same topic.
