Energy III and enhanced resources are making life too easy

[x4000]

what about a mechanic that pressures the player into quickly capturing a planet.  For example, "AI 1 is building a SUPERMEGASHIP ON PLANET XXX, CAPTURE IT WITHIN XXX TIME TO STOP CONSTRUCTION"

basically, this forces the player to expand.  IT doesnt need to be done with a supermega ship, you could also do something like" AI 1 is readying a massive raid on planet XXX, destroy the orbital command station to stop the raid".

Basically something that forces a player to attack a specific target.  Main concern is ensurnig the logic is such that it will never cause a player to have to go more than 1-2 jumps away from a planet they currently control.


This also has a side benefit of forcing a player to use the majority of his fleet on the attack, which could help reduce some of the resources you have siting around.

It's funny, something very much like this is planned for the first expansion.   I think that will be something that will really help to add some variety and interest to the game, but I think that's going to require enough testing (and will be so game-changing in many respects) that it needs to be part of an expansion.  Glad to see someone else thinking along the same lines, though!

[Admiral]

I want a SUPERMEGASHIP! In 1.014AA (because I know work on U, V, W, X, Y and Z are already in progress).

[Echo35]

what about a mechanic that pressures the player into quickly capturing a planet.  For example, "AI 1 is building a SUPERMEGASHIP ON PLANET XXX, CAPTURE IT WITHIN XXX TIME TO STOP CONSTRUCTION"

basically, this forces the player to expand.  IT doesnt need to be done with a supermega ship, you could also do something like" AI 1 is readying a massive raid on planet XXX, destroy the orbital command station to stop the raid".

Basically something that forces a player to attack a specific target.  Main concern is ensurnig the logic is such that it will never cause a player to have to go more than 1-2 jumps away from a planet they currently control.


This also has a side benefit of forcing a player to use the majority of his fleet on the attack, which could help reduce some of the resources you have siting around.

Thats no moon.

[maritime]

Keep the economy the way it is (no expiration on mines / crystal), but link maximum ship cap to planets owned... right now the problem is that if you can shut down the enemy raids you can basically turtle on your homeworld until you have 1000+ ships and then go crush any other planet without losing too many ships because your fleet is so ridiculous. Once you can take over one planet you can basically take over any planet, as the ones beyond the frontier are less well defended and the cpu cannot reinforce fast enough to stop you. I think with only a handful of star systems you shouldn't be able to have enough ships in service to take down a tech 4 planet. Each planet you take over lets you build X more ships for example. Also with this strat, if you took over enough low tech star systems maybe the AI would not be able to support all of his tech 4 planets and some would be downgraded to 3... another way to win if you cant get through those tech 4 defenses.

It should be an epic battle to take out a tech 2 planet when you are tech 1, then an epic battle for your first tech 3 planet, then you can finally think about taking out that tech 4. Maybe the more advanced a planet is that you take over the more number advanced ships you can build.

OR have some kind of maintenance cost in crystal / metal per ship so you pay for maintaining a big fleet. This will force you to expand if you want a large number of ships. You could make the option of having "defensive" fleets that are built in a system but cannot warp out of it that would not cost anything to maintain but would count against the ship cap.

OR force the player to take over a system / planet in order to gain the research from it...

I am also for having research be able to increase the ship cap on ships beyond unlocking them.... Instead of starting with 350 mark 2 cruisers for 3000 knowledge or whatever it is maybe it should cost 500 for 30 of them... then 500 more for 60 total, then 500 more for 90 total...  this would give players a little more flexibility at the start as well... and the numbers could increase to beyond what is currently available. if I want a fleet of 1000 mark 3 cruisers with 20 of every other ship I should be able to do it ;-)

[x4000]

OR have some kind of maintenance cost in crystal / metal per ship so you pay for maintaining a big fleet. This will force you to expand if you want a large number of ships.

This is basically the end solution that was arrived at in prereleases U and V, only instead of tying it to individual ships (complicated, CPU-costly), it's tied to the energy reactors themselves.  But yes, I think this will really help to make for a more balanced, reasonable flow upwards.

OR force the player to take over a system / planet in order to gain the research from it...

This is a very intriguiing idea.  I very much like knowledge raids, but I could make it so that you can only get 50% of the knowledge off of planets that the AI controls.  What does everybody else think about that?  I think that could be really effective without completely ruining knowledge raids.

I am also for having research be able to increase the ship cap on ships beyond unlocking them.... Instead of starting with 350 mark 2 cruisers for 3000 knowledge or whatever it is maybe it should cost 500 for 30 of them... then 500 more for 60 total, then 500 more for 90 total...  this would give players a little more flexibility at the start as well... and the numbers could increase to beyond what is currently available. if I want a fleet of 1000 mark 3 cruisers with 20 of every other ship I should be able to do it ;-)

The ship caps are the way they are in order to prevent players from just spamming their favorite unit, which is what happens in most RTS games.  That's actually been praised by a number of reviewers for being an innovative thing that really increases the strategic options -- having to use your older ships as well as your bigger and better ones is really unique and adds a lot (like having pawns in Chess in addition to the other pieces, rather than just starting with pawns and eventually having an army of queens, which would be strategically moribund).

But, all that said, some logistics hubs or similar are planned for an expansion to allow players to turn knowledge into increased ship caps for their favorite ships.  That's definitely something for an expansion, because it will require testing and balancing (and it's a pretty huge gameplay addition in general), but I think there's still a fair bit of support for something like this.  It's just going to be an augment, though, not something that is intended to just let you roam the galaxy with massive cruiser fleets that are impervious to all else.

[darke]

OR force the player to take over a system / planet in order to gain the research from it...

This is a very intriguiing idea.  I very much like knowledge raids, but I could make it so that you can only get 50% of the knowledge off of planets that the AI controls.  What does everybody else think about that?  I think that could be really effective without completely ruining knowledge raids.

Probably not the most intuitive solution since you'd then have to worry about trying to make the two numbers obvious as to why your research guys are not researching despite the fact there's still research remaining on the world. And since there's already a mechanism for "gain stuff on world takeover" you probably just want to reuse that rather then hooking in yet another mechanism.

Maybe toss a "mini research station" or something on the worlds (near the gate/AI command station) that give you 250/500 research on take over of the world? There was already something like this discussed in a previous thread related to "researching" from the data centers rather then taking them out.

You'd have to make them immune to various things like the advanced research station/factory are (like the AI nuking everything on the planet when it dies) and so on though.

[liq3]

OR force the player to take over a system / planet in order to gain the research from it...

This is a very intriguiing idea.  I very much like knowledge raids, but I could make it so that you can only get 50% of the knowledge off of planets that the AI controls.  What does everybody else think about that?  I think that could be really effective without completely ruining knowledge raids.

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

You already need to knowledge raid like EVERY planet (about 75) if you want to research everything (about 164,000 knowledge). Don't make it any harder! D:.

Although, if you increase the amount for planets we actually own, I could live with it. Making it 2500 or 3000 for owned planets would be plenty.

[Haagenti]

I don't think that it is intended that you research everything.

You need to make choices: Spires and Zinth, those shiny mega-resourcing Orbitals *or* maybe the III Forcefields. Being able to easily get all the toys makes the game too easy.

[x4000]

OR force the player to take over a system / planet in order to gain the research from it...

This is a very intriguiing idea.  I very much like knowledge raids, but I could make it so that you can only get 50% of the knowledge off of planets that the AI controls.  What does everybody else think about that?  I think that could be really effective without completely ruining knowledge raids.

Probably not the most intuitive solution since you'd then have to worry about trying to make the two numbers obvious as to why your research guys are not researching despite the fact there's still research remaining on the world. And since there's already a mechanism for "gain stuff on world takeover" you probably just want to reuse that rather then hooking in yet another mechanism.

Maybe toss a "mini research station" or something on the worlds (near the gate/AI command station) that give you 250/500 research on take over of the world? There was already something like this discussed in a previous thread related to "researching" from the data centers rather then taking them out.

You'd have to make them immune to various things like the advanced research station/factory are (like the AI nuking everything on the planet when it dies) and so on though.

I think that this is a really smart analysis and the way to go.  Mini research stores that can only be captured through taking the planets -- it's that whole carrot versus the stick thing.  Don't know why I was thinking the stick, the carrot you've suggested is so much better.

[x4000]

I don't think that it is intended that you research everything.

You need to make choices: Spires and Zinth, those shiny mega-resourcing Orbitals *or* maybe the III Forcefields. Being able to easily get all the toys makes the game too easy.

This is very much correct -- it's supposed to be "build your own civ" rather than "build everything."  Yes in a big game you could currently get close to everything with the new, lowered, knowledge costs, but it's not expected that you would do knowledge raids everywhere.  And I'm also always adding more stuff that costs knowledge, so over time it will creep back up to the point where you can get only a smaller percentage per game, just because there is more stuff there.  It's intended to be like having a civ in a game like AoE or Starcraft or whatever, except that you get to mix and match yourself and choose what you want.  Or think of it like the abilities and other character customization stuff in games like Fallout 3 or Neverwinter Nights.  Again, where you can't get everything.  It's not like the tech tree in Civ, basically.

[Haagenti]

I think that this is a really smart analysis and the way to go.  Mini research stores that can only be captured through taking the planets -- it's that whole carrot versus the stick thing.  Don't know why I was thinking the stick, the carrot you've suggested is so much better.

Easier implementation "The wreckage of enemy orbitals provides many clues for your researchers to go through" or destroying an orbital will give you the required knowledge.

And if you do this, you also have to nerf the starting knowledge: the small-is-beautiful strategy doesn't need much to roll.

[x4000]

I think that this is a really smart analysis and the way to go.  Mini research stores that can only be captured through taking the planets -- it's that whole carrot versus the stick thing.  Don't know why I was thinking the stick, the carrot you've suggested is so much better.

Easier implementation "The wreckage of enemy orbitals provides many clues for your researchers to go through" or destroying an orbital will give you the required knowledge.

And if you do this, you also have to nerf the starting knowledge: the small-is-beautiful strategy doesn't need much to roll.

That's true.  I suppose I just figured that if it was only on some planets, that would provide an incentive to take them and provide more variety.  Everyone loves capturables, after all.

[Admiral]

Keep the economy the way it is (no expiration on mines / crystal), but link maximum ship cap to planets owned...

INTERESTING.

[x4000]

Keep the economy the way it is (no expiration on mines / crystal), but link maximum ship cap to planets owned...

INTERESTING.

Only problem is, then players who are in a "last stand" type situation are just SOL.  Right now the energy model is a bit more flexible in that you can have fewer planets if you really want/have to, but you'll be doing so at a resource penalty.  With a more rigid model, there are fewer options for differing playstyles.

[Admiral]

Oh yeah. Silly me, I'm the "I always want a last stand even though I almost never actually need one" guy too.