Arcen Games
General Category => AI War Classic => Topic started by: keith.lamothe on March 31, 2013, 02:09:13 am
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Was working on some of the top items in the mantis voting (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/plugin.php?page=GaugeSupport/issue_ranking) this last week and one of them stuck out at me as something we could do to use a new crystal mechanic. So I'm just tossing this out here to see what you think. If this one goes over like a ton of bricks (like my last something-different-we-could-do-with-crystal idea), that's totally fine with me, we'll just move on ;)
Anyway:
Basically take the "Military Builder" (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1579) idea but go a bit more whole-hog:
1) Add a "Military Builder" unit that's similar to the Mobile Builder (edit: to be clear, this would not cost knowledge to unlock) but:
-- Is pretty durable, possibly even with cloaking.
-- Can function outside supply.
-- Has an additional build-menu tab for a new category of stuff.
2) That new category of stuff the Military Builder could build would include:
-- New versions of most (possibly all) the normal turret types that would be similar to the normal turrets except:
--- Have fairly low caps (say 10% of a normal turret cap), but those caps are per-planet like the miniforts'.
--- Can be built and can function outside supply.
--- Build pretty quickly.
--- Are unlocked along with their normal turret equivalent (so mkI laser turrets would have both the normal and the per-planet variety unlocked from the start, and researching the mkII version would give you the mkII of both, etc)
-- Similiarly done (per-planet-cap, outside-supply) new versions of the normal forcefield generators and possibly a few other things. Maybe even all-up forts, though I'm not so sure about that.
3) As discussed before, since m+c is functionally a single resource at this point (crystal as a distinct thing is not an irrelevant mechanic, but it is definitely a weak mechanic), just combine all previously existing forms of metal and crystal income and expenditure into just metal. But leave the concept of crystal in existence (at this point there'd be nothing in the game at all that would either give you crystal or cost crystal, however).
4) Similar to what I've discussed before, add new "crystal caches" (basically crystal-only distribution nodes that don't cost AIP) and "crystal mines" (take-and-hold ongoing-crystal-producers, either lost forever or lost for X hours if destroyed, kinda depends on what folks are willing to deal with) into the initial map seeding. Unlike my previous proposal I think it'd be better to not have any crystal income via the home command station (or any other command station) since we wouldn't be making crystal a requirement for any unit you can build in the current version.
5) Make all those new per-planet-cap + works-outside-supply toys cost crystal instead of metal. Probably also make them relatively energy-expensive to keep you from filling their caps on every single planet.
In short: this wouldn't take away anything you can do now, but it would give you some new toys to play with if you're willing to play this proposed "new crystal game" to pay for them. It even gives you a bit more cap you can throw onto your chokepoints, but it gives a much higher buff to other forms of defense. Which is good, because you'd need it to defend those mines if you weren't going to just get by on what the caches give.
The new crystal resource could also be used for some special expansion stuff or whatever later if it made sense.
So, thoughts? Feel free to just feed this idea into the chipper shredder if you like, but I figured it could be pretty cool :)
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I can see some areas where I would use "outside-of-supply" turrets and stuff. Namely helping a hack of any sort.
On #5, I could see 150-200% E costs compared to the normal version and I would be leery of giving me even MOAR fortresses ;)
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and I would be leery of giving me even MOAR fortresses ;)
Yes. I know. Believe me. I know.
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and I would be leery of giving me even MOAR fortresses ;)
Yes. I know. Believe me. I know.
Lol.
I'd like to test it out for sure :) If crystal is fairly renewable, making beachheads in depth would be an interesting tactic for attritioning Exo waves.
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I'd like to test it out for sure :) If crystal is fairly renewable, making beachheads in depth would be an interesting tactic for attritioning Exo waves.
The idea would be for it to be renewable in that it's not like Knowledge where you have a strictly limited amount, but it wouldn't be nearly as easily/certainly renewable like Metal. Trying for a bit of a middle ground there. The advantage over making it easy-to-get is that then the toys it gives can thus have more utility (and going more for utility than sheer power would be more interesting, I think, though some of the idea here is just getting some stationary firepower where you need it).
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Probably also make them relatively energy-expensive to keep you from filling their caps on every single planet.
I would say make them energy-free. They should be restricted by crystal, and if you win the crystal game, you should be rewarded.
Also add some mobile component, like an extra .2 cap of fleetships, also costing crystal. This to avoid the no-offense no-value syndrome that inspired the neinzul drones.
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Probably also make them relatively energy-expensive to keep you from filling their caps on every single planet.
I would say make them energy-free. They should be restricted by crystal, and if you win the crystal game, you should be rewarded.
The crystal costs would have to be pretty stiff, but potentially, yea.
Also add some mobile component, like an extra .2 cap of fleetships, also costing crystal. This to avoid the no-offense no-value syndrome that inspired the neinzul drones.
Well, that's part of the point of this: they aren't no-offense. You could drop forcefields and turrets right in the middle of an assault on an AI planet, without pulling from your defenses.
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Probably also make them relatively energy-expensive to keep you from filling their caps on every single planet.
I would say make them energy-free. They should be restricted by crystal, and if you win the crystal game, you should be rewarded.
The crystal costs would have to be pretty stiff, but potentially, yea.
And then, durable. If it feels like golems or even spirecraft (to an extent that they are limited in number of asteroids) then I know I would be less willing to use them offensively.
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I was reading on the crystal idea and so far I am liking it.
I was thinking it would be boring to add "another exo-wave" to add more pressure when the player is trying to bite more than he can chew. So instead perhaps have a new minor faction or use one of the current existing faction (Golem miner/Neinzul Preservation Warden comes to mind here) put pressure on the player to temporarily stop mining crystal or risk an escalation of hostiles. Kind of similar to how AI hacking works like now except spawn minor faction in an increase bigger waves the longer you try to mine crystal.
What you guy think? You might risk losing all your investment into crystal and your normal chokehold if you try to mine too much. But it force you to stop mine proportal to how long you have been mining. So if you mined for 15 min then you have to wait 30 min then you mine again after 30 cooldown mins for one hour and you risk restart the spawn at the previous strength at one hour if you don't wait 2 hours.
I would like some feedback. What do you like? What do you don't like?
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I like the idea very much :)
Small note - make sure that some of crystal sources are not permanently removable.
I know that permanent loss gives thrill to some of players but with exos all around the place you can't guarantee that mine X will survive and you will lose possibility to use the new toys.
And that would be a bit.. nasty - some drawbacks (need to go and hunt crystal mines and defend them or they go dormant for 1-2 hours or you need command center on planet - maybe special one even) are ok - but losing ability to use new stuff would be in frustrating area and would detract from fun.
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I like what I'm hearing so far. Also, I like the going dormant for a couple of hours or so if 'destroyed'. It's like you have to clear all the rubble and debris out of your mine from the attack to get at the crystals again. And it would definitely give a distinct feel because it would be the only thing that is lose-able but you get it back after a while.
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I like this sort of idea as well, the whole 'mine is temporarily lost while we clean up the ruins of the last excavation' thing.
Also, obvious question: Metal costs for things in general is going to go up, right?
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Metal cost would be equal to current metal+crystal and all current deposits would be metal.
It should balance out to more or less same like it's now economically.
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Also, obvious question: Metal costs for things in general is going to go up, right?
In effect, yes, but in practice I'm going to need to divide all the "new metal" income and expenditure by 2 so that it all still fits in 6 digits :)
But yes, to answer the heart of the question: the current balance of how much currently-available things cost will not be affected.
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Alright, my thoughts after 5 seconds, expect more details or a different opinion from me later.
1) Overall I like the idea.
2) Should not have any Sniper type stuff available to it, otherwise this military builder could clear AI systems all on it's own.
3) To balance things, 'crystal veins' should have a finite amount of crystal when not controlled by the AI and then once the system is captured, you can build a 'crystal mine' that gets you the infinite crystal, probably at a slowish rate. To get the 'loss means something' effect, you can only build a crystal mine once, if the AI destroys it, it becomes a 'destroyed crystal mine' that still give infinite income, but only 10% of the income an intact crystal mine gives you.
4) Should these get the "Can not be repaired" flag? Even at only 10% caps you could make a beachhead that nothing except a high-mark AI planet with lots of ships on it could crack. If they are not repairable then that turns this from permanent outpost that you can just forget about into a short-term tactical thing that you build for a specific purpose?
That's all for now.
D.
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Like.
This is a much better approach. A new game within a game.
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These crystal mines shouldn't be as hard to defend as fabricators etc. Most of the time Fabricators are in places where they're half impossible to defend vs CPAs and Exos (again in a real map (simple, realistic)). Half impossible because I'd have to place about 30% of my defenses on that planet keep it safe. If the fabricator gets destroyed at any point in the game capturing that planet has become a waste of time and all the resources used to keeping that planet safe have gone down the drain. Thus losing the fabricator is not an option.
In short: crystal mines should not be as rare and PITA to defend as Fabricators.
And yes I do like this idea.
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Unless I mistook the intention, I'm pretty sure they are going to be fairly common (significantly more so than fabs since they are giving us planet caps of a few special turrets.)
Hey Keith, are they going to have the 'away from everything else on planet' mechanic that the fabs and factories, etc have?
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Generally cool.
An idea to appeal to both the "nothing is lost forever" and "nothing stays forever" crowd.
1) Crystal mines can be destroyed, but are tough. They should be able to benefit from exo-shields as well.
2) If destroyed, the crystal mine give 10% of its income.
3) The human command station gets a single crystal mine. It can be destroyed, but it is located right next to the command station and its key structures so its destruction tends to be game over anyway.
Since these units are capped by per planet, you don't have to worry too much about too much massive stockpiling.
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An idea to appeal to both the "nothing is lost forever" and "nothing stays forever" crowd.
We already have this "nothing stays forever" mechanic on certain modifiers, like colony rebellions. If we add *new* mechanics, I find it hard to mount a vigorous opposition, especially if it's optional and not essential to winning. I like to take my time when I play, go wherever I feel like going, and do whatever I feel like doing… that means certain modifiers never get turned on.
And that's okay.
Edit: I thought I should add, this is one of the charming characteristics of AI War. Choose your own adventure, in the style that works for your personality. All of the great forum debates always seem to show up when things are forced rather than toggled. Even implicitly, like the great energy debates we used to have, where energy micromanagement felt forced, especially when resources took so long to get that we were watching movies to pass the time between battles!
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I like this idea. And since it's an optional mechanic (as in, you could win the entire game without ever using the new "resource"), I can't see any reason why it should be an indestructable resource. In other words, you should have to protect it...
The problem is that if you make it an infinite, undestroyable resource as people are asking, all you're really doing is making the player more powerful, without any real downside. That is unless the AI can use these re-captured "crystal extractors" to start fortifying your lost planets or something, which would be absolutely hilarious and something we've all been wanting for a long time.
But even then, unless the AI began fortifying your lost planets to like MKIV Planet specifications, you could just come in and wipe out whatever they had built probably relatively quickly with your main force.
All-in-all I like it and it has a lot of potential, but I don't want to just see more costless power creep in the player's hands. I'd like to see the AI somehow benefit from this as well.
edit: What if we just make this a finite resource like knowledge? You protect the extractor(s) long enough, then it runs out. That way you can only stockpile so much of it up unless you take more planets with it.
Using something like this you could add MEGA-rewards like a special Starship or something if you had saved up a TON of it.
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All-in-all I like it and it has a lot of potential, but I don't want to just see more costless power creep in the player's hands. I'd like to see the AI somehow benefit from this as well.
I definitely agree.
I would suggest something like the FactIV/ASC cost crystal to run, but that runs counter to the "you can ignore it if you want" philosophy we have going for crystal.
I'm thinking something along the lines of AI miners. Think every crystal mine you capture spawns a mining golem (without the nuke problem) for the AI, and it can use its new toy however it wants (threatfleet behaviour).
edit: What if we just make this a finite resource like knowledge? You protect the extractor(s) long enough, then it runs out. That way you can only stockpile so much of it up unless you take more planets with it.
I don't like that solution.
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There could be AI Mining Stations that would spawn an AI Miner (not same as Mining Golem) when destroyed. These stations would be built on crystal asteroids that would be seeded when the map is generated. A Mining Station would look like an asteroid with structures built around it kinda like a Guard Post. When the structures (graphics (not actual buildings)) around the asteroid are destroyed the drill (AI Miner) would be released (spawned).. and it would be pissed off! And shoot drilling beams and lasers! (Zenith Beam Ship thingy beam?)
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Generally cool.
An idea to appeal to both the "nothing is lost forever" and "nothing stays forever" crowd.
1) Crystal mines can be destroyed, but are tough. They should be able to benefit from exo-shields as well.
2) If destroyed, the crystal mine give 10% of its income.
3) The human command station gets a single crystal mine. It can be destroyed, but it is located right next to the command station and its key structures so its destruction tends to be game over anyway.
Since these units are capped by per planet, you don't have to worry too much about too much massive stockpiling.
The issue with 10% of income, is that you will likely end up with cases where the player starts the game, loads up Hulu or Netflicks well they wait the 10x longer it takes to get the crystal, then does stuff. I would much rather see it disabled (or maybe reduced) for a short time (clearing the mines kind of thing) then return at normal rate, then making it for the rest of the game. I already watch a lot of Hulu well I wait for my Spire fleet to rebuild, I don't want to have to watch even more for different reasons.
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Okay, here is my new suggestion for how the new "Crystal" mechanic should work.
Instead of calling it Crystal, the new resource is instead Captured AI Technology called Cynetic. Cynetic is drawn by nodes throughout the galaxy (on specific planets) directly from the AI Hive Mind, so accessing this sacred technology makes the AI VERY angry.
Cynetic is an indestructible, infinite resource, but it harvests very slowly. In addition, the longer you harvest said resource, the more dangerous the AI's response gets on that planet. For that reason, the player has the option of ignoring the resource entirely (and not harvesting it), as to not unnecessarily incite the AI's wrath.
To use this resource, there are special capturable "Cynetic Fabs" and "Cynetic Builders" scattered across the galaxy. The Cynetic Builder is like the one Keith talked about, that gives you a small supply of turrets, shields, and such, and can build things out of supply. The Cynetic Fabs are just like regular Fabs, so they give a random MKV Fleet or Starship, but they use Cynetic Research instead of M+C.
As I mentioned before, the AI's response to this "Cynetic Resource Hacking" operates on a planet by planet basis. The more Cynetic you have harvested from a specific planet, and the higher your AIP, the more severe the response will be.
Here is how the punishment works:
1) The AI is more likely to attack planets which are harvesting Cynetic.
2) When the AI destroys the Orbital Command Station on a planet that has been harvesting Cynetic, it begins to build its own "Stronghold" on that planet, to prevent you from recapturing it and continuing to harvest this secret resource.
3) The Battlements it will build on a neutral planet (that was harvesting Cynetic) are based on how much Cynetic you harvested, and how high your AIP is. If both of those are high, you'll be in for a pretty bad time.
There are different "categories" of the AI Centerpiece Stronghold Structure it builds on an ex-allied planet. These get progressively nastier.
A) "Normal" Stronghold - As the name says, this is nothing too special. It's just the regular Stronghold type that the AI builds one "low-threat" Cynetic-harvested planets.
B) "Rally" Stronghold - Like the Normal Stronghold, but also continual reinforces the planet with new units every few seconds until destroyed. Has the potential of making a massive fleet outside the player's base.
C) "Attrition" Stronghold - Like the name says, attritions every enemy ship on the planet, making it tough to take down.
D) "Cloaked" Stronghold - Cloaks every enemy ship on the planet, meaning you have to somehow destroy it before you can even start firing on every other threat.
E) "Revenge" Stronghold - Begins building a Nuke to use on a nearby player planet unless destroyed in time.
These are just some ideas of the types of Strongholds the AI may build.
In addition to the "Centerpiece" Stronghold building, the AI will also begin to build "Guard Posts" just as if it were a regular planet. These Guard Posts will count as supply, and AI reinforcements can spawn here. Unlike regular AI planets however, Stronghold planets will continue to build Guard Posts until the player comes and wipes it out. "Stronghold" Planets can also spawn Guardians as well.
As I said before, the "pain" inflicted on the player in these scenarios is completely OPTIONAL. If they choose to simply not harvest Cynetic, the AI will not respond with this kind of tactic. However, should the player CHOOSE to use this resource to bolster his forces, he better protect his planets damn well :D
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So, sorta like a much more gradual version of hacking the AI directly?
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Alright, my question is:
How tedious is it going to be to put a local cap of those crystal-turrets on each of my 20 planets?
Because i am going to be doing that every time in every single game.
Here is my suggestion:
Instead of using crystals as a payment method, use them as a cap.
Every cache increases your special turret cap by a small amount, forever. Every crystal mine you control increases it substantially. If you lose a planet and go over the cap, the turrets turn off as if they had no power.
The turrets have power cost, so if you decide to focus heavily on maximising your cap, you cannot turn every planet into a fortress due to the energy limit.
Also, I see people talking about downsides... well if we are giving the player more turrets... how about we nerf the regular turret caps? As result, instead of just a fixed cap, you get a fixed base cap + variable per-planet bonus cap. Some turrets could rely heavily on base cap (basic turret for example), while some coule be mostly variable per-planet cap (like mini-forts)
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I think you misunderstood K. Energy requirement will be 5x time worse. So If a mini-fortress cost 9k energy before then it would cost 45k energy + crystal. Image how hard it would be to power up TWO mini-fortress each solar system. I think you are over-reacting a quite bit.
We already have tons of AI hacking. I don't want to tied hacking respond together with crystal mining respond. We would have the same situation where people would NOT blow up data center because they have to hack something else before blowing it up.
Which is why I suggested either neinzul or mining golem get involved somehow in a hostile way. It make sense for them because the former dislike to see human exploiting the galaxy mineral deposits let alone crystal. The later might not want to see human stealing crystals before the mining golem get to mine it.
@Crystal mine with reduced income- I am not sure that this is a good idea. Because the crystal mine get destroy once (Fabricator in a terrible defending position anyone?) that the player will still not have any motive to defend it more afterward than beforehand.
I like the temporarily disabled the mine until a certain period of time has pass by much more. Why? At least the mine can resume mining at the previous income it had before, you would also recieve less crystal over time because it is not working due to any number of reasons, and you would want to defend it for xyz mins it is active and at the same time defend the location from minor factions. I like this way better due to not just for the nonvolatile crystal income but to prevent a minor faction respond from getting out of control. Dark Spire 50k swarm anyone?
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I think you misunderstood K. Energy requirement will be 5x time worse.
Actually, i just paid more attention to faulty logic's suggestion about making it cost less E and didn't notice everyone else's opposite opinion.
Using energy as a cap against spamming per-cap turrets everywhere is good. But then... what is the puspose of crystal mines again? Limiting the speed at which you construct those?
Why should there be a severe limiter on such thing?
Metal limits your rebuilding speed so the AI has a window of opportunity to attack you. But with a luxury bonus resource that wont work. Why would you limit the turret building speed?
I am going to build as many as i can possibly support with my economy anyway, be it limited by energy or the number of planets i have. And i dont want it to take longer than 10-15 minutes.
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I will do a more detailed cross analysis later. but for now with the current changes of crystal being used for turrets only having the research the limit head either through lose my mind permanently or through being it by finite well resorts and lots of hoarding. since the crystal at self is safe from attack I see no reason why I should I store is much as I can and only use it for my truck point. this front counter to the whole point of having a cap her planet bases. I know it's a broken record but having done babe and destructible will make a choke point even more desirable.
Add to those who are watching Hulu you can already do that with metal how is really different. its not even like offense to watch Hulu to build more defense is when does very defensive die over time.
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I kind of like the Cynetic thing, because it isn't capturing OR hacking. It's something different. If I understood correctly, the AI will respond to you gathering it completely separately from regular forms of hacking, and will respond to you gathering it on a per-planet basis rather than a galaxy-wide basis. Not only that, but it does play with an idea that I really like (more of in theory because I don't know how it works in practice). The idea being, the AI can re-establish a base on a captured planet.
What I really don't like would be the idea of keeping both M+C in addition to that idea. The whole reason for the Crystal change is that crystal as a secondary resource kind of sucks. It's not at all different than metal is. Cynetic isn't hacking for knowledge, it's not sitting still passively for free money. It's right in the middle.
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Actually, i just paid more attention to faulty logic's suggestion about making it cost less E and didn't notice everyone else's opposite opinion.
Using energy as a cap against spamming per-cap turrets everywhere is good. But then... what is the puspose of crystal mines again? Limiting the speed at which you construct those?
Why should there be a severe limiter on such thing?
Metal limits your rebuilding speed so the AI has a window of opportunity to attack you. But with a luxury bonus resource that wont work. Why would you limit the turret building speed?
I am going to build as many as i can possibly support with my economy anyway, be it limited by energy or the number of planets i have. And i dont want it to take longer than 10-15 minutes.
My normal play style is tend to build up to a full fleetship + starships with a single or possible two energy reactors before starting a campaign. So I often over-drive my economy into the ground and wait a long time before even start on fortification. So energy is usually the upper limit for my offensive until I take about two or three solar systems and I start to run into either crystal or metal as the upper limit especially once I start the spire city hub chase.
So having a crystal limit on income for crystal only is an interesting gamble. Should I fortified my backwater solar systems first? Or horde it all up and risk losing way more build time and metal with my blob fleet attrition. Or do I go all the way to energy limit and risking a full brown out? Even if I look at splitting up metal and crystal I am still limited by build power. How much income can I sustain before losing it? How much can I accumulate crystal while sustaining a hefty loss in metal? It is NOT necessary to have knowledge or energy as the limiting factor.
Of course your mileage may vary on how you like to play. Currently I like to have bit of a challenge so I have 3 exo-waves + spire chase/etc... + neinzul hybrid all on with 7/7 AI. I have manage to get to the fourth city quite a few time but never seem to manage to complete one heh.
Huh I just had a scary thought. We all know Fallen Spire starships cost alot of resource especially a single city hub with full infrastructure. It would be painful to lose the 6 reactor + shipyard + habitation and have to rebuild it plus your fleet/starship/fort/turrets etc... Heck a spire dreadnough cost currently 2 million MC resource ignoring modules. Hmm I will have to be more careful with my spire fleet onward with those changes I approve.
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I kind of like the Cynetic thing, because it isn't capturing OR hacking. It's something different. If I understood correctly, the AI will respond to you gathering it completely separately from regular forms of hacking, and will respond to you gathering it on a per-planet basis rather than a galaxy-wide basis. Not only that, but it does play with an idea that I really like (more of in theory because I don't know how it works in practice). The idea being, the AI can re-establish a base on a captured planet.
What I really don't like would be the idea of keeping both M+C in addition to that idea. The whole reason for the Crystal change is that crystal as a secondary resource kind of sucks. It's not at all different than metal is. Cynetic isn't hacking for knowledge, it's not sitting still passively for free money. It's right in the middle.
I think we already have at least 4 way to hack the AI. Spire archive, superterminal, ARS, and knowledge hacking are four I know of. I am not too sure about adding more AI "zombies" spawning as respond to crystal hacking. More to the point why would AI care about you mining or not mining? Well for except for spire asteroid mining as that can be deadly, Penetrator MK 5 anyone? I don't think it is a good idea to make crystal units too powerful on their own like spire mining crafts. Another reason why I am against "AI hacking" style is I don't want crystal mining to influence how I do my other hacking.
I still like my idea of adding another minor faction interaction with the player far better. It still accomplish what you want regard not sitting passively for free money or hacking for crystal.
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Spire Archives aren't hacking.
I dislike the Cynetic thing because it seems unnecessarily complicated.
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The issue with making mine income being lost permanently is that it'll cause hoarding of crystal. So for the case of the OP, even though turrets caps are per planet, you'll want to save them for chokepoints...which kinda defeats the purpose. Doubly so since then the only way to ensure crystal income is to have an impenetrable chokepoint...which again feels to defeat the purpose.
As for waiting for netflix...if crystal is only used for defenses, you are essentially waiting to max your defenses before moving on...in the long term that is silly. Offenses benefit from it sometimes because offenses are infrequent and if successful isn't needed for the current objective, while defense is a constant battle. CPA's will kill you in the super long term, and a super defense doesn't win games. Besides, the current economy already allows this because of Mercs...yet I don't see frequently that mercs slow the game down as you wait for netflix to build a cap of them.
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Spire Archives aren't hacking.
I dislike the Cynetic thing because it seems unnecessarily complicated.
Agreed.
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I believe Spire archieve get treated as hacking because it DOES provoke a respond if not exact same as knowledge hacking. You have to hold it for xzy min to unlock full knowledge otherwise you risk lot of AIP bump. In about few time I actually manage to see them. I often see them together in the same solar system. So usually it is very risky for me to try to hold both in the same solar system so far away from my chokehold with 3 exo-waves. So as a result I just treat them as normal hacking because it is very hard to hold those solar systems in my normal play style.
Chemical_art: Which is why I like mining being forced to shutdown for a timed period which force you to seek an alternative crystal source. Otherwise you risk unleashing a swarm of ship that your chokehold can't handle FROM the inside of your backwater solar systems. Image this you are playing on spoke with 20 controlled solar systems behind a single chokehold. If you hold crystal mine up long enough to spawn 10k ships that the local crystal mine defense can't handle then you risk a full blownout plus facing TWO way wars on top of losing energy and metal mines left and right. You do not want that to happens which is all the more reason why I like my idea of soft forcing crystal mine shutdown before it get out of control.
Grant in my version static crystal mine are nonvolatile source of income as long you hold the solar system intact and don't have a huge threat fleet running freely through your own backyard. So technically you could build TWO chokehold but that would weaken your main AI chokehold. Now do you see why I like my idea better? It force you to sacrifice some defense for a better offensive or vice versa depending on how long and often you plan to keep crystal mine up.
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I believe Spire archieve get treated as hacking because it DOES provoke a respond if not exact same as knowledge hacking. You have to hold it for xzy min to unlock full knowledge otherwise you risk lot of AIP bump. In about few time I actually manage to see them. I often see them together in the same solar system. So usually it is very risky for me to try to hold both in the same solar system so far away from my chokehold with 3 exo-waves. So as a result I just treat them as normal hacking because it is very hard to hold those solar systems in my normal play style.
Still not a hack. Hard to hold doesn't equate a hack.
Chemical_art: Which is why I like mining being forced to shutdown for a timed period which force you to seek an alternative crystal source. Otherwise you risk unleashing a swarm of ship that your chokehold can't handle FROM the inside of your backwater solar systems. Image this you are playing on spoke with 20 controlled solar systems behind a single chokehold. If you hold crystal mine up long enough to spawn 10k ships that the local crystal mine defense can't handle then you risk a full blownout plus facing TWO way wars on top of losing energy and metal mines left and right. You do not want that to happens which is all the more reason why I like my idea of soft forcing crystal mine shutdown before it get out of control.
Grant in my version static crystal mine are nonvolatile source of income as long you hold the solar system intact and don't have a huge threat fleet running freely through your own backyard. So technically you could build TWO chokehold but that would weaken your main AI chokehold. Now do you see why I like my idea better? It force you to sacrifice some defense for a better offensive or vice versa depending on how long and often you plan to keep crystal mine up.
This sounds a lot like hacking to me.
@_K_: I responded to point 5 on Keith's list. 150-200% of the normal energy cost.
I thought the limiters were crystal availability and planetary caps. Energy cost was a deterrent to spam. Also, I thought the main goal was more utility over just more offensive capability. Being able to defend those out of the way places a little better or help set up beachheads (offensive use of defensive assets ;)).
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It would also be interesting if the AI would be able to commandeer the crystal operation when the player loses them and use it for offensive purposes.
Defensive setups would be either overrun by the player's fleet or left alone being inconsequential.
If the AI would be able to, for example, build a special type of guard post or support base on the abandoned crystal mine and then launch attacks from there, this would be interesting.
Neutral factions or hybrids could also use these "opportunities" to bolster their offensive capacity and launch attacks from them.
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This sounds a lot like hacking to me.
@_K_: I responded to point 5 on Keith's list. 150-200% of the normal energy cost.
I thought the limiters were crystal availability and planetary caps. Energy cost was a deterrent to spam. Also, I thought the main goal was more utility over just more offensive capability. Being able to defend those out of the way places a little better or help set up beachheads (offensive use of defensive assets ;)).
It is not hacking if AI is not the responder. How do you hack neinzul preservation? Oh wait that sound so wrong in a bad way.
The mechanics for spawning is same as hacking except FOR ONE critical fact. You can stop hack/mine crystal and reset to zero respond after an extend cool off period. I think it is a good better medium ground I can think of between sitting on a mountain vs flat out hacking.
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On the Cynetic thing, it is interesting but I would rather aim for simpler than that for now. Having the new resource antagonize the AI if you use it is theoretically ok, but there's a few too many "joints" in the proposed "limb"; or at least more than there seems to be any real need for.
Complexity aside, I'm concerned that a direct AI response to your using the resource gets more into the "treadmill" feeling: obviously there has to be a counterbalance to everything, but if it's a "step on the rake, immediately get hit in the face" kind of counterbalance... well, that's not usually much fun. Kind of like how golems were a long time ago where bringing one to an AI planet would cause it to immediately spawn a ton of free ships there to offset your local advantage.
The growing-response-over-time thing would be less immediate, but the player's perception (at least if they know the rules) is that they're immediately incurring a penalty.
All that said, I think I'd be in favor of something where a destroyed crystal mine would reset to usable-by-you after an hour or two, but until it resets it increased AI wave/cpa/exo/etc size by 5% or whatever. But along with this rather than making the mapgen-seeded crystal source a capturable "mine" it would just be a neutral invincible thing that doesn't produce anything on its own but you can build a "crystal mine" within a certain distance of it. The destruction of that mine is what would trigger the temporary AI boost.
Anyway, somewhat more complex than I'd prefer, but perhaps with refinement it'd be worth it and would add a better counterbalance to the new opportunities.
My main concern with my proposal at the beginning of this thread, and some have mentioned it here, is that I don't see how it would avoid being a "capture one crystal source at low AIP, watch netflix until you hit the crystal cap, commence actual playing" situation. Even if there were a step-on-rake counterbalance to harvesting (which would be less than ideal anyway) it would just become a matter of computing the ideal quantity of netflix to apply ;)
That leads me more in the direction of it being a "population" resource like energy where it's not harvested at all and thus can't be hoarded via netflix, or it being an "exhaustible" resource like knowledge where you can harvest it all pretty quickly but then it's gone... but I don't want to go either of those routes, as we already have resources that do those things. Making it energy-like would be tolerable to me, but I'm hoping there's a better way.
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I still think having a minor faction respond in a "hacking" fashion doesn't fall into either "while netflix is downloading" or "more AI treadmill stuff" category.
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This sounds a lot like hacking to me.
It is not hacking if AI is not the responder. How do you hack neinzul preservation? Oh wait that sound so wrong in a bad way.
The mechanics for spawning is same as hacking except FOR ONE critical fact. You can stop hack/mine crystal and reset to zero respond after an extend cool off period. I think it is a good better medium ground I can think of between sitting on a mountain vs flat out hacking.
Still sounds like hacking to me....
Preservation Wardens are a minor faction that needs to be enabled.
Looks like you want to add another minor faction that involves the crystals. That could work, but I don't think I would want a response that resembles the AI hacking response.
@ Keith: I would be cool with a small flat AI bonus strength per mine and the bonus strength when it gets popped. I kinda like the FS shipyard mechanic where the more yards you have the more you can build (type wise not just caps). Something along the lines of moving to unlock a small mobile fleet or a big nasty.
You get the AIP penalty if you want to unlock the shiny stuff.
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@ Keith: I would be cool with a small flat AI bonus strength per mine and the bonus strength when it gets popped. I kinda like the FS shipyard mechanic where the more yards you have the more you can build (type wise not just caps). Something along the lines of moving to unlock a small mobile fleet or a big nasty.
You get the AIP penalty if you want to unlock the shiny stuff.
Bear in mind that taking the planet the crystal source is on already costs AIP.
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@ Keith: I would be cool with a small flat AI bonus strength per mine and the bonus strength when it gets popped. I kinda like the FS shipyard mechanic where the more yards you have the more you can build (type wise not just caps). Something along the lines of moving to unlock a small mobile fleet or a big nasty.
This idea seems best. If you make mines permanently gone or stay, you will have different people who will netflix. The only solution is some sort of cap limitter, whether it be hard via "you can only build X per Y mines" or soft via energy.
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Can we start from original idea with lets say 3 difficulty levels:
1. Easy - no delays after mine loss and AI pretends to don't see it.
2. Medium - AI gets a bit more annoyed after it destroyed the mine for 1 hour and you can't rebuild the mine.
3. Hard - when mine is lost it's gone. For the thrill seekers around here.
And lets see how it will end up. With small enough cap vs units costs you could prevent the extreme hoarding approach... I think. All the rest would be in the cost vs resource availability balance.
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I still think having a minor faction respond in a "hacking" fashion doesn't fall into either "while netflix is downloading" or "more AI treadmill stuff" category.
I agree with this.
Keith, you don't want to make the resource finite like Knowledge, and you don't want it to be infinite either because then people can just AFK without any consequence.
The Cynetic suggestion elegantly solves both of those problems. Oh, feel free to afk and harvest Cynetic. But when you lose that planet you've been harvesting from for 3 hours, expect a helluva fight.
You make it sound like it would be overly complex but it's not. It's not more complex than the current ARS Hacking mechanics. The game would even tell you at the top left what the AI's response would be just like for ARS Hacking attempts:
AI's expected response to more Cynetic Hacking on Planet Murdoch: Low.
AI's expected response to more Cynetic Hacking on Planet Earth: High.
The type of Stronghold build would depend on the amount of Cynetic Hacked from the planet in question, with an AI Progress multiplier. So, for example, each "Tier" of Stronghold would have a threshold of Cynetic hacked. Say it's 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000. When you cross this threshold, you get the nastier Strongholds. AIP simply acts like a multiplier. Reaching 100 AIP means it's a 1.0x multiplier, anything below 100 AIP lowers the multiplier. 150 AIP may be like a 1.25x multiplier etc. These determine your total "Stronghold" score, which determines what type of Stronghold the AI will build, and how quickly they will build Guard Posts on the taken planet.
The problem I have with just a "Increase AI Fleet Size" suggestion is that, well, primarily it's boring. We already have a number of mechanics which already do that. Plus we tried that with Champions, and quite frankly, it didn't work. For some players it was making the game unnecessarily hard, for others, it seemed to make no difference at all. And besides that, it's an "invisible" mechanic. If we're going to make this new "resource" mechanic something powerful, then the player should directly realize the consequence of mining it, because that's more fun.
And when you think about it, if the only thing the new "Crystal" is doing is making your defenses about 10% stronger (with the Military Builder), but also making the AI 10% stronger overall...then haven't you basically accomplished nothing? Those two mechanics just cancel each other out which makes using the entire thing pointless. I would just avoid it altogether.
With the Cynetic mechanic, you have the ABILITY as the player to ONLY benefit from the new resource for the entire game. It is UP TO YOU how powerful it is. But on the flip side, it can also cause you to lose the game if you become too greedy. It isn't just a convergence of factors that cancel each other out, it is under the player's control, and adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game.
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Can we start from original idea with lets say 3 difficulty levels:
1. Easy - no delays after mine loss and AI pretends to don't see it.
2. Medium - AI gets a bit more annoyed after it destroyed the mine for 1 hour and you can't rebuild the mine.
3. Hard - when mine is lost it's gone. For the thrill seekers around here.
And lets see how it will end up. With small enough cap vs units costs you could prevent the extreme hoarding approach... I think. All the rest would be in the cost vs resource availability balance.
As Keith said, nothing preventing the player from just harvesting it for hours on Netflix til he hits the cap, then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.
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@ Keith: I would be cool with a small flat AI bonus strength per mine and the bonus strength when it gets popped. I kinda like the FS shipyard mechanic where the more yards you have the more you can build (type wise not just caps). Something along the lines of moving to unlock a small mobile fleet or a big nasty.
You get the AIP penalty if you want to unlock the shiny stuff.
Bear in mind that taking the planet the crystal source is on already costs AIP.
I mentioned that on the last line :)
The bonus to AI strength doesn't have to be large individually for each mine. One or two could be relatively trivial (not including the AIP which has its own counters). Maybe a 2.5% overall passive (hard cap) and a 2.5% for popping. AIP can be reduced through normal means so one or two planets should be detrimental for the 10/10 crowd :)
@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two. I also think that the utility that we will get with "outside supply" building will be far greater than some minor increase in player firepower. I just think that your suggestion and more minor factions seem like they are more suited to an expansion so there is more time to iterate, and Keith will have time dedicated to it.
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then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.
If these had any penalty on death I don't think I'd allow scrapping them, or at least the penalty would also apply when scrapping.
@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two.
I'm not planning on doing this for the next release, but maybe the one after.
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I still think it might encourage you to take throwaway territory and take over crystal mines and abandon it as soon you run into trouble outside of your chokehold area. If we go with by planet threat level that is.
The very reason why I suggest either mining golem or neinzual preservation is because they already exist in-game. The very reason why I went with "similar" crystal mining hacking respond is the mechanic for it is already in place and in use. I don't know what kind of work that might entitle if we went the minor faction route. So it might be a whole lot more overhead than I thought.
What you think Keith? Up to creating a new minor faction based on existing faction for crystal mining?
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What you think Keith? Up to creating a new minor faction based on existing faction for crystal mining?
If it needs to be that complex I don't think it's a suitable replacement for a core resource. Metal, Energy, Knowledge... even AIP, really. None of these are all that complex. Crystal needs to be fairly simple too.
Also, it wouldn't really be a minor faction because it would have to always be enabled, because the lobby doesn't give you an option on whether to have a crystal section on your resource bar :)
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then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.
If these had any penalty on death I don't think I'd allow scrapping them, or at least the penalty would also apply when scrapping.
You see, this is a problem for me:
If you give any penalty at death, at all, you encourage chokepoints as the most efficent method overall. It's one thing to have it passively be easier to defend the terroritory as a chokepoint, but if a chokepoint prevents the negative consequences of death while non-chokepointed effects do not, then anything involving per-planet caps seems pointless to the greater effect of avoiding the negative effects.
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@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two.
I'm not planning on doing this for the next release, but maybe the one after.
I was thinking of the amount of time you might have to invest overall... presumptuous on my part, I know.
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That leads me more in the direction of it being a "population" resource like energy where it's not harvested at all and thus can't be hoarded via netflix, or it being an "exhaustible" resource like knowledge where you can harvest it all pretty quickly but then it's gone... but I don't want to go either of those routes, as we already have resources that do those things. Making it energy-like would be tolerable to me, but I'm hoping there's a better way.
That is my inclination as well. In my opinion, that handles the "destructibility" argument well (you lose the cap if you lose the building, and you have to rebuild it before you can build back up to the cap), prevents Netflix Syndrome, and provides the necessary carrot for the player (more/special units, up to a point).
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Well, aside from the Cynetic mechanic, the one I'm most sold on is to have it operate like "Energy" in the sense that the more nodes you have, the higher your "energy" is. But if you lose nodes, and fall below the amount of "energy" you are using, all your "Crystal" structures are disabled until you destroy some or rebuild the Crystal nodes.
If this is the way we're going to do things, I think the best punishment is that when you lose "Crystal" nodes, the AI becomes extremely aggressive for a certain period of time. After which you can rebuild the lost Crystal nodes.
I still think it's kind of a pointless mechanic, and I wouldn't personally use it (I can win the game just fine without it, it gives me more vital structures to defend, and "beachheads" on enemy planets aren't useful anymore), but if I had to accept an iteration of it that would be it.
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I'm not super thrilled about getting per-planet turrets through this mechanic honestly. It seems tedious. Dropping 2 Mini-Forts is fast and takes minimal time. Dealing with placement of 6ish lines of turrets is just extra tedium, especially with a special builder we need to move around. I'm ok with the mines acting more like energy.
Previously thoughts along these lines: (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12690.msg139006.html#msg139006)
* Maybe Crystal could be used to active some generically useful ability, like a Starcraft Stim Pack for fleet ships.
* Maybe Crystal Mines could power special units/structures creating a continuous expenditure rather than a one-time up-front cost:
-- Crystal Force Shield: when it takes damage you lose crystal instead. Advantage over a normal shield is crystal can be gained even while it is under attack.
-- Worm Hole Disrupter: While powered up, consumes crystal every second, but nothing can travel through any nearby worm hole in either direction.
-- Warp Space Burrower: Temporarily becomes a one-way worm hole leading to a target system. Costs crystal for each of your ships that travels through it and increases the more hops away it is going. Might require a target unit to warp too, so you can just cheaply shoot scouts everywhere.
-- Crystal Warhead: Stealthed Rams that spend 1 crystal to deal X damage to the target they hit, always spending just enough Crystal to destroy their target if possible.
-- Crystal Turret: A powerful HBC-like turret, possibly with a per-system cap instead of global. However, every shot costs Crystal.
-- Crystal Supply Depo: Generates supply in a system even if supply can't be normally be generated there. Costs crystal/second. Run out of crystal and you lose supply in that system.
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I kind of like active abilities that you spend crystal on myself.
Rejuvinate: Cost x crystal per fleet power of each ship in selection. Any ship that is paralyzed or engine damaged or otherwise negatively affected (armor rot, gravity ripped, etc) will have the negative effects healed. Regular HP damage remains.
Overload: Overload the selected ships, causing the reload speed to be halved for most weapons. After the ability, ships cannot fire for a short time. Similar cost to above. Sustained beams cannot be overloaded, or if they can be, last half the time while causing the same damage.
Snipe: Gives all selected ships sniper range for one shot. Similar cost to above.
Basically, all ships have them, and the ability costs more crystal depending on the overall power of the ship using it... if there's a good number that works to determine that. If you have multiple ships selected, all ships use the ability and the total cost is added up for all of them. If the AI catches these kinds of abilities going on, it may get a boost to reinforcements or waves for the next pass of waves/reinforcements.
I do understand that active abilities are sort of against what the game was about in a way, but the floodgates have been opened a bit with champions and I've done my best to keep micromanagement to a minimum.
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The more I think about it, the more I don't like this proposed change (any of them).
So what if metal and crystal are functionally identical?
I (like most AI War players) am so used to them as they are that there should be a damn good reason for a change, and the "it might be cool if x" suggestions haven't come close to that threshold.
I don't want a mandatory new set of situationally bonus/penalty structures scattered around the galaxy with no option to turn them off.
If we want some resource between materials and k, then we can include a minor faction for it. There is no reason to make this new mechanic correspond with crystal.
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I (like most AI War players) am so used to them as they are that there should be a damn good reason for a change, and the "it might be cool if x" suggestions haven't come close to that threshold.
That is true.
People dont suggest drastic changes because these always cause serious opposition from someone and are shot down as result.
But here is one such suggestion:
So we want it to be a core resource? Fine! How about we make crystal mines increase global caps for every unit. Call it "Processing power" instead of crystals, rename crystal mines to "AI Processor", and rename CoProcessors to something else.
You start the game with 50% caps and can go all the way to 200% caps, probably not linearly though. Personally, I like stuff going exponential.
But, as you see, such change would need a quite massive rebalance, as it makes the player strength increase much more than it does right now. And a complete rebalance isnt an easy thing to do.
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I'm not super thrilled about getting per-planet turrets through this mechanic honestly. It seems tedious. Dropping 2 Mini-Forts is fast and takes minimal time. Dealing with placement of 6ish lines of turrets is just extra tedium, especially with a special builder we need to move around. I'm ok with the mines acting more like energy.
Previously thoughts along these lines: (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12690.msg139006.html#msg139006)
* Maybe Crystal could be used to active some generically useful ability, like a Starcraft Stim Pack for fleet ships.
* Maybe Crystal Mines could power special units/structures creating a continuous expenditure rather than a one-time up-front cost:
-- Crystal Force Shield: when it takes damage you lose crystal instead. Advantage over a normal shield is crystal can be gained even while it is under attack.
-- Worm Hole Disrupter: While powered up, consumes crystal every second, but nothing can travel through any nearby worm hole in either direction.
-- Warp Space Burrower: Temporarily becomes a one-way worm hole leading to a target system. Costs crystal for each of your ships that travels through it and increases the more hops away it is going. Might require a target unit to warp too, so you can just cheaply shoot scouts everywhere.
-- Crystal Warhead: Stealthed Rams that spend 1 crystal to deal X damage to the target they hit, always spending just enough Crystal to destroy their target if possible.
-- Crystal Turret: A powerful HBC-like turret, possibly with a per-system cap instead of global. However, every shot costs Crystal.
-- Crystal Supply Depo: Generates supply in a system even if supply can't be normally be generated there. Costs crystal/second. Run out of crystal and you lose supply in that system.
I really like these ideas. They're much more interesting than "more turrets", at least encompass the current idea while adding much more flavor.
One huge thing I think AI War lacks is the ability to "teleport" between planets, which is extremely useful (and even necessary) in certain situations. A power like this shouldn't be given lightly, but at times it would streamline the game and make it much more enjoyable and practical to the player.
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2. Medium - AI gets a bit more annoyed after it destroyed the mine for 1 hour and you can't rebuild the mine.
3. Hard - when mine is lost it's gone. For the thrill seekers around here.
Both of these would mean not capturing a mine that I can't defend with 100% certainty. Majority of the planets can't be defended because of wormhole positioning. You must defend X wormhole in order to prevent the AI from getting deeper into you "empire" and your home world. Add something like a Fabricator or in this case a Crystal Mine and you got a pain in your ass. Fabricators have a bad habit of being spawned in middle of the hostile wormholes or far from the wormhole you need to defend. Also it's possible to effectively defend about 90 degrees. So the hostile wormholes must be inside this 90 degrees or defending will be very hard. About 100 degrees is max. Depends.
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I don't want a mandatory new set of situationally bonus/penalty structures scattered around the galaxy with no option to turn them off.
This
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I too like Hearteater's suggestions.
One huge thing I think AI War lacks is the ability to "teleport" between planets, which is extremely useful (and even necessary) in certain situations. A power like this shouldn't be given lightly, but at times it would streamline the game and make it much more enjoyable and practical to the player.
0009082: Warp Gate Command Station
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9082
Read the notes/comments too
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I too like Hearteater's suggestions.
One huge thing I think AI War lacks is the ability to "teleport" between planets, which is extremely useful (and even necessary) in certain situations. A power like this shouldn't be given lightly, but at times it would streamline the game and make it much more enjoyable and practical to the player.
0009082: Warp Gate Command Station
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9082
Read the notes/comments too
I made the first comment :D
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One simple option would be to make each Crystal Mine support a single Matter Converter built anywhere in that system. The Matter Converter would no longer cost any resources to operate and the Crystal Mine would not be destroyable. You would not be able to build Matter Converters normally. Effectively it would mark systems with the property of having a ZPG-like structure built.
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The more I think about it, the more I don't like this proposed change (any of them).
That's actually been my feeling as well, but I think there's room for improvement in the game's current design so I'm trying to find it.
So what if metal and crystal are functionally identical?
Having them be separate is a weak mechanic. It means very, very little to the game. If it were a minor mechanic that would be fine, but it's not: it's one of the most prominent (visually) mechanics in the game.
That means there's potential room to replace with a stronger mechanic and thus make the game more fun. Whether or not it would actually succeed at making it more fun depends on what exactly we should do.
But again: just because there is a problem with A, does not make B better. Our current "A" is not awful, and having thought for a while I don't think any of the thus-far-proposed "B"'s are clearly superior. Mostly because they're either too complicated or mess up other existing mechanics or both.
I (like most AI War players) am so used to them as they are that there should be a damn good reason for a change, and the "it might be cool if x" suggestions haven't come close to that threshold.
Of course. If this were just some optional minor faction we were discussing it'd probably already be in (though it wouldn't be based on a resource inflow/outflow because there's no free slots for that in that case). But this is a core resource so we have to be very careful what we do.
That said, if we're ever to find something better for crystal, we have to start somewhere to have a discussion, prune unsatisfactory ideas, refine potentially satisfactory ideas, etc.
But I'm certainly not set on doing "something! anything!" with this, let alone on any specific timeframe.
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As promised, this is how the resource generation I find (in order of scarcity):
Key: "+" is good, "-" is bad. Sometimes both may be good, in the case of something being good, but taking a lot of work, or of it helping some, hurting others
1) The resource is truly finite, like knowledge, and is used to "unlock" units
+++Allows the greatest impact in the game in that it is very tightly related to AIP and very "controlled", prevents netflix syndrome / hoarding
---Takes the greatest amount of work, since the units need a big impact
+-The structure is temporary protected, but not needed after the fact
-Feels like knowledge
2) The resource is finite, each units costs per crystal
++Allows a great impact in the game in that it is very tightly related to AIP and very "controlled",
--Takes a great amount of work, since the units need a big impact
+-The structure is temporary protected, but not needed after the fact
+--Encourages great hoarding of resources / units
-Feels like golems/spirecraft that cannot be disabled
3) The resource is finite, but the mines can generate unlimited resources if alive
++--Structure is very important in protection, which is divisive
+--Hoarding of resources since some players will always consider it finite
-By far the one most vulnerable to exo waves, most dependent on chokepoints
-Units cannot scale in power really, since units, once unlocked if necessary via other means, are avialable in full caps.
4) The resource is infinite in that mines can at best be temporarily lost, but only a per cap of the benefits which scales with the units can be used
+Allows a great impact of units, since the caps will be easier to correlate with AIP
++-=Striddles the line of having to never abandon the structure entirely, but never losing it permanently either, which may either appease both sides or make both mad
+-Careful balancing of mines being lost/reclaimed is necessary and contentious
5) The resource is infite, the mines can be temporarily lost, no cap per benefits
+Fairly easy to implement
-Encourages netflix syndrome of min-maxing units unless another "soft cap" (energy) is used
-Units cannot scale in power really, since units, once unlocked if necessary via other means, are avialable in full caps no matter how early in the game.
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I'm less concerned about the details of how the new resource will work, than I am on what it will actually be used for.
If I'm going to be punished in some way for losing these new "Crystal extractors", there better be a damn good reason for having them at all. So far, a mobile builder that operates outside of supply just isn't worth it to me. It isn't cool enough, it isn't that interesting, and most of all it isn't necessary, when the game has operated perfectly fine for 4 years without it.
I think the "military builder" idea is great, I just don't think it completely does justice to an entirely new mechanic. I want something beefier; something more powerful that I can unlock with my volatile, hard-earned Crystal, but I can't think of anything that isn't already in the game, or wouldn't break it.
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I think the "military builder" idea is great, I just don't think it completely does justice to an entirely new mechanic. I want something beefier; something more powerful that I can unlock with my volatile, hard-earned Crystal, but I can't think of anything that isn't already in the game, or wouldn't break it.
Yea, I think that gets at a core tension here: in order to justify any kind of added penalty for attempting and losing "the crystal game", the benefits of attempting and winning it would have to be at least into the low-end-superweapon range... which doesn't seem at all appropriate to something that's on in every game.
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I think the "military builder" idea is great, I just don't think it completely does justice to an entirely new mechanic. I want something beefier; something more powerful that I can unlock with my volatile, hard-earned Crystal, but I can't think of anything that isn't already in the game, or wouldn't break it.
Yea, I think that gets at a core tension here: in order to justify any kind of added penalty for attempting and losing "the crystal game", the benefits of attempting and winning it would have to be at least into the low-end-superweapon range... which doesn't seem at all appropriate to something that's on in every game.
I'm not as concerned about whether it's ON in every game to be honest. It's an optional mechanic.
In all reality, would it matter if Fallen Spire was on in every game? You get instructions at the start for how to activate the campaign, which certainly does punish you severely and give you access to superweapons, but you can also just completely ignore it and play like normal. Sometimes I forget I have it on.
What I'm more concerned about is what kind superweapon don't we already have? What would be unique or interesting that adds something to the game that isn't just, "WOO, more firepower!"? Also, how to make this superweapon scale with the amount of crystal mined? What if I just want to mine crystal from a couple planets, should I suffer the same penalties as someone who is mining it from 10 planets?
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I'm not as concerned about whether it's ON in every game to be honest. It's an optional mechanic.
Which is actually another problem with what we've been talking about: if you just ignore it you have a fairly big chunk of your resource bar at the top that just says "0" the whole game. Not the end of the world, but that doesn't strike me as a good sign for this being an appropriate repurposing of the resource.
In all reality, would it matter if Fallen Spire was on in every game?
Not really, but FS doesn't show up in the resource bar. There is the alert of the journal entry but that would go away after you read it.
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Not really, but FS doesn't show up in the resource bar. There is the alert of the journal entry but that would go away after you read it.
No actually, you get a bright green "Subspace signal on Planet Brogobil" in the top left hand of your screen for the entire game, and there's no way to turn that off. You just kind of ignore it after awhile.
Which is actually another problem with what we've been talking about: if you just ignore it you have a fairly big chunk of your resource bar at the top that just says "0" the whole game. Not the end of the world, but that doesn't strike me as a good sign for this being an appropriate repurposing of the resource.
*Shrug*, I guess it doesn't bother me that much. If it replaces the current "Crystal" spot, it takes up about 1/10th of the entire resource bar, which isn't overly tedious. In addition, you could make it grey until you begin mining it, at which point it would turn green like normal.
Mousing over the mineral (in your resource bar) would give you detailed information on what it was used for, and also let you know that it was a volatile resource, optional, and not necessary to win the game. There are already lots of important elements in AI War that aren't necessary to win the game like Fabs, Adv. Factories, Adv. Space Docks, Data Centers of all kinds, and more.
One of the things that makes AI War, at its core, unique and different from most other strategy games is its huge emphasis on risk-management. AIP accomplishes this design goal pretty well. I think with the new Crystal mechanic being optional, you're just emphasizing one of AI War's core design principles.
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That's actually been my feeling as well, but I think there's room for improvement in the game's current design so I'm trying to find it.
I am all for improving the game. But why does an improvement have to be an improvement to crystal? It's really two separate things: add new mechanic x, and combine metal and crystal. So why not just add mechanic x?
If you're going to argue about the visuals, then it looks fine, and by the time one has figured out crystal and metal are functionally identical, they will be used to the present state.
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No actually, you get a bright green "Subspace signal on Planet Brogobil" in the top left hand of your screen for the entire game, and there's no way to turn that off. You just kind of ignore it after awhile.
Oh, right. That lonely, lonely signal that just sits at coordinate-{100000,100000} for the rest of the game.
"The first ten million years, they were the worst. The next ten million years, they were the worst too. After that, I went into a bit of a decline." ;)
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No I actually agree with Keith. It just feels like this new resource mechanic could add something HUGE to the game. Something that's been missing. It seems so obvious but so elusive at the same time.
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edit: Bah, 8 posts while posting this? There's now some overlap with what has already been said.
Okay.
There are two discussions going on here.
The "let's change crystal" discussion and the "new mechanics discussion"
Ignoring the 'new mechanics discussion', how do we go about making crystal distinctly different from what we have? No consideration of what the crystal will be used for here, just how to make the resource distinct, as a resource.
Metal:
Infinite income limited only by the rate it can be gathered. No real penalty for losing metal harvesters.
Can be stockpiled to a reasonably high amount, no on-going costs once building a unit is finished.
Controls how fast you can build units.
Energy:
Infinite income resource limited by the number of systems controlled. Losing energy collectors can have immediate effects but no long term effects.
Can not be stockpiled and units have an on-going energy cost.
Controls the maximum size of the players fleet, if needed you can get more energy at the cost of metal, increasing your maximum fleet size at the expense of slower construction times for new units.
Asteroids (Spirecraft, if enabled)
Limited resource that allows the construction of new units, most that are not direct combat units and give you new options.
No on-going cost once built and no penalty to losing a system with unused asteroids in it.
So, how do we make Crystal distinct?
Well, both metal and energy already control the player's fleet size so crystal should probably not touch any of the current units.
However, I really like the fact that you can burn metal for more energy so there should be a conversion mechanic of some sort.
To prevent any units built from crystal from overshadowing your fleet, they should not be direct combat units, we already have our fleet for that. Rather, make the crystal units have abilities that are sideways to our fleet so it is now an apples-to-oranges comparison and a player will determine for themselves how much crystal they need in the game.
Actually, the more I think on this, the more this sounds like a resource for a new Fallen Spire type minor faction with crystal rather then city hubs as the resource it uses.
Maybe a "high-intellegence" neinzul allies with the player to free it's brethren from the AI's hands? (AI-Neinzul hybrids).
Actually, now that I think of it I'd rather you left the current resource profile in place and anything new in this regard was added to a new minor faction somehow like the Fallen Spire or the Ancient Shadows stuff.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the current model and the effort required to implement something new like this is going to be pretty major. Is the fact that metal and crystal are currently so similar that it is a weak mechanic? Yes. But the economy stuff is a side-show to the main game anyway and there is nothing actually wrong with it.
I think the fact that coming up with something to replace it is causing so much difficulty backs my case up here. I'd rather developer time was spend on new content or tweaking stuff that does have flaws as opposed to a weak mechanic that does not have flaws in it.
(I don't consider the fact that metal and crystal are basically the same except for the name a flaw, opinions may differ I suppose.)
D.
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I am all for improving the game. But why does an improvement have to be an improvement to crystal?
It doesn't have to be, but right now there's a slot on the resource bar (crystal) that's not pulling its weight as a mechanic. I don't care if ideas x,y, or z don't fit there, we just won't do them, but I'm looking for one that will work. In theory that could take years. It doesn't have to be called crystal or share the same visuals, but it would be nice.
Mechanically speaking, there are two main distinctions between "what could fit here" and "what can be added as a faction/plot/whatever" :
1) It can be tracked numerically in a prominent fashion, whereas other stuff has to be coarser and not have a lot of "ongoing state" that the player needs to know about on a moment-by-moment basis.
2) It needs to make sense as something that's on in every game.
One direction that may make more sense than anything we've talked about thus far is going the other way: rather than trying to find a "strong" replacement for the "weak" mechanic (metal and crystal as separate resources), we could try strengthening the existing mechanic. One possibly for that is:
a) Remove resource conversion altogether. Or make its exchange rate fairly high (like 3:1 or 5:1 or whatever).
b) Make non-homeworld planets always have either metal or crystal spots, not both.
c) Change costs so that more things favor either metal or crystal (while not making one more commonly needed than the other... maybe, depends on whether it makes sense to make one more important than the other)
Not that I'm rushing off to do that either, just throwing the idea out.
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Mechanically speaking, there are two main distinctions between "what could fit here" and "what can be added as a faction/plot/whatever" :
1) It can be tracked numerically in a prominent fashion, whereas other stuff has to be coarser and not have a lot of "ongoing state" that the player needs to know about on a moment-by-moment basis.
2) It needs to make sense as something that's on in every game.
Okay, on every game.
Metal: Controls how fast we can build units.
Energy: Controls how big our fleet can be.
Crystal: Ummm.... how fast our fleet moves? Other units already do that.
I'm not sure what else their is in terms of 'basic fleet functions' here that crystal could modify.
Which is the issue really, in any game there is a third 'resource' that I can think of it either does not apply (per unit experience levels) or is covered under knowledge already (gain access to new units/abilites).
D.
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One direction that may make more sense than anything we've talked about thus far is going the other way: rather than trying to find a "strong" replacement for the "weak" mechanic (metal and crystal as separate resources), we could try strengthening the existing mechanic. One possibly for that is:
a) Remove resource conversion altogether. Or make its exchange rate fairly high (like 3:1 or 5:1 or whatever).
b) Make non-homeworld planets always have either metal or crystal spots, not both.
c) Change costs so that more things favor either metal or crystal (while not making one more commonly needed than the other... maybe, depends on whether it makes sense to make one more important than the other)
While I've been on the fence about needing to get harvestor upgrades, increasing the conversion costs would make it so that at least one would be almost necessary due to desparity, since the other econ upgrade, comm stations, boost both evenly.
Not sure if good or not.
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Is the fact that metal and crystal are currently so similar that it is a weak mechanic? Yes. But the economy stuff is a side-show to the main game anyway and there is nothing actually wrong with it.
(...)
(I don't consider the fact that metal and crystal are basically the same except for the name a flaw, opinions may differ I suppose.)
No, I don't think it's a flaw in the sense that something's actively wrong with it. I think of it more as an "opportunity". The game could be stronger on this point, so I'm trying to find out if we can accomplish that.
As you say, the experienced difficulty in doing so is itself a substantial piece of evidence :)
But it also took us a long time to find a good alternate to the way energy used to be, too. There, it wasn't an awful system, it was just something where our response to "why are we having to micro this?" was effectively "historical reasons" (i.e. "that's the way it's been for a while because we can't come up with something better).
Nowadays, if someone comes in and asks "why are metal and crystal different?" my strongest response is "historical reasons".
I tend to be a typologically-motivated person.
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While I've been on the fence about needing to get harvestor upgrades, increasing the conversion costs would make it so that at least one would be almost necessary due to desparity, since the other econ upgrade, comm stations, boost both evenly.
Not sure if good or not.
I'm not sure we'd want to keep econ station upgrades the way they are now if we made metal and crystal more distinct (sharing the same basic function but with the player having way more reason to care about how much they have of each one).
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If we are talking about tweaking the resource conversion to make it more meaningful, the seeding for resource nodes needs to be looked at.
I've had games where my home system had 9 metal and 4 crystal nodes. I was on resource conversion for pretty much the entire early game due to that.
Keep in mind that the resource conversion is effectively reducing the number of resource nodes a player has. A while back we went through the economy system to get rid of the 'netflix' effect because rebuilding fleets took so long. I could see boosting the conversion cost taking us back towards the 'netflix' effect quite easily.
D.
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Keep in mind that the resource conversion is effectively reducing the number of resource nodes a player has. A while back we went through the economy system to get rid of the 'netflix' effect because rebuilding fleets took so long. I could see boosting the conversion cost taking us back towards the 'netflix' effect quite easily.
I hadn't said anything, but increasing conversation costs, without other changes, would be a nerf to econ, and any nerf to econ would certainly move back toward netflix.
@Keith
My comment was of just increasing conversion costs, I know econ upgrades in general would have to be changed if crystal is made distinct.
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If we are talking about tweaking the resource conversion to make it more meaningful, the seeding for resource nodes needs to be looked at.
I've had games where my home system had 9 metal and 4 crystal nodes. I was on resource conversion for pretty much the entire early game due to that.
Keep in mind that the resource conversion is effectively reducing the number of resource nodes a player has. A while back we went through the economy system to get rid of the 'netflix' effect because rebuilding fleets took so long. I could see boosting the conversion cost taking us back towards the 'netflix' effect quite easily.
This is true. In general I think the main effect of what I threw out a few posts ago would be to make you care more about whether a specific planet had metal or crystal, since it wouldn't have the other.
If we do go a route like that, we would need to be careful with the math to make sure it was not just a nerf to the player's "effective" income. That's definitely not what I want to see. But I'd like it if you cared about whether a given income or a given cost was m or c, rather than functionally being able to approach them as identical.
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But I'd like it if you cared about whether a given income or a given cost was m or c, rather than functionally being able to approach them as identical.
Most of the very big ticket items already do this (they have even amounts of M and C), so making conversions harder will certainly make them in effect cost more.
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I am totally against any form of conversion ratio changes. Here an example yet another fallen spire city hub campaign: 7/7 Gravity Driller and Planetary cloaking with almost everything enabled minor faction-wise.
My first homeworld has decent resource nodes but heavily favor metal 7 to crystal 5 and I only have immediate access to 3 level 1 AI solar systems and they all each have 2-3 TOTAL of either crystal or metal but not both. Lucky although my bonus ship is equal in metal and crystal cost so it doesn't impact me too much.
If the ratio conversion were to changed to 5:1 then it would take forever to build anything that has more than double crystal over metal. Having a random pop up with gravity driller is not fun since I can't move my fleet around as quickly I would liked to. Not to mention I have a level 4 AI solar system next door to my HW. So loses are inevitable and I am already looking at "netflix" time crunching just a little bit. Thankfully I can use my champion to do guerilla warfare while building up to eliminate "netflix time" partly.
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I am totally against any form of conversion ratio changes. Here an example yet another fallen spire city hub campaign: 7/7 Gravity Driller and Planetary cloaking with almost everything enabled minor faction-wise.
My first homeworld has decent resource nodes but heavily favor metal 7 to crystal 5 and I only have immediate access to 3 level 1 AI solar systems and they all each have 2-3 TOTAL of either crystal or metal but not both. Lucky although my bonus ship is equal in metal and crystal cost so it doesn't impact me too much.
If the ratio conversion were to changed to 5:1 then it would take forever to build anything that has more than double crystal over metal.
Assuming no other changes were made (to initial resource node seeding, mainly), you would be right. But I don't think anyone's advocating that in this thread (recently, anyhow).
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I like the m/c system as it is. There are usually at least a few situations per game where which resource it is comes up, and I am quite used to it by now.
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I was advocating against changing conversion, responding to your "a) Remove resource conversion altogether. Or make its exchange rate fairly high (like 3:1 or 5:1 or whatever)." post keith by teh way, because I had some terrible RNG luck in the past.
Image having a heavy crystal bonus ship and having only two crystal mine at beginning plus 300 crystal income from homeworld. In that situation MK 3 crystal mine was just a tiny slight shy short of mandatory. Assuming conversion was removed and the resource ndoe still had a chance for a bad seeding; I don't think I would enjoy trying to "re-seed" the galaxy all over again and again to be fair. I don't think you would make a drastic change without considering the ramifications.
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First of all, I'd say that as long as both M and C are essentially (as Diazo pointed out) limiters on how fast you can build stuff, attempting to split them further or modify the conversion rates is essentially just tweaking build times, albeit with a significant increase in tedium: having to double-check the available resources on a planet (not the easiest thing to see at a glance), having to cope with tendencies towards econ lopsidedness, having to be much more careful with build queues, etc.
As I noted in my megapost (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12690.msg139490.html#msg139490) in the other thread:
First, I would suggest that we (i.e., Keith :) ) post a poll addressing the question of combining Metal and Crystal, regardless of what is done to replace Crystal, as the two questions are largely independent (they could always add another resource and keep M+C for instance). If we're generally in favor / nobody thinks of some way that it completely breaks the game, I'd say pull the trigger and do it, before we figure out what to do with Crystal --- that way, we can playtest that change without confusing balancing discussion with a new / modified mechanic. [1]
[1]: I understand that having the blank space is annoying, but the devs could always put Toranth's avatar in its place as a "there but for the grace of God" reminder. :D
As far as what to do about obtaining Crystal, I was reminded of how some games permit you to salvage enemy technology. Most of the time it's uber-tedious (needing a special ship and whatnot), but we could do something similar and in the same vein of "how far do you want to push the AI?" Basically, when the player destroys particular buildings (e.g., guard posts, though you could make a special building for this purpose), they receive a certain amount of "Salvage points," depending on the type of building and its mark. To discourage uber-neutering, you could make it where the CS must be destroyed to get the Salvage or something, but it would still be based on how well-fortified the AI's planet was.
This is similar to Knowledge (and to Champion XP), but there's room for some differences. First, this salvage is made available immediately, rather than having to be harvested via a science ship. Second, salvage can be obtained outside of supply. Third, this salvage is not used to unlock anything; you instead could use it to build one-off buildings (e.g., the uber-shield I proposed) or significant abilities (as proposed in this thread) to help tip the scales in your favor. Kind of a halfway marker between ZTrader and regular ships.
If making it based on the AI's power on a particular planet is not desired, you could perhaps repurpose the distribution nodes. I don't know how many people really use them (I don't really, but maybe I'm doing it wrong), but that way it would require minimal artwork and the like.
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[1]: I understand that having the blank space is annoying, but the devs could always put Toranth's avatar in its place as a "there but for the grace of God" reminder. :D
That's now my favorite suggestion on what to do with crystal :)
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I'm not super thrilled about getting per-planet turrets through this mechanic honestly. It seems tedious. Dropping 2 Mini-Forts is fast and takes minimal time. Dealing with placement of 6ish lines of turrets is just extra tedium, especially with a special builder we need to move around. I'm ok with the mines acting more like energy.
Previously thoughts along these lines: (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12690.msg139006.html#msg139006)
* Maybe Crystal could be used to active some generically useful ability, like a Starcraft Stim Pack for fleet ships.
* Maybe Crystal Mines could power special units/structures creating a continuous expenditure rather than a one-time up-front cost:
-- Crystal Force Shield: when it takes damage you lose crystal instead. Advantage over a normal shield is crystal can be gained even while it is under attack.
-- Worm Hole Disrupter: While powered up, consumes crystal every second, but nothing can travel through any nearby worm hole in either direction.
-- Warp Space Burrower: Temporarily becomes a one-way worm hole leading to a target system. Costs crystal for each of your ships that travels through it and increases the more hops away it is going. Might require a target unit to warp too, so you can just cheaply shoot scouts everywhere.
-- Crystal Warhead: Stealthed Rams that spend 1 crystal to deal X damage to the target they hit, always spending just enough Crystal to destroy their target if possible.
-- Crystal Turret: A powerful HBC-like turret, possibly with a per-system cap instead of global. However, every shot costs Crystal.
-- Crystal Supply Depo: Generates supply in a system even if supply can't be normally be generated there. Costs crystal/second. Run out of crystal and you lose supply in that system.
Now this sounds neat to me!
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My first homeworld has decent resource nodes but heavily favor metal 7 to crystal 5 and I only have immediate access to 3 level 1 AI solar systems and they all each have 2-3 TOTAL of either crystal or metal but not both. Lucky although my bonus ship is equal in metal and crystal cost so it doesn't impact me too much.
If the ratio conversion were to changed to 5:1 then it would take forever to build anything that has more than double crystal over metal. Having a random pop up with gravity driller is not fun since I can't move my fleet around as quickly I would liked to. Not to mention I have a level 4 AI solar system next door to my HW.
7:5 ratio isnt "heavily favor". Thats just 2 harvester difference.
And anyway, you probably want to back up such bold statement with some solid mathematical proofing.
I have made the calculations. If you need to build a ship with 2:1 ratio while having 5:7 resource income (which in your case isnt true as you also get even income from command station and cities), then 5:1 conversion results in 22% increase in buildtime, compared to 1.5:1 conversion ratio.
22%. Does that really sound as "Take forever", as you said in your post? Too bad you cant do some simple mathematical calculations before posting.
I like how the the main argument against harsher ratios is "But harder ratios will nerf my economy if it gets skewed!". That statement is only true if you keep ignoring your income ratio when making strategic decisions. You wont lose any resources if your spending is matching your economy.
And you have tools to adjust both those things. You can research harvesters independently, you can research econ stations instead if you want 1:1 income ratio, you can research ships that cost more of the resource you have, leaning your composition towards your economy.
Have excess M at game start? Research bombers and M-heavy starships. Have excess C? Research frigates and C-heavy starships.
Oh, and also, i keep seeing people complaining about this whole "netflix" thing. What does the AI do during all that time your fleet is dead and you do nothing? Maybe instead of shortening the wait, we want the AI to make that time more fun, eh?
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For the record, I rarely have to use "Netflix" with the current system. Champion scenarios especially have made it to where I'm usually always busy with something.
Granted, if I were to just try and play the game with MKI Harvesters, I would probably be spending a good 40% of it or so on Netflix, but I've already mentioned many times in other threads that the state of Harvesters and Econ Stations (one which you HAVE to upgrade, and the other which is obsolete) needs to be looked at.
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Haiyo, back again, hopefully on a more permanent basis. Depends on how engaging AI war remains to me.
First thought was "Noooooo i like metal and crystal, at least keep the harvesters and offer a few more ways to bleed off crystal". Thinking about it more, I'd mostly be fine with it, but would definitely like to see more than just one way to spend it.
Also, this emote looks new: >D
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7:5 ratio isnt "heavily favor". Thats just 2 harvester difference.
And anyway, you probably want to back up such bold statement with some solid mathematical proofing.
I have made the calculations. If you need to build a ship with 2:1 ratio while having 5:7 resource income (which in your case isnt true as you also get even income from command station and cities), then 5:1 conversion results in 22% increase in buildtime, compared to 1.5:1 conversion ratio.
22%. Does that really sound as "Take forever", as you said in your post? Too bad you cant do some simple mathematical calculations before posting.
I like how the the main argument against harsher ratios is "But harder ratios will nerf my economy if it gets skewed!". That statement is only true if you keep ignoring your income ratio when making strategic decisions. You wont lose any resources if your spending is matching your economy.
And you have tools to adjust both those things. You can research harvesters independently, you can research econ stations instead if you want 1:1 income ratio, you can research ships that cost more of the resource you have, leaning your composition towards your economy.
Have excess M at game start? Research bombers and M-heavy starships. Have excess C? Research frigates and C-heavy starships.
Oh, and also, i keep seeing people complaining about this whole "netflix" thing. What does the AI do during all that time your fleet is dead and you do nothing? Maybe instead of shortening the wait, we want the AI to make that time more fun, eh?
That was just an example with a c-heavy bonus fleetship which force me to burn even more crystal especially considering I was doing a spire campaign with lot of stuff that cost more than 150k of each metal and crystal. That is on top of maintaining a standing fleet/chokehold/loses and expanding.
I had some map where most of the early expand solar systems only had few mines which forced me to either upgrade econ command station or harvester. It is not simple as research a metal or crystal heavy something because fallen spire are inherently crystal heavy. So if I am building something crystal heavy plus expanding spire city hubs then I don't have a choice but to keep a large supply of metal before doing both at once for the conversion otherwise everything will stall.
In some of my fallen spire campaign I had some moment where I had 500k metal with -2k income and 500 crystal with zero income. That 22 percent just got a whole lot bigger at minus 2k doesn't it? Not the build time but conversion ratio. So any boost I could get from crystal income is pretty much mandatory at minus 2k metal conversion which is not fun.
Assuming I had zero crystal income (just pretend it could happen for now): I decide to start on a shard + city hub construction. Let ignore defending cost against chase and city build wave for now. Colony ship cost 300k M + C and the city hub cost 2 million M + C even split between metal and crystal. Lets use 5k metal income ignoring if I had stockpile of either metal or crystal.
Since both spire shard and city hub are split evenly I have to treat the metal 5k income as 2k metal income with remaining 3k metal conversion into 2k crystal.
It would take 75 second to complete the spire colony shard. Then it would take 8 min and 20 seconds to complete the spire city hub afterward.
Now lets try the above with 2.5k metal income and 2.5k crystal income. It would result in 15 second shorter construction time on spire colony shard. It would reduce spire city hub construction time down to 6 min and 40 seconds. That is 1 min 55 second faster using the same income amount. Sadly the former situation with huge stockpile of metal and max upgrades of crystal income is a typical normal fallen spire campaign economical situation.
I don't mention reactor/habitation/shipyard/"fallen spire crafts which are crystal heavy"/normal fleet and starship/turrets/other for sake of simplicity. I think and hope you see why I think crystal Mk 3 and mk 3 economical is mandatory to avoid netflix time when starting with a metal heavy homeworld without a good crystal income solar system to take over nearby. I use mk 2 economical almost always for systems that only have one mine to boost income for the long term game.
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So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.
What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?
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So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.
What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?
To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?
The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP). At least not significantly more complex.
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I still wonder if using it as a universal health pool for player force fields might not work. This way taking more crystal mines means stronger force fields where ever you put them. Something would need to be done for layered force fields since with a single health pool it wouldn't make sense to stack force field generators. Either FF's could have a base health like now, but whenever they take damage half of it is redirected against your crystal energy stockpile. So as long as your crystal reserves hold, all your force fields are double strength. Since Force Fields can't self-repair when under attack, even though you'd constantly be pulling in crystal energy, you'd still lose force fields no matter how how your resource gain.
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So a lightbulb in my head went off, though I haven't really nailed down any specifics.
What if crystal was tied to/let you build (or came from) some sort of human space train network?
To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?
The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP). At least not significantly more complex.
That's why I think crystal shouldn't be used for any one mechanic (unless it's a super core mechanic). The quickest, arguably most bland way, is to make crystal a special resource and choose things that need it (a few bonus ship types, most starships, turrets, etc.) This should be supplemented by a toy or two that the player can play with.
And as for the human space trains network, I would bet players would use it if it offered them a viable way to repeatedly cull built up ships on worlds they wish to travel. Or maybe a limited means of AIP reduction (don't hit me *winces*).
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Metal could be used for production and Crystal for technology and development.
All maps would have NumberOfPlanets/1,5 Crystal Asteroids. Planets that get Crystal Asteroids would have either 1, 2 or max 3 of them. Crystal Harvesters would be replaced with Crystal Mining Stations. Building (and rebuilding) these Mining Stations would be expensive and slow. Each Station would produce 100 Crystal/s.
Crystal Harvester upgrades would be replaced with different upgrades to the Crystal Mining Stations: Automated Crystal Mining Station which would increase the income by 50%, Mobile CMS which adds engines to the asteroid and it's stations so it can be moved and Armored CMS which would double the health and armor. All of these could be researched. They're upgrades to the normal Station, not replacements.
Everything would be built with metal. Some high tech buildings and/or units could use crystal too.
New stuff that would use crystal:
Advanced Science Laboratory. All technologies listed in this post would be unlocked from here. All technologies unlocked from Advanced Science Laboratory would use Crystal, Knowledge and time. Starting a research would be like building a Starship. It would consume resources and time. It could also be canceled at any point. Building the Advanced Science Laboratory would cost Metal AND Crystal and be slow and expensive. It could be moved around like other science labs. It would have high health and be heavily armored.
Warp Gate Command Station (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9082). Would use 100 Crystal/s.
Node Lines. Node Lines would basically be a new version of Redirector Rally Point that the player could order ships to by holding control and left clicking. The selected ships would then move to another Node with 10 times of their normal movement speed.
Metal Storage Unit would store up to 75000 Metal and use 5000 Energy.
Crystal Storage Unit would store up to 75000 Crystal and use 5000 Energy.
Plasma Shield. The maximum health of this Shield would be the amount of stored crystal. When turned on this shield would consume 1000 Crystal/second. This shield could be turned off and on by pressing K (like ships).
Fusion Reactor or Dyson Reactor? (with a small artificial sun inside) would produce 75000 Energy and consume 100 Crystal every second. This could make using Fortresses in high difficulty and/or low AIP games possible. At the moment Matter Converters kill the economy and thus the ability to rebuild fleet and defenses. Fusion Reactors would use Crystal so it wouldn't affect the ability to rebuild stuff. This would also make Starships.. which have quite high Energy costs.. more viable. Sure they're good already but it's not really possible to unlock a lot of them because they use so much Energy.
I'm sure we could come up with more cool technologies that could use crystal.
AI War actually has 4 resources: Metal, Crystal, Energy and Knowledge. This would also add more mechanics to Energy and Knowledge.
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The more this gets tossed around and the more ideas that get posted, them more and more I like Keith's idea in the op. There is something there for every play style. It's simple.
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The more this gets tossed around and the more ideas that get posted, them more and more I like Keith's idea in the op. There is something there for every play style. It's simple.
To echo something we said earlier: it could be an interesting mechanic, but would it actually be a fit for crystal?
The two main requirements a replacement mechanic would have to meet would be:
1) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't sit unused in any game.
2) Because it is a core resource, it shouldn't be any more complex (from the player's perspective) than the other core resources (metal, energy, knowledge, or AIP). At least not significantly more complex.
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The original idea wasn't to complex.
Would need mentioning in tutorial to make sure that one can find the military builder - or better having one at start to easily discover it. You would find crystal deposits while scouting or capturing planets.
I think that it got derailed heavily by recurring discussion about potential availability of crystal and AI's ability to destroy it permanently or only disrupt it's mines.
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@Cinth: The main problem with my original idea in this thread is that it's too complex to replace a core resource (I don't think it's too complex as a mechanic in general, just too complex for a core resource). The other big problem is that you'd not necessarily even want to use crystal in every game, or not use it very much. Ultimately it's something that might be good to do (I'm thinking as a minor faction of sorts that lets you get those per-planet-cap defenses) but it wouldn't work in this particular "slot".
@Everyone:
But (everyone run and hide now) I have an idea!
It does not try to add more take-and-hold irreplaceables.
It does not try to address the chokepoint vs distributed defense issue.
It does not try to let you build turrets outside supply.
It does not try to make crystal radically different from metal.
It barely digs holes! (http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/comic/) (sorry, had to)
So, what does it do? I'm glad you a-(used-starship salesman is shot).
Anyway, the idea is to:
- Leave the fundamental role of m and c the same.
- But make the distinction between m and c far clearer.
- While NOT nerfing the overall econ strength of the player.
I say again, NOT nerfing econ ;) At least, that's my intent, it's always possible I've overlooked something. If you think the below would be an econ nerf, please show me why.
So:
1) For every single human-buildable unit in the game: While leaving the actual m+c total cost the same, adjust the "what percent is metal?" (or crystal, depending on how you look at it) ratio according to this principle:
The higher the individual power of the unit, the higher % of its construction cost is crystal.
Possible examples:
- mkI and mkII fleet ships with standard caps (192 on high-caps) are 100% metal; mkIII is 5% crystal, mkIV is 10%, mkV is 15%
- really high-cap swarmer types are 100% metal all the way to mkV
- really low-cap fleet ship types (like the spire stealth battleship, etc) start at 50% crystal at mkI and work up to 70% at mkV.
- the cap-of-2 starships (flagship, heavy bomber starship, plasma siege starship, etc) start at 70% crystal at mkI and work up to 90% at mkV.
- the cap-of-1 starships (zenith, spire) start at 100% crystal, end of story.
- all turrets are pretty individually powerful and would thus have some non-trivial crystal %.
- most superweapons stuff would probably be all crystal (this would impact FS a lot, though we can adjust the hab center and such income to be more heavily crystal or whatever's needed therE), though some spirecraft are probably actually less individually powerful than a spire starship, I haven't checked lately.
-- edit from further discussion: all superweapon stuff would probably just be 50/50, at least until we figured out the balance.
2) Make Mapgen more deliberate about resource availability:
- For each HW: Instead of 12 randomly chosen resource spots, gets exactly 6 of each.
- For each non-HW: Instead of getting randomly between 0 and 4 of each resource (generally yielding an average of 4 spots per planet), gets put into 1 of 5 categories (with mapgen distributing planets between each of the 5 categories as evenly as possible) :
-- category 1: zero metal, zero crystal (edit from further discussion: actually, 1 metal and 1 crystal, instead)
-- category 2: 4 metal, zero crystal
-- category 3: zero metal, 4 crystal
-- category 4: 8 metal, zero crystal
-- category 5: zero metal, 8 crystal
3) Remove m<=>c conversion entirely.
In terms of overall economic impact, the average number of resource spots per non-HW planet would go from 4 to 4.8, a 20% increase. But of course if you found yourself out of one resource and unable to use the other, that's a downside.
But I'd say it's a much more avoidable downside than the current ratios of metal:crystal in building costs:
- It's much more intuitive what will cost which resource: if it's individually big (starships) or high-mark, it costs more crystal than metal. Otherwise it costs more metal than crystal.
- If you plan to use a lot of metal-heavy units (swarmers, not planning to unlock a lot of mkIII types, not getting much in the way of low-cap bonus ships from ARS's, etc), then you can simply aim for the planets that give you metal, and you can go for metal harvester upgrades as a higher priority than crystal ones.
- Vice versa if you plan to use a lot of crystal-heavy units (starships, high-tech stuff)
- If you plan to be pretty balanced, you can pick equally between crystal and metal planets, and either research in both harvesters or go for econ-station upgrades (in theory, at least)
So if you just totally bottom out on one resource while the other's sitting at cap and wasting income... well, it's much more likely than during the manufactory days that the problem exists between the keyboard and the computer ;)
A few caveats:
- I suspect the above would lead to frequent metal surpluses and crystal shortages, since the stuff that costs mostly metal would also be the stuff that's mostly cheaper. There are a few ways in which we can correct for this; in any event it can be done.
- One thing we may need to do if we go this route is revisit how sharply the m+c costs scale with higher marks (specifically, mkIV and mkV).
- Energy converter running costs may need to change from 50% metal, I dunno. Conceivably we may even want to split it into one type which does m=>e and another type that does c=>e, which may help as a bit of a relief valve.
Anyway, thoughts?
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The only reason I said what I said was that it seemed like folks here were making suggestions based around how they play. I read these and think... how the heck am I supposed to incorporate this into my play and it feel like it should be there and not be intrusive or plain out not usable.
Another thing with M+C being core and combining C and M, then C wouldn't have to be core in its current sense. C could be ancillary like K in that case. Ugh, confusing and I wrote it. Mathematics... HELP!
Basically right now we have (M+C) + K + E, if (M+C)=R, then you have R + K + E. You can now add back a re-imagined C without the old tags of being core and integral (that function is now solely R). Anyway, that is my outside the box thinking on our resources.
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Fully support that design keith. Very nice.
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I like that idea as well, keith.
And the reference :)
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One thought on seeding. You could also make metal seed across all systems on average, while crystal is more focused. So expanding would generally always increase metal income. But increasing crystal income would require targeting specific systems.
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2) Make Mapgen more deliberate about resource availability:
- For each HW: Instead of 12 randomly chosen resource spots, gets exactly 6 of each.
- For each non-HW: Instead of getting randomly between 0 and 4 of each resource (generally yielding an average of 4 spots per planet), gets put into 1 of 5 categories (with mapgen distributing planets between each of the 5 categories as evenly as possible) :
-- category 1: zero metal, zero crystal
-- category 2: 4 metal, zero crystal
-- category 3: zero metal, 4 crystal
-- category 4: 8 metal, zero crystal
-- category 5: zero metal, 8 crystal
3) Remove m<=>c conversion entirely.
I'm sure you'll be shocked, but I have some reservations. The section I've quoted is where they fall.
First, I'd feel a little sad if the reasonable amount of variety in system resources that currently exists (25 categories, so to speak) was replaced by merely 5 - especially when one of those five was a 'nothing' system.
Second, your proposed distribution isn't really 4.8 resources per system - it's actually 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal. Without conversion, that difference actually matters. In fact, with no conversion, the two resource distributions should be considered independent.
Next, if your basic mid-cap fleetship is 85+% metal, high-cap are all metal, and lowcap are 30-50% metal, you're looking at a lot of metal useage.
Quick check says: 65 fleetship types, 5 low-low cap (cap-of-5), 8 with a 1/4 cap, and 6 more with a 1/2 cap. That leaves 46 with mid-to-high caps.
I would suggest a few changes.
Change number 1 would be two figure out what the average metal/crystal ratio would be, and adjust for that. So instead of 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal, if twice as much metal is needed over crystal, then perhaps 3.2 metal and 1.6 crystal. (I would actually try to determine the two distributions independently - so your five categories for metal might be 0/4/0/8/0, but 0/0/2/0/5 for crystal... whatever works).
Change number 2 would be to add a little variety to the categories - say +-1.
Change number 3 would be to replace the 0/0 systems with 1/1 systems. No one likes 0/0 systems. Give them something special, like being the only systems to have both resources but in very small amounts.
Finally, your playstyle and resources are REALLY going to impact each other. In a starship-centered game, 60% of systems are going to be useless, economy-wise. In a fleetship-centric game, it'll still be 60% useless systems, just different systems. Assuming typical RNG behavior, you just KNOW that your Superweapon-and-starship game would end up with every ARS system being 8/0 metal.
Balancing might be... awkward.
(Other very minor concerns that come to mind: Distribution Nodes, Zenith Reprocessor behavior, scrapping returns, Trader goodies)
The idea in general sounds interesting. Not nearly as dramatic as many of the other things suggested, but much easier to implement and understand, I think.
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Going to echo the above. the idea is not necessarily flawed, but it is going to take a LOT of balancing..will qrite more later
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Concerns ;)
Not to make light, but to keep the size of the post reasonable.
Couldn't you balance income via harvester rates and upgrades instead of number of nodes available? I would rather distribution be uniform and be able to apply K to suit the needs of the game at hand.
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I'm sure you'll be shocked, but I have some reservations.
I'm still in the denial phase, but I'll get over it.
First, I'd feel a little sad if the reasonable amount of variety in system resources that currently exists (25 categories, so to speak) was replaced by merely 5 - especially when one of those five was a 'nothing' system.
Well, there's numeric variety and then there's strategic variety. Sometimes numeric coarseness makes strategic variety more obvious to the player. I think the 0/4/8 approach would lead people to actually consider resource spots more frequently in deciding what planets to take.
And I don't mind going with a 9-category system (0/2/4/8, or whatever) if that feels better, but I think making it more granular just washes it out a bit.
Second, your proposed distribution isn't really 4.8 resources per system - it's actually 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal.
Mathematically, how do you get that? And under that figuring, what does the current system (which gives randomly 0-4 of each resource) give?
By my figuring our current system gives an average of 2 metal and 2 crystal per planet, where the one I proposed would give an average 4.8 metal or 4.8 crystal.
Next, if your basic mid-cap fleetship is 85+% metal, high-cap are all metal, and lowcap are 30-50% metal, you're looking at a lot of metal useage.
Quick check says: 65 fleetship types, 5 low-low cap (cap-of-5), 8 with a 1/4 cap, and 6 more with a 1/2 cap. That leaves 46 with mid-to-high caps.
The numbers are certainly up for tweaking, but consider carefully whether fleetships being metal heavy is actually going to put undue burden on metal. Starships and high-mark stuff are where the big m+c costs are right now currently (superweapons aside), and I'm not talking about changing how much total a unit costs, just the ratios.
In fact, I think those units cost so much that the system I've proposed would have early results that hammer crystal a lot harder than metal.
But with the relative needs for replacement, it's possible fleet ships and lower-mark ships could pull ahead in total outlay. Dunno.
Change number 1 would be two figure out what the average metal/crystal ratio would be, and adjust for that. So instead of 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal, if twice as much metal is needed over crystal, then perhaps 3.2 metal and 1.6 crystal. (I would actually try to determine the two distributions independently - so your five categories for metal might be 0/4/0/8/0, but 0/0/2/0/5 for crystal... whatever works).
I'm ok with that in theory. But I'm not out to make starships-heavy harder (as lower crystal distributions would do), so I'm kind of in wait-and-see there. Doesn't need playtesting per se, but some fairly solid mathematical analysis based on real play experiences (in terms of how much of what is built in what playstyles, nowadays).
Change number 2 would be to add a little variety to the categories - say +-1.
What does that really add, though, other than fuzzing up the picture for the player reading the galaxy map? I think strategic decision making (as opposed to just ignoring resource spot count, or treating it as highly secondary) is more likely when there are fewer discrete states to consider. If additional discrete states actually add enough to the game, then fine, but do they?
Change number 3 would be to replace the 0/0 systems with 1/1 systems. No one likes 0/0 systems. Give them something special, like being the only systems to have both resources but in very small amounts.
Fair enough (I'd actually been thinking of that, too).
Finally, your playstyle and resources are REALLY going to impact each other. In a starship-centered game, 60% of systems are going to be useless, economy-wise. In a fleetship-centric game, it'll still be 60% useless systems, just different systems.
That's assuming that the 6 spots of the "off-type" on your HW are all you need for that resource. I don't think that will be true. And if you're playing starships _only_ (on offense, at least), then yes, you're going to run into a variety of problems already. Perhaps a crystal shortage would be one of them. But if you really want to do that you can prioritize capturing the 8-crystal planets and actually come out ahead (compared to the current model) in having the resource necessary to build your starships. If you don't want to do that, then at least mix your fleet ships into the offense, etc, so you're getting some value out of whatever metal you're getting.
And vice versa for going fleet-ship-heavy: if you're not even building your default-unlocked starships, then you're already running into problems in the current version of the game. Or, at least, into missed opportunities.
I don't think this is going to make even those extremes significantly harder to play, and it shouldn't hurt the more moderate fleet-heavy or starship-heavy approaches really at all. If it does we can adjust for that.
Upon thinking about it, I realized that splitting the energy converter into two types, one which burns metal for energy and one which burns crystal for energy, would be an excellent "relief valve" for players in a situation where they have few planets and thus energy problems: they can burn the resource they use less. If they have enough planets to not have energy problems, they've probably at least had a fair opportunity to pick up an 8-spot planet of the resource they prefer.
Seriously, I'm trying to not nerf anyone here, just open up a new front of strategic decision making. That does mean that making bad decisions on that front (likely to happen while new to it) can hurt you, but I think that's true by-definition of any addition of complexity.
Assuming typical RNG behavior, you just KNOW that your Superweapon-and-starship game would end up with every ARS system being 8/0 metal.
In that case, I hope you don't have CSGs on :)
It's possible that if you do have CSGs on it should make those "forced planets" have an even distribution within themselves, or all be 2/2 or something like that to avoid that kind of problem. Though I guess you have a choice for the B, C, D, and E networks; the A network is where I think it'd need to be 2/2 or whatever, because you have to take 4 of those 5.
Balancing might be... awkward.
Well, sure, but is that not true of anything we've talked about doing for crystal? If avoiding a significant amount of balance work is a priority then leaving m+c as-is is pretty obviously the indicated solution :) And I'm fine with doing that, I just don't see leaving it as-is as a long-term solution
(Other very minor concerns that come to mind: Distribution Nodes, Zenith Reprocessor behavior, scrapping returns, Trader goodies)
On the first three, I think they'd be fine as-is, though I'm open to suggestions. On the last: all crystal, all day ;) Though if that's a problem, adjustments can be made.
The idea in general sounds interesting. Not nearly as dramatic as many of the other things suggested, but much easier to implement and understand, I think.
I think so. Not without growing/changing/balancing pains, I'm sure.
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Generally amenable to the idea.
Is there a particular reason for crystal usage to scale with Mk level? Bear in mind that this may well mean jumping through even more hoops just to get use from a fab/FacIV.
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Still not warm to the idea, because distribution is setup as if crystal and metal are equal, yet it seems like crystal will be used much, much more often.
Still feels like a nerf. Even if, on paper, there is a slight increase in theoritical power, in practice it feels like it is a nerf. That is not to mention the the off paper bookkeeping and generally increased headache.
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@Cinth: The main problem with my original idea in this thread is that it's too complex to replace a core resource (I don't think it's too complex as a mechanic in general, just too complex for a core resource). The other big problem is that you'd not necessarily even want to use crystal in every game, or not use it very much. Ultimately it's something that might be good to do (I'm thinking as a minor faction of sorts that lets you get those per-planet-cap defenses) but it wouldn't work in this particular "slot".
@Everyone:
But (everyone run and hide now) I have an idea!
It does not try to add more take-and-hold irreplaceables.
It does not try to address the chokepoint vs distributed defense issue.
It does not try to let you build turrets outside supply.
It does not try to make crystal radically different from metal.
It barely digs holes! (http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/comic/) (sorry, had to)
So, what does it do? I'm glad you a-(used-starship salesman is shot).
Anyway, the idea is to:
- Leave the fundamental role of m and c the same.
- But make the distinction between m and c far clearer.
- While NOT nerfing the overall econ strength of the player.
I say again, NOT nerfing econ ;) At least, that's my intent, it's always possible I've overlooked something. If you think the below would be an econ nerf, please show me why.
So:
1) For every single human-buildable unit in the game: While leaving the actual m+c total cost the same, adjust the "what percent is metal?" (or crystal, depending on how you look at it) ratio according to this principle:
The higher the individual power of the unit, the higher % of its construction cost is crystal.
Possible examples:
- mkI and mkII fleet ships with standard caps (192 on high-caps) are 100% metal; mkIII is 5% crystal, mkIV is 10%, mkV is 15%
- really high-cap swarmer types are 100% metal all the way to mkV
- really low-cap fleet ship types (like the spire stealth battleship, etc) start at 50% crystal at mkI and work up to 70% at mkV.
- the cap-of-2 starships (flagship, heavy bomber starship, plasma siege starship, etc) start at 70% crystal at mkI and work up to 90% at mkV.
- the cap-of-1 starships (zenith, spire) start at 100% crystal, end of story.
- all turrets are pretty individually powerful and would thus have some non-trivial crystal %.
- most superweapons stuff would probably be all crystal (this would impact FS a lot, though we can adjust the hab center and such income to be more heavily crystal or whatever's needed therE), though some spirecraft are probably actually less individually powerful than a spire starship, I haven't checked lately.
2) Make Mapgen more deliberate about resource availability:
- For each HW: Instead of 12 randomly chosen resource spots, gets exactly 6 of each.
- For each non-HW: Instead of getting randomly between 0 and 4 of each resource (generally yielding an average of 4 spots per planet), gets put into 1 of 5 categories (with mapgen distributing planets between each of the 5 categories as evenly as possible) :
-- category 1: zero metal, zero crystal
-- category 2: 4 metal, zero crystal
-- category 3: zero metal, 4 crystal
-- category 4: 8 metal, zero crystal
-- category 5: zero metal, 8 crystal
3) Remove m<=>c conversion entirely.
In terms of overall economic impact, the average number of resource spots per non-HW planet would go from 4 to 4.8, a 20% increase. But of course if you found yourself out of one resource and unable to use the other, that's a downside.
But I'd say it's a much more avoidable downside than the current ratios of metal:crystal in building costs:
- It's much more intuitive what will cost which resource: if it's individually big (starships) or high-mark, it costs more crystal than metal. Otherwise it costs more metal than crystal.
- If you plan to use a lot of metal-heavy units (swarmers, not planning to unlock a lot of mkIII types, not getting much in the way of low-cap bonus ships from ARS's, etc), then you can simply aim for the planets that give you metal, and you can go for metal harvester upgrades as a higher priority than crystal ones.
- Vice versa if you plan to use a lot of crystal-heavy units (starships, high-tech stuff)
- If you plan to be pretty balanced, you can pick equally between crystal and metal planets, and either research in both harvesters or go for econ-station upgrades (in theory, at least)
So if you just totally bottom out on one resource while the other's sitting at cap and wasting income... well, it's much more likely than during the manufactory days that the problem exists between the keyboard and the computer ;)
A few caveats:
- I suspect the above would lead to frequent metal surpluses and crystal shortages, since the stuff that costs mostly metal would also be the stuff that's mostly cheaper. There are a few ways in which we can correct for this; in any event it can be done.
- One thing we may need to do if we go this route is revisit how sharply the m+c costs scale with higher marks (specifically, mkIV and mkV).
- Energy converter running costs may need to change from 50% metal, I dunno. Conceivably we may even want to split it into one type which does m=>e and another type that does c=>e, but I'm a bit wary of that.
Anyway, thoughts?
Keith, I really like this suggestion, and I think it's something that the game could really benefit from now in its current state.
For example, though the Starship changes have been fantastic, and though their costs are insanely high, they are still better than Fleetships in the current situation (in my opinion) just because of several important key factors:
1. They are immune to tractors.
2. They are immune to insta-kill.
3. They have a low cap (take out planets with Eyes).
4. They can't be reclaimed (HUGE).
5. They can be repaired.
6. They can all fit under your shields (whether that be Champion Shields, Shield Bearers, Riot Shields, or whatever).
7. They can all be boosted by Flagships, which increases their firepower much more than say...an MKI Fighter.
The problem is, I LIKE the current state of Starships. I don't want them to get nerfed again, because I feel like they should be the powerful, durable units that they are now.
The same could be said of a lot of the bigger bonus ships (especially Spire ships). They share this same immunity to most things, and low-cap benefit, that makes them so much stronger in many situations than the high-cap stuff (which has the tendency to die in swarms). Adding a crystal cost could help balance them out a bit.
ALSO:
I don't mind the idea of a resource that runs out. In pretty much every popular strategy game out there (Starcraft 2 for example), when you run out of a resource...well too bad buddy, go mine some more.
In AI War I feel like we've been coddled a little too much in this category. The fact that we're merging Metal and Crystal together after all these years, because they've become so interchangeable, is proof of that. Just like in any other strategy game (or in real-life strategy), if you're not tailoring your production and your army based on the resources available to you, then you're doing it wrong.
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I don't mind the idea of a resource that runs out. In pretty much every popular strategy game out there (Starcraft 2 for example), when you run out of a resource...well too bad buddy, go mine some more.
In AI War I feel like we've been coddled a little too much in this category. The fact that we're merging Metal and Crystal together after all these years, because they've become so interchangeable, is proof of that. Just like in any other strategy game (or in real-life strategy), if you're not tailoring your production and your army based on the resources available to you, then you're doing it wrong.
I do disagree with this. AI War is largely centered around you setting the pace, you claiming territory when you see a resource you really really need. Why? Because while m/c are infinite in supply, your knowledge, overall tech, and map control are dictated by your extremely finite knowledge and AI Progress resources. So, there are resources that you spend and earn that are finite. It's just that because of the nature of the game, having limited resources overall would completely screw you over and have a massive influence on how the game is played at a fundamental level. AIP would likely need a complete overhaul.
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Keep in mind it is Friday night, I feel like I'm stretching my mind in trying to address it. But pain be damned I want to try before I get inebriated .
I'm sure you'll be shocked, but I have some reservations.
I'm still in the denial phase, but I'll get over it.
First, I'd feel a little sad if the reasonable amount of variety in system resources that currently exists (25 categories, so to speak) was replaced by merely 5 - especially when one of those five was a 'nothing' system.
Well, there's numeric variety and then there's strategic variety. Sometimes numeric coarseness makes strategic variety more obvious to the player. I think the 0/4/8 approach would lead people to actually consider resource spots more frequently in deciding what planets to take.
And I don't mind going with a 9-category system (0/2/4/8, or whatever) if that feels better, but I think making it more granular just washes it out a bit.
The result is that you are making it much important, which means any other changes are simply more contested. Neither bad nor good.
Second, your proposed distribution isn't really 4.8 resources per system - it's actually 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal.
Mathematically, how do you get that? And under that figuring, what does the current system (which gives randomly 0-4 of each resource) give?
By my figuring our current system gives an average of 2 metal and 2 crystal per planet, where the one I proposed would give an average 4.8 metal or 4.8 crystal.
I cite this as the confusion:
- For each non-HW: Instead of getting randomly between 0 and 4 of each resource (generally yielding an average of 4 spots per planet), gets put into 1 of 5 categories (with mapgen distributing planets between each of the 5 categories as evenly as possible) :
-- category 1: zero metal, zero crystal
-- category 2: 4 metal, zero crystal
-- category 3: zero metal, 4 crystal
-- category 4: 8 metal, zero crystal
-- category 5: zero metal, 8 crystal
The result is that on average of the 5 planets, you get a total of 12 spots each. (12 / 5) = 2.4
Next, if your basic mid-cap fleetship is 85+% metal, high-cap are all metal, and lowcap are 30-50% metal, you're looking at a lot of metal useage.
Quick check says: 65 fleetship types, 5 low-low cap (cap-of-5), 8 with a 1/4 cap, and 6 more with a 1/2 cap. That leaves 46 with mid-to-high caps.
The numbers are certainly up for tweaking, but consider carefully whether fleetships being metal heavy is actually going to put undue burden on metal. Starships and high-mark stuff are where the big m+c costs are right now currently (superweapons aside), and I'm not talking about changing how much total a unit costs, just the ratios.
In fact, I think those units cost so much that the system I've proposed would have early results that hammer crystal a lot harder than metal.
But with the relative needs for replacement, it's possible fleet ships and lower-mark ships could pull ahead in total outlay. Dunno.
Given the first point, it means it has to be really, really refined, in part because your planet choices are so very heavily dictated by resources, both because there is so little grandulation and because there is no M C conversion.
Change number 1 would be two figure out what the average metal/crystal ratio would be, and adjust for that. So instead of 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal, if twice as much metal is needed over crystal, then perhaps 3.2 metal and 1.6 crystal. (I would actually try to determine the two distributions independently - so your five categories for metal might be 0/4/0/8/0, but 0/0/2/0/5 for crystal... whatever works).
I'm ok with that in theory. But I'm not out to make starships-heavy harder (as lower crystal distributions would do), so I'm kind of in wait-and-see there. Doesn't need playtesting per se, but some fairly solid mathematical analysis based on real play experiences (in terms of how much of what is built in what playstyles, nowadays).
For me, having no conversion alone already makes "X only games" harder, unless said units perfectly balanced out. The fact you have units that focus on one resource greatly makes this more important. I'm just not grapsing right now how losing conversion, and having planets mean so much more in what resources you get, without getting a pretty big boost to overall income, means in general any specific strategy, rather then a generalized one, is harder.
Change number 2 would be to add a little variety to the categories - say +-1.
What does that really add, though, other than fuzzing up the picture for the player reading the galaxy map? I think strategic decision making (as opposed to just ignoring resource spot count, or treating it as highly secondary) is more likely when there are fewer discrete states to consider. If additional discrete states actually add enough to the game, then fine, but do they?
It create granulation, so that things aren't black and white, so my choices aren't so arbitrary I suppose this is opinion.
Change number 3 would be to replace the 0/0 systems with 1/1 systems. No one likes 0/0 systems. Give them something special, like being the only systems to have both resources but in very small amounts.
Fair enough (I'd actually been thinking of that, too).
Sounds cool.
Finally, your playstyle and resources are REALLY going to impact each other. In a starship-centered game, 60% of systems are going to be useless, economy-wise. In a fleetship-centric game, it'll still be 60% useless systems, just different systems.
That's assuming that the 6 spots of the "off-type" on your HW are all you need for that resource. I don't think that will be true. And if you're playing starships _only_ (on offense, at least), then yes, you're going to run into a variety of problems already. Perhaps a crystal shortage would be one of them. But if you really want to do that you can prioritize capturing the 8-crystal planets and actually come out ahead (compared to the current model) in having the resource necessary to build your starships. If you don't want to do that, then at least mix your fleet ships into the offense, etc, so you're getting some value out of whatever metal you're getting.
And vice versa for going fleet-ship-heavy: if you're not even building your default-unlocked starships, then you're already running into problems in the current version of the game. Or, at least, into missed opportunities.
I don't think this is going to make even those extremes significantly harder to play, and it shouldn't hurt the more moderate fleet-heavy or starship-heavy approaches really at all. If it does we can adjust for that.
Upon thinking about it, I realized that splitting the energy converter into two types, one which burns metal for energy and one which burns crystal for energy, would be an excellent "relief valve" for players in a situation where they have few planets and thus energy problems: they can burn the resource they use less. If they have enough planets to not have energy problems, they've probably at least had a fair opportunity to pick up an 8-spot planet of the resource they prefer.
Seriously, I'm trying to not nerf anyone here, just open up a new front of strategic decision making. That does mean that making bad decisions on that front (likely to happen while new to it) can hurt you, but I think that's true by-definition of any addition of complexity.
Assuming typical RNG behavior, you just KNOW that your Superweapon-and-starship game would end up with every ARS system being 8/0 metal.
In that case, I hope you don't have CSGs on :)
It's possible that if you do have CSGs on it should make those "forced planets" have an even distribution within themselves, or all be 2/2 or something like that to avoid that kind of problem. Though I guess you have a choice for the B, C, D, and E networks; the A network is where I think it'd need to be 2/2 or whatever, because you have to take 4 of those 5.
Balancing might be... awkward.
Well, sure, but is that not true of anything we've talked about doing for crystal? If avoiding a significant amount of balance work is a priority then leaving m+c as-is is pretty obviously the indicated solution :) And I'm fine with doing that, I just don't see leaving it as-is as a long-term solution
(Other very minor concerns that come to mind: Distribution Nodes, Zenith Reprocessor behavior, scrapping returns, Trader goodies)
On the first three, I think they'd be fine as-is, though I'm open to suggestions. On the last: all crystal, all day ;) Though if that's a problem, adjustments can be made.
The idea in general sounds interesting. Not nearly as dramatic as many of the other things suggested, but much easier to implement and understand, I think.
I think so. Not without growing/changing/balancing pains, I'm sure.
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In a galaxy where M <-> C then 4.8 ... In a parallel universe where M =/ C then 2.4.
Point 3 of the proposed change.
:)
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I don't mind the idea of a resource that runs out. In pretty much every popular strategy game out there (Starcraft 2 for example), when you run out of a resource...well too bad buddy, go mine some more.
The difference is that Starcraft 2 is a zero sum game. Units don't pop out of thin air. And both players are fighting for those resources.
Since the AI doesn't produce units, and no players are competing for resources, any comparison for economy is diluted at best.
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Keep in mind it is Friday night, I feel like I'm stretching my mind in trying to address it. But pain be damned I want to try before I get inebriated .
Posting from the past? Might want to recheck your favorite calender. I would hate for you to miss something important (like work on Monday)
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Posting from the past? Might want to recheck your favorite calender. I would hate for you to miss something important (like work on Monday)
Oh, my shorthand kills me.
It is my Friday night. Such is life when your weekend starts when many other's ends.
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Posting from the past? Might want to recheck your favorite calender. I would hate for you to miss something important (like work on Monday)
Oh, my shorthand kills me.
It is my Friday night. Such is life when your weekend starts when many other's ends.
Well then :) Cheers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUQT4hykPd0
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I like this idea. I do think that it will require such a large amount of balancing that you will want to wait until you are really working on AI War and not have the distractions of other projects.
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I don't mind the idea of a resource that runs out. In pretty much every popular strategy game out there (Starcraft 2 for example), when you run out of a resource...well too bad buddy, go mine some more.
In AI War I feel like we've been coddled a little too much in this category. The fact that we're merging Metal and Crystal together after all these years, because they've become so interchangeable, is proof of that. Just like in any other strategy game (or in real-life strategy), if you're not tailoring your production and your army based on the resources available to you, then you're doing it wrong.
I do disagree with this. AI War is largely centered around you setting the pace, you claiming territory when you see a resource you really really need. Why? Because while m/c are infinite in supply, your knowledge, overall tech, and map control are dictated by your extremely finite knowledge and AI Progress resources. So, there are resources that you spend and earn that are finite. It's just that because of the nature of the game, having limited resources overall would completely screw you over and have a massive influence on how the game is played at a fundamental level. AIP would likely need a complete overhaul.
The Crystal isn't limited. It's still unlimited just like the "main" resource, but you have to find planets to mine it from.
In fact, the planets you'll be taking with those features you listed (tech, map control, factories, etc.) will most likely already have Metal and "Crystal" on them. My point is that unless you want one of your resources to stall, you'll have to tailor your Technology unlocks to whatever your resource situation is.
This isn't that difficult or strenuous on the player. If you have a lot of metal, then use your knowledge to unlock units which cost a lot of metal. If you have too much Crystal, then start unlocking those units.
If we just make the resources interchangeable as they are now, then we're just stuck in the same position.
It used to be that choosing units based on your Metal or Crystal situation was actually important, then people whined about the kind of things you are now. Instead of asking players to adapt to the game or the scenario, they wanted the game to adapt to them. Well that's fine, except it takes away a lot of the strategy. Because the resources are interchangeable, I can go the same strategy every single game, even if it is metal or crystal heavy, regardless of my economic situation. So what you inevitably lead to is a situation where the players can just do the same unlocks and builds over and over without any drawbacks.
I don't think this is the way AI War was intended to be played. This is made clear by the fact that so many elements of the game are random like ARS unlocks, fabs. and resource deposits all over the galaxy.
If you went the same strategy in any other popular RTS every game, you would lose. Yet I can pick the same bonus ship, and unlock the same things, every game, even on difficulty 9, and win every time; and nothing is stopping me from doing that. You tell me, is this the way AI War is meant to be played?
The difference is that Starcraft 2 is a zero sum game. Units don't pop out of thin air. And both players are fighting for those resources.
Since the AI doesn't produce units, and no players are competing for resources, any comparison for economy is diluted at best.
Actually the players usually never "fight" for one another's resources, the game is typically over long before that. What they will do is try to prevent another player from "expanding", or in other words deny him from increasing his own resources in some way.
That DOES exist in AI War. The AI's resource is AIP, which the player can reduce with Data Centers, Super Terminals, or by being very careful in what planets he/she takes. The AI can't take away your resources, but it can destroy your army or destroy your planets to prevent you from holding on to them.
So it's not as different as you think.
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Finally, Keith could add a new Knowledge unlock that would transfer one resource type to another, but it should cost around 5K knowledge, and should have a pretty crappy conversion rate.
In other words, the player is ecnouraged to adapt to their own economic situation.
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If you went the same strategy in any other popular RTS every game, you would lose. Yet I can pick the same bonus ship, and unlock the same things, every game, even on difficulty 9, and win every time; and nothing is stopping me from doing that. You tell me, is this the way AI War is meant to be played?
This sir, is a loaded question. I, for one, do play pretty much every game of AIW the same way. I should think that each player here has their own way of approaching impending disaster.
AIW and Starcraft II have at least two things in common. One is the superior army flat out beating its opponent. The second is economic strangulation.
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Cinth, you may be content playing each game of AI War the exact same way, but my point is that I don't think that's the way it was intended to be played.
A big part of successful Strategy games (especially grand strategy games such as AI War) is being forced to adapt to your situation.
In any other successful RTS on the market right now, if you employ the same strategy every time against competent players, you WILL lose. This is because the players will catch on to your act, and begin countering your strategy.
The AI in AI War can not counter your strategy, at least directly. It can make it harder for your strategy to be employed, but that's it. The only thing preventing players from doing the same thing every game are "random" mechanics, such as resource nodes, which force you to adapt to the situation. These mechanics take the place of a true counter in other games.
So yes, I think it's important to make the player adapt to each new scenario in a meaningful way. If you don't like this, I'm sure there are difficulties at which it doesn't really matter what you do anymore.
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I don't play RTS against human opponents anymore. It got boring to me after awhile. In AIW, I push the AI to the point it nearly breaks my defenses. At that point I make moves to try to finish the game. It usually doesn't play out quite the same way twice, but I enjoy the grand scale carnage that follows.
That particular strat works even in Starcraft. Terran, and to an extent Protoss, can turtle up and tech up while letting the other player(s) attrition themselves on your "walls". 200 supply armies tend to steamroll at that point. I know there are other strats that work just as well, mainly involving remembering unit counters and tons of harassment, but I can't remember details like that on the fly anymore.
I guess the point in all of that is that every one plays differently. You and I will never play a co-op AIW game. You would be bored to tears in my style, and I lost in yours. :)
And Btw.. before the last 10/10 buff I was stomping the hell out of 10/10 (AAR over --> that way). Casually I play upper 8s to mid 9s. I tool around in 7s. There is a reason I don't usually get involved in balance debates. It usually doesn't have a large effect on me. All I want to see from this potential change is that it is "equal opportunity" and is enjoyable by all styles of play.
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I don't play RTS against human opponents anymore. It got boring to me after awhile. In AIW, I push the AI to the point it nearly breaks my defenses. At that point I make moves to try to finish the game. It usually doesn't play out quite the same way twice, but I enjoy the grand scale carnage that follows.
That particular strat works even in Starcraft. Terran, and to an extent Protoss, can turtle up and tech up while letting the other player(s) attrition themselves on your "walls". 200 supply armies tend to steamroll at that point. I know there are other strats that work just as well, mainly involving remembering unit counters and tons of harassment, but I can't remember details like that on the fly anymore.
I guess the point in all of that is that every one plays differently. You and I will never play a co-op AIW game. You would be bored to tears in my style, and I lost (or pissing you off) in yours. :)
And Btw.. before the last 10/10 buff I was stomping the hell out of 10/10 (AAR over --> that way). Casually I play upper 8s to mid 9s. I tool around in 7s. There is a reason I don't usually get involved in balance debates. It usually doesn't have a large effect on me. All I want to see from this potential change is that it is "equal opportunity" and is enjoyable by all styles of play.
That's definitely fair.
People should be able to play however they want. If some people enjoy a particular tactic, and want to employ it every game, that should be considered too.
I'm just not sure how to make that possible without turning the new "Crystal" mechanic into what we already have (an interchangeable resource). Like I said, giving a Manufactory unlock for 5k Knowledge could allow the player some freedom in building whatever he/she wants; but it wouldn't be exactly the same as before, because you'd have to spend Knowledge on it, and the conversion rates would probably be worse.
I'm not sure how you would solve something like this without making the new resource mechanic optional.
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I'm game with the proposed changes as they are. It's going to be the devil in the details for some stuff though. Balancing Golems, Spirecraft and FS to fit the new model and require a lopsided econ is going to be interesting to say the least. Trader toys I could see being ALL crystal heavy but G, S, and FS need to be balanced within reason. Like I said, devil in the details :)
It's also why I'm glad the idea in the OP hasn't been scrapped. There is potential there for something that is openly accessible to expanding everyone's toolkit. To me, that is very appealing.
If this is done right, we won't need a M <-> C converter for K. Actually, I think the model should be built assuming there won't be one. If the distribution of nodes is fairly even across the board, then you basically take planets with the resources you need. Right now, you take any planet with a good amount of node (more is better). Under the new model, you take good planets but you have to take what you need into consideration too. In a low AIP game, you (CSG enabled) take 8 planets. I could see us taking one or two more just to even out the resources and build up a slightly larger force.
I think 210~220 AIP is going to end up the new target with "Lazy eye" off. I'm probably wrong there but meh :). That's about 11 controlled planets worth of firepower.
Going to stop here because I think I'm rambling on.
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Second, your proposed distribution isn't really 4.8 resources per system - it's actually 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal.
Mathematically, how do you get that? And under that figuring, what does the current system (which gives randomly 0-4 of each resource) give?
By my figuring our current system gives an average of 2 metal and 2 crystal per planet, where the one I proposed would give an average 4.8 metal or 4.8 crystal.
As Cinth said, in a universe where there is no M<=>C conversion, you can't add M+C anymore. E(x) = 12 resources of each type, among 5 systems = 2.4 of each type. Total resources is 4.8, but each type is only 2.4. In the current system, the expected is 2/2, but about 60% of systems are 3/1 to 1/3. Also, 60% of systems have at least 4 resources, which due to conversion means at worst 3 of the type you want.
Of course, the other way to look at it is: "Given that the system has the resource you want, the average number of resources for that system is 6" which sounds a lot better, doesn't it?
Change number 2 would be to add a little variety to the categories - say +-1.
What does that really add, though, other than fuzzing up the picture for the player reading the galaxy map? I think strategic decision making (as opposed to just ignoring resource spot count, or treating it as highly secondary) is more likely when there are fewer discrete states to consider. If additional discrete states actually add enough to the game, then fine, but do they?
You are correct that it doesn't add any real benefit. It's mostly my opinion - I like the minor variety, even if it doesn't add strategic depth.
Upon thinking about it, I realized that splitting the energy converter into two types, one which burns metal for energy and one which burns crystal for energy, would be an excellent "relief valve" for players in a situation where they have few planets and thus energy problems: they can burn the resource they use less. If they have enough planets to not have energy problems, they've probably at least had a fair opportunity to pick up an 8-spot planet of the resource they prefer.
Like this idea a lot. It's kind of an indirect conversion - M->E or C->E, rather than M+C->E.
In fact, I think those units cost so much that the system I've proposed would have early results that hammer crystal a lot harder than metal.
But with the relative needs for replacement, it's possible fleet ships and lower-mark ships could pull ahead in total outlay. Dunno.
I just checked a few recently played games. My triangle ships died at the rate of roughly 500/hour. I'd lost 4000 of each at the end of a victorious 8 hour game, 6000 at the end of a 12 hour, and about 8000 of each at the end of a losing 18 hour game. Starships, on the other hand, died MUCH more rarely. The 18 hour game, for example, I only built 10 Spire and 8 Zenith - and they went out with the fleet every time. So fleetships were 10x as likely to die as my starships (including deliberate suicide runs).
Change number 1 would be two figure out what the average metal/crystal ratio would be, and adjust for that. So instead of 2.4 metal or 2.4 crystal, if twice as much metal is needed over crystal, then perhaps 3.2 metal and 1.6 crystal. (I would actually try to determine the two distributions independently - so your five categories for metal might be 0/4/0/8/0, but 0/0/2/0/5 for crystal... whatever works).
I'm ok with that in theory. But I'm not out to make starships-heavy harder (as lower crystal distributions would do), so I'm kind of in wait-and-see there. Doesn't need playtesting per se, but some fairly solid mathematical analysis based on real play experiences (in terms of how much of what is built in what playstyles, nowadays).
I dunno about solid math, but here's some lazy math for you:
| Mk I M | Mk I C | MK II M | MK II C | MK III M | MK III C | MK IV M | MK IV C | MK V M | MK V C |
| Lowcap Average | 44633 | 44633 | 80341 | 98194 | 142828 | 214242 | 187462 | 348144 | 214242 | 499900 |
| Midcap Average | 61011 | 0 | 122022 | 0 | 231842 | 12202 | 329460 | 36606 | 414876 | 73213 |
| Highcap Average | 48709 | 0 | 97418 | 0 | 194836 | 0 | 292254 | 0 | 389672 | 0 |
| Starship Average | 50330 | 148207 | 83884 | 313192 | 134215 | 659938 | 139575 | 990925 | 124066 | 1383266 |
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| Triangle Sums | 307200 | 0 | 614400 | 0 | 1167360 | 61440 | 1658880 | 184320 | 2088960 | 368640 |
(http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=12754.0;attach=6948;image)
So, starships cost about 2x the lowcap ships, 3x midcap, and 4x highcap. And all in crystal.
The low mark Triangle ships are going to be the workhorse of the player for a good chunk of the game, and they are all metal.
Given my (anecdotal) 10-1 death ratio, that's not too much crystal demand for early-mid game. Late game, though...
On the extreme end, Golems, Spirecraft, FS, and Trader goods being all crystal would put HUGE demands on crystal. Enough that playing with those enabled basically means taking nothing but Crystal-8 systems. I mean, Botnet? 20,000,000 * .75 * .25 = 3,750,000 crystal right there, plus a 1,400 a second while operating.
Maybe crystal spawn rates should depend on what options are enabled?
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Jesus this amount of text............
Anyway.. why planets couldn't have both resources? Why only either Metal or Crystal? I can't simply capture any planet I want. It's not like if I need metal I would "simply capture a planet with 8 Metal Asteroids". If that planet is in a crappy position I'm not going to capture it.
If there's a planet in a good position but it only has the resource I don't need then it would be almost same as if that planet had 0 resource asteroids. Especially when it wouldn't be possible to convert resources.
At the moment if a planet is in a good position and it has 2 metal and 2 crystal asteroids I'm totally going to capture it. Even if it had 3 resource asteroids I'd probably capture it.
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Sleeping on this, I just keep finding headaches.
Headaches in trying to figure out which planets to take. On how to balance it in base game. On how to balance minor factions which will have exponentially higher crystal needs. Balancing out so that "X only games" (which are already fairly hard) aren't hit harder, while "build everything and blob" games don't get the easiest hit of the stick. Of how to balance MK increases. Of how defenses must be balanced. Of how to compensate for an unfair RNG...
And lastly, for all this work. Work that is almost of a similar magnitude to redoing armor, I must ask.
Does the dev time, and overall growing pains for all, really justify the "benefits"?
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Kahuna, care to theorycraft a minute? With the soon to be added AI Homeworld changes (Operation Lazy Eye), do you see your AIP target changing? Do you see maybe 210 or 220 being possible (within the bounds of your game style).
@Chemical_art: Lol. Don't over think it. Remember K.I.S.S.
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@Chemical_art: Lol. Don't over think it. Remember K.I.S.S.
KISS works for minor factions. They can always be disabled. But a mechanic that many minor factions are dependent on?
For game changing operations, it doesn't work quite so much. If this was a massive rework to enable greater strategic options I would be more game. Armor for example could do that. But this just seems to be at best shifting strategic options, if not constraining them a little.
To fundamentally overtime a core resource is no small matter, and I'm saying the benefits need to be worth the work.
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Well.. the best I could come up with so far was to have Golems fairly 50/50. On going maintenance costs should tax, not drain completely here. Spirecraft can be like starships are planned albeit with higher crystal costs at the lowest tier. These guys are once and done (or the most part). For FS, have the city hubs and structures be 50/50. Easier to keep them in similar balance to where they are now because of the spawns attached to them. For the vessels themselves start at 50/50 (frigates) and amp up the crystal cost from there and use the habitation to balance it out.
Once we have a baseline, tweaking should be difficult.
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Cinth, you may be content playing each game of AI War the exact same way, but my point is that I don't think that's the way it was intended to be played.
I respectfully submit that the game is intended to be fun :)
The aim of this change is not to improve the human race through making its strategy games harder. If someone thinks they can pull that off, go ahead, but here I'm aiming at something I think I can hit, which is to make m+c more interesting and to make sense as two separate resources within the same mechanic.
@Toranth: so basically it looks like the early game would be metal-heavy and the later game would be crystal-heavy... maybe. Kind of depends on what you build and what you lose.
@various-asking-about-minor-factions: if golems/spirecraft/FS/trader-toys/etc are an issue we can just make them 50/50. I was hoping to stick with a very simple principle (the more powerful the individual unit, the higher the crystal-%) but I think since superweapons are (generally speaking) neatly separate from the base-game stuff it wouldn't be too confusing to just make them 50/50.
@chemical_art: I don't think it's going to be as hard as you think. Either way, I think it's worth it.
@Kahuna:
Anyway.. why planets couldn't have both resources? Why only either Metal or Crystal?
They can if that's what makes sense, but I think that the current distribution heavily blurs the line between metal and crystal. If we're going to blur the line that much (and with m<=>c conversion and with so many units having 50/50 costs or not far off from that) then we may as well just make them into a single resource.
I think the 0/4/8 distribution helps planets feel different from each other in terms of strategic value, which makes for more interesting decision making.
I can't simply capture any planet I want. It's not like if I need metal I would "simply capture a planet with 8 Metal Asteroids". If that planet is in a crappy position I'm not going to capture it.
Sure, and I'm anticipating that. But of a given set of planets that you can pick from to capture, 1 out of 5 will have 8 metal spots. If that 20% of the capturable planets are all in crappy positions... well, yea, that's going to be an issue. Though even there there's another 20% that have 4 metal spots, which is nothing to sneeze at if you need metal. If 40% of the capturable planets are all in crappy positions... I don't think things are looking up under any model :) And I don't see how the other resource would be completely useless to you; you could just grab it and build more of whatever primarily requires it.
If there's a planet in a good position but it only has the resource I don't need then it would be almost same as if that planet had 0 resource asteroids.
But why do you think you'll only need one of the resources? I don't think even the extreme cases of fleet-only or starship-only would be ok with just 6 harvesters of the "off-type" by midgame, and iirc you don't play either of those extremes.
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If there's a planet in a good position but it only has the resource I don't need then it would be almost same as if that planet had 0 resource asteroids.
But why do you think you'll only need one of the resources? I don't think even the extreme cases of fleet-only or starship-only would be ok with just 6 harvesters of the "off-type" by midgame, and iirc you don't play either of those extremes.
Because with no M<--->C conversion, it is, in every sense of the word, all or nothing.
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Keith, my underlying conern is this:
You say that this won't nerf the economy overall, but I ask, how. HOW!?!
No conversion? That, alone, is enough to be a nerf. If you did nothing else, that alone is a nerf of unprecedented proportions. Keep in mind conversions won a poll all on its own.
I...I can't even muster more energy then that. That, alone, is so much of a roadblock all my other concerns are not necessary. It is so much a nerf I don't even see why it is necessary to elaborate. You are making the division between M and C more extreme, then remove the conversion.
I simply do not understand how this is not a nerf to the player economy.
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If there's a planet in a good position but it only has the resource I don't need then it would be almost same as if that planet had 0 resource asteroids.
But why do you think you'll only need one of the resources? I don't think even the extreme cases of fleet-only or starship-only would be ok with just 6 harvesters of the "off-type" by midgame, and iirc you don't play either of those extremes.
Because with no M<--->C conversion, it is, in every sense of the word, all or nothing.
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Under what midgame circumstance would you only need 120/s of either m or c from harvesters?
I guess there's also the command station incomes, which overshadows that amount, but that also gives you another out: if you don't want to care about whether you're capturing metal spots or crystal spots, just use econ stations (preferably upgraded).
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I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Under what midgame circumstance would you only need 120/s of either m or c from harvesters?
I guess there's also the command station incomes, which overshadows that amount, but that also gives you another out: if you don't want to care about whether you're capturing metal spots or crystal spots, just use econ stations (preferably upgraded).
Because if one craft needs 80% or more one resource, and you cannot convert resources, you will ALWAYS need one resource or another.
In my experience, i have NEVER had a game where one resource, just from base amounts, was less then 10% of disparity from the other. So as my point above, simply removing conversions nerfs my economy by at least 10%. That is before changing resource costs.
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No conversion? That, alone, is enough to be a nerf. If you did nothing else, that alone is a nerf of unprecedented proportions.
But I'm not talking about doing nothing else, I'm also talking about increasing the average resource-spots-per-planet by 20%. And making it considerably easier to capture considerably more than 20% more than would be possible on-average before (40% of planets would have 8 spots, where currently you would be very hard pressed to focus on capturing 4/4 planets). How much of an increase would be needed to counterbalance the loss of conversion?
Keep in mind conversions won a poll all on its on.
Manufactories won a nerf poll. Because people wanted to stop having to deal with them. I don't see that as a vote of confidence in the conversion mechanic, but rather in not having to worry about a distinction which currently has very little impact on the game.
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Because if one craft needs 80% or more one resource, and you cannot convert resources, you will ALWAYS need one resource or another.
Ok, can you build something else that uses the other resource? Also, if you're using matter converters you can make sure they're all the kind that burn the resource you need less. If you're not using matter converters I'm guessing it's either early-game or you have enough planets that collectors are covering everything, in which case I think you've probably had a number of opportunities to primarily capture the type of resource spot you want more of.
In my experience, i have NEVER had a game where one resource, just from base amounts, was less then 10% of disparity from the other. So as my point above, simply removing conversions nerfs my economy by at least 10%. That is before changing resource costs.
Ok, 10%. How is an average 20% increase in resource spots not going to at least partly counterbalance that?
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And I would assume (big risk here lol) that a full split like this would also bring revised ship costs. I also only recall MK Vs being the only ships listed with an 80% resource cost. Please point that telescope away from the ground, that ant hill must look like a mountain ;)
... Thread moves to fast :P
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No conversion? That, alone, is enough to be a nerf. If you did nothing else, that alone is a nerf of unprecedented proportions.
But I'm not talking about doing nothing else, I'm also talking about increasing the average resource-spots-per-planet by 20%. And making it considerably easier to capture considerably more than 20% more than would be possible on-average before (40% of planets would have 8 spots, where currently you would be very hard pressed to focus on capturing 4/4 planets). How much of an increase would be needed to counterbalance the loss of conversion?
Have you not seen the previous posts about the confusion? There were plenty of posts that your initial idea was...confusing at best. Check those out. Right now, for those who dig into the math, you have made it seem like a nerf. Since M cannot convert to C, every resource is considered indepentent, so if on average you get 2.4 of a resource, you get 2.4 of a resource. You cannot lump the two together, but every unit needs a different amount and there is no "relief valve" if one resource is needed for 5 minutes. Making matter converters needed per resource is a step backwards, for it makes them micro heavy again.
Keep in mind conversions won a poll all on its on.
Manufactories won a nerf poll. Because people wanted to stop having to deal with them. I don't see that as a vote of confidence in the conversion mechanic, but rather in not having to worry about a distinction which currently has very little impact on the game.
Manufactures is a symptom. If matter conversion wasn't needed so much, manufactures wouldn't have won at all! This is a fact.
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Kahuna, care to theorycraft a minute? With the soon to be added AI Homeworld changes (Operation Lazy Eye), do you see your AIP target changing? Do you see maybe 210 or 220 being possible (within the bounds of your game style).
So the cost of popping an AI Home Station will be reduced from 100 to 20 = 80 reduction.
At the moment destroying an AI Core Guard Post costs only 2 AIP. After the patch each will cost 2 AIP + 10 AIP Floor so basically 12.
I just created a couple of games with complete visibility to see how many Guard Posts each AI home planet has.
Game 1:
AI 1: 7=84 AIP
AI 2: 8=96 AIP
Game 2:
AI 1: 7=84 AIP
AI 2: 7=84 AIP
Game 3:
AI 1: 7=84 AIP
AI 2: 7=84 AIP
Game 4:
AI 1: 7=84 AIP
AI 2: 8=96 AIP
The total cost for completely destroying an AI home planet will be increased by 4 if there's 7 core guard posts and by 16 if there's 8. That doesn't sound like a lot but before the big AIP increase happened when the player destroyed the Command Station. The problems caused by the +100 AIP increase could be solved by first neutering both AI home planets and then destroying both Command Stations at the same time. Now this big AIP jump can't be avoided because it happens gradually as you destroy the Core Guard Posts.
This will make destroying both AI home command stations at the same time a less attractive option. Now there's no point in leaving the home station alive since it will only cost 20 while the guard posts cost 84 - 96. Leaving the home station alive would also allow the AI would refill it's reserves. And because of that this will also kind of buff Avengers. Before people had a bad habit of enabling them but never fighting them.. because people always destroyed both Home Stations at the same time. I think that's a less attractive option now. Though if you do have Avengers enabled you might still wanna do that.. Avengers are quite nasty. I guess you could just fly by the reserves and snipe the home station with Raid and Bomber Starships to avoid fighting the Avengers.
Anyway.. this change will make destroying AI home planets much harder on all difficulties. +84 AIP is a lot. Since I play high difficulty and low AIP games this would almost double my AIP after destroying the FIRST AI home planet. Thus destroying the second home planet might be impossible.
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And I would assume (big risk here lol) that a full split like this would also bring revised ship costs. I also only recall MK Vs being the only ships listed with an 80% resource cost. Please point that telescope away from the ground, that ant hill must look like a mountain ;)
Well, since MK I's needed almost 100% of one resource, and super weapons needed over 75% of another resource in the millions, it isn't just limitted.
You can say "this needs tweaking" but it all reinforces a point. It is going to take a mountain of effort for a mole hill of benefit. I have yet to hear how this benefits the game aside from making the composition of harvestors more important...because the economy is getting nerfed. If the economy wasn't being nerfed, the composition wouldn't matter.
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Just to offer a counter point for all my complaining, I propose a much simplier solution:
Remove M to C conversion
Increase all harvestor income by 33%.
To plagerize another: BOOM! PROBLEM SOLVED!
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And I would assume (big risk here lol) that a full split like this would also bring revised ship costs. I also only recall MK Vs being the only ships listed with an 80% resource cost. Please point that telescope away from the ground, that ant hill must look like a mountain ;)
Well, since MK I's needed almost 100% of one resource, and super weapons needed over 75% of another resource in the millions, it isn't just limitted.
You can say "this needs tweaking" but it all reinforces a point. It is going to take a mountain of effort for a mole hill of benefit. I have yet to hear how this benefits the game aside from making the composition of harvestors more important...because the economy is getting nerfed. If the economy wasn't being nerfed, the composition wouldn't matter.
All I'm saying is let it develop some more. It's a fairly sweeping change so it will need time to get it looking right. If it's done right there wouldn't be any real change other than you need to be a little more choosy about what planet you took.
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All I'm saying is let it develop some more. It's a fairly sweeping change so it will need time to get it looking right. If it's done right there wouldn't be any real change other than you need to be a little more choosy about what planet you took.
See my post above. If that is TRULY the goal desired, my proposal, through tweaking, would accomplish the goal with a lot less effort. It takes a mole hill of effort for the mole hole of benefit.
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Good stuff
Thanks. I do think the guard posts is going to be just the +floor (don't quote me though). So looks like 7-8 posts + 20 .. about +80 floor and 20 AIP. If you ride the floor that's going to be the same +100 it was (think that was the goal). So you still either hit both together or you find a way to take a few more planets (there's mah tie in)? You just might need that extra planet or two to help finish off that second homeworld. So somewhere in the neighborhood or 10 planets controlled.
@ Chem.. I belive the goal was to make M and C differ because they were basically functioning as (M+C). We don't need more income :) Now you can't tell me that with 10 planets you can't find the resources you need. And if a friendly ribbing is going to ruffle your feathers, I'll stop :P
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My initial concern with what I understand the current proposal to be is that the RNG can make you lose on game start.
By this I mean that the seeding of resources would have to be made non-random.
If we are going to need both M + C then the seeding rules for resource nodes will have to be tightened so we have reasonable access to both resources in every map seed.
The catch is planets with higher count resource nodes are generally higher Mark also. I can see this pushing higher mark planets closer to the players homeworlds in response.
Hmmm. What about turning this sideways. Keep the change that low-mark uses metal and high-mark uses crystal. However, make all resource nodes in the game become metal and all command stations produce only crystal. You want more metal? Upgrade harvesters. More Crystal? Upgrade command stations or capture more planets. This would also help with balancing AIP vs. Player's empire size. The more systems the player captures, the more AIP but the more crystal they have also.
Players home command would have to produce both M+C still though probably. (Unless all Mk I units were 100% metal.)
As this would involve changing the M+C costs of every unit in the game though a lot of theorycraft will have to go into it once Keith finalizes what the change is going to be. (Regardless of what Keith actually decides upon.)
D.
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Well... 40% of planets will have 8 nodes, 40% will have 4 nodes and 20% will be low end of the spectrum. Of those you have a 50/50 shot at getting a resource you need (or want).
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Well... 40% of planets will have 8 nodes, 40% will have 4 nodes and 20% will be low end of the spectrum. Of those you have a 50/50 shot at getting a resource you need (or want).
I haven't heard a clear answer of this:
So it'll be, on average:
out of 10 worlds
4 will have 8 resource nodes
4 will have 4 resource nodes
2 will have 2/2 resource nodes
So, there will be an average of 16 resource nodes per 10 planets. Or, 1.6 nodes per planet. Not 1.6 M and C per planet, but 1.6 M + C?
EDIT: Just for comparision, in my current snake map, where I don't care about resource nodes, I got 3.3 nodes per planet.
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@ Chem.. I belive the goal was to make M and C differ because they were basically functioning as (M+C). We don't need more income :) Now you can't tell me that with 10 planets you can't find the resources you need. And if a friendly ribbing is going to ruffle your feathers, I'll stop :P
Well, at the very least, if everything goes PERFECTLY, at best, you in effect remove resource conversion.
Do you dispute that this a nerf?
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I know I'm being standoffish, but I'm just trying to narrow down the GOALS of this.
Nerfs, in of themselves, I don't mind. My view of strategic reserves in the lens of low AIP games reflect this.
What I won't stand for is "non nerfs" that to me feels like nerfs.
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Going back to the five catagories:
1) Nothing
2)4 M
3)4 C
4)8 M
5)8 C
That is:
2/5ths with 8 or 4/10ths.
2/5ths with 4 or 4/10ths.
1/5ths or 2/10ths with nothing (or whatever the bottom ends up being).
((4*8 )+(4*4))/10 = 4.8 nodes total across 10 planets (average)
4.8/2 = 2.4 nodes specifically either M or C per 10 planets (average)
It's still 2.4 average M OR C per 10 planets with the above layout. 2.6 if the bottom is 2/2. That's with no converters. With converters it is higher. CSG aside though, the player can pretty much pick and choose what planets to take (not every planet will be a gem but the choice is there either way).
You can't label something a buff, nerf or a wash without numbers. The potential is there to go either way and Keith has said the he didn't want to nerf player econ. So with that in mind, I think it will end up being a buff, pending numbers of course :).
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Just to sum things up and point out the problem, the distinction between metal and crystal is more-or-less pointless right now because a decent fraction of ships are near-equal in cost and the ones that aren't, you basically don't care because of the auto conversion. Seems like chemical_art has sort of missed the point in saying
Just to offer a counter point for all my complaining, I propose a much simplier solution:
Remove M to C conversion
Increase all harvestor income by 33%.
To plagerize another: BOOM! PROBLEM SOLVED!
The issue is that due to the haphazard assignment of metal+crystal costs right now, if you did this you could easily (pardon the language) be screwed out of accessing a significant portion of your fleet, and what is often necessary/required components. In particular, if you roll a bad set of candidate takeover worlds you could easily be looking at having serious trouble producing bomber-likes, if my understanding is correct. Or low crystal locks you out of frigates, a bunch of useful bonus ship types, and most starships (as a lot of them lean crystal and they cost so much).
What we're looking for is A: a core mechanic we can add to make crystal a bonus toy that you want to use in every game it's accessible but can get by without it, or B: a resource that manipulates the style of play you'll be going for and what you'll be building without randomly torpedoing your access to vital ship types.
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Going back to the five catagories:
1) Nothing
2)4 M
3)4 C
4)8 M
5)8 C
That is:
2/5ths with 8 or 4/10ths.
2/5ths with 4 or 4/10ths.
1/5ths or 2/10ths with nothing (or whatever the bottom ends up being).
((4*8 )+(4*4))/10 = 4.8 nodes total across 10 planets (average)
4.8/2 = 2.4 nodes specifically either M or C per 10 planets (average)
It's still 2.4 average M OR C per 10 planets with the above layout. 2.6 if the bottom is 2/2. That's with no converters. With converters it is higher. CSG aside though, the player can pretty much pick and choose what planets to take (not every planet will be a gem but the choice is there either way).
You can't label something a buff, nerf or a wash without numbers. The potential is there to go either way and Keith has said the he didn't want to nerf player econ. So with that in mind, I think it will end up being a buff, pending numbers of course :).
See above. In my snake game, where I paid NO regard for harvestors, I STILL got 3.3 nodes per planet. So hearing 2.4, without regard for anything else, is a nerf. The other factors, such as units focusing on one resource, and no converters, make a mild nerf into a severe nerf.
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The issue is that due to the haphazard assignment of metal+crystal costs right now, if you did this you could easily (pardon the language) be screwed out of accessing a significant portion of your fleet, and what is often necessary/required components. In particular, if you roll a bad set of candidate takeover worlds you could easily be looking at having serious trouble producing bomber-likes, if my understanding is correct. Or low crystal locks you out of frigates, a bunch of useful bonus ship types, and most starships (as a lot of them lean crystal and they cost so much).
These new changes do NOTHING to address this any better. if anything, they do it worst, since resources are all or nothing.
What we're looking for is A: a core mechanic we can add to make crystal a bonus toy that you want to use in every game it's accessible but can get by without it, or B: a resource that manipulates the style of play you'll be going for and what you'll be building without randomly torpedoing your access to vital ship types.
This is what I want. It is ok to because "flip the table" and completely redo the economy...if it expands options. Simply complicating it, without providing new options, will result in constraining options and to me seem to be nothing more then complicating things for little benefit.
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What's wrong with making metal he only construction resource and crystal being used for something else again? Or just forgetting about crystal as a concept?
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What's wrong with making metal he only construction resource and crystal being used for something else again? Or just forgetting about crystal as a concept?
The devil is always in the details.
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@ RCIX: Keith changed proposals on us, it's the top post on page 8 of this thread (assuming you haven't).
@ Chem: Snake map where you have literally no options and can basically jump choke points? All kidding aside there, if you take away the conversions you get 1.65 M or C from a 3.3 combined. With the proposed seeding change it's 2.4 M or C, 4.8 combined. On average you will see more nodes overall.
Excerpt from the new proposal.
@Cinth: The main problem with my original idea in this thread is that it's too complex to replace a core resource (I don't think it's too complex as a mechanic in general, just too complex for a core resource). The other big problem is that you'd not necessarily even want to use crystal in every game, or not use it very much. Ultimately it's something that might be good to do (I'm thinking as a minor faction of sorts that lets you get those per-planet-cap defenses) but it wouldn't work in this particular "slot".
@Everyone:
But (everyone run and hide now) I have an idea!
It does not try to add more take-and-hold irreplaceables.
It does not try to address the chokepoint vs distributed defense issue.
It does not try to let you build turrets outside supply.
It does not try to make crystal radically different from metal.
It barely digs holes! (http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/comic/) (sorry, had to)
So, what does it do? I'm glad you a-(used-starship salesman is shot).
Anyway, the idea is to:
- Leave the fundamental role of m and c the same.
- But make the distinction between m and c far clearer.
- While NOT nerfing the overall econ strength of the player.
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What's wrong with making metal he only construction resource and crystal being used for something else again? Or just forgetting about crystal as a concept?
The devil is always in the details.
I'm working with a busted keyboard here, so cut me a break :P
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@ Chem: Snake map where you have literally no options and can basically jump choke points? All kidding aside there, if you take away the conversions you get 1.65 M or C from a 3.3 combined. With the proposed seeding change it's 2.4 M or C, 4.8 combined. On average you will see more nodes overall.
That in itself is a false comparison. Since there is NO M to C conversion, YOU CANNOT LUMP M AND C TOGETHER. You HAVE to compare them independently. New changes are EITHER M or C at 2.4, with NO "M + C" value.
Pardon the caps, but I simply cannot allow this line of thinking to continue. It is not. Period. Full stop. Absolutely. No discussion. That is why my tolerance to "things will work out" is so low.
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ITT: Really good ideas that could improve the game dramatically, and people too afraid to change their play styles or try something new in A BETA to see how it works.
Keith thinks it's a good idea. In all the time that Keith has been working here, and throughout all the countless changes he's made, I cannot think of a SINGLE bad change. Not a single one that didn't improve the game in some way.
You still can't trust him.
If he thinks it's a good idea, and is willing to put the work in to make it happen, then why won't you let him do it? If it sucks, and I can't remember when it ever has before, then we can just revert it.
There are plenty of self-explanatory reasons why not allowing the player to convert one resource into another would improve the game. Fear is the main objection to this change.
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There are plenty of self-explanatory reasons why not allowing the player to convert one resource into another would improve the game. Fear is the main objection to this change.
If hear reasons that aren't to the effect of "it limits strategic options" I'll be listening intently.
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But there is a M <-> C conversion that happens automatically now. That happened in 6.013. Flat out numbers-wise, the proposed system gives 4.8 nodes per planet. As you pointed out, the current system gives 3.3. That IS more nodes per planet, period. I didn't bend anything there.
If you remove the current auto-convert (6.013) then you on average see 1.65 M or C per planet. The new would give 2.4. I didn't bend anything there either. I'm just pointing out that on a per planet basis, you would see more nodes.
The part that really blurs any lines is the fact that (M+C) right now are practically interchangeable. One of the goals was to remove that interchangeability.
@Wing: FS final shard change :P Joking of course, but it was one change that I really don't like.
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Okay.
I have 2 issues with the implementation as shown in Keith's post at the top of page 8.
1) At game start you are going to be resource starved. In current games, so with conversion, I spend usually the first hour floored on both resources and even after that I'm bouncing off the floor during big rebuilds for pretty much the rest of the game.
During the early game this change will reduce the total resources available as everything is going to be metal heavy and I can't convert my crystal over so I see my crystal maxing out while my metal stays floored probably until hour 3 or 4 if I actually keep up any sort of offensive tempo.
2) The RNG can lose you the game as soon as you hit game start. I don't know how resource node seeding currently works, but it's pretty random at the moment I believe. By making systems exclusive to one resource or the other, I can easily see no system within 3 hops of a homeworld having one type of resource. On a low connection map (snake/vine) I can see no planet within 5 hops of the human homeworlds having a specific resource.
And then add in the fact that higher mark AI systems are more likely to be on the high resource node count worlds. You need crystal to build advanced units, but the AI has the 'crystal' worlds with high count resource nodes camped with high mark defenders so taking the system is going to be a pain.
This may be me reading into things too much because I don't know the resource node seeding logic, but it is an issue I have with scheme as presented.
Then there's balance, but I'm not getting into that debate until my two issues above are resolved somehow.
D.
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As Diazo says, the fact that RNG, for a basic resource, can determine your whole game from the very start, is worrying.
As Diazo also says, throughout your games, odds are at one point both M and C are going to be starved. So the result is that units take longer to build, which in my book is a nerf.
I STILL haven't heard how this is good. I hear hints, assumptions, etc, but I've yet to hear empirically how this will really make the game better, rather then just make things harder. Making more resources, but making them independent, for me isn't a buff, it just causes headaches, and make me want to get even more resource upgrades.
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That's a whole bunch of complaining about something that doesn't matter. Income is unlimited since we have unlimited time. Unless you have 0 income, you can build anything in the game. All we need to do is find income amounts that don't make it annoying to do so. That's it. Resource conversion is pointless because all it does is make metal and crystal into a single resource. In effect, no plan to have metal and crystal be different can have resource conversion at any ratio.
Most issues with the opening game starvation can be addressed with initial resources. Most other RNG issues could be dealt with by making at least two planets connecting to the player have 4 or 8 nodes (each with a different resource). That means you always have a reasonable starting base whatever you want to do.
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Resource conversion is pointless because all it does is make metal and crystal into a single resource.
If this was true, we could remove resource conversions right now with no repercussions. But isn't pointless, because it is used to address a variety of concerns.
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Most issues with the opening game starvation can be addressed with initial resources. Most other RNG issues could be dealt with by making at least two planets connecting to the player have 4 or 8 nodes (each with a different resource). That means you always have a reasonable starting base whatever you want to do.
This is a bandaid for underlying problems that conversions address.
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There are plenty of self-explanatory reasons why not allowing the player to convert one resource into another would improve the game. Fear is the main objection to this change.
If hear reasons that aren't to the effect of "it limits strategic options" I'll be listening intently.
1. On the contrary, it increases strategic options. It makes your choices more difficult and meaningful.
Right now, here is how I play:
1. Take all the planets adjacent to my Homeworld.
2. Take the best planets with a CSG on them.
3. Win the game.
That's it! And I can when the game every time like that. Where's the strategy in that?
Adding two different resources would either make me
A) Choose some planets based what resource I wanted.
B) Make me tailor my army based on what resources I had.
or
C) In some games I could probably do my same 'ol strategy and still build whatever I wanted cuz I get lucky.
What is so BAD about that?
2. It makes you build ships you probably wouldn't have built before.
You guys already know my strategy in the game's current state. Low cap ships with high health and firepower (including Starships).
There is nothing in the game right now preventing me from doing this. Therefore, there's no reason to ever have to change the way I play.
However, Keith makes it sound like the heavier, lower cap stuff like I like to build, will have a significant Crystal cost. So now I need to switch my playstyle up, or find an abundant Crystal source, to keep playing this way.
I might start having to use high-cap swarmers, even though I *NEVER* use those, because they have no Crystal cost, and I need to balance out my checkbook somehow.
The game is forcing me to adapt and be a better player. What is bad about this?
3. It makes holding on to certain key positions on the map more important:
Right now, there are only 2 areas of the map that are absolutely essential I don't lose:
1. My Homeworld and the planets adjacent to that.
2. The planet I take with an ADV. Factory.
With the amount of turrets and defenses the game gives you, this is not difficult to do. Adding new planets of strategic importance in the way of resources would force the player to have to defend more than 2 places at once, which in my opinion, is the way AI War was meant to be played to begin with.
4. This new resource mechanic could make Economic Stations useful again.
Self explanatory, but an Econ Station which gives you a resource which you didn't have to go find before, and which you can't convert, is a pretty huge deal. I think Econ Stations need to be brought back into the fold, and this is a good way to do it.
I could keep giving you reasons why it's a good idea, but why should I?
You haven't given us any good reasons we shouldn't other than, *I don't want to have to change how I play*.
So lower the difficulty enough until you don't have to. Why call it a Strategy Game if you can just do the same thing every time? Might as well call it an Algorithm Game.
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There are plenty of self-explanatory reasons why not allowing the player to convert one resource into another would improve the game. Fear is the main objection to this change.
If hear reasons that aren't to the effect of "it limits strategic options" I'll be listening intently.
1. On the contrary, it increases strategic options. It makes your choices more difficult and meaningful.
But, that is not.
Expanding strategic options mean that, given a set amount of resources, you have more options with them.
If you cull the number of strategies possible, you are reducing strategic options. Just because YOUR strategy isn't nerfed by the changes, doesn't mean others are not changed.
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Okay. To clarify why I see removing conversion as an issue, especially at game start.
1) Current game M+C costs are all over the place, but can be treated as (roughly) equal as the spread is based on unit type, not unit mark.
2) Changing unit costs to being based on unit mark (or power or whatever) as described will make metal the only thing that matters early game.
3) Removing conversion will result in an effective resource decrease as crystal will be pretty worthless for that first 60-90 minutes.
Math time
Current game, best case scenario:
6 metal, 6 crystal, + home command = 420 income of each resource. That is 840 resources per second with no conversion, 630 resources a second if conversion is happening.
As suggested on page 8:
6 metal, 6 crystal, + home command = 420 income of each resource. However, there is no conversion any more. Let's assume that an 'average' Mk I unit costs 20% crystal. (That's high based on what keith is talking about, he's talking about all Mk I & II fleet ships being 100% metal.)
If 20% of our costs are coming out of crystal, and resources come in at the same rate, crystal income will never bottom out, rather if effectively reduces our metal costs.
So, 420 income of metal, minus the 20% crystal costs is 525 'resources' a second.
525 resources a second after the changes vs. 840 (no conversion) currently is 63% resources, vs. 630 (with conversion) is 83%.
I see this change as reducing my effective economy by at least 17%, going up to a 37% reduction depending on how you value conversion in the current game.
Now, unless ship costs in total resources are coming down by something like 20%, this is a non-starter to me.
D.
edit: Used the wrong factor for conversion in the current game, math fixed.
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There are plenty of self-explanatory reasons why not allowing the player to convert one resource into another would improve the game. Fear is the main objection to this change.
If hear reasons that aren't to the effect of "it limits strategic options" I'll be listening intently.
1. On the contrary, it increases strategic options. It makes your choices more difficult and meaningful.
But, that is not.
Expanding strategic options mean that, given a set amount of resources, you have more options with them.
If you cull the number of strategies possible, you are reducing strategic options. Just because YOUR strategy isn't nerfed by the changes, doesn't mean others are not changed.
It's just the opposite of what you're suggesting.
As long as the player has an infinite number of both resources (i.e., the current state), there is nothing preventing him from building whatever he wants.
SCARCITY drives Strategy. SCARCITY is what forces the player to make tough decisions on what planets he wants to take, and what units he can build.
You look at Strategy as: "Doing the same thing I want to do every single game".
That isn't Strategy. Strategy is adapting to your situation. It's no longer Strategy when you just do the same thing over and over again, that is a completely different kind of game, and it shouldn't be what we're shooting for.
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It's just the opposite of what you're suggesting.
As long as the player has an infinite number of both resources (i.e., the current state), there is nothing preventing him from building whatever he wants.
SCARCITY drives Strategy. SCARCITY is what forces the player to make tough decisions on what planets he wants to take, and what units he can build.
You look at Strategy as: "Doing the same thing I want to do every single game".
That isn't Strategy. Strategy is adapting to your situation. It's no longer Strategy when you just do the same thing over and over again, that is a completely different kind of game, and it shouldn't be what we're shooting for.
Except...if you play at the right difficulty, you don't have enough resources? Which is why you don't see high ARR's with smashing the AI to submission?
Going to have to agree to disagree, since your play style always has enough resources, so any nerfs to economy don't effect you as much as others. So it goes to the core that your strategy isn't effected like others are.
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It's just the opposite of what you're suggesting.
As long as the player has an infinite number of both resources (i.e., the current state), there is nothing preventing him from building whatever he wants.
SCARCITY drives Strategy. SCARCITY is what forces the player to make tough decisions on what planets he wants to take, and what units he can build.
You look at Strategy as: "Doing the same thing I want to do every single game".
That isn't Strategy. Strategy is adapting to your situation. It's no longer Strategy when you just do the same thing over and over again, that is a completely different kind of game, and it shouldn't be what we're shooting for.
Except...if you play at the right difficulty, you don't have enough resources? Which is why you don't see high ARR's with smashing the AI to submission?
Going to have to agree to disagree, since your play style always has enough resources, so any nerfs to economy don't effect you as much as others. So it goes to the core that your strategy isn't effected like others are.
How does having less resources change what you're doing Chemical_Art?
If you have less resources, does it change what you build? Does it change what you unlock? Does it change anything about your strategy except the time it takes to employ it?
Because for me, it doesn't. I play games sometimes (like my current game) where I'm low on resources because I rushed a Golem after 2 planets. It hasn't changed my overall strategy at all, it's just made me unlock MK3 Harvesters to compensate. To me, the best units are still the best units. I've seen no reason to, for example, unlock high-cap swarmers in an ARS unlock...because even though they're cheaper, they make the style that I use less efficient.
You haven't properly explained to me how having less resources, which are completely interchangeable, changes your strategy.
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You look at Strategy as: "Doing the same thing I want to do every single game".
As if I couldn't use the same strategy every game. At the moment I have a specific play style which works on high difficulty levels. So I will keep using it until I have time to develop a new strategy. Forcing players to do something doesn't increase strategy. It decreases it.
If I use strategy A. But a new patch would force me to use strategy B because A wouldn't be viable anymore. It means I have less strategic options. I'd only have 1, B. Before I had A and B but I only chose to use the A. I might use the B strategy when I have more time to test it and see if it's good and if I like it etc.
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I'm just going to throw this out there because it crossed my mind and no one else has mentioned it.
This can all turn out to be a major balancing act of our econ system. Harvester (and upgrades) can be adjusted and CS can be changed. We know with this comes a change in costs for ships and structures. With that in mind anything we discuss is speculation at best (we need more input really).
Diazo, I can only say that for
1) We need numbers. I believe Keith mentioned making homeworlds have 6/6 M/C nodes. Numbers would give you a better picture of how resources would flow.
2)It was mentioned earlier in the thread (between here and page 8, sorry don't remember who) that there are several categories for nodes currently. This system only has 5. The chances that on a simple/realistic, 80 planet map, you will have nothing but one resource or the other should be slim. A quick check on a realistic map (80 planet), random HW, within 3 hops of my HW there were 17 planets. Run the odds on 17 planets being all of the same resource. Random vines map had 20 planets within 5 hops. Snake maps pose their own set of problems besides resource nodes (AI HW right in the middle for one) and probably not a good place to have any debates over (not dodging snake maps, just they present unique issues all the time).
That's really all I can say because that's really all the info we have.
And thread explodes while I'm writing... wheeeeee :P
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You haven't properly explained to me how having less resources, which are completely interchangeable, changes your strategy.
Lot of resources and Energy = unlock Fortresses
Few resources and Energy = wont unlock Fortresses
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?
If you have less resources, does it change what you build?
Does it change what you unlock? Does it change anything about your strategy except the time it takes to employ it?
Yes, I go for more cost efficent units.
Because for me, it doesn't. I play games sometimes (like my current game) where I'm low on resources because I rushed a Golem after 2 planets. It hasn't changed my overall strategy at all, it's just made me unlock MK3 Harvesters to compensate. To me, the best units are still the best units. I've seen no reason to, for example, unlock high-cap swarmers in an ARS unlock...because even though they're cheaper, they make the style that I use less efficient.
So your strategy is not effected...so what?
You haven't properly explained to me how having less resources, which are completely interchangeable, changes your strategy.
I go for more cost efficient units. Generally meaning my first pic is more likely a very efficient unit, rather then an expensive unit.
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Except...if you play at the right difficulty, you don't have enough resources? Which is why you don't see high ARR's with smashing the AI to submission?
Going to have to agree to disagree, since your play style always has enough resources, so any nerfs to economy don't effect you as much as others. So it goes to the core that your strategy isn't effected like others are.
We know that none of the other strategies that exist will be effected by these changes, because those strategies have already been effected (i.e., they already exist).
They might, however, be affected by these changes -- the changes might conceivably even effect the death of those strategies (which I believe is your argument).
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Anyway, I like the idea of the military builder (and more per-planet cap structures) best.
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They might, however, be affected by these changes -- the changes might conceivably even effect the death of those strategies (which I believe is your argument).
That is a core of it though.
The effectiveness of a strategy, at a very fundamental level, is how much it costs. If your strategy is "good" you hit the enemy much harder then it hits you, so it is efficent for your economy.
So if you nerf economy, the viability of all strategies is stressed, so less strategies remain viable. Which is certainly reducing strategic options.
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As if I couldn't use the same strategy every game. At the moment I have a specific play style which works on high difficulty levels. So I will keep using it until I have time to develop a new strategy. Forcing players to do something doesn't increase strategy. It decreases it.
It seems that we have a very different definition of "strategy" then.
Doing the same thing over and over, regardless of the circumstances, is not strategy. It may have been the first time you did it, but after that it's just going through the motions.
Strategy to me is adapting to the situation every game. It's having to change your strategy to fit the cards you're dealt, instead of looking through the deck and picking your own hand.
I think I'm fairly safe in saying that this is what Chris originally intended the game to be. I don't know if you guys have ever read Chris' blog, but when he first made AI War, he did it because he was tired of playing against the AI in other games. Once you figured out how to beat them, you could employ the same strategy over and over and that was simply boring.
AI War was made in a way that the game would force variety on the player. They couldn't just do the same thing twice and ensure victory.
Over time the game has slowly drifted away from that into something allows you to simply do the same things over and over again, and the players have become used to that, but I don't think that's good design, or what Chris intended, and I don't think we should keep it that way. I've spoken about this topic many times before in many different threads and I've received huge resistance about it.
I've also given the same response each time: If changing the game in a way which forces you to adapt to the situation makes your current difficulty too hard, then lower the difficulty until you no longer have to adapt to the situation anymore. I honestly don't see what the problem is.
It's like players want to keep playing at 9 because it strokes their ego or something.
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As if I couldn't use the same strategy every game. At the moment I have a specific play style which works on high difficulty levels. So I will keep using it until I have time to develop a new strategy. Forcing players to do something doesn't increase strategy. It decreases it.
If I use strategy A. But a new patch would force me to use strategy B because A wouldn't be viable anymore. It means I have less strategic options. I'd only have 1, B. Before I had A and B but I only chose to use the A. I might use the B strategy when I have more time to test it and see if it's good and if I like it etc.
This is good.
The most efficient strategies are the most economical ones, so nerfing econ won't effect them. So these strategies remain the same.
Only the less efficient ones are removed, and even then, they will just be "shifted" to the better ones.
It doesn't, inherently, make the number of strategies greater, it makes them less.
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I feel I'm dealing with ignorance at this point, and it's starting to get frustrating.
The new resource system wouldn't be as bipolar as either Strategy A) or Strategy B).
The fact that you can even think of AI War that way just shows how bad the game has become in removing strategy.
Theoretically, with the amount of Knowledge unlocks you have, and the amount of ARS hacks you can receive, and Fabs you can shoot for, and stuff like that, there are tens of thousands of different strategies you can employ.
It's not just A), B), or C).
When you say "Well I can't do option A, so I'll just do option B", you obviously don't understand the implications of the new resource system. What if option A and B don't work? Then you have to choose from thousands of different options until you can't just assign all your options a letter anymore. Yes, that INCREASES strategy. That's the way it should be.
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Strategy to me is adapting to the situation every game.
That's tactics.
Like in Starcraft before you start a game you have a strategy which you're planning to use but you will have to adapt and change that strategy depending on situation.. that's tactics. Tactics alter the strategy. Strategy + tactics = different variations of the strategy. With your logic 4 gating or going muta banelings aren't strategies anymore because they have been used more than once.
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I feel I'm dealing with ignorance at this point, and it's starting to get frustrating.
Take deep breath and a candy.
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Okay.
Before we get too off-topic, this is the crystal changes threat, not the strategies thread.
So, in the over all strategy of the game, how important should resource nodes, whether metal or crystal, be to the "should I take this system" equation?
Should resources be tied to the number of systems you control so if two different players capture the same number of system in different games, their economy is roughly equal?
Should it be a major factor where the player who picks his systems based on resource nodes have a significantly stronger economy then a player who values other factors higher and does not care about resource nodes?
That's really what you guys are talking about, should the number of resource nodes be a strategic consideration, or should all worlds be roughly the same power economically?
D.
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Resource conversion is pointless because all it does is make metal and crystal into a single resource.
If this was true, we could remove resource conversions right now with no repercussions. But isn't pointless, because it is used to address a variety of concerns.
Read my post again, because you've completely misread it.
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This thread is an interesting read.
I'm not exactly sure if I would agree with direction it's taking.
I understand that simple crystal removal is not an option due to empty space it will leave. And it seems that by this occasion there is an intention to make game more complex by varying actual resource usage of ships and making resources allocation less granular with more significant steps.
This will lead to some of following:
1. More of the "wait while watching" syndrome. Since you will need more of one resource if you don't have enough you will need to wait longer to build all the stuff you think you need.
2. Current issue with harvester upgrades being mandatory will become more.. mandatory. It might only split because you will need more of one harvester type.
Theoretically you will be able to compensate by finding and taking proper planet that has abundance of the resource. In practice I don't see it working - taking any planet is not usually first tactical choice you make. There are so many other considerations about planet capture that trying to force player to find and take planet for resources is not very likely to work. Current trends with buffing harvester upgrades (quite long time ago) shows that taking planets doesn't seem to be a players choice for solving resource problems.
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What if option A and B don't work?
I choose C.
Yes, that INCREASES strategy.
Removing strategies A and B decreases strategy. For example.. 3 strategies: A B and C. Removing A and B means there's 1 left. 3-2=1. Not 4, not 5, nor 6.
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Theoretically you will be able to compensate by finding and taking proper planet that has abundance of the resource. In practice I don't see it working - taking any planet is not usually first tactical choice you make. There are so many other considerations about planet capture that trying to force player to find and take planet for resources is not very likely to work. Current trends with buffing harvester upgrades (quite long time ago) shows that taking planets doesn't seem to be a players choice for solving resource problems.
Hello AIP.
Taking more planets is never going to be a preferred option for the player base because that increases AIP.
What I'm taking away from all these current threads (this one, the guard post one, the AIP is restrictive one) is that we need to get some games in.
Over the past month the game has had some massive changes, how many games have been both started and completed on a recent patch? I certainly have not finished one.
Once 6.017 hits I'm going to AAR a game just to see how these changes are playing out and see how in sync my opinion on stuff is with the rest of the community.
D.
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Oooh, page 8, so thats where Keith's new suggestion was!
I generally approve. If balanced right, it could be absolutely fantastic. I guess the "special" things like spire toys and golems are going to cost 50/50? I mean, we dont want a minor faction to severely skew the M:C demand ratio, right?
Or we could make some of special units M-heavy, and some C-heavy, though that'd be kinda arbitrary and as result the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
Considering Mark-based scaling: please, leave the M:C ratio static for each ship regardless of mark. It is more intuitive, and doesnt create an unnecessary difference between early and late game. We want the ratio depend on fleet composition choices, right? Not on how far you are in the game.
And finally, i believe some resource conversion would still be nice. The reason is that unlike Starcraft, you dont really have a convenient sink for each resource. In SC, if you have lots of spare metal, you can spam marines and feel fine, but in AIW, once you hit the cap for your M-heavy units, you have no option but to excess.
Since there is no simple way to sink excess resource into spamming some unit, there should be an option to convert it into the other resource at some rate so insane that one would only do it if they are about to excess. 5:1, maybe even 10:1. Point is: there must be sinks. As an alternative, i could suggest making some mercenary units cost pure metal, and some cost pure crystal. Or, since they are mercs, actually have 2 tabs with same ships but different costs, so you can select which resource to use to hire them.
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Keith thinks it's a good idea. In all the time that Keith has been working here, and throughout all the countless changes he's made, I cannot think of a SINGLE bad change. Not a single one that didn't improve the game in some way.
I can think of several ideas I've had and thought were good ideas, but would have been bad if I'd actually gone ahead with them. Thankfully, there were objections and said changes didn't happen ;)
There are probably some bad ones that slipped through anyway, but I'm not thinking of them offhand. CSGs would be the closest, but I was only an accomplice on that one.
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What? CSGs turned out fine. They caused a huge uproar, but in the end they made the game better. Most people use them even though they're optional.
I think it's the same now. People are afraid that the resource change will affect how they play...and it will...but it will also increase the strategic value of the game like CSGs did, in a good way.
I still haven't heard a good argument against the change. I've heard "it will remove strategy", which is just a blatant misunderstanding of what strategy is. To those people who think strategy is doing the same thing every game, I'm speechless.
I've heard "it will increase the waiting time and bring back the Netflix era" - I think this is just speculation. Well yes, if the player has excess of one resource, but continues to unlock units that are heavy on the one he doesn't have, he'll probably have to wait a lot. That's where the strategic decision making comes in.
Anything else can be worked out over time and with small tweaks, just like pretty much any mechanic.
What if option A and B don't work?
I choose C.
Yes, that INCREASES strategy.
Removing strategies A and B decreases strategy. For example.. 3 strategies: A B and C. Removing A and B means there's 1 left. 3-2=1. Not 4, not 5, nor 6.
Kahuna, I'm not really sure how to make this clear to you.
You're looking at the entire game of AI War, and all the tens or hundreds of thousands of choices available to you, and distilling them down into Option A), B), or C).
The fact that you can even DO THAT, is proof that there is something fundamentally flawed in the game's design.
The whole point of a change like this (in my opinion) is to make the strategical options more varied and unique than can just fit into a small category like A), B), or C).
Think thousands of categories, not 2 or 3. That's the kind of impact a change like this could have if done correctly.
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If you think the below would be an econ nerf, please show me why.
You assigned all the resource-heavy stuff to one of the two resources, while removing conversion. I'm pretty sure that's a nerf.
Furthermore, I think superweapons should maintain their balance of m and c costs, because otherwise the system can't be balanced for both base-game and superweapon cases.
Also, could you add a capturable that reallows conversion (perhaps on the E-network) ?
Or increase the ratios rather than remove it entirely?
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You assigned all the resource-heavy stuff to one of the two resources, while removing conversion. I'm pretty sure that's a nerf.
And this may be it. I think the problem may lie in the distribution of units that will require metal vs those that require crystal.
Instead of trying to make crystal the 'power' resource, why not make it the 'alternative' resource, by splitting up ship types into metal using or crystal using?
Triangle ships would be 50/50, for balance. But bonus ships? Infiltrator could be an all metal ship, but the space plane would be all crystal.
Spire starship? All metal, but the other tough, hard-hitting starship, the Zenith, could be a crystal ship.
This might even work for Golems and Spirecraft.
Try for a rough equivalence in splitting the unit types. Then, when choosing a planet at the start, or when deciding to hack an ARS, you can factor in the resource type being used.
It should also help avoid the problem of resource importance being based on early vs late game - aka, trivializing or even penalizing the player for necessary decisions made earlier.
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If you think the below would be an econ nerf, please show me why.
You assigned all the resource-heavy stuff to one of the two resources, while removing conversion. I'm pretty sure that's a nerf.
Not necessarily, since all the resource-heavy stuff is also the durable stuff. As a result, you replace it a lot less. How often are you really replacing Golems, or Starships, compared to fleet ships when you compared total resources?
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If you think the below would be an econ nerf, please show me why.
You assigned all the resource-heavy stuff to one of the two resources, while removing conversion. I'm pretty sure that's a nerf.
Not necessarily, since all the resource-heavy stuff is also the durable stuff. As a result, you replace it a lot less. How often are you really replacing Golems, or Starships, compared to fleet ships when you compared total resources?
In addition, if the overall resources are being buffed (because of the lost conversion mechanic), then depending on the player's use of them, it could actually be a significant economy BUFF.
It's only a nerf if you assume that you're going to constantly need a resource you don't have. If you balance your resources well (and you're getting more of both), then it's a buff.
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Not necessarily, since all the resource-heavy stuff is also the durable stuff. As a result, you replace it a lot less. How often are you really replacing Golems, or Starships, compared to fleet ships when you compared total resources?
Even if the resources balanced out over the course of the game (which they might, though I still think I spend a lot more on non-fleetships than fleetships), there will be a massive "front-loading" of crystal from the very start. That would add tedium to every game.
This would be greatly magnified if superweapons were rebalanced as crystal-heavy or crystal-only.
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I think there's some significant confusion about what the changes would cause (some are concerned metal will get slammed, others that crystal will get slammed, during the same phase of the game), and perhaps about what the changes themselves would be, but I do see how it could be an actual nerf overall (or at least perceived so without abandoning reason). Will consider how an alternate plan might avoid that.
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I think there's some significant confusion about what the changes would cause (some are concerned metal will get slammed, others that crystal will get slammed, during the same phase of the game),
That's just playstyle differences. Some like to slam the AI with fleetship hammers from the start, others build everything they possibly can before reluctantly heading out into the cloud of murder that is AI space.
Fleetship people see themselves running out of metal.
Everything people see themselves running out of crystal.
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@Wingflier, I appreciate your support, but your level of approval of the CSGs change is one example of how we have fundamentally different approaches to the design of this game. You're willing to sacrifice player choice in order to make the game more strategically rigorous and challenging. I'm not willing to do much of that unless it's optional, and there's not a sensible way of making these changes optional. And they would inevitably mess with existing strategies. I understand that you don't personally have a problem with that, but there it is.
@Hearteater, thanks for supporting the idea, and if the idea were to moderately nerf econ in the process of doing this I'd probably stick it out, but this would inevitably cause more of a mess than I'm intending to make (at this juncture ;) ).
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@Wingflier, I appreciate your support, but your level of approval of the CSGs change is one example of how we have fundamentally different approaches to the design of this game. You're willing to sacrifice player choice in order to make the game more strategically rigorous and challenging. I'm not willing to do much of that unless it's optional, and there's not a sensible way of making these changes optional. And they would inevitably mess with existing strategies. I understand that you don't personally have a problem with that, but there it is.
@Hearteater, thanks for supporting the idea, and if the idea were to moderately nerf econ in the process of doing this I'd probably stick it out, but this would inevitably cause more of a mess than I'm intending to make (at this juncture ;) ).
Keith, it was Chris' idea, not mine. It fit his concept of how the game should be played. And frankly, I agree with him.
He made it optional because of the huge uproar, but most people still use it anyway, so overall it was a good change I think. Even if it were not optional, I still think it would be a good change.
And also, there are tons of things we do to remove or limit player choice, and there are good reasons for them. We can't, for example, choose where to place our bonus ship on the starting map, even though that's been requested, STRONGLY for years. We can't choose which bonus ships we want in the game with a bonus ship omission file, even though it would probably make the game experience better for a lot of us. We can't choose which bonus ships the AI starts with, even though that would probably improve the game experience as well.
So in other words, you guys (the devs) make decisions which limit player choice all the time. Finding the balance is what's important. I think we've become too lackadaisical if people can just employ the same strategies every game and win. It's my own opinion, but there it is.
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I still haven't heard a good argument against the change. I've heard "it will remove strategy", which is just a blatant misunderstanding of what strategy is. To those people who think strategy is doing the same thing every game, I'm speechless.
Quoting myself from a previous post:
(http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12754.msg141802.html#msg141802)I see this change as reducing my effective economy by at least 17%, going up to a 37% reduction depending on how you value conversion in the current game.
Note I am referring to the early game here, that first two to three hours before you've really expanded and made your fleet stronger.
By design during this time you are going to need more metal then crystal because you don't have access to the higher powered units which required crystal to build. As conversion is being removed you can't even sacrifice your excess crystal to metal to spend it, crystal is just going to sit at cap until you get access to the more powerful units that need crystal to build.
I still have not seen anything that refutes this, short of making all the units require fewer resources to build.
D.
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And also, there are tons of things we do to remove or limit player choice, and there are good reasons for them. We can't, for example, choose where to place our bonus ship on the starting map, even though that's been requested, STRONGLY for years. We can't choose which bonus ships we want in the game with a bonus ship omission file, even though it would probably make the game experience better for a lot of us. We can't choose which bonus ships the AI starts with, even though that would probably improve the game experience as well.
Those are all examples of us not adding new choice, rather than removing choices that have been part of the game for years.
That's not to say I've never removed choice for the sake of challenge, but my threshold for doing so is very different than yours. Removing the ability to repair forcefields that were part of an ff "net" that was currently under fire, for example. That basically removed a couple important tactics from existence, and I was willing to do that because those tactics could completely bypass the challenge of the game if the player diligently (ab)used them.
That's nothing like the m+c situation, though, where just collapsing them both into m and leaving it at that would not have anywhere near that impact on challenge.
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Just realized this earlier statement of mine was in error:
there's not a sensible way of making these changes optional
There's actually a pretty simple method, involving the adding of one more lobby toggle: "Simple Econ" (gladly accepting suggestions for a better name, originally was "Heavy Metal", heh)
This toggle would default to off, but if on it would redirect all inflow to or outflow from crystal to be to metal instead. In code that's actually like a 5 minute change.
- What would take me maybe an hour longer is having all the relevant displays check for that toggle and show the right metal amounts, costs, etc, and not show crystal at all.
- And another couple minutes to make mapgen seed only metal if that toggle is on.
- Metal would also need to be able to store 1,999,999 instead of 999,999 if the toggle was on (anyone pointing out that this is actually 1 higher than 2x will be... well, they're probably enough punishment upon themselves), but that's just a few minutes since it would be able to take up more space on the resource bar anyway.
Anyway, this would go along with the changes in my last proposal (though with the "zero resources" category getting 1m/1c instead, or 2m on simple-econ), and would give you an option that's a lot like "use the historical model, but cut to the chase since m and c aren't really different anyway". But if you wanted a bit more painstrategic decision making, well, it'll be there, mocking the people playing simple-econ (maybe I can get Wingflier to suggest an implementation for that part, I think he'd be good at it).
To be clear, turning the new toggle on is telling the game "make this easier" (and if combined with other such options might make me not consider feedback/AARs based on it to mean anything about overall balance), but I'm confident those of you who actually want to compensate for the reduction in difficulty will somehow find a way to accomplish that.
Thoughts?
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Biggest problem is actually your last paragraph.
I can't believe I'm saying it (and supporting it), but the problem with the model is the same reason you don't support mods.
You'll almost permanently split the community.
The biggest edge AI Wars that others don't is that it has a unified community. It has caused a LOT of pain over time, I won't deny, but the payoff of keeping everyone on the same page is undeniable.
It's OK to have AI response vary by toggles, but the ECONOMY ITSELF?
It is odd that I find the thought of two different economic models as scary as the new model, but there you go.
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Thoughts?
If you do this I want that guard post toggle ::)
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@Chemical_Art - I don't think it's as bad as you think
When you mean "split the community", you mean like what?
The people who play Fallen Spire or not? Who use Golems or not? Who use Spirecraft or not? Who play with 20 planets or 120 planets? Who use Lattice maps or Simple Hubs? Who play on 9/9 or 6/6? Who use Champions or don't use Champions? Who use handicaps or don't use handicaps? Who use CSGs or don't use CSGs?
Many of the features I've just listed are much more impactful on the game than whether you can convert one resource type into another, assuming the game gives you the ability to realistically design your army around what resources you have and/or find what you need on planets better than it does now.
I think your fear is unwarranted.
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@Chemical_Art - I don't think it's as bad as you think
When you mean "split the community", you mean like what?
The people who play Fallen Spire or not? Who use Golems or not? Who use Spirecraft or not? Who play with 20 planets or 120 planets? Who use Lattice maps or Simple Hubs? Who play on 9/9 or 6/6? Who use Champions or don't use Champions? Who use handicaps or don't use handicaps? Who use CSGs or don't use CSGs?
I think your fear is unwarranted.
All those features. ALL of them. Are based on the economy. It is a CORE resource. To alter THAT would be like altering energy and K, it has ramifications across most aspects of the game.
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@Chemical_Art - I don't think it's as bad as you think
When you mean "split the community", you mean like what?
The people who play Fallen Spire or not? Who use Golems or not? Who use Spirecraft or not? Who play with 20 planets or 120 planets? Who use Lattice maps or Simple Hubs? Who play on 9/9 or 6/6? Who use Champions or don't use Champions? Who use handicaps or don't use handicaps? Who use CSGs or don't use CSGs?
I think your fear is unwarranted.
All those features. ALL of them. Are based on the economy. It is a CORE resource. To alter THAT would be like altering energy and K, it has ramifications across most aspects of the game.
What Keith is suggesting does not remove the economy from the game. It simplifies it in one aspect, and makes it more complex in another. To those people who like it the way it is, you won't have to change anything. In fact, your favorite strategies will become even easier to employ. I don't see what the problem is?
And I would argue that changing the map type from mostly single connections to a whole grid of connections, with 8 different wormholes for most planets, has a much bigger impact than 2 resources which you can't convert to one another. I would also argue that the Fallen Spire campaign is much more game-altering than the proposed optional resource system.
You're saying it will split the community. It's the exact same argument we heard about CSGs. I've been there, I got the postcard. Community's fine.
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You're saying it will split the community. It's the exact same argument we heard about CSGs. I've been there, I got the postcard. Community's fine.
And in hindsight, we can see that the generators add nothing to the game besides forcing you to take planets. This accomplished nothing, as the folks who want to deep strike or do whatever they feel like are just going to turn it off. The same could be said for the economy. At this point, if the original solution isn't agreeable (despite being extremely simple, I'm in favor), let's just wait until an expansion.
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And in hindsight, we can see that the generators add nothing to the game besides forcing you to take planets. This accomplished nothing, as the folks who want to deep strike or do whatever they feel like are just going to turn it off. The same could be said for the economy. At this point, if the original solution isn't agreeable (despite being extremely simple, I'm in favor), let's just wait until an expansion.
Now that's definitely not true. CSGs are extremely helpful for new players, possibly even more than the tutorial itself.
Using the Core Shield Generator display tab on the galaxy map, a new player instantly has a set of objectives and a set of places to go. One of the main complaints before these were added was that AI War was too "open-ended" and confusing to new people. A lot of new players find the "objective-style" of the CSGs to be a huge benefit to the game, even if that wasn't their original intention.
Secondly, the people who wanted to deep strike after they turned it off COULD keep doing that, but then they can't just come into the forum and complain about it can they? That's what it was, complaining. I remember when Suzera and few others said the game was too easy because of low AIP deepstriking. Chris put in a solution. If you don't like it fine, but don't complain anymore when you bypass it.
Maybe the more important question is whether Keith would want to use an option like this. If Keith wouldn't play with the new Crystal mechanic on, then I wouldn't want him to spend all this time implementing it just for our benefit. Personally I think it's really cool and I would definitely use it, but I'm not the one who has to spend the time and energy (and crystal) to make it happen.
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Now that's definitely not true. CSGs are extremely helpful for new players, possibly even more than the tutorial itself.
No.
Using the Core Shield Generator display tab on the galaxy map, a new player instantly has a set of objectives and a set of places to go.
Busywork somehow explains to the player they need to find and destroy the enemy AI? I think the tutorial does a fine job of explaining defense, knowledge, economy, and attacking. Did you not understand the tutorial?
One of the main complaints before these were added was that AI War was too "open-ended" and confusing to new people.
No, it wasn't. The goal is to eliminate the AI. The tutorial explains how. Rails are not necessary; AI War players are smarter than you think.
A lot of new players find the "objective-style" of the CSGs to be a huge benefit to the game, even if that wasn't their original intention.
It is an unimaginative, garbage mechanic that was added to the game to hotfix deep strikes. It was never intended nor spoken to be about teaching new players how to play.
I remember when Suzera and few others said the game was too easy. Chris put in a solution. If you don't like it fine, but don't complain anymore when you bypass it.
Because he didn't have either the time or the inclination to modify the AI. And I really don't mind having it as an optional plot for folks who like it, but it's not well-thought out nor even fun to play with. Because it is optional, you may as well not even have it because folks are going to turn it off or on depending on their preferences. I remember Suzera, and this person could have easily chosen any of a number of plots to increase the difficulty. Especially nowadays, we have so many modifiers that are much more elegant solutions if the authors feel like the game is too short.
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CSG's were not implemented to help new players, they were designed as hard hand holding for low AIP games.
Only because they were used for nice toys did their defenders think it was meant for new players. But they were not added for new players. At all. They were added for experienced players.
The fact the new strategic reserves were added, so as to hinder (keyword: hinder. Not prevent) low AIP games is evidence that CSG's did not accomplish their original objective, precisely because they were so unpopular, railing, and toggleable.
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It is an unimaginative, garbage mechanic that was added to the game to hotfix deep strikes. It was never intended nor spoken to be about teaching new players how to play.
It absolutely was. Chris talked in great length about how CSGs gave players a more streamlined set of goals and objectives, and many players at the time thanked him for it.
If you turn on CSGs, you can even go to the Stats->Objectives panel and it includes them on your list of things to do.
You may think that it's not helpful to new players, and that the tutorial is better, but I've invited at least 5 friends to play with me, and none of them have had the patience to get through the entire tutorial.
Maybe they're just lazy, but it's pretty easy to just show them the Core Shield Generator display on the galaxy map, and say, "You see those 'Type A planets', that's where we're going." They instantly get a sense of what's important in the game and why, instead of me having to go and Priority 9 everything on the map that could be important which is extremely tedious and much harder to see.
Because he didn't have either the time or the inclination to modify the AI. And I really don't mind having it as an optional plot for folks who like it, but it's not well-thought out nor even fun to play with.
That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it, but from what I've observed on the forums over the years, most people prefer to play with it on.
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You may think that it's not helpful to new players, and that the tutorial is better, but I've invited at least 5 friends to play with me, and none of them have had the patience to get through the entire tutorial.
How do they play a normal game if they can't handle the tutorial? If your friends can't handle the 90 minute tutorial (is it even that long?), I don't know what to say. How do they not understand "find the AI then destroy it?" You are either portraying your friends as incredibly simple or you are not giving them enough credit to understand an extremely simple concept.
Again, I don't care if people play with it on.
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The game gives no clue how to do that. Seriously. its "here are the AIs, heres you, here's an assload of planets with random stuff on them, go figure out what works". And it gives a very few tactics in the tutorial.
FWIW, I like CSGs because they tell me "you need these planets and then you can go kill the AI". Simple, direct, and clear.
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"you need these planets and then you can go kill the AI"
But. That. Is. Not. True.
You don't have to take any of those planets, if you have a bigger plan. And on some maps, if you take all the planets needed for CSG rather then some, you will lose.
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"you need these planets and then you can go kill the AI"
But. That. Is. Not. True.
You don't have to take any of those planets, if you have a bigger plan. And on some maps, if you take all the planets needed for CSG rather then some, you will lose.
Except for someone who doesn't want to play paperwork jockey target designator, it is. I'm fine with picking some targets but give me 80 planets and no direction and I'll implode.
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Except for someone who doesn't want to play paperwork jockey target designator, it is.
No.
As one of the most casual players of my length here, someone who despises paperwork jockey target designator, I can say without a doubt, no.
It is almost a fact that it is easier to take less then then the 8 or so planets needed for CSG's then not to, pre strategic reserves.
So, if anything, for those who wanted the easiest game, you would turn CSG's off. I won my first game, 7/7, with no tutorial knowing only "don't take too many worlds".
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What I don't like about this discussion is the amount of closed-minded elitism happened, and that's saying something coming from me.
Just because YOU don't like playing with CSGs does not mean that the majority of players feel the same way.
Just because YOU can't see the benefit of them does not mean that they don't improve the game to the people who like to have them on.
It also doesn't make my friends simple-minded or stupid just because they don't want to have to play through a 90 minute tutorial. I can explain most of the things that tutorial covers in about 10 minutes.
There's very few people in today's gaming world that would survive a 90 minute tutorial. I'm sorry, but there's not. That doesn't make them all stupid. Impatient maybe.
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What I don't like about this discussion is the amount of closed-minded elitism happened, and that's saying something coming from me.
Just because YOU don't like playing with CSGs does not mean that the majority of players feel the same way.
Just because YOU can't see the benefit of them does not mean that they don't improve the game to the people who like to have them on.
It also doesn't make my friends simple-minded or stupid just because they don't want to have to play through a 90 minute tutorial. I can explain most of the things that tutorial covers in about 10 minutes.
There's very few people in today's gaming world that would survive a 90 minute tutorial. I'm sorry, but there's not. That doesn't make them all stupid. Impatient maybe.
That's rich.
Really, really rich.
I mean, your whole premise is not to be elitist, when you yourself then spew your opinions.
Just because YOU play with CSG on, doesn't mean the majority of players do. This at least has some evidence to support it, via strategic reserves finally helping to solve the low AIP games without rails.
Just because YOU don't have your tactics and strategy not being nerfed doesn't mean strategies and tactics aren't being nerfed.
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Far be it from me to be a stickler on staying on-topic, but I really don't think a historical debate on the CSG feature is going to be fruitful here. I think that mechanic has some value (I don't think we'd see multiple veterens arguing in their favor if that weren't true) but was ultimately a mistake. If it weren't for the fact that some people do in fact like it, I would have removed it. I was angling to un-default it with the new Lazy-AI toggle but there was actually opposition to that, FWIW.
@chemical_art: yes, the "why we don't do stat-mods" argument went through my head as I was considering the simple-econ toggle. Ultimately, though, it's actually a really compartmentalized difference between on or off. Basically the only difference is that you no longer have to care about "does this planet have metal or crystal?", instead just "how many spots does this planet have?". Instead of two pools, you have one, and that's the only difference. Sure, playing with two pools will be harder, it's up to you whether you want the complexity/challenge there or somewhere else.
There are many other toggles and options in the lobby that change the game a lot more than that.
Anyway, I think I'm done tilting at this particular windmill (crystal) for a while. Talk about the toggle idea a while if y'all would like to. If some reasonable consensus is reached (I don't mean unanimous opinion, though I'd need more than a simple majority) then I'll consider taking action. Otherwise I think crystal is just going to stay as-is for the forseeable future. Or in other words: if y'all want change, it's largely up to you. If not, that's fine too; I'm not radically displeased with the current m+c.
Just to head off a potential issue: let's stay away from personal ire and such. Wingflier is a self-confessed elitist and this may lead to problems ;) Just humor him. If things get out of hand I'll just lock (or maybe delete) the thread.
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Keith, I'll just try to get on topic for a sec:
If this plan is part of a larger effort of new mechanics, strategies, etc, that ultimately are expanded by dividing M and C more clearly, I'll be OK with the pain of all the balancing.
If the idea is to keep the current toolkit of things, just wrecking and rebuilding the economy, I am not game. It just doesn't seem a good use of resources. We have plenty of things already that can be wrecked and rebuilt to expand strategies and variety (armor).
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What I don't like about this discussion is the amount of closed-minded elitism happened, and that's saying something coming from me.
Just because YOU don't like playing with CSGs does not mean that the majority of players feel the same way.
Just because YOU can't see the benefit of them does not mean that they don't improve the game to the people who like to have them on.
It also doesn't make my friends simple-minded or stupid just because they don't want to have to play through a 90 minute tutorial. I can explain most of the things that tutorial covers in about 10 minutes.
There's very few people in today's gaming world that would survive a 90 minute tutorial. I'm sorry, but there's not. That doesn't make them all stupid. Impatient maybe.
That's rich.
Really, really rich.
I mean, your whole premise is not to be elitist, when you yourself then spew your opinions.
Just because YOU play with CSG on, doesn't mean the majority of players do. This at least has some evidence to support it, via strategic reserves finally helping to solve the low AIP games without rails.
Just because YOU don't have your tactics and strategy not being nerfed doesn't mean strategies and tactics aren't being nerfed.
The difference is that I'm not calling certain mechanics...oh what were the exact words? "Unimaginative, Garbage Mechanics"
I did say in this thread that I don't think people who are using the same strategy over and over are playing a strategy game anymore. I never said they were unimaginative, garbage players.
There's a big difference. It's one thing to have your opinion and to present it respectfully, which I have.
It's quite another to call anyone who disagrees with your viewpoint flat out WRONG, and the mechanic they are supporting is garbage, and their friends are stupid and lazy.
If I have been disrespectful in this thread, in any way, I apologize for that. Anything I said was just reflective of my own viewpoint, and I never meant for it to be portrayed as anything else. In fact several times, I have agreed that the old mechanic of using the same strategy over and over should stay, I just think a new mechanic would be better.
Now that *I* have apologized, I also expect an apology on behalf of insulting me, and all my friends, and basically anybody who uses CSGs, which is probably the majority of the playerbase.
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Now that *I* have apologized, I also expect an apology on behalf of insulting me, and all my friends, and basically anybody who uses CSGs, which is probably the majority of the playerbase.
I think you will find this method (demanding, or at least "publicly expecting", reciprocity) of proceeding to be counterproductive to your actual goals. Or at least to the fruitfulness of this discussion, which I believe to be one of your goals.
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The difference is that I'm not calling certain mechanics...oh what were the exact words? "Unimaginative, Garbage Mechanics"
I did say in this thread that I don't think people who are using the same strategy over and over are playing a strategy game anymore. I never said they were unimaginative, garbage players.
Just because a player enjoys a bad mechanic does not make them a bad player. I didn't even make the quote, but I won't censor my language of a mechanic because of the feelings of the players who like it.
There's a big difference. It's one thing to have your opinion and to present it respectfully, which I have.
Your past is catching up to you. Nothing wrong with being abrasive, but then don't get upset when it comes back to you.
It's quite another to call anyone who disagrees with your viewpoint flat out WRONG, and the mechanic they are supporting is garbage, and their friends are stupid and lazy.
Are you upset? Just because a mechanic is bad, and then trying to recolor a mechanic added for experienced players to a mechanic for new players on the grounds they cannot win the game without it, when they certainly can, doesn't in of itself speak ill of the players.
If I have been disrespectful in this thread, in any way, I apologize for that. Anything I said was just reflective of my own viewpoint, and I never meant for it to be portrayed as anything else. In fact several times, I have agreed that the old mechanic of using the same strategy over and over should stay, I just think a new mechanic would be better.
Now that *I* have apologized, I also expect an apology on behalf of insulting me, and all my friends, and basically anybody who uses CSGs, which is probably the majority of the playerbase.
No. I don't owe you anything, because I didn't insult you other then thinking you aren't elistist when your writing consistently says otherwise. No more then I would be insulted if I claimed all my assertions were completely well thought out and someone called me out on further assertions based on this ;) See Keith's response to why. Just because your friends play CSG's won't stop me bashing them (CSG's, not your friends).
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So you think it's okay to publicly bash people just because they do something you don't agree with, and you won't apologize for this behavior?
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Keith, you can lock this thread.
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So you think it's okay to publicly bash people just because they do something you don't agree with, and you won't apologize for this behavior?
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Keith, you can lock this thread.
Well, you see, you are being so thin skinned that you think me bashing a mechanic that you enjoy means I insult you. I never insulted you, only your evidence.
If we followed this level of niceness, there would be no discussion.
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So you think it's okay to publicly bash people just because they do something you don't agree with, and you won't apologize for this behavior?
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Keith, you can lock this thread.
Oh, it didn't get that bad. But perhaps it would be better if you moved on from the discussion.
If the two of you have actual problems with each other I suggest voice chat or a telephone call or something in a day or so. You're both rational people in your own ways (speaking from interacting with you both for a while) and I'm sure you can come to an amicable resolution.
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Well, AI War players are nothing if not passionate :o
[ontopic]
I think Keith has the right idea. Having two separate resources does add a little bit of strategy, in that some strategies can be hindered (partially, due to conversion ratios) by having unbalanced resource flows. No, it's not the strongest mechanic, but it's not broken either. It would be nice to find something stronger to replace it, but I haven't seen any suggestion that ranked high enough in the community to warrant that kind of change. Since we aren't dealing with a broken mechanic, it makes sense to give the discussion a bit more time to percolate and the developers and players to come up with a few other alternatives.
[/ontopic]
[offtopic]
I have mixed feelings about CSGs. My first non-tutorial game, I was really frustrated when I got to the AI Homeworld and got completely destroyed by a Neinzul Melee Guard Post. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't even tell my ships to attack it...none of the immunities seemed to be a problem. Basically, I had little to no idea what the CSGs even did at that point. I was actually very surprised when I found out why I couldn't damage the Core Guard Posts, and wondered why the tutorials didn't even mention such a fundamental aspect of the game. So, I would disagree that they act as a guide for newer players--the tutorial does a good enough job of that, IMO.
That said, I play with CSGs on, in low AIP games. Why would I do that? Well, I see AI War as a sort of RTS puzzle. The enemy has built up massive defenses that I have to crack in order to succeed. But, I only want to take so many planets, because the AI is not very nice if I just start taking over the galaxy. CSGs are one more piece of that puzzle to me. How can I take planets in an efficient manner to:
- Keep the AI from destroying me in some humiliating way (ie low AIP...not that it prevents the AI from humbling me repeatedly :'()?
- Avoid deepstrike threat (get stepping stones to the AI Homeworld)?
- Destroy the AI's defenses (includes CSGs, among other things)?
- Acquire the technology I need to crack defenses (somewhat overlaps with CSGs)?
- Have enough resources (M, C, & E) to sustain a fleet (also somewhat overlaps with CSGs)?
Are CSGs the best mechanic since sliced bread? No. But, I haven't felt irked at them enough to shut them off either. And, quite frankly, I still haven't seen a mechanic that would do their job well, or even adequately (force the strategic capture of a few planets and limit the minimum AIP before finishing the AI Homeworlds). I don't think that's from lack of developers and players trying--it's just a difficult portion of the game to balance without making the game too difficult or too easy.
[/offtopic]
My 2.72 cents.
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You're looking at the entire game of AI War, and all the tens or hundreds of thousands of choices available to you, and distilling them down into Option A), B), or C).
I know AI War more strategies than just A B and C. It was just an example.
3-2=1
and 10000-10=9990
It doesn't matter how many different strategies AI War has. Now I'm not saying absolutely any strategy should be viable (Engineer rush..) Removing some of the strategies means there's less strategic options left.
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Anyway...
When you guys are finished with all that, we can get back to discussing potential changes. I'd much rather chat about the economics we have here than the armor changes :)
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Anyway...
When you guys are finished with all that, we can get back to discussing potential changes. I'd much rather chat about the economics we have here than the armor changes :)
Sure.
Anything that removes conversions causes headaches for me. The more lopsided units are, the more headaches are caused. Meaning if everything was 50/50, it would still cause headaches, but having varying units would cause more headaches.
These changes need to part of a larger goal. That something becomes better. Really better. More opportunities for unique units. Or something. Something that can only be unlocked because of all these changes, something that cannot be used with the current system.
If it can be shown that the headaches generated is overcome by increasing the toolkit of the player, then I'll be considering it. If it simply just makes things "less good", via difficulty, bookkeeping, nerfing, constraining, etc, then I won't like it.
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I came up with something that was definitely stronger than what Keith gave us. It put individual node (M or C) at 3 per planet.
If we can look at the merits (I used the harvesting numbers we have now) and faults in what I have, I'll share it. I'd rather take something with numbers and have the community work on it to make it better (satisfies most concerns) while being able to give crystal some meaning outside of just being a number.
I want to keep the scope of the discussion on this aspect and only this aspect. There is more to the over all scheme of this change but lets focus on one aspect at a time :)
Also guys, lets keep it civil. We play the same game in different ways and we can just agree to disagree on somethings, but we can keep it civil.
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Well that got a bit ugly for a moment... Since it is up there, and I am actually a newish player myself I will give my 2 bits on CSGs. I can see the allure. They add a depth to the game in strategy. By making you do things you might never have wanted to do. Depending on what you like they can be both fun, and !FUN!. You have to solve this extra puzzle and it gives the strategist types something more to play with. However I can see the downsides as well. It is HARD railroading. And a lot of people CAN NOT STAND THAT. Railroading, even landholding style hard type, can be useful. And when well done can be rather unobtrusive. But the CSGs are NOT well done. They were, from what I have gathered, a reaction from the original developer to ultra-low AIP games deep-striking the AI HWs without ever being threatened by the AI in a real way. In short, Chris went "Stop breaking my game you bastards! It's pissing me off!" and threw deliberate roadblocks to prevent it. Harsh words maybe, but from the looks of it, probably true. They were tossed in without any kind of testing or discussion, and are rather clunky and ill designed IMO
Now personally, I don't like them. I tend to play on the "bull**** maps", if I recall the phrase correctly, and sometimes the only way to get to a portion of the galaxy, for things I might very well need, is to go THROUGH a AI HW. Trust me, the AIP gain (but now it is AIP Floor gain so maybe not so bad now) from neutering the place is MUCH preferable to having core posts in your way that you CANT deal with. But part of what makes this game SOOO good is the fact that despite not being "Mod Friendly", it can be VERY adaptable. There are ways to make the game to conform to what you want it to be, within reason. You can have the same game appeal to both groups, and as well it is very hard to have the exact same game twice, even when trying.
Now, on to economy and crystal. I agree that crystal is a rather weak mechanic right now, but I also think that simply removing conversion between M & C and rebalancing the economy around that is NOT the right move. I build the big things, starships, golems, spirecraft, and FS. And while there are no hard numbers right now, just going from what I have read, and guessed at, this is going to make doing that a bit harder on me. I play at 300% to AVOID economy issues and any PSP/PS2 time (I don't have netflix, too broke) while I wait for things to (re)build. I want the fun (and the !FUN!) to start fast and stay going for as long as possible. (Which is funny because I'm actually kinda a slow player, still learning higher level strats)
Personally I think removing crystal entirely is a better idea. The split is mostly 50/50 on the majority of things, and when it is not is also mostly arbitrary. One would think that all the alien stuff, most especially Spire anything, would be 70% or more crystal, while Human based tech runs 70% or more metal. Why are starships so different from fleetships rule of near 50/50, if they are supposed to function similarly to them, but with less DPS and more HP? The splits that are not nearly 50/50 rarely make sense for any given reason I can think of. And for the ones where it is nearly at or at 50/50, the split has no meaning. There is no added depth at all.
Final bit. While I am sure the current idea you have would be easier to code, perhaps another way to factor the Simple Economy toggle could be used. Rather than just merging them together and getting needlessly large numbers, do the following. Use ( M + C ) / 2 for all costs. Add them together, and then divide that result by 2. All income sources that produce both M and C do so in equal amounts, so you can just drop C out of them and would still be just as effective. For harvesters, divide their income by 2. Since the number of them has not changed, and all of them are now just metal, your income shouldn't change either. As you now have 2x the number of metal harvesters, you can get by with 1/2 the income from them. This would keep the numbers on costs from getting too pointlessly high (especially on high cost items like golems, trader toys, and FS) while at the same time give a new starting point from which to balance the cost of things from.
After all that, you could work out something NEW to use crystal for. Because while the idea of making Metal and Crystal work similar to something like Starcraft Minerals and Gas (where low tech things only cost minerals, and as the tech level goes up things cost more and more gas) sounds like a good idea on paper, I don't personally feel that it works for core game. Right now the key costs of higher and better tech are
A} Resources. Higher marks cost more of BOTH M+C. Bigger things cost even more so, but it is both M+C is nearly every case. And as stated, most things are nearly 50/50 or have a split that makes no sense to have. Meaning, IMO, you could get rid of either M or C and still have the same costs.
B} Knowledge. You need to pay K costs for the vast majority of tech improvements. And given that in most cases the things that don't just give you free power also give the AI more ways to kill you, you still need to spend K to survive long enough to keep/acquire the better toys.
C} Energy. This is your supply cap. Not as strong as the raw ship caps, but not ignorable either unless you have more planets, (which costs either AIP or having extra HWs) or you have an economy that can support multiple converters without breaking. Which means you spent a lot of K on it or have a lot of planets.
Given the 3 things above, do we really need to add/change it to have crystal work like gas? Starcraft has an entirely different econ system that it is designed around. I see no reason to take a working system (crystal may be removable but it still works) and turn it into something else entirely. You would need to do a LOT more rebalancing to get that to work than if you just removed C from the equation. Because you still have the A from above, in the form of M. You could allow C to be worked into new and more interesting things, and even have C worked into certain minor factions like Golems. Maybe they don't self attrition but rather cost so much crystal to get up and running again but can NOT be repaired unless you have that much crystal income/sources/ect. Spirecraft also need to be looked at, and crystal could be integrated into them as well. Still takes full asteroids to build them, but now costs crystal rather than metal to repair/build any of them. You would also likely need to give crystal some way to work in the core game as well, without options, but I am out of ideas for that right now.
COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC IGNORE THE STUFF BELOW IF YOU DESIRE
I normally don't talk much about the balance of the game economy wise, since, as I have said before, I out right cheat. 300% Economy and a starting K of 250k. But in this case, I felt a little compelled to say something. This is after all a major change, and even for me it will have a big impact on how I play and what I do. On the cheat issue, more than a few times I have thought to make an AAR about my games, but always refrained from doing so for the simple grounds that I am cheating. Would there be any thing against the rules about posting one? And if not, would anyone even care? Or, as I have feared, would the reactions be "Meh, you're a cheater so I am going to either ignore you or criticize you for not playing fairly" ?
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When I first started playing AI War I didn't even try the tutorial. I didn't read the Wiki or anything. I just pretty much turned on all the minor factions and started playing. CSGs were enabled too. CSGs helped me to decide what to do next. They were a good goal to work towards to.
Basically.. tooltips were my tutorial and CSGs helped me to decide what to do next.
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That didn't take long to get derailed again.....
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LoL. While I was sleeping 4 pages of text appeared. So I started reading from my last post and answered stuff while working my way towards the newest page of this thread.
OPS
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I just pretty much turned on all the minor factions and started playing.
Tutorial by fire.
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I took a little time to come up with something to share and in that time it devolved into something less than stellar. I'd actually like to get back on topic though.
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Oh hey, this is now a CSG/first impressions thread!
When i first played, i actually consulted with the "objectives" screen alot, checking what i need to do. CSG's filled the screen with many points, so i guess they helped me get the direction. My biggest problem was that i had no idea if i was ready to attack AIHWs or not.
Though i liked them more when i thought they were absolutely random, not bound to different special structures. That way CSG's actually felt like pieces of a puzzle, not as a railroad. Kinda funny how my opinion changed simply because i realised their true purpose.
Speaking of tutorial... wait we have one? Never seen it.
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On the cheat issue, more than a few times I have thought to make an AAR about my games, but always refrained from doing so for the simple grounds that I am cheating. Would there be any thing against the rules about posting one? And if not, would anyone even care? Or, as I have feared, would the reactions be "Meh, you're a cheater so I am going to either ignore you or criticize you for not playing fairly" ?
Go ahead and post it, just make sure when you note the game settings you include so the rest of us know what is going on.
A 'Cheat' in AI War has a different meaning then 'Cheat' in other games. Because you don't play against other people in AI War, cheating is simply methods the developer has given us to skew the game, essentially they told us "here, have fun breaking the game".
As compared to other games where cheating grants you an advantage over another player somehow.
The resources thing is no worse then putting some of the player-friendly minor factions up at intensity 10 I would think.
D.
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Oh hey, this is now a CSG/first impressions thread!
When i first played, i actually consulted with the "objectives" screen alot, checking what i need to do. CSG's filled the screen with many points, so i guess they helped me get the direction. My biggest problem was that i had no idea if i was ready to attack AIHWs or not.
Though i liked them more when i thought they were absolutely random, not bound to different special structures. That way CSG's actually felt like pieces of a puzzle, not as a railroad. Kinda funny how my opinion changed simply because i realised their true purpose.
Speaking of tutorial... wait we have one? Never seen it.
See, _K_ is now one of the best players we have in this forum.
He just admitted that CSGs were more important to him for learning the game than the actual 90 minute tutorial.
They didn't seem like "on-the-rail training wheels", they were a nice guide, if I'm understanding him correctly.
This is what I'm saying, you may have your own views concerning CSGs, and you're welcome to them; but to say that they're absolutely useless to new or veteran players is empirically untrue. Realize that's just your own baseless opinion, and gives you no right to call people who disagree stupid or lazy.
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but to say that they're absolutely useless to new or veteran players is empirically untrue.
If that was true, you would see 10/10 games won where the players viewed CSG's as an asset, not hand holding (also called hinderance).
Realize that's just your own baseless opinion, and gives you no right to call people who disagree stupid or lazy.
Because your opinion is inherently less baseless?
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Let's just let the "blah blah blah is baseless/garbage/whatever" and "you said blah blah blah is baseless/garbage/whatever" stuff quietly fade away, please.
Pejorative language was used, probably beyond what the facts strictly permit, but standing on our dignity about past offenses isn't going to get us anywhere. Reconcile, or have a duel, or just let it go.
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I vote having a duel.
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I would vote for duel, but under what terms?
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/me sells tickets.
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I propose Artillery Golems at 10,000 km.
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I propose Artillery Golems at 10,000 km.
I figured we could get Faulty's signature to officiate, actually.
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I just pretty much turned on all the minor factions and started playing.
Tutorial by fire.
I do enjoy being on FIRE!
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Anyway...
When you guys are finished with all that, we can get back to discussing potential changes. I'd much rather chat about the economics we have here than the armor changes :)
Sure.
Anything that removes conversions causes headaches for me. The more lopsided units are, the more headaches are caused. Meaning if everything was 50/50, it would still cause headaches, but having varying units would cause more headaches.
These changes need to part of a larger goal. That something becomes better. Really better. More opportunities for unique units. Or something. Something that can only be unlocked because of all these changes, something that cannot be used with the current system.
If it can be shown that the headaches generated is overcome by increasing the toolkit of the player, then I'll be considering it. If it simply just makes things "less good", via difficulty, bookkeeping, nerfing, constraining, etc, then I won't like it.
By removing conversions, I'm guessing you don't mean merging metal and crystal together? IE, a fighter before cost 100m, 100c, it would then cost 200m, the current crystal asteroids would become metal, and crystal would be handled in an entirely different manner?
In any case, I agree with Chemical_Art's opinion of the change. There needs to be some benefit to the player when adding a capturable or some other resource. Limiting access to higher-tech units or starships isn't the right answer, in my opinion (we have caps, Fact IVs, ASCs, Knowledge, and energy for that...if we need more, I think we are overlooking some fundamental problem or making an assumption that we haven't checked). I do kind of like the original idea that Keith mentioned of a builder that grants special units, with the only caveat being that the mines should be indestructible/rebuildable, and should work like Spire Shipyards for 'special unit caps'. That said, there were quite a few other interesting ideas as well.
Perhaps we should give it a bit more thought (probably a few weeks...enough time to actually play through a few full games), and then treat it like the best/worst ship polls: brainstorm, nominate and review for a few rounds. Then create a poll with everything that survives the dev check, and see what ideas come to the top. Does that seem like a reasonable path-forward?
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Perhaps we should give it a bit more thought (probably a few weeks...enough time to actually play through a few full games), and then treat it like the best/worst ship polls: brainstorm, nominate and review for a few rounds. Then create a poll with everything that survives the dev check, and see what ideas come to the top. Does that seem like a reasonable path-forward?
Well, between this thread and the armor thread I think I distracted people enough to sneak this one (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12812.0.html) through without the customary opposition (I jest). It's looking like we'll actually move forward with that one.
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On the cheat issue, more than a few times I have thought to make an AAR about my games, but always refrained from doing so for the simple grounds that I am cheating. Would there be any thing against the rules about posting one? And if not, would anyone even care? Or, as I have feared, would the reactions be "Meh, you're a cheater so I am going to either ignore you or criticize you for not playing fairly" ?
Go ahead and post it, just make sure when you note the game settings you include so the rest of us know what is going on.
A 'Cheat' in AI War has a different meaning then 'Cheat' in other games. Because you don't play against other people in AI War, cheating is simply methods the developer has given us to skew the game, essentially they told us "here, have fun breaking the game".
As compared to other games where cheating grants you an advantage over another player somehow.
The resources thing is no worse then putting some of the player-friendly minor factions up at intensity 10 I would think.
D.
Duly noted. I will probably start one up here shortly. Quick question. How do you screenshot? Print Screen didn't seem to let me copy the screen, but that could just be an local issue with my comp.
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f12 i think.
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f12 i think.
Thank you. And they get saved in the AI War folder I gather?
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f12 i think.
Thank you. And they get saved in the AI War folder I gather?
[AI War Folder]\Runtime Data\Screenshots. You can also remap the screenshot key if you don't like it, or if you use something else to take screenshots (eg Fraps). As RCIX mentioned, F12 is the default key.
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Oh hey, this is now a CSG/first impressions thread!
When i first played, i actually consulted with the "objectives" screen alot, checking what i need to do. CSG's filled the screen with many points, so i guess they helped me get the direction. My biggest problem was that i had no idea if i was ready to attack AIHWs or not.
Though i liked them more when i thought they were absolutely random, not bound to different special structures. That way CSG's actually felt like pieces of a puzzle, not as a railroad. Kinda funny how my opinion changed simply because i realised their true purpose.
Speaking of CSG seeding. (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7039)
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Speaking of CSG seeding. (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7039)
Daaaamn, this almost makes me want to register there just so that i can upvote this.