So, this whole crystal thing

[keith.lamothe]

@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! (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?

[Cinth]

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.

[Hearteater]

Fully support that design keith.  Very nice.

[Aklyon]

I like that idea as well, keith.

And the reference

[Hearteater]

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.

[Toranth]

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.

[chemical_art]

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

[Cinth]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

[Histidine]

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.

[chemical_art]

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.

[Wingflier]

@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! (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.

[LaughingThesaurus]

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.

[chemical_art]

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.

[Cinth]

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.