[AIW2] Crystal's Return Proposal

[Toranth]

Okay. Naming that "crystal" was the worst idea ever.

Probably 

[Pumpkin]

Okay. Naming that "crystal" was the worst idea ever.

Probably 

Well, then I took the time to revamp this proposal. Here's the new version. Forget everything I said before.


If this option is enabled in the game's options (this is not a plot nor a MF), a new resource is added to the game: Ultranium.

It's displayed beside metal in light purple; it have its own, separated maximum reserve; each structure providing resource storage also provides 1/5 additional storage dedicated for Ultranium. Salvage is also tracked and gathered separately.

At galaxy's generation, 1/5 planets are randomly picked (not human homeworlds) and all their metal deposit are replaced with the same amount of Ultranium asteroids. When captured by humans, these asteroids can be mined by regular metal harvesters. All bonuses to metal harvesting apply to Ultranium. OCStations on Ultranium planets gives ultranium instead of metal (building economical OCStations on such planets might be an interesting choice).

A new economical device is available: the Ultranium converter. It converts Ultranium into the same amount of metal at a fixed rate for a small amount of energy. Several may be built to increase the conversion rate. Converting metal to Ultranium is not possible.

Some ship types, preliminarily tagged "Ultranium Eligible", have their metal price replaced with an Ultranium price, with the same amount. These ships consume Ultranium instead of metal when built. When destroyed on human-controlled planets, their scrap is added to the Ultranium count. The AI doesn't track metal/Ultranium type for its reprisal mechanism.

Proposal: Ultranium-tagged ships are the ones in "complex" available ships option but not in "normal". That makes 22 out of 72, not counting the base starships. (I would personally add the attractor drone and the youngling nanoswarm and remove the youngling vulture and zenith medic frigate, but it would be only marginal changes.)

Each ARS has at least one metal and one ultranium design. The three designs are shuffled to let the first (obtained without hacking) random.

[Mánagarmr]

Make a new post with it. Otherwise it's just gonna drown here.

[Pumpkin]

Make a new post with it. Otherwise it's just gonna drown here.

Eh, Y'know, it's not like if AIW2 was due in a week. Nor like if my ideas were actually popular! ;P

More seriously, this is a very minor idea, and the rework is only "sed s/crystal/ultranium/g". People are worried by the word "crystal", I totally understand that. And I have much better ideas under the hood (like an expansion-lite, with new mechanisms, MF, plots, etc) that will deserve a new thread. This one barely deserve its own thread.

Also... Drowning? In AIW's mod subforum? Lol! It's not "off topic" where posts can drown in a blink!

[Mánagarmr]

Also... Drowning? In AIW's mod subforum? Lol! It's not "off topic" where posts can drown in a blink!

Hey, this is the Arcen forums. Nothing is "on topic" here

[PokerChen]

Okay. Naming that "crystal" was the worst idea ever.

Probably 

Definitely. I would rather prefer it if spirecraft asteroids was merged into the core game as a limited bonus resource, with the following functions:
- build your fabricators on them and churn out a limited amount of units with stat bonuses (like HP and armor).
- build a specialised ship out of the asteroid itself
- attach an engine and move it into your homeworld for potential global bonuses, like analogous to the subspace signals and the first spire refugee ships, etc.

...essential saying that almost all ships can be made out of common materials (currently "metal"), but that strategic resources can also exist in limited amounts (currently "spirecraft asteroids"). I'm not warming up to the reintroduction of a permanent, rarer resource type with conversion costs in between.

[kasnavada]

Crystal as a "ship" ressource with "conversion"... we're back from that. Not that it was much of an issue but it probably introduced more issues than help.

Crystal as an "upgrade" ressource ? Feels like research point and / or hacking points. Your ultranium idea is a variation of that. Currently there is already 3 ways to have new ships: hack, capture (fabricators & science stations) and research. I don't think a 4th one's needed.

Crystal as "asteroids" for spire ships ? Personally I didn't even like that mechanic, as it had limited ressources on weak killable ships. A pain to balance compared to regular spaceship, and also it's limited. Golem being limited makes sense, because they're rare and powerful. So it's possible to "micro" their survivals. Flagship from asteroids ? Designed to be lost, and in limited amount ? That means optimizing them and using only the "best" design out of whatever they do.

[Draco18s]

I dislike asteroids, because 80% of them are ones that make units that I can't make effective use out of (I turn them into Rams, and eventually find a target that they can hit and launch caps worth of rams at it, so I can start turning the rest of the asteroids into rams).  I think its the first three whole tiers of asteroids that I don't use as anything else.