Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kregoth

EDIT:
Came up with another idea for the base game why not have an option to sell tech to pirates over the black market? you could make more from it then trading it with empires but it effects your reputation as well as arming pirates with that tech.

quote:

ORIGINAL: lancer



Resource Slider

It appears that this hasn't made the cut for the Expansion. During the Live Chat Elliot didn't appear to express much enthusiasm for the concept. I can see why. Implementing a resource slider would be a sizeable job. You would need to adjust the AI and the games underlying balance. Not easy.

The reason I - and by the sound of it, others - would like a slider is to enable resources - particularly strategic resources - to have some meaning. At present - once your empire reaches a certain size - you have so many resources that they effectively become meaningless background fluff. The exception, of course, are the key luxury resources.

It would be nice if you actually had to worry about sourcing enough carbon fibre or lead to keep your empire running. Wars might be fought over certain strategic resources. They aren't called 'strategic' for nothing.

The trick is to come up with a way of doing this without having to redo the economic model, the AI and the game balance.


Here's a suggestion ----------------------------------------------------------------


Keep everything as is. Generate the maps with the same number of resource locations. No different.

Implement a slider. Call it a 'resource multiplier'. Magically find some space for it on the start-up options screen along with all the other sliders. (Not complaining, these are one of the games stronger points).

Game proceeds as normal. AI empires do their thing. Difference only applies to the Players empire.

Everytime you build something each component costs 'x' amount of certain resources. What the slider does is change this. If set to 'normal', obviously no difference. If set to 'scarce', for example, then all resource requirements are doubled. So a component needs 10 Lead and 1 Carbon Fibre to build. Now it needs 20 Lead and 2 Carbon Fibre.

All of a sudden your empires resource requirements have doubled. Hey, I need a new lead mine, pronto.

Fine tuning the idea would involve applying the 'resource multiplier' slider to strategic resources only. Luxury resources appear to work well as they are.

Further tuning would be to put a limit to the extraction possible from a single resource source. Eg. So you couldn't put a mega-mining base on a single Lead source and supply all your empires needs from this one location.

This is an exploit currently in the game but one that would be easy (I think) to fix.

In summary you would be able - if you wanted to - make strategic resources mean something and have an impact on your play. The private sector becomes even more important as does the search for new resource locations. Do all this with minimal impact on the existing game design.

Sounds good to me but then most of my own ideas do.

Cheers,
Lancer

quote:

ORIGINAL: pipewrench

give certain resources a finite inventory that can be increased with technology. This will force expansion and abandonment of old bases.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pipewrench

give some techs a requirement that manufacturing, mining and science must be at a certain level to make the new tech operational.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pipewrench

it would be nice if spying became set to a budget with an unknown factor for the player to gauge. Information collected could be false due to other empires counter. Lets try and make the player paranoid as to the credibility of what he or she collects, hears or sees.

quote:

ORIGINAL: lancer

A second approach would be to have resources that never run out but that degrade in quality. For example a resource of Caslon is rated at 92%, excellent fuel source here. If you put multiple extractors over it to suck up as much as you could as fast as you could then you run the risk that the quality of the Caslon source could degrade below the 92% level to represent the fact that it is depleting.

Rough thoughts would be that once a month, for example, the game checks every mining station and if any have multiple extractors then there is a die roll that may result in random% drop in the resource quality. The more extractors you have sucking it dry the greater the odds it will drop.

Trick is that it will keep dropping until it gets to 1%. After that no more drops. Your mining station is still eking out dribs and drabs but that's about it. You have - like a greedy oil baron - taken out too much too soon and suffered the inevitable consequence.

Opens up some interesting decision points for the player. Yep, I have an urgent need for Helium. Running short of the stuff. Do I park a gas mining station on top with a standard single extractor and go for a long term reliable source while gambling that I can find more or do I go for broke and pull out as much as I can with multiple gas extraction modules installed in the miner while accepting that I might kill the golden goose?

It would also make resource quality have more impact. There isn't a lot of point in strip mining a 13% Lead deposit. You'd be hitting empty in no time. But a 90% Lead deposit might last long enough ('cause the chance of the deposit degrading is randomised) to make it worth your while.

Looking forward to the expansion.

Cheers,

Lancer

quote:

ORIGINAL: lancer

Resource Strip Mining

As mentioned above there is nothing to stop you building a medium starbase over a particular resource location with multiple resource extractors, lots of cargo and docking bays and effectively generating massive amounts of that resource (luxury or strategic) from the one location.

All you need to do is find a single source of Nekros Stones, for example, and by strip mining it you can supply your entire empires need and additionally flood the market with your abundant supplies. You can do this because there is no restriction on over-exploiting a resource location and the resources themselves are assumed to be infinite.

In a previous suggestion some posts above on this page I mentioned that this is an exploit that should be gotten rid of.

Which would work.

If the game was tweaked somehow to make resources have greater impact and meaning (eg. so you don't end up knee deep in every strategic resource once your empire achieves critical mass) then the mining of resources takes on greater importance.

So I've had a few thoughts on how to deal with the exploit beyond just unilaterally enforcing a rule that any miner can only have a single resource extractor of any particular type.

If, instead, you (eg. CodeForce) continue to allow the player to put as many resource extractor modules on top of a location as he wants. Go crazy and strip mine Lead till the lights go out.

A couple of ideas how to turn this into a positive instead of an exploit.

Making resources finite would work. The games already has the data inbuilt for this. Didn't come to pass because, as I understand it, the AI had difficulties. Make it for players only. Make it an option so those that dislike this kind of thing don't have to deal with it.

A second approach would be to have resources that never run out but that degrade in quality. For example a resource of Caslon is rated at 92%, excellent fuel source here. If you put multiple extractors over it to suck up as much as you could as fast as you could then you run the risk that the quality of the Caslon source could degrade below the 92% level to represent the fact that it is depleting.

Rough thoughts would be that once a month, for example, the game checks every mining station and if any have multiple extractors then there is a die roll that may result in random% drop in the resource quality. The more extractors you have sucking it dry the greater the odds it will drop.

Trick is that it will keep dropping until it gets to 1%. After that no more drops. Your mining station is still eking out dribs and drabs but that's about it. You have - like a greedy oil baron - taken out too much too soon and suffered the inevitable consequence.

Opens up some interesting decision points for the player. Yep, I have an urgent need for Helium. Running short of the stuff. Do I park a gas mining station on top with a standard single extractor and go for a long term reliable source while gambling that I can find more or do I go for broke and pull out as much as I can with multiple gas extraction modules installed in the miner while accepting that I might kill the golden goose?

It would also make resource quality have more impact. There isn't a lot of point in strip mining a 13% Lead deposit. You'd be hitting empty in no time. But a 90% Lead deposit might last long enough ('cause the chance of the deposit degrading is randomised) to make it worth your while.

Looking forward to the expansion.

Cheers,

Lancer

quote:

ORIGINAL: martok

quote:

ORIGINAL: pipewrench

give certain resources a finite inventory that can be increased with technology. This will force expansion and abandonment of old bases.

Oh hell, no.

I hate -- with the fire of a thousand suns -- strategy games with finite resources. While I concede that those who feel resources in Distant Worlds are a bit too abundant may have a point, I would still vastly prefer they be overly plentiful than having it so that you can run out.