I have to say i also liked the finite metal/mineral model more than the current infinite, as it gave the players more options. they could either develop to refineries and keep their income rather stable when res ran out (although i have to say aswell that refineries are a bit to weak for that right now) or go for a fast and quick approach and try to win before their economy collapses.

I agree that mining techs are now more worth it than before, but i guess they could also be adapted to be as good as they are now with finite ressources.
Maybe by increasing the yield of the asteorid by 5% with each upgrade so you could also mine longer.

Finite res made had you manage your economy in mid-lategame and not simply watch the cash flow in as it is now.
As with the others i also agree that the res a normal asteorid should have could be buffed by perhaps 15-20% of the beta 3 level, so that in smaller games refinery stage can still be reached.

I´d like finite res in an asteorid but buffed refineries to compensate so if you play a balanced expansion you could stay at your income level even when they get depleted.

If one overexpands and doesn´t develop or doesn´t watch his economy its only good that he should feel it after some time.

This could help speed up the start of a game buy giving us more resources to start with.

i run into the same problem with finite economy as i do with infinite economy.

the only difference is when. with finite economy it is after the second system. with infinite economy it is after the first system and i don't have to build resource base.


here is an idea. we dont control the resource ships or the trade ships have them cost to be built. since they are auto built that could be a hit on the economy just when you might need it the most.

That's illogical The main issue with the finite asteroids is that they ran out and refineries didn't compensate enough. The same issue can't exist with infinite asteroids because... they don't run out.

you know what i am getting tired of you people calling me a lier.


in the finite game i build the first system with trade posts. in the second system i build refineries. so that by the time i take the second system i am pumping out enough resources to buy my ships. oh and usually by the time i take the second system i have all my tech too.

As far as I can see, nobody's called you a liar... *scratches his head*

You're talking about something completely different from what this thread is about, though. What do you do in a single star system game?

i only play in huge random maps.

Then, like I said, we're talking about completely different things

Is their a language issue involved in this danielost? Just wondering if perhaps you are trying to convey something different than what you are writing.

as for the economy it is too large. there is too much cash and resources. or there isn't enough to spend it on. when i can get 100,000 + credits by the time i take control of one star system.

What problem are you trying to solve? With respect to having a place to spend your resources, not having a unit cap goes a very long way to do this.

I think it is a great solution. It should be a difficult competition even if one empire is slightly smaller. It is another factor in the whole slippery slope paradigm.

If you are worried about games taking too long (and rightly so) that opens up another avenue of suggestions .

what I said in the "raid" thread. finite just seems better and resources currently just seem to plenty. if you build a halfway good ecnomy you dont really have to decide anymore what to do, because you can do it all and the only limitation is really fleet points.

The problem Im trying to solve has nothing to do with trying to spend money- thats easy enough. The problem is that infinite resources REMOVES allot of risk and strategy to the game, it also deepens the disparity between smaller and larger empires, making a come back less and less possible.

I'm not concerned about game legnth in either direction.

I don't really mind, but a big limiter that made the game a challenge was when the supplies ran out and you HAD to protect your trade routes. So I would propose something. Graduated processing rates.

First, if you are harvesting from an asteroid and you run out of surface stuff, of course it'll be slow! But until then, the harvest rate will be quite normal. What if research put additional mineral supplies within your reach? For instance level 1 of metal mining (TEC) would increase your asteroids supply by 1000 units.

Now, if you did that you could take a grade and change the collection rate, and add in a minimum rate of collection. Sounds more complex than it is really. This way if you've more stuff in the asteroid or invested in research you get more out of it. But over time the speed of resource collection plummets.

The only trouble with this that I foresee is marking planets as previously colonized, so that taking someone's world over won't net a sudden, huge boost in resources in the asteroids. You could leave that for uncolonized worlds though, and give the players a good initial bonus.

I'll leave the implementation up to you guys if you pick this type of method, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to throw the idea out there.

Infinite resources are the best way to avoid excessive micro management.

Look at this map for instance:

Nobody in their right mind would want to babysit the hundreds of potential resources there to see which ones are out or which ones are almost out.

There are plenty of ways to balance resources that don't run out (Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander both have infinite resources incidentally).  Most 4X games have economies based on resources that never run out too.

It's understandable that some people will prefer the finite system but this is a major part of the udpated game mechanics and it's not going to change for release -- though we certainly appreciate the feedback as it helps emphasize the importance of balancing this.

 

Games that apply an infite res model usually don´t let you hoard infinite amounts of these res.
Actually they enforce a quite rigorous cap that you can expand by spending res.
That way even with an overflowing economy you can´t save up forever, but after some time you reached a maximum and the rest just goes to waste if you don´t spend it.

With a cap on maximal hoarded res the problematic with infinite reswells doesn´t exist.

i think with sins in lategame its the problem that you have the steady income but sometime no way to spend it and in the end it just ends up all sitting around.
And putting it all in bounty will in that phase of the game do no good.

If the infite asteorids are going to stay i would really like to see some caps on the res that can later in the game be expanded (trade stations for more creds and refineries for more metal/crystal hoards)
For most game situations i think a storage of about 4000 would really be enough.

Of course its not realistic that res would go to waste, but it would help the gameplay. And its not realistic that asteorids never run dry either!

Thank you for pitching in, Frogboy.



I don't think it's that some of us prefer finite over the infinite just because of how it impacts the economy. It's more of that it no longer feels possible/effective to try and disrupt the other player's economy. In that regard, it may still be possible to balance the infinite system so that protection of the economic infrastructure may play a bigger a role in a game than it does currently?

Either way I'm not pushing for anything in particular, just clarifying what some of us are trying to say in this thread

OK this is going to ruffle some feathers.

but what i would do is the following.


allow the trade ships to go interstellar thus putting them at more risk. also allow them to trade with allies also putting them at more risk. these two things were in beta 1 and 2.


and then for each of the ship charge to have them rebuilt.

say

trade ships 200 Cr 100 metal 100 crystal

resource ships 300 Cr 150 metal 150 crystal

construction frigates 150 Cr. 50 metal 50 crystals.


OK let me have it. but this idea would put most of your ships in to dangerous areas allowing some of them to die. then you have to pay for them to be rebuilt.

In the final version is there going to be easy/med/hard options that relate to how much resources are available?

I doubt there's going to be a setting that changes the number of asteroids per planet, and since the asteroids themselves will stay infinite you can't control it with a toggle

I am pretty divided on this subject.

I can understand why some guys might like finite resources better.

1. It is more 'realistic'.

2. Attacking Refineries can have a greater impact on an opponents economy than is presently possible. This makes merchant raiding more effective.

However, I can also see why the devs are doing the infinte resource model.

1. Micromanaging is reduced a bit..something I can cheer about on big maps when I am fighting multiple battles at once AND dealing with production, economy and research.

2. There are still some big long term/short term economic choices to be made, such as whether or not to research refineries. These choices still make a big impact on the game.

In fact, while some might complain that the economic model is simplefied, it actually is more complex in terms of research choices. With finite resources, everybody (who wanted to win) on a big map would HAVE to follow a similar research path that included refineries.

Now, players can choose to not research refineries (and use their logistic slots for other strategies), and they still can possibly win. Refineries still do help, but now the player can try other strategies.

So, I guess I am leaning a bit in the devs way on this subject.

That said, here is my wishlist concerning this subject.

1. I would like it if new colonies were a greater drain on resources.

2. Mines need to have longer build times to make killing them more worthwhile.

3. I prefer no fleet caps of any type.....yeah, I know it isn't happening (lol).

Your analysis is pretty good and I agree with it, but these two wish list items:



Would make the early game incredibly, painfully, eye-gougingly slow. Starting up is already pretty slow (especially for Vasari), those two things would make early large games and small games take much longer than they should.

I know what you're trying to get at with these, in the late game both of those things would have impact, but it screws early/small games

this should read most of you non-combat ships.

I see your point Annatar. The only comfort is that it equally slows everybody down a bit for the joy of economic warfare being a viable strategy in the mid/late game.

The only problem is with mid/late game on small maps where this would still be a pretty big slowdown And most people are trying to get games to be shorter

Indirectly, this would also weaken the Vasari against the TEC quite a bit, how much depends on the scale of the changes.