conflict, expansion, research and resources

[XGRDX]

We all know that currently combat is a bit crap but one of the design issues with making it better is that if you make it too complicated defence could become too frustrating.

This could be solved without major problems by making the aliens more interesting on defence but similar when attacking.

Only real issue I have with this is the fact that the main reason you have for attacking is when you need to expand.
If you are focused on the main goal of building that rocket you could easily do it on medium settings with minimal expanding (easily done without needing a single train for example)

I have some ideas that would be more than enough to put the player in conflict with the aliens at more points in the game but as its in the name of expansion its on the players terms so it doesn't feel punishing.


1) make research take significantly less time but cost significantly more resources.

I am talking about the time being near instant but you have to spend a lot of time putting together the materials needed.

Note that this would have the side effect of making each research feel a lot more like a meaningful choice.

This is because even if you have the infrastructure to produce the right colour of science pack you have to think about what you want and what you can afford within the territory you currently control.

Right now it feels like a formality to get most of the research at any given level once you get the right infrastructure but more important the actual material investment is relativity low most of the time.


2) This one will definitely be more controversial but on equivalent settings compared to the current game there should be significantly less resources but all resources should be like oil in that they get depleted instead of exhausted.

On normal settings this will make you feel like you have to expand as everything will cost too much to make on your little income around your starting area in a reasonable time.

But it does not punish the player or have the same design problems that just making the starting area have less resource would.

These problems being not having any material left for conflict with the aliens because you are new and took too long or after initially expanding away from the low resources at the starting area you now just have normal resource in a relatively small area thus reducing the need for further conflict, returning to the original issue.

Solutions like having richer resources further away from the start are fine in addition but when the starting area is enough material wise but you can't just reduce that value of the starting area too much without the other issues mentioned above solutions like richer resources further away are insufficient design wise.

On a psychological level this also means most territorial victories against the aliens give you a permanent reward even if each reward is now smaller, the sense of progress over time might feel better.

[ssilk]

Moved from Suggestions to Balancing.

[Frightning]

We all know that currently combat is a bit crap but one of the design issues with making it better is that if you make it too complicated defence could become too frustrating.

This could be solved without major problems by making the aliens more interesting on defence but similar when attacking.

Only real issue I have with this is the fact that the main reason you have for attacking is when you need to expand.
If you are focused on the main goal of building that rocket you could easily do it on medium settings with minimal expanding (easily done without needing a single train for example)

I have some ideas that would be more than enough to put the player in conflict with the aliens at more points in the game but as its in the name of expansion its on the players terms so it doesn't feel punishing.


1) make research take significantly less time but cost significantly more resources.

I am talking about the time being near instant but you have to spend a lot of time putting together the materials needed.

Note that this would have the side effect of making each research feel a lot more like a meaningful choice.

This is because even if you have the infrastructure to produce the right colour of science pack you have to think about what you want and what you can afford within the territory you currently control.

Right now it feels like a formality to get most of the research at any given level once you get the right infrastructure but more important the actual material investment is relativity low most of the time.


2) This one will definitely be more controversial but on equivalent settings compared to the current game there should be significantly less resources but all resources should be like oil in that they get depleted instead of exhausted.

On normal settings this will make you feel like you have to expand as everything will cost too much to make on your little income around your starting area in a reasonable time.

But it does not punish the player or have the same design problems that just making the starting area have less resource would.

These problems being not having any material left for conflict with the aliens because you are new and took too long or after initially expanding away from the low resources at the starting area you now just have normal resource in a relatively small area thus reducing the need for further conflict, returning to the original issue.

Solutions like having richer resources further away from the start are fine in addition but when the starting area is enough material wise but you can't just reduce that value of the starting area too much without the other issues mentioned above solutions like richer resources further away are insufficient design wise.

On a psychological level this also means most territorial victories against the aliens give you a permanent reward even if each reward is now smaller, the sense of progress over time might feel better.

For point 1: Time=resources. Increasing resource cost simply means that you don't need as many labs to keep up with available resources. The only thing that actually makes research take significant time, is that you're not free to expand to your heart's content (w/ aggressive biters, and to an extent even w/ passive biters) because they don't like it (or are just 'in the way and not easy to remove'), forcing you to invest in defense and offense (which not only takes resources, but time as well).

For point 2: Infinite resources is a bad idea because at some point, either the amount so small it's pointless, or it's not and you don't need to expand at some realistically achievable point to keep your endgame base fed. However, you're totally right imo, that, outside of low frequency/richness/size settings there seems to be TOO much resources in the starting area. My proposed solution is the make the roll-on effect of richness settings much stronger, but start at lower (and less volatile) values. e.g. default ores shouldn't exceed about 10k under a 5x5 Electric mining drill tops on default settings, maybe 25k on the richest possible settings (currently, those numbers are more like 40k and 120k), Oil is closer to this ideal in starts atm (those 50% oil wells reach depletion in only 40*150=6000 seconds=1 hr 40mins, whereas a 40k ore drill runs for 40000/0.525=~76,190 seconds=~21 hrs). Note that I am not against extreme rich ores and oil existing, just not in the start, those should be further away (maybe 5 Radars worth or more?)

I've done some experiments with the map gen and looked at starting areas, and if you set everything to very low, there is really very little resources to be found, even in your start (this has been a source of some significant challenges in my random world map, which has very low frequency and size for oil, despite scouting about 7 radars worth of territory, I still have only found a single oil well, which I have long ago depleted, I also only have about 1mil iron ore untapped in all of that map area, which is like 5% of the amount of Coal and half that much of the amount of Copper I have access to (and even Copper was only Very High frequency, Medium size, high richness iirc)). Interestingly, Frequency actually has the largest effect on overall resources per map area, followed by Size, and lastly Richness (It used to be that Frequency had no influence on resources per map area, but instead only controlled how clustered or scatter resources were; not anymore though, not since 0.13 map gen changes anyways).