On resource collection...

from Sins Forums
While playing some Supreme Commander this afternoon, the thought occurred to me that resource collection in RTS games is just a giant pain in the ass. In SupCom, for example, you have to individually lay down each power generator and mass collector. This works great in the beginning of a match because you can just queue up a nice big set of orders and move on to something else. But a few minutes later, you have to queue up more resource collection and tediously manage the upgrading of every single generator and mass collector. Ugh.

From what I've read, Sins is going to have the option to automate a lot of the tedious RTS stuff, but why not get rid of the tedious stuff altogether? Say, for example, when you capture a planet it just starts producing resources. And to control the ratio of what resources are being collected, you can just move simple slider bars. Basically, they need to bring the planet management of GalCiv into a real-time game.

I don't mind building major structures like research facilities and factories, but having to click through hundreds of individual power generators and farms (hello SupCom) is not fun. Plus, it gives a huge advantage to the player that knows the 100% most efficient build order for all those hundreds of resource gather nodes.

Is there any info known about how Sins is going to handle this?
85,975 views 49 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I don't want to get rid of this because when it comes down to it, you will have to micro these seemingly ridiculous things just to get ahead.

Not sure on how it's going to be handled though, wait a week and when the beta's out, I'll tell you more.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I can assure you it will not be tedious. You can micro it as per above, but as with most things in Sins, there is a way to automate it.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
yeah, but dont COMPLETELY automate it
*deathglares penicilin*
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I am all for automation, well except when it comes to the most important resource of all, my enemies ships after I scale them down a bit into more managable peices, they provide a very effective recource indeed.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Best bet IMHO would be to point them at a region of resources and say go harvest, or something like that...
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I quite enjoy having limited control, a la Age of Empires, where you just send off some villagers/ships to harvest a resource and they happily harvest away until its gone. That's it though, if stuff needs to be upgraded it should upgrade unless I specify otherwise.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
limited, but capable control

and it makes much more sense anyway (you dont tell a unit to "sieze third building on the right" you say "take that goddamn town"
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
The goal is to give players the option. Some players like to micromanage things, others don't, so we want to let the gamer decide how they want to approach things. What we want to avoid is something like MOO3 where the entire game practically played itself.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I like to think of those types of games as interactive movies.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
no no NO!!!! dont die on me johny, DONT YOU DIE ON ME!!!
*calls medivac*
awesome, that takes care of that
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I'm not so much worried about how the resource collection is managed. I'm more concerned about how it fits into the game.

For example, in most modern RTS games (especially the recent Relic games--Dawn of War, CoH) every player has a limited supply of resources depending on the resource nodes that they control. The gameplay comes in deciding how to use these resources to the best possible effect. Do I spend this fuel now to build a jeep, or do I wait until I can afford a tank?

Conversely, in Total Annihilation / SupCom, the player can be constantly increasing his flow of resources. You aren't forced to make decisions based on limited resource income, because you can infinitely build more and more resource collectors to get an essentially infinite resource flow. Hell, there's no need to expand your "empire" because you can just pack more and more powere generators and mass fabricators into your existing base.

So, does Sins allow this infinite resource expansion (ala SupCom), or are you forced to work with the resources that you control? Personally, I find limited resource supplies much more interesting because they force the players to make tough decisions and fight to control resources. The SupCom method is just irritating (when you don't know the optimal build order you are at a huge disadvantage) and tedious (the clicking to build more and more generators and mass fabricators never ends!).
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I think it would be the second (in fact I'm hoping)
the major differences that prevent it from being a click-mania being the soft cap for your fleet (you wouldn't want to lose because you ran out of resources even though you planned your fleet perfectly, would you?) and the automation that will definately take care of resourcing in some ingenious way.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Well, if you ran out of resources, you obviously didn't plan your fleet perfectly, now did you?
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I liked the way Kohan Immortal Sovereigns handled resource collection - I'm betting most of you have NEVER heard of that game (it's fun but outdated now probably a $3 game now) so I'll explain it!

Heres how it worked each map had a limited number of cites (in soase: planets) and each city produced at a base +3 to every resource, however you could upgrade cites to produce more of one thing example: build a mine to collect more stone, or build a library to produce more magic or build a barracks to produce better solders (and also increase the size of the garrison at the city)... there were several upgrade possible to any city... in Sins a way of automating this would in my opinion would be to upon colonization immediately prompt you with a screen with "Military Planet", "Economic Planet", "Research Planet", "Player Control", "Do whats best" - the idea of those modes would be that each one would have an A.I. setup that would attempt to play that planet while the player isn't monitoring... The "do whats best" mode would look into what the empire needs, where its located, and the frequency of attacks in nearby systems to choose a policy at any given time.

Question! do planets get a garrison? Perhaps some defense forces based on what you've got built at the planet? (Star Wars: Forces of Corruption did it best)

Also one other thing Kohan did well for resource collection was to have unlimited resources available (cities never ran out the game ended being a race to build/capture/upgrade the most cities fastest and was quite fun)... But Kohan also had mines on the map that produced additional resources (example being a stone mine that added +10 to your stone production when controlled)

I for one am in favor of limited planetary resources but having technologies/buildings that can fabricate whatever you need/want and allow you to harvest more resources from a planet (better drilling technology and such) - also space wrecks are permanent I'm betting on a way to salvage them as such recycling technology should be avilable(it should also be fairly cheap) that way you get MORE resources when salvaging perhaps an 80% rec lamination at top end of the tech.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Well, if you ran out of resources, you obviously didn't plan your fleet perfectly, now did you?

everyone would eventually run out of resources if that was the case, not just the big spender.
which makes that resourcing strategy just plain stupid. (win before your resources for maintenance run out!!!) boring.
"Military Planet", "Economic Planet", "Research Planet", "Player Control", "Do whats best"

I want in-betweens
welcome into the era of sliders! just create
economy
military
research
development
resourcing
on sliders, from conservative to spendaholic. additionally each planet should have access to a certain amount of resource that you alot to it (say I give planet Flatulent 30,000 metal, 20,000 crystal and max it out on research and resourcing operations and conservative on everything else, it will spend only maintenance and liminal expansion on the conservative operations and max out the paycheck on R&R)
this way you can reduce micromanagement of dozens of buildings down to micromanaging the coffers of a few planets, all you would have to do is decide when to fill the coffers of a planet, and any of said filling would be pulled immediately out of your empire coffers and spent as needed.
of course you can have special-orders, for you hands-on folk.
thats my 2wo cents
I for one am in favor of limited planetary resources

just pointing this out: unless you want a game to be limited by the maximum resources everyone has then this will fail.
what will happen is that everyone EVERYONE will run out of resources eventually, making this a hide and wait game, rather than an RT4X. with a dynamic soft cap the ONLY resourcing strategy to provide maximum resourcing strategies is to make infinite resources that are in limited excavation.
i.e. you can't build thousands of precious metal mines on a gas planet and expect to get a lot of returns, you can get SOME returns, constantly, but the investment will have been very poor.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
That's what I'm talking about schematicsninja. The planets should have infinitely available resources, but the rate at which you can mine them must be limited.

I love how resource collection is done in the Civilization games, for example. Each city has a unique set of resources it can be collecting, and you have to decide how to distribute the city's work force to collect them. As the city grows you get more workers and can collect resources faster, but there is a limit to that too. If the city becomes too overcrowded things start collecting slower (law of diminishing returns).

So yeah, here's hoping for the Civilization model of resource collection rather than the Total Annihilation or Starcraft way. That would be really appropriate for this type of game. *crosses fingers*
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
but the rate at which you can mine them must be limited.

I see a logistics curve coming
resources mined y axis, resource buildings x axis.
As the city grows you get more workers and can collect resources faster, but there is a limit to that too. If the city becomes too overcrowded things start collecting slower (law of diminishing returns).

I dont think a gaussian curve would apply under the circumstances, there really isn't enough to justify a net loss in speed of production. a logistics curve would work better because it makes more sense (more mines, but lack of infrastructure. or perhaps its that there are only a certain amount of resources, you can increase the number of mining operations, but your still limited overall)
still, resources need to be infinite, like in RoN
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I'm still more concerned about how the resource collection is fundamentally carried out. Is it through a planet management screen with sliders for what is being collected (like every turn based 4X game), or is it through placing mining structures directly onto the tactical map (like every RTS game)?

All the logistics curves can be tweaked during beta
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
All the logistics curves can be tweaked during beta


I hope so, this sort of thing will be fundamental to any strategy game, if you're running low on resources it will spur you on to attack a neighbour who has the oil...I mean...resources, you need. But your fleet may not be powerful enough to do this, so the game can be debalanced (with you being wiped out)

This is what is wrong with SupCom, now I love SupCom but you've gotta be kinda careful when it comes to resources, too few and you won't be able to build an army, too many and there's too much redundancy and since you can't defend them all they make tempting (and lucrative) targets for your enemies. I've had many a decent multiplayer match ruined by some idiot (not me) grabbing all the resources first, which basically means I and the other players can surgically strike against his resources and take them with no hassle, resulting in what was the game's most powerful player being cut off at the knees, then the game just turns into a long slog over the resources he left over, and nobody hates a war of attrition more than me.

I draw the comparison between Sins and SupCom because both games pride themselves on their huge concept, BIG armies/fleets, BIG maps/galaxies etc. Sins is more like SupCom than anyone dare let on, which is why it may be a good idea to learn from SupComs mistakes.

Now that I've prattled on for three (now four) paragraphs I just like to end by saying that if Sins can get the resource management down, it'll be a great game, much better than SupCom (maybe I should've said that to begin with).
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Sins is more like SupCom than anyone dare let on, which is why it may be a good idea to learn from SupComs mistakes.



I'm afraid you may be right. I had allowed myself to hope it might be more like EU3 in space, but it seems its just going to be just another (despite a lot of nonsensical "Homeworlrd meets GalCiv2" hype) fairly standard Factional combat RTS.


But, we wont know until the beta, and Ill reserve judgement until then.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
I don't mind building major structures like research facilities and factories, but having to click through hundreds of individual power generators and farms (hello SupCom) is not fun.


Double click a generator, it selects all on the screen.


besides that, it would be nice to have presets for what is build on a planet (a la Imperium galactica)
I do agree on the concept of infinite harvesting places, which are undepleteable (harvesting might slow after a while, but shouldn't stop) nothing is more annoying then players who are incapable of killing eachother due to resource lack and defences.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
I do agree on the concept of infinite harvesting places, which are undepleteable (harvesting might slow after a while, but shouldn't stop) nothing is more annoying then players who are incapable of killing eachother due to resource lack and defences.


The only part I disagree with is "Defenses" I love them. It is always a nice feeling when an enemy fleet attacks me and loses to my defenses before ever engaging my main fleet. now defenses showd be able ot be taken out obviously, but they shouldnt be any pushovers. They should be strong, after all they are what is defending a planet in lue of a costly fleet.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with you as well, if Sins wants to be realistic (as realistic as a galaxy hopping space strategy game with mind controllers, ancient races and Phase Drives can be) we should be able to fortify our worlds and resources, minefields, unmanned sentry guns etc etc.

What could make it more interesting is the concept of cargo depots. If a mine is too far from allied space it should have a cargo depot assigned to it which is basically a region of space where crates of (whatever the hell it is we are mining) are stored, and periodically, haulage ships would warp in, collect the crates and warp out, anyone familiar with Freespace 2 will be familiar with its cargo depot concept, which is what I'm going for here, for those not familiar with FS2 resources are placed in containers and said containers are left in groups in a designated area of space, often next to a subspace node (think jump gate) and are guarded by half a dozen sentry guns (many missions have the player assaulting such installations to destroy or capture the cargo) every so often a freighter comes in and collects a crate and leaves.

This would create a very interesting dynamic in Sins, you could place your depot next to a phase gate (if a phase gate is a buildable structure) and defend it with a few sentry guns/fighter squadrons. It could be a way of putting resources in storage when you have a surplus (or holding them for sale on the market, "yes we'll give you x amount of megatons of duranium, simply send a freighter to the depot and these coordinates to collect it"). Every so often a hauler would come through the gate and collect a crate (which contains x amount of units of materiel) and leave.

Double click a generator, it selects all on the screen.


Didn't know that, thanks!
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
You idea of a cargo depot was similar to a question I had, posted it in the wrong format though it probably got over looked.

I was wondering if the resource collection was going ot be similar to that of just about every game that has it( invisible resources), or will it be Physical resources?

This means if once a resource is collected, will it jsut be a number to indicate how much a given player has of that resource or will it still be something physically in the world?

Will it be:
1) find it
2) mine it/protect it
3) then we have it for all time

or

Will it be:
1) find it
2) mine it/protect it
3) Transport/protect it
4) Store/protect it
5) Use it and protect what isnt used.

Given the set-up I have understood for the game, though it hasnt't been said, it looks to be the latter, if not and it is closer to the regualar RTS's of today, then it would be a waste of a great struggle point for players. You would REALLY be able to raid a convoy that mattered to a player. If you were to take out his/her main supply routes, you could bleed his/her empire dry.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
I'm sorry, but seperating the resources out into units might be a problem, one it might be a drag on the processor to take care of all that, additionally it will slow the game down massively (what? I have to wait 40 minutes to get that cargo shipment to beta-33849???)
now I dont oppose it, but if it occurs you need to be able to allot coffers to planets that they can draw from, additionally they should be able to draw back a percentage of what they produce to go back into their own economy.