Supplies that really limit fleetsize

posted on October 7th, 2009, 12:46 am

I really like that Idea.  Maybe more than mine.

The more of a ship you have the more it costs.  Great Idea.

posted on October 7th, 2009, 1:46 am

Unfortunately that idea has been suggested before... I say unfortunately, because the idea entails that it hence becomes impossible to recover if your fleet is devastated, since every vessel will cost a ton more than originally... thus making your loss inevitable. Of course, this assumes that it isn't based around how many vessels you have in the field.

As I see it we currently have no cap. Infinitly exponentially rising the funds for new supplies (asides from totally unbalancing the dominion) would result in a soft cap on the total number of ships to be built in a whole game, not in a cap on how many ships you can have at any moment. This means that towards a games end it would rather be a last man standing than a death match. My suggestion aims to ease recovery, whereas this one allows practically no recovery in endgame.

The only thing about this game I dislike is, that the game decides very early and then becomes boring because the end is obvious and only a big mistke of the stronger fraction can change the tide again. Further if the fleets are limited in size - only temporarly, as you can evolve your supply generation - you will much more concern about the quaity of your fleet, than about its size. Spamming would become the less effective strategy, what is the main aim of my suggestion.

If you correlate the suppy costs with the usefulness of a ship, the choice will not depend on the supply costs any more. So balancing the supplydrain for each ship can surely be used to avoid spamming the lowest priced ship.

Seems that sounds like a hard cap to me... and as for the last paragraph, although I addressed that earlier... that means that there would be no fleet diversity anymore: you'd be forced to pick and match ships to get the most possible out of the supply cap . I must say however, that I do disagree with the idea that the game is decided very early on. If the players are evenly matched, often each can cripple the other and then rebound without a definitive victory in site. I have had a few very nice games which resulted in utter destruction of both players expansions and main bases both early and late game... with no true victor apparent.

Nonetheless, these arguments aside, spamming should be much reduced in the next patch--at least for specific units such as the Excelsior II (it won't be nearly as effective).

posted on October 7th, 2009, 3:32 am

Well as for the increasing ship costs issue, the cost would go back down for every ship you would loose. It wouldnt stay the same. I think if that was implemented it would be an easier and less complex way fix the spam issue than some of the other complicated methods suggested. Just my opinion though. 

posted on October 7th, 2009, 6:02 am

That sounds similar to the "upkeep", like in Warcraft III

in general, I'm more a fan of our current supply system, but we have some ideas to make supply more interessting in better in the future. We noted that it might become anoying to click that "order new supplies" buttons every time, so i think we will do something in that direction. The basic math behind supply will stay the same. getting more expensive the more you need

posted on October 7th, 2009, 9:58 am

Well, then another idea comes to my mind. You could increase the supply costs if more is ordered in a period of time and when you order less supplies over a period of time the costs may lower again. By doing so you wouldn't have it too easy to amass ships in a short periode of time, but its definitly no cap, and does not make the supplies inaffordable at the end of the game.

Seems that sounds like a hard cap to me... and as for the last paragraph, although I addressed that earlier... that means that there would be no fleet diversity anymore: you'd be forced to pick and match ships to get the most possible out of the supply cap .

To be honest I still don't get the point. You also get the most possible out of your "normal" resouces and go for the most effective. That's why the "normal" resources get balanced to reflect the usefulness. If perfectly balanced no unit stands out before the others because of cost-effectiveness and fleets will be rather mixed.  The same way you would try to get the most possible out of your (infinitly extendable) supply cap and go for the most effective. That's why the supply drain gets balanced to reflect the usefulness. If perfectly balanced no unit stands out before the others because of cost-effectiveness and fleets will be rather mixed. The only difference between these two systems is, that it gets harder to get even bigger with the supply drain, (but not impossible at all under worst conditions). By the way, by varying the costs increase for ugrading the supply-production you can directly balance the fleet-sizes seen in game.

I must admit that i'm a enthusiastic advocate for the "upkeep" idea as it for one provides a glimpse of realism and secondarily reduces the average growth-exponent of the chaotic system we call game.  What I really dislike about warcraft is that there is a upkeep-limit of 100.

posted on October 7th, 2009, 4:27 pm

Yeah, I'm not too big of a fan of this... Essentially it is a hard cap, even if you'd like to call it a soft cap because on small maps you would still be limited. If you can't afford to keep a fleet beyond a certain size due to lack of supplies (due to lack of increased resource margins), you are limited to that size of a fleet. I've already put my 2 cents in a few other times though.

Agreed! 

posted on October 8th, 2009, 12:34 am

There's a way to avoid the early sealing of fates.

Play a game of no more than 5 people, and play it on an 8 player map.  Furthermore, do not allow selection of starting positions.  Random all the way.

With this done, you actually have to find the enemy before you can bum-rush his mining.

posted on October 8th, 2009, 2:06 am

Unfortunately that idea has been suggested before... I say unfortunately, because the idea entails that it hence becomes impossible to recover if your fleet is devastated, since every vessel will cost a ton more than originally... thus making your loss inevitable. Of course, this assumes that it isn't based around how many vessels you have in the field.

I would sugest that when a ship is lost, the cost goes down for that ship by one ship multiplier.


One final point.  Why are we perposeing, or argueing about a universal ship tax?  Why not have one of these Ideas implemented for one race, and a different for others.

    A hard Cap might be fine for borg, whos fleets are comprized of only a couple of ships, but a small ship cost multiplier would work for a race like the federation, whose fleets are based upon many ships of a wide varity of classes.  In the first example, you could have say a maximum of three cubes at one time, which in it self could masicer a fleet several times its numbers.  As for the second, the player would have to focus on gathering reasources inorder to dominmate with shear numbers.  It would also help with spamming certain ships.

    My main point is that a hard capis ok for any one race, but not for all of them, and the same goes for all of the other Ideas.  We should focus on either one race inparticular to change, or not at all.  As I said before a universal Ship tax/cap is not a good Idea, it would prevent intresting games, and real differences in the way races build, and play.

posted on October 8th, 2009, 3:17 am

I like that idea. As I am a fed player the type of cap I was suggesting I think would be best for Federation. And a hard cap for borg would help a little with how OVER POWERING they are.
On strictly supply issues I like how the Dominion work with gathering supply but they still have the same starbase supply purchase as the other races. I think changing the cost and the amount of supplies for each race when they purchase them would be good. I have always thought the fed should have another way to get supplies same with the romulans and the klingons, but they should all be a little different.

posted on October 8th, 2009, 7:06 am

i think its great, similar system to other real time stratergies like Sins of A Solar Empire, great game.

im sure the devs could implement this by adapting some of their current code, the base is already there such as collective connections taking resouce, could just implement it on a ship by ship bases but would need to add additional code to make crew die...

yes yes, that game has a great pop limit technique. You have a single number, and the ships drain it when built and return it when destroyed. Larger ships drain more.

And you can upgrade the supply limit to a point, (say you start with 300, upgrade to say 2000).