Resource moons

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:07 pm

How come they are all infinate? Is there any kind of variation in resources planned?

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:14 pm

I have wondered about this in the past. I think it'd make for some intriguing game play prospects if we had the option of finite and infinite moons.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:19 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 2nd, 2009, 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Personally I think it makes the game better as you can keep on carrying on fights without worrying about depletion and it always makes resource nodes something worth fighting over (near the end of the game, if resource nodes depleted, what would be the point in fighting over them). Plus, as you lose ships over time, if you can't replace them the game would get pretty boring pretty quickly (if you have two evenly matched SC folks, that's what happens  :crybaby:... a fight to the death with SCV's!)

I also seem to remember an official Optec reason for this being posted ages ago... but can't find it anymore. I think it was somehting along the lines of always allowing your enemy to strike back at any stage in the game.


Also I might add that it would be impossible to build some of your favorite units then (depending on game length, and total resource capacity for moons)... imagine building a Cube when all you've got are depleted moon sets... 

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:29 pm

Not really much point fighting over moons when you can sit in the base, collect resources from your own moons and spam. Moons running out is an incentive to attack, especially when desperate.

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:46 pm

Hmmm... You've both got good points.  Maybe there could be an option, like in the original game, to have moons on infinate or depleting.

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:48 pm

Not really much point fighting over moons when you can sit in the base, collect resources from your own moons and spam. Moons running out is an incentive to attack, especially when desperate.

Only true if you have the same number of moons as your opponent. Otherwise they can spam faster and take your moons, to spam even faster: plus, since when are you going to sit in your base just spamming... don't you want more (then again, I am an aggressive player). Moons running out is not really an incentive to attack because you can just wait for your opponent to starve. If anything, it encourages preserving your units more and not attacking, but instead sitting in your base with defenses to whittle down your opponent's forces until you have an advantage.

I believe the game is balanced for infinite: if we put it as depleting it would have to be dependent on game length and tech tree advancements, and thus I think moons would have to run out in about 1 hour... which means in turn it is essentially like infinite (most games are over within 30 minutes).

For SP, I guess it would mean you would automatically lose the game after that time period expires since the AI doesn't even build based on resources. I think that would tick quite a few people off.

[Tyler]

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 5:50 pm

Last edited by Tyler on July 2nd, 2009, 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We could go back to the stock version of seperate finate and infinate moons. Most moons on a map being finate with a small number of infinate ones. That (and the infinate toggle) were stock features that are better than only infinate moons.

It would give Infinate moons genuine value.

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 6:01 pm

I don't agree (that it is better), but these are both our opinions. To me, the limited resources was always a huge problem with WC, SC, RA3 (to name a few) ... it always promoted short, decisive games, with a very quick tech up (which isn't the case in FO really). A hybrid between the two also means problems though, because then all maps have to be perfectly symmetrical with respect to unlimited moons. I know that at least Doca was against the idea of un-unlimiting resource nodes years ago though.

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 6:31 pm

Perhaps one solution that would make some moons more valuable would be size. There could be more sizes of moons. Now there is no idea to put more than 3 freighters for one moon, but if there would be bigger moon, it could have reduced mining time, as the moon would be more rich in that specific resource. That would allow faster resource income from that type of moon (and mean more mining vessels) and there would still be the classical "3 freighters per moon" moons.

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 6:38 pm

Could be interesting... although I am intrinsically opposed to fiddling with the mining system in Fleet Operations as I believe that its simplified state is best for concentrating on the focus of the game--fighting ships  . As it is, I find quite a few players who are confused by even the "3 miner rule" and have been expressely told to only use 2 miners for the Federation (for instance)... makes me sad someone would even state that 

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 6:44 pm

How about instead of depleting moons we have a faster gather rate at the beggining we mine it? Kind of like the pulse weopon cooldown rate (fires faster at the beggining of a battle and gets slower at the end). This would encourage aggressive takeovers of moons. 

posted on July 2nd, 2009, 9:34 pm

i agree to funnystuff, it would be cool, if the moon just gets a slower mining rate after depletion, like the planets in stock an vespin gas in starcraft. it would still make long games possible, but gives the option to so to say mine away your enemies resources, like he conquers your expansion but you already took quite a bit away from that moon.