The Resource / Territory Control System

[Baneblade]

So they are going to make you feel more like a Space Marine.

"You, go take that strategic point!"

"For the Emperor!"

[Kietharr]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

So they are going to make you feel more like a Space Marine.

"You, go take that strategic point!"

"For the Emperor!"

I'd argue that was more the route of the first game. With resources, provided they're worth fighting over, you understand the motivation behind the conflict. It's not just "well see, there's these bases, see? And they provide no benefit except allowing us to wag our e-peen at the enemy, but I need you to capture all of them. FOR FREEDOM."

It's "oh crap guys, we're almost out of fuel and we need our tanks running at 100% efficiency to stay in this fight, we need some guys to go cap the right materials and get them to us ASAP.

[ShowNoMercy]

Tons of text, very sorry if I am repeating what anyone mentioned - not trying to steal credit.

Every inch is contested, so the concept art presented in post 2 looks accurate in its hexagonal orientation , but the 2nd one seems more realistic as is covered every square inch (assuming the outer hexes have stuff too).

The dynamic shifting could come from the hexes associated with a base or tower changing. This shifting would allow for battle lines to shift according to which hex corresponds to which base/tower. If a base had 3 hexes extending to the east and a bridge happened to be there, it would be on the front line. However if the same bases hexes were altered so they only extended to the east by 1 or 2, the bridge would no longer be part of the front line (initially at least).

Additionally, they stated that the lattice structure was being done away with and that back hacking is now possible. They added the caveat that a back hack would likely take 30mins and a recap might take 30 seconds. This implies that a base/tower having its hexes of control shifted or the number altered might make that base/tower easier/harder to back hack. That would definitely affect the strategic nature of back hacks on a day by day basis.

The comment made in the second post about different empires needing different resources may have some implications that are not immediately apparent. If the NC or TR has a lessened need for treetanium (as an example), then an area that offers high amounts of treetanium would likely be fought for tooth and nail by the VS and disregarded by the others unless nothing else remained to be taken. Dynamic resource shifting could be used to hedge this, but at the same time if the resource associated with an area were to change from treetanium to say rock-o-gen and the TR were heavily dependent on that resource, 2 things would happen. The TR would shift focus to get all that rock-o-gen and the VS would suddenly not give a shit because there is no more/reduced amounts of their precious treetanium.

There needs to be some overlap in resource allocation or empire usage so that the VS dont fixate on treetanium, the TR on rock-o-gen and the NC on di-grass-ylene dirt-ol.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by ShowNoMercy

Tons of text, very sorry if I am repeating what anyone mentioned - not trying to steal credit.

Every inch is contested, so the concept art presented in post 2 looks accurate in its hexagonal orientation , but the 2nd one seems more realistic as is covered every square inch (assuming the outer hexes have stuff too).

The first concept picture was meant to show how different influence rates look on structures. The disconnect between them was intentional as it was meant to illustrate the concept. The second concept picture showed a different value for base/tower influence rates and also showed what I might look connected.

The dynamic shifting could come from the hexes associated with a base or tower changing. This shifting would allow for battle lines to shift according to which hex corresponds to which base/tower. If a base had 3 hexes extending to the east and a bridge happened to be there, it would be on the front line. However if the same bases hexes were altered so they only extended to the east by 1 or 2, the bridge would no longer be part of the front line (initially at least).

I think physical occupation would still trump anything gained via influence. The way Smed described it was that there could be multiple ways to capture territory. That might have been hypothetical and maybe they're still playing around with it but that was the impression that I got from the context and way he spoke (he seemed less certain).

The comment made in the second post about different empires needing different resources may have some implications that are not immediately apparent. If the NC or TR has a lessened need for treetanium (as an example), then an area that offers high amounts of treetanium would likely be fought for tooth and nail by the VS and disregarded by the others unless nothing else remained to be taken. Dynamic resource shifting could be used to hedge this, but at the same time if the resource associated with an area were to change from treetanium to say rock-o-gen and the TR were heavily dependent on that resource, 2 things would happen. The TR would shift focus to get all that rock-o-gen and the VS would suddenly not give a shit because there is no more/reduced amounts of their precious treetanium.

There needs to be some overlap in resource allocation or empire usage so that the VS dont fixate on treetanium, the TR on rock-o-gen and the NC on di-grass-ylene dirt-ol.

This is a really good point and I was going to come back to this or another thread and mention that. In my thread in the idea forum about continental benefits and motivation, I suggested having continents with different abundances of resources. If that were the case then as you say empires may regard the continent differently, resulting in it being occupied by the empire that benefits the most from it while the others dont' care as much.

So I think that any empire differences in resources should be minor and largely shared. Otherwise it becomes really hard to balance and create continents more suitable to certain styles of gameplay or restricted sytles of gameplay. For example, if you made a continent with no treetanium at all, one empire would be gimped while the others wouldn't. So there can't be extremes in that concept.

In fact the more I think about it the more I like the idea of the empires having the exact same resource costs for everything. Otherwise it would just be too difficult to balance and have a lot of behavioral side-effects that I believe are unintended.

[Skitrel]

I think the important part of the resource system is that for it to work - influencing the player base into defending/attacking objectives. It absolutely HAS to mean something.

If we take the survival horror comparison. Ammunition, in survival horror games if you have a tonne of ammo you aren't scared, nothing can touch you, you have nothing to worry about. Games that get the balance right have you constantly worrying about your ammunition and as such it is an incredibly important resource to have.

Now, if we translate that to PS2, if resources don't mean anything, if the balance isn't right, if we don't feel like we need them, if we're not hurting because we don't have resources then it'll do absolutely nothing. They have to feel needed and important.

Necro, because this is an incredibly interesting post and the discussion it could generate now is much higher than before.

Resources, discuss!