economy buildings

[TonPhanan]

IMO what's missing in EAW is some basic upkeep cost, meaning the larger your fleet gets, the less income you will have. Also limiting the number on mining facilities in the galaxy or at least planet-wise. Let's see what the guys thought of for the final release of 2.2 :>.

[Ordo]

Both of what you said is already included in 2.2 demo. You can now build only 3 mining facilities on a planet + there is an upkeep system present.

[TonPhanan]

Both of what you said is already included in 2.2 demo. You can now build only 3 mining facilities on a planet + there is an upkeep system present.

Yes, I vaguely remember listening to one of Corey's videos and him mentioning they improved a bit on that and balanced it even more though. Also interesting to me is how the overall GC's all look like and how big they are, since, if one would expand e.g. on the planet-specific builds mentioned here, the placement and availability of production centers would be core to balancing them right and if an overall rework of the income model regarding all factions should end in the same for everyone or in a more asymmetrical one, representing the dwindling resources of the remnant over time and the initial struggle to acquire any credits for the rising NR etc. - balancing is hell . TBH though, I was more referring to the original EAW with my statement, ICW has already improved so much on all the shortcomings and unexplored possibilities vanilla unfortunately had ;P.   

[nightraven1901]

Oh, is the end-goal to prevent the player getting out-of-control powerful so quickly? Because I am rushing to take over worlds until my fleet cap and economy right up until the enemy AI breaks and they suddenly go from sending five-Praetor doom fleets to nothing at all as (I'm guessing) the AI no longer feels it can breach your defences. Even when you remove your defences, because you want them to re-capture the planet and start offering a credible threat again- makes me wonder what the AI is doing when they hold four or five worlds, but good worlds, like Jaemus, Muunilinst, and Yaga Minor but simply stop producing ships. I've watched them, you know- they will sit there, on Admiral, for several hours without building one solitary ship. They definitely had the eco.

I can think of a reasonably easy, if not especially satisfying, method of controlling that OP-ness. Borrow from Stellaris its mechanic of increasing costs linearly based on the number of worlds you control, using a single modifier multiplier that kicks in around twenty-five worlds and begins to reduce your income/increase your upkeep (depending on how that's implemented) or increase all unit buy costs. This is a cheap and nasty way to model your larger empire requiring more funds for garrison maintenance, force support and basing, and civil engineering. Though, it's... Cheap and nasty, like I said.

I'd love to get a peek into the AI for GC that makes it straight-up die and essentially cease all functions when they're low on worlds. Possibly attacking the problem from the other side would work better- make the weakened factions fight harder with buffs, more story missions to give them rewards, give them a fairly serious economy boost, etcetera. This would make the AI less of a waiting target and more of a working small force when they've lost a few worlds. As it stands, it takes capturing around half of the Alignment's territory to break them entirely. The Empire of the Hand will stop functioning at around five worlds too- it makes the end of GCs just uninteresting and threatless. If we fix that, I don't think reigning in the player will need as much of a priority, and it might keep the fights a little bigger in the mid-to-late game.

What do you guys think? Most of you have more experience than I do on this title; you may be better informed than I.

[Eldritch66X]

Alright I'm reviving this topic because it needs to be brought up more

There has to be a way to make the game a labor harder and force the player to really look at there production and resource capability.
I've already mentioned Tibanna gas and ore plants to help cheapen the cost of building units
I would like to see it made harder acquire equipment for troops because we all know that due to the empires collapse nearly everything was seized and split amongst the various warlords, I hate how every factions has this inherent ability to train, arm and equip soldiers with weapons and armor and ammo, here's the big one, MEDICAL SUPPLIES, where are they getting all the medicine to help troops.
 
i find it hard to believe every faction has the ability to pay for all the materials needed to build war machines and keep them operational. These tanks, walkers and mobilezed vehicles need ammo, materials for repair and trained men to to operate them.

I think what needs to happen is the reintroduction of planetary effects, so certain planets have these effects ( I don't want to go through all of the effects these planets could have we would be here all day if so)


I would really like some feedback on this, I know some people don't want all this but I do and I know others do as well my end goal of suggesting this is because I find the game to easy and I hate to say it repetitive I would like a new layer of detail that will really force me to pay attention to what's needed to expand and maintain my empire.

I would also the say that I'm not trying to bash the mod team at all I would like to thank you for all your hard work and attention you've put into this, you guys have gone above and beyond what anyone would expect a mod team to do.

[Pali]

Much of that suggestion already exists to some extent or another in the 2.2 demo.  Upkeep costs, reflecting maintenance and resupply needs, already exist, as do limited-use economic buildings that need to be strategically placed for maximum benefit.  But the kind of detailed support requirements you suggest I think is going a bit too far.  Units already require certain structures to be built to obtain them, a number of buildings require another building to be built first already - what is to be gained by also requiring bacta production centers or durasteel smelters to get certain units beyond additional micromanagement?  A game like Hearts of Iron is built around making something like that interesting, but it does so by requiring the player to balance the interplay of various systems (civil production vs military production vs resource availability vs trade partners vs technology vs battlefield necessity vs...) that Empire at War simply isn't designed to be capable of mimicking to an interesting degree.

Each faction has a special building that will reduce production costs for a number of key units - while planets don't give faction-wide bonuses the way they do in vanilla EaW, I prefer the game without such.  They feel too arcadey, and don't really fit the source material, as controlling Yavin IV didn't make all Rebel pilots better at their jobs in the EU.  More problematically, they contribute to snowballing in a game that is already heavily biased in favor of the biggest snowball, because the more territory you control the more powerful your forces become and the harder it becomes for the smaller factions to gain ground.

[Corey]

As Pali says, we have already done a ton in both the demo, and then even more in the actual 2.2 build to limit the economy more and have some slightly different avenues to grow it, including new economic structures. The result is that in most GCs, it takes a hell of a long time to reach the point where you have more credits than you can use, if ever. This has been covered quite a bit in other threads, updates, and videos. We've also talked about how economic changes have to be progressive- if you change everything all at once, the mod will not just take forever, but you run the risk of completely fucking up balance and playability more generally. If the changes in 2.2 aren't enough to limit economic capacity, we'll continue to adjust them and make additional changes where possible.

You also have to keep in mind the limits of the game engine. We aren't exactly unlimited in terms of options.

I would like to see it made harder acquire equipment for troops because we all know that due to the empires collapse nearly everything was seized and split amongst the various warlords, I hate how every factions has this inherent ability to train, arm and equip soldiers with weapons and armor and ammo, here's the big one, MEDICAL SUPPLIES, where are they getting all the medicine to help troops.
 

What does that actually mean in terms of gameplay? Are you suggesting new resource types or something?

I think what needs to happen is the reintroduction of planetary effects, so certain planets have these effects ( I don't want to go through all of the effects these planets could have we would be here all day if so)

The planetary effects don't really have anything to do with the economy, except the 1) "this planet has an increased credit output" effect, which isn't an effect and just a tooltip- there's plenty of planets in the mod which have higher or lower than average credit outputs, and the game says directly what they're putting out and 2) "this planet gives a cost reduction to unit x" abilities, which we've worked in a shipyard companies, which tend to be more flexible. Everything else is combat bonus relatyed.

There's also an issue with making mechanics in the mod too dependent on planet abilities, even if planet abilities in EaW were useful in whatever way you're hoping for. There are roughly 250 possible planets in the mod, 300 if you include those slated for FotR, and those planets appear with varying frequencies spread across 19 GCs and 8 playable factions that control different positions and different amounts of territory. Getting consistency with planet abilities as a core feature in something small and localized like Stars Align or Isard's Revenge and still work in a galaxy-wide scenario like Art of War or Empire's End is, quite frankly, impossible. That's why we typically go with things that are more flexible, like the Capital buildings (Senate, Rancor Base, etc) and shipyard companies instead of potentially giving the New Republic 17 planets that happen to buff their units by 10% damage and Armour or something while giving the other factions absolutely nothing, depending on the GC (though, those bonuses have nothing to do with the economy, but you haven't actually said what the bonuses you're thinking about what actually do).

[Eldritch66X]

Here are a few basic ideas of what the planetary effects could be

1. Industrial worlds: give 10% reduction to the building of vehicles and infantry (will produce there equipment)
2. The tibanna and mining planets: obviously will give a boost to money, they give a 5%, 10%, or 15% reduction in the production of ships
3. Low/high population planets: these planets can also effect the costs of infantry, vehicles, and ships; say a planets has low population it will cost more find and recruit people and the opposite will be said for high population planets.
4. Special planets: these planets will be places like thyferra ( insert a few other ideas here) they will give there own specific bonuses

Like i said these only few basic ideas I didn't want to give a bunch of over blown ideas, and I wanted to leave roommfor other people to throw there ideas in.

[Corey]

The primary problem with that, though, is still scaling. If you don't have it stack, then the bonus isn't really a huge impact on how the economy actually plays. If it does stack, then it really doesn't work at all. We have to have stuff be at least baseline affordable with smaller planets, and generally you're looking for ways to make the player still have to manage their money as they expand, not make it easier for the larger factions. If I have 9-10 industrial planets on Art of War, for example, I'm then paying nothing or next to nothing for any units, while smaller factions are getting progressively and disproportionately more and more unable to field anything, without really adding any extra level of economic management, making the game easier and easier as you go further in. You then have the disparity between GCs like Art of War, where there's 120 planets and you will have a ton of bonuses, and GCs like the 20-30 planet ones which will have next to none. Abilities like that are, above all else, non-interactive- you're not adding any extra level of planning or management- conquering a new planet or deciding to expand your fleet doesn't require any sort of planning, it just makes it easier and easier to snowball as you take more planets with more automatic bonuses.

[Eldritch66X]

  damn well
I just wish there was some way that the economy in this game could be revolutionized, because if it was it could stop people from hitting critical mass so early and really force you to think about your next move and wether or not its possible monetarily

[Mr.Puerto]

damn well
I just wish there was some way that the economy in this game could be revolutionized, because if it was it could stop people from hitting critical mass so early and really force you to think about your next move and wether or not its possible monetarily

Critical mass like that could only come like late gameish. Just with the way things have been reworked. even if you end up with a ton of credits. Once you spend them there would be little you could do to get back to that point in a rather quick manner

[Corey]

Yeah, really Rogue, while splitting existing income between different types of new sources is one thing we're doing for a bit of variety, finding new ways to get resources and make stuff cheaper isn't exactly what's needed to solve the problem you're talking about, especially when it's tied so strictly to a single specific planet and any given faction can stack it for days, which is why we prefer leaning to the building route with that kind of income ability.

What's more important is finding ways to limit the growth of income as you expand, and having things to spend them on as you go through which disproportionately impact larger and more connected factions. Even with just the changes we've made already limiting structures and adding upkeep, it took me until week 250ish in Art of War before I started outproducing what my credit income was, and we do have a few other ideas we're gonna be playing with as well.

[Eldritch66X]

Would be possible to make it give you a debuff to your economy when conquer a certain amount of planets

When the game registers what planets are yours after seizing it from another faction surely there's a way to maybe lower income once you control say 20 planets your economy might decrease by 10% due to it costing more to maintain it politically

[Corey]

There's a separate, slightly easier thing for the game to track that we're going to be trying to make it scale more directly with planets.

[Eldritch66X]

I see

[baharr]

Huh, I had no idea upkeep was present in the 2.2 demo. I think that's why I had a more sensible time with it, economically-speaking

I'm sure the team has had this feedback before but I like the new upkeep system. Definitely keep it!