Question about upkeep

[Mr.Puerto]

So in the Pentastar playthrough, I saw that the upkeep mechanic was put into place, however, when you moved your fleet into the orbit of an enemy planet upkeep doesn't take effect. So the question is can I just station a fleet above an enemy planet and leave it there so it doesn't take any credits to upkeep it?

[kucsidave]

At the moment, yes. When 2.2 comes out? Who knows. Maybe we won't even use the mechanic if it hurts AI/balance, and there is the question if we can make it so that even if they are on enemy planet to still take effect. This is a pretty much testbed of new stuff. Question is what works, how it can be improved and how can we implement it if we can in the first place.

[Mr.Puerto]

At the moment, yes. When 2.2 comes out? Who knows. Maybe we won't even use the mechanic if it hurts AI/balance, and there is the question if we can make it so that even if they are on enemy planet to still take effect. This is a pretty much testbed of new stuff. Question is what works, how it can be improved and how can we implement it if we can in the first place.

Yeah that's true I was just wondering, it seemed like an interesting work around.

[thdhted]

If I'm remembering correctly, Awakening of the Rebellion has a unit upkeep system. From what I saw of it, unit upkeep does NOT occur above an enemy planet, but instead forces the credit drain upon whichever faction you have those units parked above.

[Corey]

If we ultimately decide to keep the upkeep costs, I'm going to try to do it through LUA, which will keep the costs even on enemy planets.

[Mr.Puerto]

If we ultimately decide to keep the upkeep costs, I'm going to try to do it through LUA, which will keep the costs even on enemy planets.

I think the aspect of upkeep is really cool, so I hope you will keep,I hope it does work.

[Megabalta]

Do you mind sharing how you've made it? Is it the original games maintenance system revived?

[HobbesHurlbut]

If we ultimately decide to keep the upkeep costs, I'm going to try to do it through LUA, which will keep the costs even on enemy planets.

I dunno....having the upkeep be a drain on enemy planets invoke the concept of the fleet raiding/blockading said enemy planet which is rather fitting. In addition to preventing any production from happening.

[Corey]

That part of it we like, which we could try to keep in a scripted version. But the way it currently is, it also means if you have a fleet in transit between planets when it ticks over to the next week, you're also not paying upkeep for them.

[Kad_Venku]

Unit upkeep is a nice concept we're experimenting with as well.
I've found scripting it is pretty easy. You're basically running a loop timed to a fiscal time cycle which computes a sum of the unit cost for each desired faction and substracts it accordingly. Mapping a unit to its cost is more of a problem, but can be avoided by either using a unified naming convention and string operators, or maintaining a cost database, which is a tad more work.

But as Corey already said, its use is debatable, specially for the AI.

[Megabalta]

This is my solution, it'll always draw the same amount, no matter where the ships are.

      <Abilities SubObjectList="Yes">
         <Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability Name="CR90_maintenance">
            <Specific_Mod_Source_Text>TEXT_CR90_MAINTENANCE</Specific_Mod_Source_Text>
            <Absolute_Income_Modifier>-108</Absolute_Income_Modifier>
         </Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability>
      </Abilities>

The only area where I find this lacking, is my supply system. The concept would be to simulate operational costs: if a ship is above a friendly planet with a supply station, it's cheaper to maintain, if a ship is blockading an enemy planet, it's more expensive etc.
I've added supply ships to reduce the maintenance values over planets which do not have supply stations, and as a vulnerability gameplay element to fleets. They use this ability:

      <Abilities SubObjectList="Yes">
         <Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability Name="Supply_Ship_Income_Bonus">
            <Specific_Mod_Source_Text>TEXT_ECONOMY_SUPPLY</Specific_Mod_Source_Text>
            <Percentage_Income_Modifier>0.00105</Percentage_Income_Modifier>
         </Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability>

They're supposed to reduce maintenance costs, but I didn't find a way to reduce the above maintenance modifier relative to it's value, since this value is independent from the planets income, and relative modifiers only modify planetary income values.

[kucsidave]

megabalta, csak nem magyar vagy?

[Helix345]

why do you think he's hungarian?

[Megabalta]

Because balta means axe in hungarian.
A válaszom pedig de bizony.

[Helix345]

ahh

[Corey]

This is my solution, it'll always draw the same amount, no matter where the ships are.

      <Abilities SubObjectList="Yes">
         <Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability Name="CR90_maintenance">
            <Specific_Mod_Source_Text>TEXT_CR90_MAINTENANCE</Specific_Mod_Source_Text>
            <Absolute_Income_Modifier>-108</Absolute_Income_Modifier>
         </Planet_Income_Bonus_Ability>
      </Abilities>

We're not talking about making it pull the same amount of credits regardless of the planet it's on. That's set up the exact same way ours is. The problem is that if you move that fleet to an enemy planet, the enemy is now paying that ship's maintenance, and if you have the fleet in transit, you're no longer paying for it, even with the code you posted. This code ties it to the planet, even if it's an absolute modifier; if it's not your planet, it's still tied to it, and if it's in transit, it's not tied to a planet and therefore doesn't cost money. As Kad said, LUA's a much better solution for this.

[Megabalta]

Strange, I remembered that it pulled credits even on enemy planets from the player. But yeah, you're right, it seems it doesn't. That is really a problem. No maintenance costs during hyperspace routes could be compensated though, if every hyperspace jump costed a certain amount of money (depending on the ships making it and the number of jump points/distance), like the corrupt jumps in FOC.

[kucsidave]

but that really put too much on the AI
The AI, unlike humans constantly moves it's fleet, usually back and forth troughout the galaxy.
If we would put a penalty on that, that would cripple the AI.

[Megabalta]

If that behavior can't be cut from the AI, and it's a constant thing, there's always the possibility to compensate it in difficultyadjustments.xml.
<Credit_Multiplier>1.2</Credit_Multiplier>

[Megabalta]

If you didn't find a solution yet, here's a quicky:

- if galactic population can only be increased by a type of building (I'm not sure how to do this yet, ideas are welcome)
- the building has an upkeep via above ability and a population cap increase value
- a units upkeep costs are translated into pop cap values

basically the game has to change one value to another, but the results are the same, a units upkeep needs annual money. no problems with enemy planets or hyperspace travel.