Resources

[woodelf]

I assume that we're going to expand on the basic 3 bonus resources from SMAC. Any preferences and ideas?

 

[woodelf]

From SotM:

Carbon
Carbon Ice
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Water
Helium 3
Nutrients
All sorts of metals
All sorts of gems, crystals

I'm assuming that wherever the factions land will have breathable air, but if not that's why I included the air elements.

I don't have Roanoke installed anymore to see what we had there.

I guess the first step should be is the air breathable, water drinkable, and fauna edible? If so then we can use native resources. If not then finding and converting elemental resources is the first priority to survival.

 

[Gerikes]

Any discussion on the resources I believe should also in some way tie in to whether or not we're looking for more of a specialist-driven game, as opposed to a tile-driven game (for the obvious reasons that this affects how the ties should use resources).

From Maniac's thread (emphasis mine)...

For that reason, I’d prefer hammers being almost exclusively provided by labourer specialists working in the base, and not from terrain yields or bonus resources. I’d also prefer a quantitive resource system, ie not uranium resource being sufficient to build nuclear plants in all your cities, but one uranium resource necessary for each nuclear plant you build. Also oil (besides giving energy) could not give minerals directly for instance, but eg reduce the cost of building recon rovers.

The possible uses of energy fit kinda well with what commerce is already for in vanilla civ4: city maintenance and unit maintenance. Base facility maintenance could be added back to the list. I’d prefer to make a distinction though between energy production and general GDP/commerce, which translates into labs production gamewise. Science production I would prefer to reserve mostly to specialists (so free market for instance could give +1 labs per specialists, not +1 energy on each square as in SMAC). A windmill produces energy, not labs.

In this idea, we have both science output and hammers being almost solely driven by specialists (although, technically, I could see the "worker" specialist being thought of as a default "worker" or drone). This leaves only nutrients and energy (if science output is split off of energy) to be the only resources left from SMAC. I guess what we're saying with this idea is, "Hey, it's a barren land, but it obviously has stuff that we can use to make our machines/computer/buildings/guns. Let's just remove HOW we get the materials from the equation, assume that we have plenty of resources to build stuff, and say that the more workers the faster things get done."

However, I think some people will find this icky. Three has always been the magic number of resources. Munchies/Material/Money, that's how it's always been, tried and true.

I'm really hit a wall for ideas here. I'd like to see a neat new concept that might deviate from the rule of three. The idea of making specialists more accountable for the output seems like a step in the right direction (so long as it doesn't add the need to micromanage the city.. if science is mostly coming from specialists, I don't want to have to make sure every time a city moves up in pop I convert the default specialist to a science specialist just to make sure I'm maximizing my science production. This might be able to be automated, though).

Edit Oh, you're talking about THOSE resources... well, I get this thread should discuss all forms of resources..

 

[woodelf]

We can surely talk about all resources here.

I think we might all be in agreement about specialists and their role in producing hammers, food, science, or whatever.

 

[Gerikes]

I'm thinking that, for now, we stay at the basic three. Any more radical ideas we want to make we'll discuss and, if agreed upon, we'll make the change at that point. I've rethought my point about making the resource changes before starting into the "obvious" XML stuff (Factions, mainly).

As for strategic/bonus resources, I'm thinking of having strategic resources allow for certain special abilities for units. For example, one strategic resource, combined with the right tech, allows a special ability that allows units to create cloaking fields around them for up to X turns, before having to allow Y turns for their cloaking-field packs to "recharge". Another resource, combined with the right tech, might give the ability to give units +1 mobility. Yet another might allow units to have two abilities before Neural Grafting (or this mod's equivalent, if it exists). Obviously, this last one really doesn't take up an ability spot itself. That way, the advantage goes to the player that really does the best with what they're given.

There would have to be a bunch of play-testing to balance out the resources, I believe.

 

[Maniac]

It would be nice to have strategic resources, but I can't think of any that fit in SMAC's world. Can you?

 

[Gerikes]

It would be nice to have strategic resources, but I can't think of any that fit in SMAC's world. Can you?

It's a whole new world, there's not any we can make up competely?

 

[woodelf]

It would be nice to have strategic resources, but I can't think of any that fit in SMAC's world. Can you?

There could be Giant ostriches that could be tamed, new metals that yield better armor, crystals (lattice) to be used in beam weaponry, Si-based compounds for fuels. The possibilities are limitless since we aren't doing a clone.

Luxuries could be pure air, pure water, gems, lattice silk, artifacts, ect.

 

[Gerikes]

There could be Giant ostriches that could be tamed, new metals that yield better armor, crystals (lattice) to be used in beam weaponry, Si-based compounds for fuels. The possibilities are limitless since we aren't doing a clone.

Luxuries could be pure air, pure water, gems, lattice silk, artifacts, ect.

I'm definitely thinking that there can be elements that aren't known about (or can't grow) on Earth. That's the beauty of science fiction.

One example would be a certain type of chemical that replaces silicon and it resistant to EMP-style attacks (which, probably later in the game, would be less efficient due to the development of machines that are immune to EMP.

P.S. So apparently I don't have work today... I drove to work and no-one is there. Which is good, since I'm still sick

 

[woodelf]

So basically we can discover resources to fill a need in the mod. If we need a luxury resource I'm sure we can discover one.

And yeah, some people get a paid day off today. Not me, but no biggie.

 

[Maniac]

new metals that yield better armor

Problem is the whole Table of Mendeleyev has already been discovered. Also thing is in a futuristic world with genetics and nanonics and all that stuff there are probably always alternatives for anything, meaning there wouldn't be any important "strategic" resources. Then again, I'm not really a hard science guy, so what the hell do I know?

 

[Gerikes]

Problem is the whole Table of Mendeleyev has already been discovered. Also thing is in a futuristic world with genetics and nanonics and all that stuff there are probably always alternatives for anything, meaning there wouldn't be any important "strategic" resources. Then again, I'm not really a hard science guy, so what the hell do I know?

Metals, perhaps. But use of metals to do strange, new things, doubtful. The metals can still be metals that we've come up with, but we'd still need them in order to facilitate the abilities that come with technology.

A certain crystal structure might be necessary in order to create the high-powered laser device for a certain +1 power ability, etc.

 

[woodelf]

You always need raw materials for composites and alloys. I'm sure that there are new ones out there for discovery. Once we get to synthetics and nano stuff then the "natural" armors/ores will be less important.

I'm not a hard science guy, but I work in R&D.

 

[Gerikes]

You always need raw materials for composites and alloys. I'm sure that there are new onces out there for discovery. Once we get to synthetics and nano stuff then the "natural" armors/ores will be less important.

I'm not a hard science guy, but I work in R&D.

Someday you'll have to explain to me your concept of "work"

 

[Maniac]

So what do we have so far?

Oil
Uranium
Metals
Fresh Water
Fungal Gin: luxury resource, revealed by some Centauri tech
Crystals: for lasers. If you don't have any on the map, they can be synthetically be created by some nanonics tech.
Helium: necessary for Zeppelin, an early exploration unit. Makes for better fusion power. If you don't have any on the map, go get some at the nearest gas giant.

 

[woodelf]

I think we need some native game and edible fauna as well. I think we need artifacts. They could come in handy later on. Not network nodes, but archeological stuff.

 

[Maniac]

Shouldn't artifacts come from unity pods?
Edit: Oh, that's probably what you were referring to by 'not network nodes'.

 

[woodelf]

I'm thinking artifacts are stuff we find leftover from previous inhabitants. Why should the Unity be the first ship to crash here or the first people to live here?

 

[Maniac]

Yeah I know. But don't you remember the alien artifacts from SMAC?
Or do you mean landmarks like the Borehole Cluster and the Manifold Nexus?

 

[woodelf]

Landmarks are fine, but I'm speaking of an actual resource that could be worked call "Archeological Dig" that would give happiness or gold or something new.

We need Landmarks. Good call.