Single Roid Type, Multiple Outputs

[MrLobster]

Premise
I want to change from initing multiple roids, to initing 1 type.

Theory
The game has changed a lot since the very first round, in fact it changed a lot in the first 6 rounds. War and Science factions, were replaced with 4 races, and after that a fifth race was added.

In the beginning...

1. War Faction fleets used more metal to crystal
2. Science Faction fleets used even spread of metal and crystal.
3. Waves used crystal with a splash of Eonium.
4. Metal was used exclusively to init Roids.
5. Eonium was used as fuel to launch a fleet.

The current changes are like so...

1. Terran use more metal for ships.
2. Cathaar use more crystal for ships.
3. Xan use equal amounts of each resource.
4. Zik use more eonium for ships.
5. ETD just doesnt care and wants to mess with you.
6. Roids are inited using its own resource (Metal for metal roids, crystal for crystal roids, etc).
7. Waves now cost equal amounts of each resource.
8. Research costs no resource.
9. Constructions use equal amounts, except the refineries which like initing roids uses its own resource.

I see that the changes were to help ease the resource spread, so a player didn't end up with too much of a single resource.
But its nullified the reason we have multiple resources.

So I propose a change to the current asteroid layout.

1) Remove Metal, Cystal and Eonium Asteroids.
2) Replace with a object called Asteroid.

Simple isn't it...

Now for the fun part.

You would now be able to specify what your miners can extract.

So directly below the initing section of the mining page would be a a way of selecting the frequency of what to mine.

Here is a mock up of what the page could look like.

mining.html

I already posted this idea in the "nagging" thread, but I expanded to here, at the behest of Mz.

Now I saw a few problems as soon as I created that page ;-

• 1) You can't split 100% 3 ways evenly without a remainder (33,33,34).
• 2) A player may accidentally set resource extraction to Zero.

Solution

mining2.html

So I thought of using selection boxes with High/Normal/Low priorities.

Each box is weighted, so percentages can be calced.

High = 3
Normal = 2
Low = 1

If the boxes were (M/C/E) High, Low, High

3+1+3 = 7

Metal = (3 / 7)*100 =42.85%
Crystal = (1 / 7) *100 = 14.28%
Eonium = (3 / 7)*100 = 42.85%

200k would be split

Metal: 85700
Crystal: 28560
Eonium: 85700


Note: Rounded to avoid gaining resources. Any left over resources are placed in "Waste" to be refined once enough has been collected.

Now that seems complicated, and yeah it is, but the player would not see any formulas, they would see a percentage based item (see the link).

What this solves is the constant need to exchange resources.

As an after thought, with this method, you could replace the M/C/E Refineries with a single refinery which is affected by the resource split.

[Mzyxptlk]

The amount of resources lost in trading is minimal. The math isn't working out for me, but we're talking about 0.5% or less.

More importantly, trading resources is a profoundly simple mechanic for players to wrap their heads around, so I'm not sure what problem you're trying to solve.

If you insisted on doing something about having 3 pretty much identical resources, I'd suggest a far simpler solution: just switch to 1 resource type. All this business of choosing how to split your resources is far more complicated than trading resources, and doesn't add anything to the game.

[MrLobster]

I saw this as a middle ground, between nothing and full on code change.

[Mzyxptlk]

Removing 2 resource types is far easier than what you propose.

[MrLobster]

It was also part of a bigger change on the whole, mix up the ratios of resources for different section.

Initing roids not needs 4:2:1 ratio of each.
Terran need 3:2:1 for ships
Cathaar need 1:2:3 (eonium is now the emp resource)
Xan need 1:4:1
Zik need 4:1:1
ETD can go F*CK 0ff
Covert need eonium only.
Research needs Time only.
Constructions need resource based on what they are building.

Mainly just move away from the current 3:2:2, 2:3:2, 2:2:3.

But yes the end game is for a single resource.

[MrLobster]

Can we try a single resource next round?

Or a least put open market to 0% tax. As we have no control on what resources we can produce.