Public Review: Stockpiles

Past public reviews and discussions.
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jbarcz1
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#16 Post by jbarcz1 »

No, but what you could do is accumulate a huge stockpile of minerals, then tear down your mining facilities in the late-game and replace them with industry. If you got a big enough pile you'd never need to mine again, and this frees resources for other things. By the end-game you'd be able to live off of your stocks.
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drekmonger
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#17 Post by drekmonger »

I think we need stockpiles of some sort due to the way the economy system is set up. I perfer local, can deal with global.

Ideally, items in late game will cost so many minerals that it would be foolhardy to tear down all of your mines. Plus there should be ways of losing portions of your stockpile, due to conquest, raids, etc.

In any case, while your busy accumlating a stockpile of excess minerals, your opponent might be using a more balanced approach--using his minerals to pop out fleets of starships. Having a big ol' mass of minerals doesn't help when a huge mid-game fleet arrives at your doorstep.

jbarcz1
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#18 Post by jbarcz1 »

True, If the game were balanced this way, then stockpiles wouldn't be much of a problem. I dont think that stockpiles are essential given our economy system, but they could add some depth if balanced well. Attacking somebody to steal their resource stocks might be fun. Trading in minerals or food might also be fun.

If we go ahead with stockpiles, lets do as many interesting things with them as we can. If all the stockpile is is just a big pile of resources that you use to feed your worlds in the event of blockade, I dont think they'd be very much fun.
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Nightfish
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#19 Post by Nightfish »

I'm sort of wondering about this... Can you really get more starships by setting all planets to mining first and then switch everything to industry? Unless I'm very wrong there is no way that can produce more ships. Actually you'd end up with the same number of starships but you'd have them later than if you'd used a balanced setting. And that's discounting the penalty you'd get from reclassifying all of your planets all the time.

drekmonger
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#20 Post by drekmonger »

Nightfish wrote:I'm sort of wondering about this... Can you really get more starships by setting all planets to mining first and then switch everything to industry?
I don't know about more, but you could get better starships. Instead of wasting minerals/industry on low tech starships, you'd mine minerals while researching up the tech tree. Then when you hit a certain tech, flip most mining and research planets over to industry to quickly produce a fleet of high tech ships.

But that's more of a (risky) strategy than an exploit. Also it costs money to switch focus, and certain facilities only work under certain focuses, so the benefit is questionable.

Aquitaine
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#21 Post by Aquitaine »

FWIW:

I think we should stick with a simple 'empire stockpile = sum of local stockpiles' and just assume maximum efficiency of getting the stuff where it needs to go; or we can tie this into a colony cap feature (yet to be decided, of course) and say if you're above your CC, you lose X% off the top.

Local stockpiles would only do you any good under a siege, and I'm not even sure we need to tell the player what the local stockpile of a world is if they aren't under siege, since that information is not terribly useful. Or we could take up minimal real estate and just have an icon next to food/mineral production that indicates a full stockpile or a filling one.
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Aquitaine
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#22 Post by Aquitaine »

This review sort of stalled, so here's fair warning that it will be wrapped up by the developers next week (I'm out of town this weekend). If you have anything critical to add to it, please do so before then. :)
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

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#23 Post by Impaler »

I would like to see tecnology have an effect on the interplanetary exchange of resorces. Perhaps at first their is no exhange, when you discover some critical tec you get low efficiency exchange, then progressivly better excahnge untill the ultimate transportation tecnology (War Gate/Bulk Matter transporter) and then you get maximum efficienty.

Inefficiency of transport could be done in a few different ways, you could loss a percentage of the resorces, or get charge some money per unit a bit like the way Orinigal moo calculated the Polution Penalty.
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utilae
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#24 Post by utilae »

This sounds like a good idea.

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skdiw
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#25 Post by skdiw »

I think no cap for stockpiles and pay a small penalty for redistributing the stockpile. Stockpile can also be used for trade with other players/species or sold of in the market for money. ppl who get large stockpile are usually those that aren't developing and expanding aggressively enough, which is a big mistake. players are are using 99% of what they have are the good economist and maybe save 1% for raining day. Realistically, they borrow so they can develop 110% and pray they can return the loan. Or they what until the market goes down and invest so they get a good return 10 turns latter.

Mike Jamieson
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#26 Post by Mike Jamieson »

I'd like to throw in a vote for the notion of stockpile decay. Let each stockpile decrease by X% every turn and they are automatically effectively capped at a balanced level. Having a reserve costs not just a one-time startup fee, but effectively a maintenance fee.

To balance this, make a game where having a reserve is a good idea. In an uncertain galaxy, an empire that cuts things close to the line is most efficient, but also very vulnerable to supply disruptions. This vulnerability is especially acute if supply is concentrated at a few points and these can be interupted by raid, blockade, capture, sabotage or civil unrest.

Even further, I think money reserves (whatever form they take) should also decay. Say it is lost to curruption, pork-barrelling, whatever. Force the player to find the balance between "use it or lose it" and "saving for rainy day". Only this time it's raining bombs...

Hmm. The really diabolical thing would be to have a reserve in food or minerals cause a drain on the treasury. Have to pay to warehouse all that stuff...

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