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Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:49 pm
by Psieye
Hmm, "HOI-like" is a very vague expression as it can be interpreted as "units move around on a grid and bump into each other" all the way to "division templates, weather, encirclements, etc".

I personally don't think combat is a good (for the devs) topic for the next dev diary. Or any dev diary until a release date is established.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:06 pm
by valiance
johnnylump wrote:As it happens, one of my deep temptations is to add more space resources, so we can break out stuff like alkali metals, deuterium, helium-3 and other materials that are interesting from a space development and warfare perspective. That also leads to more tradeoffs in deciding where to build (and seize) mines. But we were running out of space in the UI :) (and there is a point where it's too much to keep track of; I don't think we've hit it, though).
I--like an earlier poster--think this would be awesome. Like strategic resources in civ. More knobs to turn is definitely a temptation, especially as it introduces specificity to the importance of particular locations. The He3 mines of Jupiter, the volatile farms of Venus, or what have you...
johnnylump wrote: As for boost, in my mind it's better to have it as something you can accumulate and spend. We really didn't want to require the player to delve into logistics and scheduling, so we have some abstractions -- like boost that can be spent on demand and a common pool of mined resources that are coming from a variety of sources at multiple points in the Solar System.
I was half looking forward to and half dreading calculating launch windows as a part of the strategy. Boost as a resource is a neat abstraction. I guess I wonder if research and drive technology eventually obsolesce boost as a resource, or make it so abundantly available it's no longer a limiting factor. But I guess that's more a question about drive technology and tech levels/research.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:41 pm
by johnnylump
What will begin to obsolete boost is your ability to build a self-sustaining space economy; that is, you can build your ships and habs from stuff you mine in space.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 1:57 pm
by silver_swift
I think how many resources are too many is mostly a question of making each resource do something unique and meaningful, rather than some fixed limit. As Chonkypot mentioned, XCOM has a bunch of resources, but it doesn't feel like that because each resource is collected in its own way and used in (a limited number of) distinct mechanics.

From your description this is also true of of TI's resources, except that the space based resources seem like they are overlapping a lot (they're all gathered from asteroids and used to build better spacecraft). Are there differences in how these resources are acquired beyond "blue asteroids are for water, red asteroids for metals and green asteroids for radioactives"?
johnnylump wrote:As it happens, one of my deep temptations is to add more space resources .. but we were running out of space in the UI :)
If it is just a UI issue, why couldn't you just make a second row of icons below the one you've shown (even just for the space based resources)? It doesn't look like it takes up a ton of vertical screen real estate at the moment.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:13 pm
by johnnylump
So one of my goals for Terra Invicta is to let players explore the strategic geography (or, more accurately, strategic astrography) of the Solar System, so we're using actual orbital elements and other characteristics of various planets and interesting asteroids. That means coming up with mining profiles for those various space elements based on spectroscopy and studies of their composition. So asteroids will tend to provide higher amounts of one or more of the space resources, and maybe a little of some of the others, but it won't be "blue asteroid = water" or anything so simple. Mines will also require some real work to set up, so there should be ample temptation to just take someone else's.

That said, the system hasn't really been tested yet; with all the science underpinning the game, my philosophy is generally to start with the real numbers (or an estimate of them) and then modify in the direction of fun as feedback comes in. But hopefully the real numbers will be a good start.

-- As for the UI issue, sure, we can grab more screen space if we need it, but one more space resource affects 3 or 4 different UIs, and you have to start stealing from all the pretty pictures our art director is making. I was being somewhat facetious in suggesting the UI is primary reason not to add more resources; it's actually more a matter of hitting the right mix of complexity and digestibility for the players. As you suggest, more granularity in space resources would be a more accurate simulation, but in game terms would be more things you have to worry about when you build your ships and habs.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2021 1:55 pm
by joaquinandujar
Are there any plans for a creative mode with infinite resources?

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2022 12:09 am
by kevin
johnnylump wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2018 8:28 pm As an aside, I went through and updated each nation's democracy score today in our configs and realized real-world events are conspiring to make the game a little harder. Our source is the Economist's Democracy Index, which published its 2017 figures recently, and many, many countries dropped from their 2016 scores.

Our model has lower democracy scores reducing research and economic growth, on the theory that free exchanges of ideas contributes to science and state protection of individual property rights contributes to economic growth. Middlin' democracy scores (in nations we're calling "anocracies") are also less stable than pure democracies and authoritarian states. That said, the military is more effective in reducing domestic unrest in nations with lower democracy scores.

I disagree, using a bourgeoisie source as a way to measure democracy is truly a way to ensure that only "western democraices" are considered superior which is plain wrong, e.g china having such a low score, why would a bourgeoisie source ever consider socalist countries "democratic".

they have their own democractic ways to function that isn't like western countries.

I will leave you guys off with two quotes
The Economist, a journal that speaks for the British millionaires

--- Lenin

“Economist,” the European organ of the aristocracy of finance

- Karl Marx

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 1:01 pm
by spacedoggo
I'm scratching my head, the above post looks like something written in the early 1960's. Here's a more recent quote for ya:

"To get rich is glorious" ---Deng Xiaoping

China in 2022 is probably more capitalist than the United States. It's the country with the fastest growing billionaire class alongside two-hundred million people that still live in caves.

China's ruling class is, in addition to being extraordinarily wealthy, also proudly authoritarian. They view democracy as a "threat to social peace."

Their really aren't any socialist countries anymore. Cuba pretends to be one, Venezuela pretends to aspire to be one, and North Korea sometimes uses the language of socialism to defend their hereditary monarchy that rules by divine right of Kim's.

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:24 pm
by GeneralLemarc
I'm with spacedoggo. China is an abhorrent dictatorship, and there's no such thing as "socialist democracy". Every country that is, was or claimed to be socialist was some form of dictatorship, from the USSR on down to Nicaragua. There's no such thing as democracy when only one party is allowed to exist(as in Cuba), or where it is constitutionally guaranteed to always be the governing power(as in China, where the only other "parties" are simply puppets of the CPC. (Note that I mean socialism in the sense of the economic system/governance system, not the perfectly democratic parties that sometimes call themselves "democratic socialists". Whether or not you agree with them, it'd be wrong to call, say, the British Labour Party people who want a USSR-style dictatorship)

Re: Terra Invicta Dev Diary #3: Resources

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:41 pm
by Velorian
GeneralLemarc wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:24 pm I'm with spacedoggo. China is an abhorrent dictatorship, and there's no such thing as "socialist democracy".
I think I basically agree with the point you were conveying, but I feel like mentioning that several American commentators seem to call the Scandinavian countries socialist democracies. Obviously they don't qualify as properly socialist from the perspective of a communist, but from the perspective of a hard-core capitalist they are essentially communist.

At any rate I don't believe that a truly socialist democracy is impossible, it's just that all the countries that have tried didn't really understand what a democracy even was and so barely tried.

When a society in Terra Invicta obtains "wellfare" it just means wealth is more broadly distributed, which typically just means there is a healthy middle-class it doesn't mean there can't be poor people. After all USA doesn't have a horrible score, which they should have if severe poverty counted more.
Very high wellfare score probably means severe poverty is eliminated, but semi-high values can fit with many different society models.