Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 12:07   |
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I have a feeling that shipbuilding in this game will devolve into a situation where each race will be minimizing the minerals used for each point of ship rating. This will likely lead to an all beamer design, with a great emphasis on Starbases. Starbases would rule in this game, and all players would be involved in a defensive game. There would likely be little in the way of skirmish wars as this would waste precious minerals. Privateers would be avoided on principle due to lack of available minerals. ITs would have a significant advantage due to the ability to easily and securely transfer minerals from HW to other worlds. If AR is banned (as it should be in this situation, IMO), I would expect that there would be very little emphasis on resources and one race on each team will have wide hab and very high efficiency mines w/ max operated. Expect UR and MA to be valid LRTs now. I have to say I like this, but I would advise having this game set into the context of a fairly large universe. I imagine that this would reflect more realistic costs for non-renewable resource extraction.
I also expect to see some exploitation of trade between UR and non UR races to maximize the limited resources. All around, I'm interested. This would be one of the few situations where I would envision a larger uni size not being completely unmanagerable. Slow tech might also be interesting in this situation in order to prevent a simple "race-to-nubians" and increase the value of PRT specific tech-toys.
5 teams of 3 players each sounds fun--as there would be some room for diplomacy. I may be interested in this, but I'm currently in a game and don't want to overextend myself.
This would make homeworlds VERY important targets for all players...
edit: I can't believe I just started arguing against the game and argued myself in favor of it. Poop.
[Updated on: Sat, 01 October 2005 12:29]
g.e.
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"When the newspapers have been read, the TV sets shut off, the cars parked
in their various garages. Then, faintly, I hear voices from another star.
(I clocked it once, and the reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45
A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, "Say,
where do you get your ideas?" I just say I don't know. It's safer."
-P. K. DickReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 12:33 |
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Personally, I don't think this type of game would move all that slowly. Any primitive game would be slower than this. I do agree that we should keep the game to a maximum of a medium sized universe - packed or dense won't make all that much difference but, I'ld prefer to see it as dense with galaxy clumping. AR banned and, yes, MA and UR definitely have value here. I don't see the need to set HW's at any extra mineral density. To keep with the spirit of the game I would prefer that HW's are at their minimum 30% rating. What I would like though is a little randomness in planet concentrations - i.e. nothing about let's say over 20% concentration.
With the minimum minerals, there is going to be a tendency for all races to go factoryless - no point in wasting all that valuable germ building factories. Trade-offs between freighters and privateers will be interesting though.
OK - who's joining my team? 
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Sat, 01 October 2005 12:34]
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 14:42 |
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| Ptolemy wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 09:33 |
Personally, I don't think this type of game would move all that slowly. Any primitive game would be slower than this. I do agree that we should keep the game to a maximum of a medium sized universe - packed or dense won't make all that much difference but, I'ld prefer to see it as dense with galaxy clumping. AR banned and, yes, MA and UR definitely have value here. I don't see the need to set HW's at any extra mineral density. To keep with the spirit of the game I would prefer that HW's are at their minimum 30% rating. What I would like though is a little randomness in planet concentrations - i.e. nothing about let's say over 20% concentration.
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First, how do you set planet mineral ratings? Can you do this w/ the def file? Agreed on HW cons. Re: All world cons--I thought the goal was 1% cons.
It is possible to trade both resources and minerals between races. I wonder how much abuse of UR and BET would have on the mineral issue. This would be a strategy that would require a good deal of MM. Perhaps, outright abuse of this should be banned and monitored by a 3rd party host. Honestly, it reduces everyone's MM if no one has to compete against one team trying to rake minerals out of the vacuum (ZPM? (Zero point minerals =) ).
| Ptolemy |
With the minimum minerals, there is going to be a tendency for all races to go factoryless - no point in wasting all that valuable germ building factories. Trade-offs between freighters and privateers will be interesting though.
OK - who's joining my team?
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Not so sure about the factoryless thing. You need resources to pay for all that alchemy. Besides, there are only so many planets and you have 3 races that can take up most of all available planets. Is there going to be the obligatory CA ban as usual as well? (I highly recommend it as it creates greater PRT variety--since if you leave CA IN the game, every team MUST play a CA to remain competitive).
Assuming I make the ill advised choice of joining the game while I have another going, I have a couple players whose arms I would twist into joining.
Also--highly recommended. No PPS. +Slow tech =)
g.e.
====
"When the newspapers have been read, the TV sets shut off, the cars parked
in their various garages. Then, faintly, I hear voices from another star.
(I clocked it once, and the reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45
A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, "Say,
where do you get your ideas?" I just say I don't know. It's safer."
-P. K. DickReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 15:11 |
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 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1207
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| Micha wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 08:57 |
... one of the reasons that I posted here is to get some more input of how slow it will actually be ...
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How slow? Very IMO.
Let me start where SinicalIdealist ended: what one'd need to destroy an fully armed Ultrastation at tech weap-16, con 13, rest about 10? Since he desn't have enough iron to afford missile ships he'd use beamer BBs, and to save minerals, the "4 slot" empty. So:
- BB with 12 heavy blasters, 4 tech-15 sappers, no armor, 8 bear shields, 6 capacitors, overthruster, IS-10 engine versus
- US: 4*16 heavy blasters, 16 tech-15 sappers, 16 jugg missiles, 60 bear shields, 20 organic armor, 9 capacitors, 3 BSC.
The WarEval (often wrong, but not in this case) says he'd need 10 such BBs to kill the US, but would still lose half of them. With 9 BBs the US would win.
Now check the costs for both "fleets", and don't forget the attacker'd need to bring with him also bombers to actually kill the planet. How long will it take a -f planet with 600,000 pop doing alchemy and operating 1500 mines at conc 1 to produce all needed minerals?
  
I'd say the Ptolemy's proposal with higher MC would make the game much more playable, but IMO MC 10 everywhere would be more thematic.
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Sat, 01 October 2005 15:22] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 15:31 |
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Iztok: I agree w/ your suggestion w/ avg of 10-20% cons.
1% would take a VERY long time even if one race has all 3 HWs and is mining at 25/x/25 w/ max capcity.
As for Ultras, presumably, the defender would be building Missiles on the defense since there's a significant cost break on res/minerals on starbases. Always worth it when you're not facing a glut of chaff.
Chaff is going to be much more expensive in this game until very very late. Strategies will have to be diversified significantly. Jammers should then be more useful, presumably.
g.e.
====
"When the newspapers have been read, the TV sets shut off, the cars parked
in their various garages. Then, faintly, I hear voices from another star.
(I clocked it once, and the reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45
A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, "Say,
where do you get your ideas?" I just say I don't know. It's safer."
-P. K. DickReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sat, 01 October 2005 19:40 |
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Well, I threw together a tri-immune factoryless HE and ran 25 years with it. Did very well but the MM would kill a crazy or sane person...
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sun, 02 October 2005 01:00 |
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| PricklyPea wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:14 |
Some interesting ideas. I personally would prefer 1% on all planets including HW (eff. 30%).
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The HW system would be a very important non-renewable source. I think, you're underestimating just how slow 1% conc. would make the early game though. The key is to keep the game at an even and enjoyable pace while providing for the interesting little twists to increase variety overall.
Consider how long it takes to get the minerals you need when you have only 20% concentrations.
| PricklyPea wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:14 |
Would random events be on? This would make comet strikes very significant events and also trading with the MT a very careful consideration 
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I do disagree with this being a good thing. Too much randomness is not good in a highly competitive crowd. The MT can already be highly unbalancing in many situations and is always a highly appealing target.
I like the toys as much as anyone, but I'm under no illusion that this necessarily improves the game quality.
g.e.
====
"When the newspapers have been read, the TV sets shut off, the cars parked
in their various garages. Then, faintly, I hear voices from another star.
(I clocked it once, and the reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45
A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, "Say,
where do you get your ideas?" I just say I don't know. It's safer."
-P. K. DickReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sun, 02 October 2005 01:20 |
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| mazda wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:59 |
With setting all min concs to 1 Micha was proposing a very different game to normal.
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The thing is I'm more concerned about it being a playable and enjoyable game. I mean how much fun is it to open a turn every other year or so and see that there is nothing you can do other than switch your techs around and maybe build a ship or 2 on the HW? Down the road, the game could certainly be fun, but I would estimate that it would take at least until year 2450 for things to become interesting, whereas in most games you're in a shooting war in the teens and 20s at least.
| mazda wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:59 |
If you then go and set them to 10 or 20 then it takes us back *towards* a normal game.
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Considering the average mineral concentrations are far higher in a normal game, I think it wouldn't take very much for you to notice a serious difference in game play. Simply reducing the avg concentration by 75% should have an enormous affect. Decreasing it by as much as 98% might make the game downright unplayable (at least if you want to keep it fun.
I think you'd STILL build mines everywhere. Even 1% gives you better return overall than MA in the long run. Remote mining would be useful since you can simply load em all onto a single planet and move em around as tactically necessary. On the other hand, I think you're seriously underestimating how little you would really need to decrease the overall mineral concentrations to acheive the effect you desire. Maybe not 20%, maybe 10%. Maybe even 30%? I don't know, I haven't testbedded it, honestly. But, in my experiences a world w/ 20% cons is so far from being a producer world (shipwise) that I'm afraid you would be slowing the game progress to intolerable levels.
| mazda wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:59 |
Start with 10/3/25 mines, 10/10/5 facts, MA and take it from there.
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Considering this is a team game, The race (team) design would be far more structured and nuanced than the above. I think that MA would be obligatory in any event. UR would be a must for at least 1 race, if not 2.
| mazda wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:59 |
With min concs of 1 then the HW effect becomes massive.
Do you go with no factories ? MA on a -f planet sounds rather weak to me in the long term.
How far do you increase mine eff. at the expense of hab and growth rate ?
I'm not at all sure where I would start for a race in these conditions.
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Perhaps 10% would be more on target. Then you at least have the initial boost to get the game off to a decent start. Keep in mind that by year 50 or 60 the HW mineral concentrations will be worth at least 15 worlds. That weight's the HW strength pretty damn heavily. Any more than that and I think you'd make the game effectively unplayable.
| mazda wrote on Sat, 01 October 2005 14:59 |
I also don't see why chaff becomes useless.
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Yes, you're right on the chaff. It'd mean smaller numbers of ships. I have no problem with that. Starbases certainly need improvement vs. ships. However, you don't want to make them TOO powerful. Improving by 2-4 fold should be enough. Improving by 50 fold would make it virtually impossible to afford to take over planets.
...
g.e.
====
"When the newspapers have been read, the TV sets shut off, the cars parked
in their various garages. Then, faintly, I hear voices from another star.
(I clocked it once, and the reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45
A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, "Say,
where do you get your ideas?" I just say I don't know. It's safer."
-P. K. DickReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals |
Sun, 02 October 2005 06:25 |
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| mazda |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003
Location: Reading, UK | |
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| SinicalIdealist wrote on Sun, 02 October 2005 06:20 |
Down the road, the game could certainly be fun, but I would estimate that it would take at least until year 2450 for things to become interesting, whereas in most games you're in a shooting war in the teens and 20s at least.
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Oh come on. The HW will be chucking out so many minerals early on that you won't know what to do with them all.
Imagine playing a factoryless race with 2 to 3 times the mines operated (25 instead of 8 or 12).
Problems won't happen till you hit BBs, or try to build a CC horde.
I don't see why less minerals means "slow".
Slow means less resources, slow tech, defence dominance.
Less minerals simply means less ships, *less* defences.
Doing the same stuff at the same time, but just with less.
--------
Does anyone think it gives an extra advantage to cheap tech ?
But higher tech usually means more minerals ...
Ban IT and you can conduct siege warfare everywhere.
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New game idea - Expert: Minimum Minerals
All else being equal, the resulting mineral imbalance will mean that I will find myself with significantly larger fleet available for defense or offense...
