Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

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Vezzra
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#16 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:What issues?
  • IMO balancing the IS when it can be used on top of supply based PP distribution is much more difficult. It has to offer sufficient benefits so acquiring stockpile techs isn't pointless, it must not be too powerful so it does not make normal PP distribution obsolete. Then again, for stockpiling species like the Sly, it has to be powerful enough so they actually work. Looking back at the discussions and the changes requiring several substantial revisions of the IS until we got to a point where it can be considered working, that was quite a challenge. I expect getting things balanced and working well to be far easier when supply based PP distribution and IS are mutual exclusive choices.
  • Coupling all the other stuff that relies on supply connections with the IS mechanic. If supply needs to be nerfed in order to balance strong stockpiling traits, then everything else that relies on supply connections is affected as well. I fail to see how that is supposed to be a good thing.
  • The issues with the production queue: with IS and supply based PP distribution both available we need all that extra stuff that has been added to provide e.g. the means to handle which items can draw from the stockpile and which can't. Presenting to the player what's going on with your PP: which PP go where, indicating PP waste, etc., everything got more complicated. I can't recall all the details, but I remember reading about more than just some trivial issues and complications that needed to be dealt with. All of which simply wouldn't exist if IS and supply based PP distribution where mutual exclusive choices.
Why should all species play the same way? Maybe it doesn't make sense for empires with lots of Sly to produce those buildings.
What do you mean, doesn't make sense to produce those buildings? Considering the substantial boni they provide, and the Sly are unable to use, that's another severe handicap for them? Don't get me wrong: it certainly can be another interesting characteristic of such a species. The problem is, with the current implementation, apparently the Sly have to be bad at or unable to use such buildings (because of the necessary severe supply nerf). IMO it's completely unnecessary and restricting to force these things together. That should be a choice. We should be able to also have a good stockpiling species that does not suck at using Industrial Centers. Coupling good stockpiling with such bad supply is an exceedingly bad idea IMO, as so much stuff depends on supply, and all that doesn't work with species like the Sly. To say all that stuff doesn't make sense for an empire with lots of Sly doesn't make much sense to me.

Not to mention that everything related to or dependent on supply becomes much harder to design/balance, because you always have to take into account how that affects stockpiling species.

I actually see a lot of problems here...
Is this a problem? Sly are good at letting an empire withdraw from the stockpile. So if an empire suddenly gets some Sly, it can produce for a few turns with any stockpiled production, until that runs out. If it was saving lots of it, then that was perhaps a valid strategy. Either way, if the empire has both Sly and a good supply network, the two are somewhat redundant, so having the Sly doesn't really benefit the empire very much.
I don't understand. Unless I misunderstood something, nerfing the Sly's supply was deemed necessary to get them properly balanced. So, having both, good stockpiling and a good supply network apparently is quite seriously overpowered. Hasn't there been a discussion just about the issues involved with Sly empires acquiring other species and vice versa?

And a normal empire acquiring Sly benefits a lot, because just by that it can make use of the IS much more efficiently. E.g. strategies employed by their enemies that involve cutting off single systems of parts of that empire wouldn't work anymore. After all the discussions we had about the potential of the IS for diminishing the importance of traditional supply based PP distribution mechanic, and all the concerns voiced regarding the implications and consequences of such a mechanic added, I don't understand why you don't see a problem here...?
An empire needs to devote substantial resources to being able to (without substantial delay) access the stockpiled production... either having stockpiling species colonies, or substantial numbers of other planets focused on stockpiling. If an empire wants to do this just to be able to access a single blockaded planet's output, then that seems fine to me... But if they haven't been focusing on a stockpiling strategy for most of the game, that's probably a very inefficient use of their planets, and blockading a planet from a supply-networked empire will have substantial impact on that empire. They can either do without the planet's output, or pivot strategies to access it by starting to ramp up stockpiling capability.
Ok, I concede that point. This makes sense.
Certainly, but new mechanics like this can often be expected to take a while to integrate with all the other content and mechanics. We're using an iterative design and implementation process.
Sure, I merely want to point out that with the IS mechanic, IMO these issues have been particularly severe and the integration process more difficult than usual, indicating that there still are some fundamental problems with the design, which need to be addressed.
The two systems - stockpiling or supply networks - are already redundant. What is the huge concern about an empire having both? Doing so seems like a waste of resources, to me, not something that needs to be explicitly forbidden by game mechanics.
I'm confused: of course they are redundant, because both handle distribution of PP. But they are also polar opposites, in the way they work: the weaknesses of the one are the strengths of the other. Combining them cancels out the weaknesses, and leaves you with the best of both worlds, essentially giving you something that more or less completely changes how traditional supply based PP distribution works.

Which is why "normal" empires only get very limited IS capabilities, while "stockpiling" empires get nerfed supply capabilities. Unless I missed something, that's the way things are currently implemented, aren't they? I just suggest to do things thoroughly and go all the way to make them actually mutual exclusive choices, as that, for the reasons cited, would get rid of a lot of unnecessary issues.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#17 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote:If supply needs to be nerfed in order to balance strong stockpiling traits, then everything else that relies on supply connections is affected as well. ...The problem is, with the current implementation, apparently the Sly have to be bad at or unable to use such buildings (because of the necessary severe supply nerf). ... We should be able to also have a good stockpiling species that does not suck at using Industrial Centers.
I think you got this one wrong. The sly are bad at supply in order to make a distributed empire an obvious (starting) choice. If you want the benefits of supply networks you would need to invest heavily to build those (tech and systems close to each other) or mix your empire with a non-hidden species.

I wanted already to suggest that we have one mediocre species (maybe humans) to be good at stockpiling like Laenfa, but with no stealth.


Personally i think we should collect more data before I continueing this discussion. E.g. did anybody successfully leverage a conquered Slys stockpile bonus?

We could make this a policy thing or not. Lets see how it plays out. If we make it a policy thing I would prefer something like this
  • have the basic stockpile available for everybody (for unified UI)
  • nerf the species bonus
  • nerf general supply by 2
  • supply policy (+2 supply for all planets)
  • stockpiling policy
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#18 Post by Dilvish »

Ophiuchus wrote:E.g. did anybody successfully leverage a conquered Slys stockpile bonus?
Yes, I have-- at least enough to get a nicely noticeable boost to max stockpile use.
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#19 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:In my gameplay, the IS option very substantially obviates the pressure to sink PP into building ships that will very soon be obsolescent.
I honestly didn't expect that the effect of the IS (especially when just having the default minimum capability) could be so strong for these kind of cases (or that anyone would perceive them as being so strong). It's very difficult to continue this discussion without gaining at least some minimal experience with IS gameplay (in its current iteration) myself, but that requires a minimum of two games where I have to progress at least until mid game, if not further (one game with Sly, one game with a non-stockpiling species). That's a lot of time I simply don't have at the moment, which is exceedingly frustrating. :( Sorry, no ones fault, I just need to whine a bit. ;)

Still, I want to try to analyze this on a purely theoretical basis (please bear with me ;)):
Without the IS it is nearly always still worthwhile to go ahead and build something not too useless that you can hope you might find a use for in the not-too-distant-future, but I still always really hate having to decide which thing is the least useless.
Believe me, I know that situation all too well, and I too find it very annoying. However, there are several issues involved here, and I think we need to keep them carefully apart when trying to address them:

1) The first thing is the fact that you have the resources available and the need to build some new ships, but are also close to researching a new technology which would be very important/beneficial to have for these new ships (be it new weapon tech for warships or whatever). You are now faced with the decision to either go ahead and build the ships now (and probably have them being already outdated by the time their production completes, which isn't optimal), or wait and use our resouces otherwise, until the new tech is available and start building you new ships then (which means they are going to be finished later, and you need to spend your resources on things you probably don't need as much as those ships, which also isn't optimal).

Just by itself, that kind of decision isn't necessarily a bad thing. You need to make a strategic decision, one, depending on your current situation can be quite important (e.g. in a war when you need those new warships desperately, but also as powerful as possible... that's a realy nasty one! ;)). So I don't see the need to prevent such situations from occuring.

2) The next thing is the question, what kind of help does the IS actually provide in these kind of situations? Judging by how you described it, it seems as it simply buys you some time. The ships you want to build are obviously your top priority right now (otherwise, if there were more important things to build, you wouldn't face that dilemma). But an important tech isn't quite finished yet. So, your dilemma would be solved if either the tech was already finished, or you could somehow delay the production of the new ships without having to waste your PP for less important stuff in the meantime.

Which is where the IS comes into play, as it provides you with exactly that: the ability to save your PP and buy you those few precious turns until the tech in question completes. But, and that's the point I've tried to make all the time with my "shifting" statements: there is a limit to the time the IS can buy you, and once that limit is reached, you're faced with the same dilemma (you just may not be aware of this).

Let me try to explain what I mean, by describing another solution I tried to come up with to address this specific dilemma (because I think that even if we see that as an issue that needs to be solved, the IS isn't the right solution here): The problem is that when I build the ships, they get built with the tech current at the time they get queued. Any tech advances gained after that won't benefit them. So, what if we allow to upgrade the designs of ships still under construction (within reasonable restrictions of course)? Then you could queue them before that important tech gets finished, and still benefit from it - provided it gets finished before the ships!

At which point I realized that I my brilliant solution was no solution at all, it just changed when the dilemma was going to happen in a game. Instead of having to paying attention to which techs are close to completion when I want to queue my new ships, with my ingenious idea I'd now have to pay attention to which techs might be close to completion when my ships are going to be finished. And if I realize that if I queue my ships now, those pesky plasma cannons are going to be researched just two turns after my ships are expected to be finished, I'm having the same dilemma as before: do I do something else with my PP for two turns, or do I queue my ships now? At the end of the day, nothing changed.

On the contrary, if anything changed, my "solution" made things worse, because now I have to make an assessment about which techs might be close to completion at the time my ships are expected to be finished (which might be a bit harder than just to look at the research queue and see which techs are going to be finished within the next few turns).

So, my "solution" would also buy some time. Similar to, but of course not exactly the same way the IS does. With my idea, I can already start on the ships (use my PP for them), the IS lets me save the PP (so they don't get lost), and use them once the tech in question has been completed. Which means the time my solution buys is actually a hard limit, exactly defined. The IS is definitely far superior here, because the time it buys you is a soft limit, more flexible.

But it is still a limit. There are probably only so much turns you'd want to delay building your ships and letting your PP go into the stockpile before that approach becomes unreasonable.

Example: I want to build a batch of warships, but I have Plasma Cannon research three turns from completion. Without the IS, the notorious dilemma arises: delay and spend PP for something less useful/almost useless (but what?), or build now? With the IS a no-brainer: wait the three turns and safe the PP in the stockpile. But what if the Plasma Cannons are not three, but 5 or 10 turns from completion? Without the IS a no-brainer: you can't wait forever on unfinished techs, at some point you just have to live with the fact that when you finish techs your ships get outdated, even the most recently built ones. With the IS, our beloved dilemma is back: because with the IS it might be reasonable to delay production for a couple of turns, but maybe not enough to wait out the completion of the Plasma Cannon research. At which point you basically again have to decide: build now or wait?

The funny thing is, most people (me included) will still experience the IS as a significant improvement wrt these kind of situations - the question is why? The answer is simple: because, if you have just a few turns left for the important tech in question to complete, the IS will provide you with the means to wait (and save you from facing this annoying build now or wait dilemma). If however there are more than just a few turns left, you won't bother and just build now, as you would do without the IS, because you perceive 5 or 10 turns not as something you could/should reasonably wait out.

The point is, with the IS, waiting out more turns might very well be reasonable (depending on the situation of course). What happens here is a nice little case of self-deception, based on how we perceive a situation. I expect myself to "fall" for it, even with exactly knowing what's going on. The issue (the build or wait dilemma) is there with the IS just as much as without, it's just a lot less obvious.

Of course, you can argue now that for a game, which purpose is to give a fun experience, how the players experience the game is what matters most, and I can't really disagree with that. However, such a solution/approach still irks me. Because it still isn't really a clean solution.

3) The thing that makes the build or wait dilemma so annoying is actually having to find something not too useless to build in the meantime. In my experience, that's actually the annoying aspect. As long as there are other useful things to put my PP into, I never have to think much about waiting or not waiting (unless those ships are desperately needed, but that's actually a different decision the IS can't help me with).

The whole issue becomes annoying the moment I have PP for ships I need and want to build, but that pesky tech is going to need just two more turns. And there is nothing else I really want or need to build, just stuff of varying degrees of uselessness. Which is definitely un-fun and an issue that needs to be addressed.

However, the true problem here is that there is nothing worthwile to build. Which, btw, isn't an issue just in this build ships now or wait dilemma situation, but whenever you have too much PP on your hand and not having something useful to build. Starts to happen more frequently once PP output skyrockets. And that's an issue that has nothing to do with the IS, and needs to be addressed separately. The causes for this are a lack of content, a lack of useful things to build, and the age-old issue of skyrocketing resource output.

With the current content and dynamics, we just have way too much PP (and RP, for that matter) and too less stuff you can use it for. Once we introduce more content, and get that exponential resource output growth down, I expect that annoying "what useless stuff should I build while waiting for that tech to complete" issue to disappear completely.

The IS isn't the right fix for these issues, IMO.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#20 Post by Oberlus »

Vezzra wrote:
Dilvish wrote:In my gameplay, the IS option very substantially obviates the pressure to sink PP into building ships that will very soon be obsolescent.
I honestly didn't expect that the effect of the IS (especially when just having the default minimum capability) could be so strong for these kind of cases (or that anyone would perceive them as being so strong).
As a relatively active player that dislikes the stockpiling, I can say there is some universal (valid to any kind of playstyle) truth on Dilvish's statement.
However, I also think that obviated pressure is also very dependent on what you look at and what you skip:
- If playing stockpiling race, it holds true early game. Best example I know of is you can really spend a handful of turns doing nothing and then start pumping out just-reearched bubble hull ships. This is for very early game.
- If playing non-stockpiling, it is seldom useful, and I think the perceived pressure relive is mostly subjective. If you need (now) military force and you delay the production, you may lose more than gain: the enemy can take one of your planets and then you'll need to build extra troopers to get it back, and lose the production of that planet for a few turns. So you better had deployed some almost-obsolete armed ships. If you don't need the military force then you can devote the PPs to more expansion (at early game there is always more expansion to do, except in very specific and non-standard galaxy setups, and delaying it is not benefical).
At mid and later game, the IS capabilities are irrelevant IMO: while you delay your military production waiting for better weapons/shields/hulls/etc. you can stack troopers. There is always need for more troopers and those do not need better techs for most of the time (except for specific cases like going stealth expansion/conquering, your early robos with standard troop pods are enough).

The only situation where you always thank to have the IS is for blockades. Before IS I built comsats and troopers on such systems, with IS I may prefer to build nothing there and take its production to the military shipyards.

Vezzra wrote:
Dilvish wrote:Without the IS it is nearly always still worthwhile to go ahead and build something not too useless that you can hope you might find a use for in the not-too-distant-future, but I still always really hate having to decide which thing is the least useless.
Believe me, I know that situation all too well, and I too find it very annoying. [...]
I don't: as comented before, I can always build more troopers for future invasions, or colonisers/outposts if not under enemy pressure. I indeed find the game mostly the same regarding micromanagement with and without IS if playing non-stockpiling. And for stockpiling species, I would not need any stockpiling capability if I could just send the current production from a supply group to another. No need at all for stockpiling, only need is out-of-supply PP distribution.
Vezzra wrote:The IS isn't the right fix for these issues, IMO.
I absolutely agree.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#21 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote:2) The next thing is the question, what kind of help does the IS actually provide in these kind of situations? Judging by how you described it, it seems as it simply buys you some time. The ships you want to build are obviously your top priority right now (otherwise, if there were more important things to build, you wouldn't face that dilemma). But an important tech isn't quite finished yet. So, your dilemma would be solved if either the tech was already finished, or you could somehow delay the production of the new ships without having to waste your PP for less important stuff in the meantime.

...describing another solution I tried to come up with to address this specific dilemma (because I think that even if we see that as an issue that needs to be solved, the IS isn't the right solution here): The problem is that when I build the ships, they get built with the tech current at the time they get queued. Any tech advances gained after that won't benefit them. So, what if we allow to upgrade the designs of ships still under construction (within reasonable restrictions of course)? Then you could queue them before that important tech gets finished, and still benefit from it - provided it gets finished before the ships!
Well, you we probably would churn out useless military ships and pause thos one turn before finishing until our tech or strategic situation sais we should finish the updated ships. Which in effect would be some kind of clumsy local stockpile without use limit. Seems we are going circles ;)
...With the IS, our beloved dilemma is back: because with the IS it might be reasonable to delay production for a couple of turns, but maybe not enough to wait out the completion of the Plasma Cannon research. At which point you basically again have to decide: build now or wait?

The funny thing is, most people (me included) will still experience the IS as a significant improvement wrt these kind of situations - the question is why?
Some ideas: Because if you delay production by 5 turns, it also means you loose 5 turns you could do something with your finished ships, so waiting 3 turns may be an acceptable costs, waiting 20 turns may kill your empire ;)

Also people know that predicting an abstract far future is hard and thinking about a concrete situation is less strenious, people may prefer to have some concrete assets in the near future than thinking about possibilities in far future.
The IS isn't the right fix for these issues, IMO.
No, it just makes it less bad in some cornercases. I agree that its annoying that having no good choices is the basic problem (considering there are better choices like cheaper/better hulls for your troops in the near future). If tech progress would be more steady this might be less. But steady progress is also kind of boring. :/
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#22 Post by Vezzra »

labgnome wrote:I can see that working. However I still think that something on that level of gameplay mechanic is a bit too "big" for something like a policy card.
I don't think anything can be too "big" for something like a policy card. They are supposed to be large-scale choices which have global, empire-wide effects. You can't go much bigger than that. They are, in a way, like focus settings for colonies, but on the empire level.
I think it would be really difficult to balance against any other options in the same category.
Why do you see the need to balance it against other options? If the policy cards allows you to switch between two mutually exclusive alternatives which are reasonably balanced against each other, everything should be fine.
Honestly, and in the spirit of the thread's subject, might another alternative be to make more ship-parts automatically upgrade? Especially if there is only a quantitative difference between them. I mean most strategy games like this automate upgrading to some degree.
That only works for a subset of available parts. I don't want to reduce everything to generic parts (armor, shields, scanners), where you have only one part and all possible upgrades are done the same way as weapon refinements currently. Even with weapons we've restricted that kind of upgrade mechanic to refinements within the same weapon type, for good reason.

Not to speak of the ship hull techs.
I don't think it's helpful to deny something's a problem, and/or suggest that someone is just not playing the game right when they specifically identify something as a problem, issue or point of frustration.
I don't think that Geoff and Dilvish deny the problem, or think I'm playing the game wrong, they just see things differently and try to make their points, as do I.
I think the discussion of alternative ideas to the imperial stockpile is a good idea.
You can always discuss alternatives to pretty much everything, but at some point you have to make a decision and go ahead with it. And once that happens, you need to stick with the decision, unless it really turns out not to work, or mess things up too badly. Otherwise you never get things done, as there will always be different ways to do things, and people will have different preferences regarding that. It's important to stick with decisions, also those which have been made by a previous generation of devs/contributors, or you end up constantly ripping out and redoing things, just because the current generation of devs has different preferences than the one before them.

You really need a good reason to remove/replace something which is already in place, as that means throwing away a lot of work.

I don't think we're at this point with the IS, far from it. And I say that as someone who has been quite opposed to the entire idea since the day when it all started with the original supply ship idea. Most of the issues I personally have with the IS would be solved if we made it a mutually exclusive alternative to the standard supply based PP distribution, which can be enabled via policy cards. But even if we don't, and keep it as an extension of the standard supply based PP distribution mechanic, enabled by default (meaning, unlocked from start for everyone), it doesn't break the game, not at all. It definitely changes it, and I personally don't like the way it changes the game (very much so).

However, just because there are people like me who don't like these changes to the game, that in itself isn't a good enough reason to revise the decision to go down the IS road (IMO).
But that doesn't mean it's specifically a good one for this project, or that other options might not work better
At this point I'd say that remains to be seen. Unless I've done some serious playtesting myself, I certainly can't give my own final assessment about this. So, lets wait (or better: playtest ;)) and see.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#23 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:It seems to me that Vezzra himself was characterizing his IS gameplay as clashing with his views on the right way to play FO, but he feels pressured by the IS to play that way.
I'd rather say, I see my expected/assumed IS gameplay (lacking actual playtesting on my part) not to quite match the experience you (based on your own experience) expect me to have. I don't expect the IS to pressurize me into anything, after all, even with the IS I can play the same way as without. It just opens up more options in certain situations, which I'm free to ignore. I just don't expect the IS to be the benefit you think it is (in said certain situations), and trying to make use of the additional options the IS offers actually making the annoyance of these situations worse, if anything.

Which, not having done any real playtesting, I readily concede is a purely theoretical assessment.
Perhaps that was a wrong conclusion. Perhaps it was so wrong that he found it a bit offensive, but I am pretty sure that he would recognize that based on his statements the inference was reasonable (even if it proves wrong) and also that I had a good intent, and so I am confident he will not take offense.
I would be rather surprised if you didn't have that confidence. ;) Whenever I get the impression my statements have been misunderstood, I don't take offence, but try to explain it in a different way.

It certainly takes a lot more to offend me. Like obvious, deliberate, particularly rude insults. ;)

Or, if someone would send assassins after me for real. I guess I would probably take offence at that. I think. :mrgreen:

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#24 Post by Vezzra »

Ophiuchus wrote:After almost a year on the imperial stockpile we really should ship.
And we will. We just need to deal with the remaining issues. I certainly don't want to quit on the whole thing at this point. The IS is going in, and unless it turns out to really break/mess up things, or change the game in a way that most people want to remove the feature, it is going to stay. I do hope/expect that there will major revisions of the IS of course.
Personally i dont think imperial stockpile should be policy based because so much UI depends on it. If turning it off is an option, we probably would need to maintain two different versions of UI. Thats sound like a bad idea.
If switching between supply based PP distribution and IS involved two very distinct UI versions, that would indeed be a bad idea. But why do you think that this would be necessary? Maybe I've missed something, but as far as I can recall the main UI additions/changes have been the stockpile specific displays/numbers in the top bar and the extensions to the production queue UI (marking items that are allowed to draw from the stockpile etc.).

The point is, once supply based PP distribution and IS are mutually exclusive options, the UI stuff is actually getting far simpler. There would be no need for the extra stuff for the production queue: with the IS as the only way to distribute PP, you don't need to distinguish between items that may and those that may not draw from the stockpile - everything always draws from the stockpile. In fact, the production queue UI doesn't have to deal with how PPs are distributed at all, we can switch back to the old (pre IS) UI and that will work for both alternatives.

The only reason why the production queue UI got so complicated is because we now have two distinct PP distribution mechanics available at the same time, which forced us to provide the player with the means to decide which source of PP a build item should (preferrably) draw from. With all the issues and hassles which came with that. This is actually a very strong reason to make supply based PP distribution and IS a policy card based mutual exclusive choice, IMO.

The displays in the top bar and their tooltips (with the breakdowns) aren't that complicated that maintaining two different versions would be an issue, I think.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#25 Post by Vezzra »

Ophiuchus wrote:I think you got this one wrong. The sly are bad at supply in order to make a distributed empire an obvious (starting) choice.
Oh, sorry, my bad. However, nerfing the supply capacity of the Sly so much just to give the player sufficient incitement to take the distributed empire road doesn't sound like a good idea, considering how much depends on supply and thus making the Sly handicapped regarding all those things.

That aside, I don't think it's a good idea if you don't counter-balance good stockpiling capabilities with bad supply. Because then you get something that has the best of both worlds, all the benefits of either mechanic (supply based PP distribution and IS), while avoiding the weaknesses. Which, considering the powerful advantages the IS offers, makes not choosing to get it not a viable option. I think you'd be too much at a disadvantage without good IS capabilities compared to an empire that has them.

Which means, depending on how we balance things, that either empires with Sly are going to have an enormous advantage, and getting Sly would become of vital importance, or getting high level stockpile techs would be paramount. However, that hasn't been the intention, at least as far as I understood. Supply based PP distribution should stay at least a viable alternative until end game, if not the default/normal PP distribution way for most empires.

The only way to accomplish that, without making things too complicated, is making IS and supply based PP distribution mutual exclusive choices, IMO.
We could make this a policy thing or not. Lets see how it plays out. If we make it a policy thing I would prefer something like this
  • have the basic stockpile available for everybody (for unified UI)
  • nerf the species bonus
  • nerf general supply by 2
  • supply policy (+2 supply for all planets)
  • stockpiling policy
Um, I think I haven't made clear enough what I mean by making supply based PP distribution and IS mutual exclusive mechanics. That's not something that would be accomplished just by giving good boni to the one and bad to the other, but a "hard" separation of the two mechanics. You would either distribute your PP solely via the supply network, and have no IS at all, or all your PP distribution would happen via the IS, ignoring the supply network completely (for the purpose of PP distribution, that is).

That way, there would be two mutual exclusive ways to distribute your PP, with distinct advantages and disadvantages:

1) Supply based PP distribution: Works only along supply lines, and can't stockpile PP (the way it worked pre IS). Obviously inferior to a mechanic where you can distribute to any system without restriction, and stockpile excess production on top of that. However, the big advantage of supply based PP distribution is unlimited troughput. There is no limit to the amount of PP you can get from source to sink, and you don't need to devote any resources to achieve proper distribution capacity.

2) Imperial Stockpile: Works independently of the supply network, which means you can reach all your systems without any restrictions. On top of that, you can also stockpile excess production. Obviously superior to a mechanic that is restricted both in where it can distribute PP to, and looses all excess production. However, the big disadvantage is limited throughput. To be able to get your PP from source to sink, you need to devote resources (colonies on stockpile focus), and you need to balance your stockpile throughput capacity against your PP resource output.

Both mechanics would have a key stat that define their capability, so to speak: supply range for supply based PP distribution (as supply range obviously is important for supply connecting your colonies), and stockpile transfer capacity for the IS (the more PP you can draw from the stockpile, the better, obviously). In both cases you need to improve the corresponding stat to improve your PP distribution.

Of course, it will require a major revision of the IS and rebalancing a lot of stats for that to work properly.

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Dilvish
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#26 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:Which means, depending on how we balance things, that either empires with Sly are going to have an enormous advantage, and getting Sly would become of vital importance, or getting high level stockpile techs would be paramount.
No-- I certainly don't find it at all like that currently. Getting Sly into an empire and being able to make more use of the stockpile is nice, but it's no where near vital, nor is getting any of the current stockpiling techs paramount at all-- I don't bother with any of them. If you want to hinge the theoretical validity of your argument on your "depending" phrase, that you're just talking about how bad this hypothetical system that we could have built would have been, then, Uh, sure, thank goodness we didn't make it like that, but let's stop wasting our time talking about bad counterfactuals when we have an actual system to discuss. And you really don't seem to be presenting this kind of thing as "here is something I want to make sure we avoid," you seem to keep throwing out these projections that seem counterfactual to me and then claiming that somehow means we need to make these changes that you want: "The only way to accomplish that, without making things too complicated, is making IS and supply based PP distribution mutual exclusive choices, IMO."

I've got a lot going on right now that needs my attention, and I'm putting off reading through the rest of your post at the moment because so many of your arguments on this lately have been just seeming excessively disconnected from the actual state of the game, and it's getting to be a pain to respond, it's just discouraging and gives me a headache. So don't take silence as agreement.

Projecting your imagination about how some theoretical system might work out is a fine and necessary part of design planning, but when you have an actual system to assess you can't let projections bury/supplant actual observations.

It seems like you've spent so much time thinking about this and making projections, I would ask that you instead start devoting more of that time to actually testing out what we have. I am totally fine with holding up 0.4.8 or any more serious IS changes until you've had a chance to get some real experience with it so that we can have a more productive discussion about it.
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Vezzra
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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#27 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:So don't take silence as agreement.
Don't worry, I don't. I'd never. :)
I am totally fine with holding up 0.4.8 or any more serious IS changes until you've had a chance to get some real experience with it so that we can have a more productive discussion about it.
Uh, sorry if I gave that impression, but I definitely don't expect us to hold up 0.4.8 to decide upon if we want to enable the IS for everyone from start. I mean, I appreciate your willingness to give me the time to make my case, but it's not necessary. I don't want to delay the release more than absolutely necessary, and, as much as I want to change that, this is far from necessary.

The current holdup has only to do with those release-blocking issues/PRs stubbornly sitting on our github tracker. Once these are cleared, I fully intend to proceed with the release, regardless of what has been decided concerning the unlock-IS-from-start-or-not question. Unless I manage to convince you guys to accept my proposed changes, the IS is going into 0.4.8 as it is now (well, except for things which need to be fixed of course), without them.

I certainly don't want to delay 0.4.8 to get my ideas in, especially if I can't find the time to do the necessary playtesting. I'm not that bossy... ;)

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#28 Post by Oberlus »

Dilvish wrote:Getting Sly into an empire and being able to make more use of the stockpile is nice, but it's no where near vital, nor is getting any of the current stockpiling techs paramount at all
Agree! I never get any IS tech, at all. All of them are to boost stockpiling of planets with that focus, which implies a loss of research/production.
With Sly/Laenfa, I already have enough IS capabilities to ignore the techs and never set any planet to stockpiling focus (I did it on some of my first games with Sly, then I improved the strategy, i.e. timing of techs and items in the production queue, and get better results by staying away from the stockpiling focus).
With non-stockpiling species I don't need the IS at all, just get some irrelevant advantages, and it would be counter-productive to devote any in-game effort to improve the IS capabilities. And once I get stockpiling species I notice a big boost to the output ratio that comes handy but makes no real difference on the performance of my Empire.

Hmmm... So the planetary IS focus is, for me, of even less utility than the defense focus (that from time to time, 1 out of 4 games, could come handy for a few turns). Looks like the IS design is broken in that sense: the IS tech tree is currently useless, and I bet it won't be easy to make it worth the investment without badly handicapping stockpiling species in early game (which would imply a new round of redesign and balance for the IS). But I'm sure you devs will find a good way to make the whole IS a worth addition to FO for current release.

In any case, the IS is already a good addition to FO in the sense that without it (or something better than it) the Sly species becomes unplayable without also redesigning it to give them good supply.

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Re: Non-stockpiling alternative to the Imperial Stockpile

#29 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote:
Ophiuchus wrote:I think you got this one wrong. The sly are bad at supply in order to make a distributed empire an obvious (starting) choice.
Oh, sorry, my bad. However, nerfing the supply capacity of the Sly so much just to give the player sufficient incitement to take the distributed empire road doesn't sound like a good idea, considering how much depends on supply and thus making the Sly handicapped regarding all those things.
The Sly work fine quite a while without going down the supply network road. Even if you stick to Sly-only, with some extra investment you can build larger supply networks. Of course then you will compete with enemies for supply lines.
Vezzra wrote:
Ophiuchus wrote:We could make this a policy thing or not. Lets see how it plays out. If we make it a policy thing I would prefer something like this
  • have the basic stockpile available for everybody (for unified UI)
  • nerf the species bonus
  • nerf general supply by 2
  • supply policy (+2 supply for all planets)
  • stockpiling policy
Um, I think I haven't made clear enough what I mean by making supply based PP distribution and IS mutual exclusive mechanics.
Well i think i understood you quite well. So i will just repeat myself with some emphasis:
If we make it a policy thing I would prefer something like this
(see above)
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