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[alexandertnt]

they don't magically disappear into space.

That's not always true. Helium, for example, quite literally does exactly that.

Radioactive materials give off radioactive particles that disappear into space.

Spaceships exploding and unrecoverable spreading now unrecyclable (and thus "consumed") materials throughout the space.


I always imagined the reason that planets have unlimited resources was a game-y one, since it would result in players becoming more nomadic (by necessity) and less emperor-y.

[Shadowlord]

they don't magically disappear into space.

That's not always true. Helium, for example, quite literally does exactly that.

Indeed.

[RedKing]

I always imagined the reason that planets have unlimited resources was a game-y one, since it would result in players becoming more nomadic (by necessity) and less emperor-y.

Seems to me that would give a more realistic reason for expansion and conquest, rather than just wanting to be a dick to your neighbors. Plus, it would create a framework for trade.

I'm not sad to see SoH die. It was an ambitious idea, but it was buggier than a Colombian cockroach farm, and the player experience was much akin to painstakingly building up a tiny sandcastle only to have someone you've never even seen before come kick it over and build giant sand wangs in its place while you're asleep.

[Sergarr]

they don't magically disappear into space.

That's not always true. Helium, for example, quite literally does exactly that.

Radioactive materials give off radioactive particles that disappear into space.

Spaceships exploding and unrecoverable spreading now unrecyclable (and thus "consumed") materials throughout the space.

Correction: they usually don't magically disappear into space. Thing is, this is not actually important since they wander off into space at a rate less than what the planet actually gets by gathering space dust, meteorites and solar wind. And most of these materials can be produced from others if you have energy. _{Helium is a result of radioactive decay of lots and lots of materials, and with accelerators, you can produce basically every heavy material you'll ever need.}

As for spaceships, if you're running into resource problems from that angle, it means that you need to cut down on producing Death Stars, because I don't see any other spacecraft doing that to your resource economy.

[Chiefwaffles]

I'm not sad to see SoH die.

Uh, it's not dead. At all.

For planets, I kind of want both "options" at the same time. With a finite system, manufacturing becomes much more difficult and you'd have to repeatedly build new colonies and interstellar trade routes to let your capital have hammers. That just sounds extremely tedious. With an infinite system, that's not a problem, but it feels game-y and blocks off a couple gameplay avenues. In my opinion, it's a necessary sacrifice.

[NullForceOmega]

A reasonable alternative might be to have low-level resources necessary for basic construction be unlimited, and have certain resources for more advanced systems be finite, thereby driving expansion and trade, while still allowing for basic operations to be low maintenance.

[Shooer]

There are multiple answers to the finite resource idea that don't involve deplete-able sources.
1) The easiest is player harvest only.  By hand or with some tool a player has to be there to gather the resource.  Possibility of some kind of automation but by and large best to go from node/source/cloud/harvester to gather the resource.  Could even have to kill something/someone to get the resource.
2) An accessibility system, similar to Aurora's but with values over 100%.  Could use elements of thought 1 (player to gather the highest value stuff) but rarer resources would on average be slow to gather and places where it's easiest to get could be locations of conflict.


I personally hate item/resource quality systems and prefer tiered resources.  By doing gradient values you just promote either grinding (Wurm) or endless hunts for a rare version of a rare resource (SoH).

[Paul]

A combination of the availability and TL thing would be a nice compromise. Make it so that you CAN mine TL32 material from a low quality deposit, but require significantly more time to do so. And make resources on the whole much more time consuming to produce, so that making a shipyard world still requires the input of a significant number of colonies.

Would need to make a way to limit production though, otherwise the wasteage going into producing stuff like tools would hurt more.

[alexandertnt]

As for spaceships, if you're running into resource problems from that angle, it means that you need to cut down on producing Death Stars, because I don't see any other spacecraft doing that to your resource economy.

If you can afford to produce Death Stars in the first place, and you enemy can, you probably would be. Keep in mind that cutting down on the production of Death Star's isn't necessarily viable when the enemy has so many. It's likely you will be pushing the limits of your economy during war time.

Seems to me that would give a more realistic reason for expansion and conquest, rather than just wanting to be a dick to your neighbors. Plus, it would create a framework for trade.

Fair point, at the moment the only non-dick reason I can think of for conquest is because someone has a high TL resource you need.

A reasonable alternative might be to have low-level resources necessary for basic construction be unlimited, and have certain resources for more advanced systems be finite, thereby driving expansion and trade, while still allowing for basic operations to be low maintenance.

I like this idea. It gives most of the potential gameplay benefits that finite resources could have with not too much micromanagement.

[Paul]

Gave this a try again. Kind of disappointed that he still hasn't fixed autopilot burning you up in atmospheres.

I'm just going to have to fly this mission manually. Building rocket powered space ships and loading them with stuff for initial colony, then heading out to a moon.

Attempt 1: Exploring for lumenite, and I foolishly asked my pilot to land on a frigid world. BOOM.

Attempt 2: Decide that I will explore without a full load of resources, then go out and build a colony. Find a nice spot with lumenite, ice, and eludium. Explode in home planet atmosphere during a routine "land at airport" order.

Attempt 3: Fully loaded ship explodes in home planet's atmosphere after being given order to land on the distant moon.

Attempt 4: Load up with goods a third time using the last of my money. Manually take it out of the atmosphere. Thinking I'm home free now, since my target moon has no atmosphere - order ship to fly to the moon. Ship decides to go full throttle into the atmosphere of the gas giant my world is orbiting.

Now I'm broke, and my world is temporarily out of rocket motors to rebuild these space ships. Guess I'll try again another day. With fully manual piloting.

[Sirus]

That's odd. Unless something seriously screwed up since I last played (entirely possible), ships shouldn't be exploding that much. Especially not on a simple "land at airport" order. I think the only time I ever exploded in atmo was when I took over helm while traveling towards a planet at high speed to check something, and we impacted with the atmosphere at a considerable percentage of c. That was entirely my fault, obviously :v

[Shadowlord]

Do you remember when you could explode while flying over an airless moon if you flew over a city?

[Sirus]

No, I never saw that happen. Not saying I don't believe you, it just wasn't something I remember :v

[Akura]

If I recall, that was due to the atmosphere provided by the pressure dome extending allthe way out to the edge of the planet/moon's sphere of influence. That was fixed at some point. Or at least, Haxus said it was.

[Paul]

Yeah you can. I still remember diving out of a ship in a motorcycle to colonize the most hazardous world I had ever seen to get at the high quality cryozine on it. The atmosphere was so corrosive it was eating my ships while trying to land on it. The motorcycle dissolved after a few seconds mid-drop.

My suicidal pilots issue resolved itself it seems. I think it was server side lag or something. Wasn't really noticeable on my end while manually piloting, but it was making my AI pilots really dumb.