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An important note for future implementations: parts that could consume resources, and balancing the factory


jbox1

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So, some people have suggestions which base of parts using recourses to operate, such as weapons or the factory block. However, I've been thinking about the potential implications of using recourses to operate parts in order to function. If a part that consumes recourses is setup to operate continuously (the factory for example), it would mean that a player could continuously loose hard earned recourses and have it drained from their supplies. This would be a horrible occasion, and would waste a lot of time and effort that went into collect said recourses. One of the core game aspects of Nimbatus is to be able to do certain actions without directly inhibiting yourself. So, I devised a work around that should be applied to any sort of parts that could consume recourses.

Instead of having parts consume recourses directly from the hotbar, it would use the recourses which are available in it's own recourse tanks. First off, this means that there are no long term effects to the player if a mission fails, as no recourses are actually lost, and it's mearly a trade off. Either to operate the part with recourses, or to load the recourses into the recourse collector. The second benifit is that it can be used to augment a part's usability. If a part requires recourse to have already been collected, then players will have already had to have been on the planet long enough to have harvested the recourses. Finally, it means that best of all, the mission can be replayed at no expense, which is important in a game made like Nimbatus.

Also, this sollution also works well for balancing factories. Factories could be set up to consume (any) recourse to produce parts, which would make them still functional, but also more situational for operation. Since the player has to collect recourse prior to using the factory, it will not be spammable, but still useful.

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Personally, I think resources are too rare for that - I don't think those parts would be used much, even if a player had unlocked all their research.  They're just too exhaustible.

Now, if you made these parts consume fuel and energy both, at a very high rate as they recharge, it might make them impossible to really spam without building a ridiculous support system for it, and might make the player consider more when it's appropriate to use a factory.

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I'm just trying to imagine the challenges presented to autonomous operation when you don't know whether your factories can build, can't seek nearest non-ore terrain, and can't know whether there's even terrain still left in the mission area.

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Indeed. I do like the idea that they should take significant amounts of power, I am just kicking around ideas! If the goal here is to nerf factories, then perhaps we could entertain the idea of having the "Print" function grow the attached parts one at a time or slowly over time, and turning the "ready to print" indicator into a "done printing" indicator. 

This would make it so that you can't "bank" a new part and instant-summon them into existence. Plus if the parts "grow back" and get added back to the ship one at a time, then a particularly large print job wouldn't spaz out when it gets summoned over a stray block or meteor in the way. 

To prevent this from being used as an infinite regenerating health pool, it could be made so that it cannot replace any individual destroyed part without detaching the whole assembly and starting the print job over again. 

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My favored solution is to either start things unprinted, and not to print beyond another factory; that means stacks of factories would have to print down the line section by section.

I also like the idea of having it print direct children first, then grandchildren parts, then great grandchildren, building out from the source.

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I guess I'm just not certain that resource consumption is really the key.  Anytime a game has an ability fueled by a barrier to progress, (like guns that shoot gold, or abilities that throw coins for damage (Was that FF6?) ) it just doesn't exist to me.  Advancement always trumps the temporary gain.

What if the green resource was NOT used in progress and tech trees?  That can be exclusively for drone consumption by parts.

Later, you can convert other resources to it, so that you can still use it to sink excess once you complete progression.

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1 minute ago, Lurkily said:

I guess I'm just not certain that resource consumption is really the key.  Anytime a game has an ability fueled by a barrier to progress, (like guns that shoot gold, or abilities that throw coins for damage (Was that FF6?) ) I almost always ignore it.

What if the green resource was NOT used in progress and tech trees?  That can be exclusively for drone consumption by parts.

Might be Terraria

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No, didn't like Terrarria.  It was one of the old FF games, 1 or 2 US, which means . . . . . what, 4 or 6 in the original numbering?  One of the characters was a gambler that could basically buy damage.

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I am with @Lurkily on this one. As long as the three resources are tied to purchasing permanent upgrades/tech tree advancement, I cannot think of a single drone effect or ability I would ever trade them for if I still have other options. 

This is why I was talking about nerfing the factory in other ways than with resources. If the factory cost resources from your drone to operate, I would sooner put a thousand decouplers on my drone than trade a single tank of yellow. At least until I have no more to unlock. Then I would stack decouplers instead of factories because of the sheer inconvenience of searching half of a planet for a resource that may not even be there. 

This is also why i suggested Dirt as an alternative. If we are going to power anything with a non-renewable energy source, it has got to be convenient. If it weren't convenient, then the effect I would demand of such an item would be so powerful as to trivialize the game, which is also something I don't want in a new game that I care about. 

 

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8 hours ago, notsew93 said:

This is also why i suggested Dirt as an alternative. If we are going to power anything with a non-renewable energy source, it has got to be convenient.

 

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19 minutes ago, CyrusDaSquid said:

Great idea, but maybe not resources. They’re just too rare to be used as fuel for parts.

 

What about my other suggestion; using green ore soley as a consumable fuel for certain parts?  Regardless of commonality, consumption can be tempered to make it more or less valuable.

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