Yeah I dont agree with you on this Paradoxnt, I think if we just made the resources drain down to a lesser extent from where started, (rate wise) but stabilize at a useful point, things will be a little saner. IF after say an hour of play my first asteroids are at 50% capacity (no tech) and stay there forever, it at leasts puts a little stress later in the game.

Well, you could make it so that the drain on resources of new colonies is connected to loyalty (ie. how far away it is from your capital planet).

Thus you would not slow down the early game but would create a higher resources drain in the later game when the planets you colonize are farther away.

hmm, what exactly would you want that for? maybe a better solution would be to increase the penalty it accumulates with distance to homeworld. as far as I could see, new colonies a few jumps away start with -3 or more. since its distance related it would probably affect larger games mostly which - I suspect - is what you tried to do with your suggestion.

or I was wrong and it doesnt depend on distance, but planet type, not sure right now.

THAT is a very very good point.

eh, I kindof dislike that system in games where the limit isnt what your income is, but how fast you can spend it (games like supcom drain to the point where you stall, then are followed by periods of excess (at least for nubs like me) whereas sins is a constant drain for anyone who wants to win) I prefer the system where I can hold onto money to spend it simultaneously.

TBH i preferred beta 1's upkeep system. The more ships you built, the more drain on your economy.

I think everyone here is in agreement that they want some kind of economic warfare implemented. Be it directly by raiding economic structures, or indirectly perhaps through espionage, or some form through the diplomacy menu. Perhaps a way to sabotage what a person has researched so they cannot use it until it is "repaired". So if someone researched refineries, and your spy managed to sabotage it. They cannot build refinery's until it can be re-researched. Iffy idea, but its just a thought.

I understand both sides of the point here, and Yarlen has stated that the infinite resources are here to stay. So i guess we will have to make due.

... Last I checked, trade with allies is most assuredly in game. And, while I haven't checked since the new beta, both refinery and trade ships go interstellar.

They do go interstellar

the only ship i have seen go intersteller in beta 3 was refineries trade ships stayed in the system that they were built.

your all idiots.

all of you

the infinite model has nothing to do with anything. if it wasnt infinite it stil wouldnt effect gameplay you *edited*. stupid u suggesting reinferinties that will replace the problem duh!? noobs.

the biggest problem with sins , is the whole idea that theres nothing to do with ships other then steamroll , and because of this , people are so damn reliant on just having economy or fleet advantage. The whole idea of micro is disrgarded yet micro is the ONE bloody thing that isnt dependant on fleet size or economy , its dependant on the players ability to knuckly down and conentrate. which is exactly the thing which allows people to come back in a game. steamrolling sucks ass . those who think otherwise are in dreamland and they can shove metal rodds up their arses with peanit butter for lube.

ps - drunk post , so foff.

ps - drunk post

  
you even repeated ps - drunk post, very nice...

You should really have been on IRC for the last 10-15 minutes. And even now a little bit.. he just keeps going and going and going

Much like the energizer bunny, if it was trashed like he is

had to be done ,, i cant even see the keys im typing

Ouch, somebody is in for some rebuking in the morning, me thinks....not to mention puking.

and good riddance!

Yeah, drunk posts are fun, but only when their funny.  I tend to cut people some slack in their comments, but there's a limit. 

Let me make this a general pronouncement that posts containing personal insults or vulgarity in a like vein won't be tolerated. Things have been getting rather heated since Beta 4 came out and it's getting out of hand. If we see any more then people will start to lose their posting privledges.

Indeed. When a resource storage cap is in place it encourages a player to spend that res in a timely manner. This leads to players building and sending wave after wave of units into the fray.

Sins does not have a storage cap, however, so a player is not under pressure to spend resources. Further, Sins DOES have a unit cap which limits the amount of res a player is able to spend. So game play will always ultimately end up with players having a ton of hoarded res if resources are not exhaustible.

These facts tends to indicate that an exhaustible resource model is more appropriate, but as was stated earlier, this requires much more micro.

I still believe that removing any unit cap is a reasonable solution to the problem. Sure this would result in ships being spammed all over the place but I view this as a very good thing for the following reasons:

1. You always have a place to spend res
2. Battles will be much larger and more often.
3. It reduces the problem of slippery slope.
4. You reduce the need to micro units since you reduce the need to baby sit a small number of units to try and keep them alive. You don't mind losing a few since you have 10 more en route as re-enforcements. This gives you more freedom to concentrate on the overall war instead of a particular battle.

This last point has been criticized a lot in the way SupCom plays. A lot of SupCom players love to micro a few units. But of course this means they can't spend as much time building an economy. They hated the fact that a player could send strategic waves of units at them on multiple fronts and basically beat them using a superior economy. This criticism may hold true wrt to SupCom but it seems that Sins has been designed with the intent to minimize as much micro as possible. This is why I see removing units caps fitting quite well with the overall vision of the game.

nice phrasing -- with respect to to supcom?

I just have a bit of a stutter

You have valid points, but three of the main problems I can see with removing the fleet point system are:

1) It would de-value capital ships fairly considerably. Of course, there are people on both sides of the fence on this, some would love to see more capitals and some are happy with the way it is. But essentially, right now the number of capitals is balanced mostly by the fleet point cost and research. In small-medium sized games, the fleet point cost is a much bigger concern than the research. This forces the player to diversify the fleets somewhat, and have capitals mixed in with frigates and support cruisers. With the economy in its current state and the ability to hoard resources infinitely, removing the fleet point cost would allow a player to put out considerably more capital ships and greatly reduce the value of each one while at the same time reducing the need for fleet diversity. Why build light carriers when you can just get 5 Sovas and get 15 squadrons out of them right away (training to level 3 with credits), as well as their other abilities. Why build cobalts when you can build a bunch of Kols that can cover a much larger area with weapon fire and have improved shield resistances..

Research would still limit how many capitals you can have out, but in small/medium games I would expect to see a heavily disproportionate number of capitals vs support ships. Again, some may like this, but I think the current way is better.

2) It would also devalue expansion somewhat. Same as the above, there are people on both sides of the fence on this one. The main main problem here is that Volcanics specifically provide greater fleet points, which makes them desirable contention points, as well as desirable strike targets as losing a fully developed volcanic can really set a player back on military production. You would still need to expand your empire for logistics and setting up the economy, but the fleet point system right now plays a large role in it, also.

3) And this is probably the main one. Currently, the Vasari are mostly balanced by their higher need of fleet points, in the late game. With resource hoarding and rates of increase in large games, the difference in building costs between Vasari and TEC ships becomes pretty neglible--it's the fleet points that limit Vasari military production and maintain balance between the ship-to-ship weakness of TEC ships vs the Vasari ships and the greater maximum number of TEC ships vs Vasari ships. Taking away the fleet point system would allow the Vasari player to potentially produce the same number of units as the TEC player, and each of them would be individually stronger. It would take quite a fair bit of rebalancing to straighten that out, and the Advent is in the mix also though we beta testers don't know how

After reading all of the posts it seems ot me that the problem everyone is having is still congusing me a great deal. Gaunlet said that the economical system allowed him to replace his losses quickly late game



this is what it seems to me

1.)when you have a large established empire you are going to have a gov't and economic system that should be well greased and able to churn out as many ships as you like. 2.

2.Now some people are in favor of a upkeep system vs a Supply system. This would just mean that once you built up a large fleet if you lost a planet you just dropped a Major source of income. That right there would be the turning point of the game, because if your homeworld disappears and all your left with is an asteriod planet. how could you possibly support enough ships to take anything back?

3. The infinate resource system doesn't seem to be a problem, the ammount or, lack of, micro seems to be a problem.

anyone else getting a similar feeling?

No clue, aside from not needing anywhere near as many refineries there isn't any difference between asteroids that run dry and asteroids that don't. Either way you have a sustained, limited income based on your territory aquired.

Before, your resources went up, capped out and maybe dropped as resources started running out, and then expanded again if you built enough refineries to more than offset the losses. Now, there is no drop off from them running out, and you're probably only building one refinery for every two or three trade ports instead of more along the lines of 1-1 or better.

That drop off, regardless of refineries is the big difference and it matters in a big big way.

If for example one player is forced to 'waste' resources by rebuilding mines and capital ships and frigates while the other player suffers lesser losses, than when the drop off comes it hurts the person who had to replace his stuff allot more than the person who preserved his forces.

It usually meant that 3 cap ships was an awful lot of capital, building more would take a very long time even with refineries going... whereas now 3 capitals is fairly easy and 5 is not too uncommon even in small games.

They are also more easily replaced, allowing for their abstract value to be 'lessened' because sacrificing them is no longer an immense investment lost, usually permanently.

losing 3 capital ships is still a big deal, even late game. the amount of resourcesyou spend is still large enough to make you regret losing your ships or entire fleet.

Yeah. We're talking 400 metal, 250 crystal, and over 5000 credits each. (Assuming you have a choice, if you send a capitol ship to engage an opponent without being trained to level 3, your a fool! This, of course, does not count basic 'seasoning' via engaging planetary militias with a level one cap...)