Resource system for multiple commanders

Chris0132Chris0132 Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
edited November 2010 in Ideas and Suggestions
<div class="IPBDescription">largely grief proof, likely not noticeable by individual comms</div>By request I am posting this as a separate idea. The goal is to reduce/eliminate some of the concerns raised about multiple commanders.

If you want the simplest explanation it's a team RTS. Shared income, individual pools and units.

Instead of the current single resource pool, there is no team res, commanders personally earn extra money while in the command chair, they can spend this money on stuff. If you hop in the command chair you do not get access to the funds that the dude who has been in from the start has access to, but you can spend any of your own money (say you want a sentry you can buy it and place it somewhere, and you get some cash when it kills people so it's a good idea to do this).

If you leave the command chair, all the extra money you accumulated during your stay there goes into a pool, after 2 minutes of absence, the money is distributed among all other commanders. So you can't farm personal cash with this, but you can hold on to your own bunch of resources when commanding, and manage your own budget.

So, if you want to command, you get access to the team income to do so, but you only get this income while you are commanding. If you stop commanding for a while the money goes to other commanders for them to use, but in no instance can someone just jump in and waste all the team money, unless nobody else is commanding, in which case I have no idea how to stop people doing that.

If one commander is present, he gets all the 'team' income delivered into his account for use on buildings and tech. If another commander joins, the first comm keeps any money he has, but the income is now split between them. If another commander joins it splits 3 ways and the first and second commander keep their built up stockpiles. If the first commander leaves for a while, his comm money gets sent to the remaining two.

Command a lot, get money all the time to spend as comm, command a little, get less money to spend as comm. Players jumping in and out does nothing to exisiting commanders other than slow their res income while they are in, and give them a cash boost when they leave. A minor distruption at best.

If you want you can also include locks for structures and MACs to prevent mass recycling or people from stealing MACs you are using. The locks would of course release once the commander leaves and perhaps get assigned to other existing commanders. In general if you build something other people shouldn't be able to recycle it, and in the case of MACs shouldn't be able to tell it to go do something. You could also assign a portion of the MAC/drifter limit to each commander, adding say an extra 2-4 builder slots for every comm that joins, allowing each comm to have their own little builder group or something.

It may sound a bit complex but it basically boils down to 'if you have money, you get to keep it for as long as you command, if you build something, other players can't mess with it, and the more you comm, the more resources the game gives you to use in comm mode' which should be simple to understand and appreciated by players.

I don't think you really need that many systems like this, but a degree of partitioning between commanders might help public play, and in organised play multiple commanders should work together as well as multiple players.

Edit: Oh and also commanders can give each other money if they want, useful for organised play.

Comments

  • yourbonesakinyourbonesakin Join Date: 2005-08-06 Member: 57682Members
    edited November 2010
    Big agree. NS2's current model is broken, griefable, and frustrating. Your idea is flexible and solves every griefing possibility.

    For your initial basic concept, I'd describe it as the exact same as right now except the income is split between multiple commanders and they each get their own stockpile. And your carbon stockpile stays yours for two minutes after leaving the command station, then is redirected the other commanders (or just stays if there's no other commander). That's your idea in a nutshell, right?

    Addition: Commanders who get vote ejected instantly have their personal stockpile redirected to other commanders and can have their buildings/researches cancelled. So a griefer's mistakes can be undone. Sound good?

    The building locks and MAC locks sound good. Otherwise a griefer could just recycle everything (Blegh). Good idea.
  • Chris0132Chris0132 Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
    edited November 2010
    Yeah if you get booted out chances are it's because you suck and other people need your stuff. Good idea.

    If you want the simplest explanation it's a team RTS. Shared income, individual pools and units.
  • yourbonesakinyourbonesakin Join Date: 2005-08-06 Member: 57682Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1810357:date=Nov 25 2010, 10:04 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 25 2010, 10:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1810357"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah if you get booted out chances are it's because you suck and other people need your stuff. Good idea.

    If you want the simplest explanation it's a team RTS. Shared income, individual pools and units.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Yeah, say that. Make it clearer.
  • Chris0132Chris0132 Join Date: 2009-07-25 Member: 68262Members
    Added it to the second line then.
  • SewlekSewlek The programmer previously known as Schimmel Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
    yesterday when i played a game, there was already a commander. I thought "ok doesnt matter, i spend some resources to build more tUrretS", then when it was already too late I realised that the other comm was actually saving res for important upgrades which i delayed... its not just a problem about griefers, also new players can ruin strategies by mistake
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