Resources- proper balance?

trevalyan

<div class="IPBDescription">Yes, game mechanics are my obsession....</div>How easy is it for Marines to destroy Alien resource collectors? They are single structures, and probably inside the base. Will simple siege tactics burn alien forces clear to the ground??

More to the point, how easy will it be for Aliens to go harvy- huntin'?? (destroying Marine harvesters) In Renegade, the difficulty in destroying a refinery compared to destroying a Harvester was considerable. In a game with such different play styles, I wonder how easily "siege" marines will keep alien forces off their target.

Slycaster

Resource Towers are stationary buildings that have a pretty high amount of hitpoints, but are killable.  If an alien or marine stumbles upon a resource tower, unprotected, it's possible for them to kill it, but it will take time.  Usually guarding resource nodes is a huge thing in games, as they are what you NEED to survive, but it's possible to kill them pretty quickly undefended.  However, there is enough time in there for an alien or marine to swing by and bite you a new one.  <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->

The key is to make sure you don't loose them, guard them!

Fam

<!--me&Fam--><span id='ME'><center>Fam kicks Grendel yet again.</center></span><!--e-me-->

Bleh, I am no good at all these balance talks, explaining why things work. All I can say is that they will be as balanced as we the playtesters and the dev team can humanly make them.

Siege tactics work, but not always as well as a decent assault. Also, there are no 'collectors and refineries', but rather structures built over the nodes, in much the same way the Geothermal Powerplants worked in TA.

Lord_Frodo

Excellent. One thing that's always bugged me about strategy games (aside from TA of course, where it somehow never seemed to be a problem) is the amazing ease with which resource collectors could be shattered and supply lines smashed. Harvesters in C&C are ridiculously easy to blow up with the right tactics, and in any blizzard strategy game all you have to do is massacre a few extremely weak units. Sounds like resource collectors are a bit harder to blast in NS, and are defendable as well.

HBNayr

Here's a question: How expensive are collectors to build?  I mean, what if your team is down, and out of resources, and you just NEED to build that one resources collector on that spot?  If you're out of resources, are yu out of luck?  Or do the resources slowly build even without any collectors, and the collector itself is cheap?  What about the beginning of the game?  Do you start with a set amount of resources?

As always, causing more questions than answers.

-Ryan!


"Everybody out here's got a gun, but most of 'em couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if they was inside it."
-- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

Slycaster

you SLOWLY get resources when you have none or they are depleted, but it's pretty slow.

Diogenes_Dog

Do the collectors decrease in efficiency when damaged?

Cause generally strategy games are more fun when resource harassing is encouraged (without necessitating a complete wipe-out of their collection thingy).  Particularly if there are relatively few resource locations.

Altho I suppose this could change in weird unforeseen ways in an fps. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->


-dio

Moleculor

No, they don't decrease with damage.

Just to let ya'll know, the focus of this present PT build, besides the typical "Find any bug and squash it" thing is a focus on the RP system, and making it balanced.

Khaim

<!--QuoteBegin--Fam+Sep. 26 2002,16:30--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Fam @ Sep. 26 2002,16:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--me&Khaim--><span id='ME'><center>Fam kicks Grendel yet again.</center></span><!--e-me-->

...in much the same way the Geothermal Powerplants worked in TA...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
W00T TA as in the game 'Total Anihilation?' The RTS? That game kicks ars!!

MooMoo_the_SnowCow

<!--QuoteBegin--trevalyan+Sep. 26 2002,13:10--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (trevalyan @ Sep. 26 2002,13:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->More to the point, how easy will it be for Aliens to go harvy- huntin'?? (destroying Marine harvesters) In Renegade, the difficulty in destroying a refinery compared to destroying a Harvester was considerable. In a game with such different play styles<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well that really won't be a problem because the marines dont use harvesters.

Moleculor

Hehehe... Yup. Oh so totally true.

(Just in case anyone just got confused, in C&C, you have a refinery, and a vehicle called a harvester that transports resources back to your refinery for processing. In NS, you have a building that does all of that work in a stationary location, no vehicle involved.)