Exploring Resource Tiers

[Deantwo]

In preparation to discussing technology systems and progression, lets take a look at the current resources in the game and try to put them into tiers. Not necessarily to propose changes, but feedback and ideas are always nice.

In a lot of games we have three basic tiers: early-game, mid-game and late-game. This is mainly interesting to us so we can see where the game might be lacking in things to search for.


Starter - Tier 0
First of all the start of the game has a number resources found on your homeworld as part of early-game, but they are either useless or better alternatives exist in tier 1.

• Logs
  
• Stone
  

Early-game - Tier 1
In the early-game we have the basic resources found on your homeworld and on your local moon. When you have all these resources you are able to manufacture all normal commodities.

• Ore
  
• Oil
  
• Minerals
  
• Crystals
  
• Gems
  
• Coal
  
• Radioactives
  
• Ice
  
• Water
  
• Air
  
• Hydrogen
  
• Eludium
  
• Lumenite
  

All plant and animal resources can go in here too, but you likely don't need all of them and a few of them are definitely tier 0 (such as Plant Fiber).


Mid-game - Tier 2
In the mid-game we have the basic resources from the other orbit zones. With tier 2 resources you can make all the basic spacecraft modules and weapons. Any separation between mid-game and late-game is currently kind of artificial, you are required to get most of the tier 2 resources, but not necessarily all of them before you get tier 3 or higher.

• Cryozine
  
• Ioplasma
  
• Phlogiston
  
• Magmex
  

Late-game - Tier 3
In the late-game you start having to search more for what you need. You will need to find planetoids or planetary rings for antiflux particles. With tier 3 resources you can make almost all spacecraft modules, including warp-drives.

• Vulcanite
  
• Bolite
  
• Myrathane
  
• Antiflux Particles
  

Beyond - Tier 4
Beyond late-game you have to start using harvester ships and colonize harder worlds such as the gas giant core. Tier 4 resources don't all have implemented uses, or at least barely makes a difference in spacecraft construction aside from the adamantine hull. The most interesting here is preons, since they allow use of star gates.

• Preons
  
• Borexino Precipitate
  
• Polytaride
  
• Flomentum
  
• Adamantite
  
• Viathol
  

Thoughts
Tier 0 can be skipped almost completely if you rush for metal production. I am not sure if this is a bad thing though. I considered adding radioactives to tier 0, but it technically has some minimal uses currently.

Tier 2 is required for most spacecraft modules, but it isn't actually required to get tier 3 resources at all. This means that a player can skip some of the tier 2 resources if they don't want the spacecraft modules that require them.

I have voiced my desire to see some tier 3 resources require tools made from some tier 2 resources, and tier 4 requiring tier 3 tools, and so on. That way we would have a need to create some basic supply chains, and make sure that they are maintained.

There is also the question of if we need more tiers, or new resources in some of the tiers. For example I have always wanted some non-gas giant undersea resources, and maybe some plant based resources used in advanced tech.

In most other games, each tier of resources would come with their own version of each tool. For example the pickaxes in Minecraft that you first make out of wood, then stone, metal, and finally diamond. So would we want vulcium hammers and the like? I would prefer more generically named stuff like "magmium refinery tools" and "vulcium mining tools".

What are you guys thoughts on the matter? Ideas? Feedback?

[Neils Iyssada]

In most other games, each tier of resources would come with they own version of each tool. For example the pickaxes in Minecraft that you first make out of wood, then stone, metal, and finally diamond. So would we want vulcium hammers and the like? I would prefer more generically named stuff like "magmium refinery tools" and "vulcium mining tools".

Please no, I already have an headache just thinking about how I'll organize my productions to have enough ressources to make a said number of spacecraft modules each hour.
Adding tool tiers to the production chain is just adding more complexity to the spreadsheets.

[Deantwo]

In most other games, each tier of resources would come with their own version of each tool. For example the pickaxes in Minecraft that you first make out of wood, then stone, metal, and finally diamond. So would we want vulcium hammers and the like? I would prefer more generically named stuff like "magmium refinery tools" and "vulcium mining tools".

Please no, I already have an headache just thinking about how I'll organize my productions to have enough ressources to make a said number of spacecraft modules each hour.
Adding tool tiers to the production chain is just adding more complexity to the spreadsheets.

I would argue that if you aren't able to produce enough, you just need to produce more. Micromanaging your production lines in Hazeron isn't really worth it much.

The fact that we literally have no need for any interstellar supply chains, you simply ship the raw materials to your capital or shipyard solar system, seems a little dull. There is never any need to ship materials and tools to your other solar systems. I guess the new antiflux particle collection process for the refinery and adamantine mining process are the exceptions, since they are the first to require some advanced tools.

But some players think production is too easy, some think it is too complex, and some want to optimize it to pinpoint accuracy. It is hard to make everyone happy.

[andreykl]

Adding tool tiers to the production chain is just adding more complexity to the spreadsheets.

Agree. There are enough tools as is. 

Suggestion to promote exploration and progress instead of tiers:
1. Low quality consumables should have consequences. Like hydrogen does for engines. Ex: air, water and food incur morale penalties. Low quality ammo jam guns. Low quality coal/coal plant causes pollution->decreased morale
2. Low quality tools should have consequences. Ex: Trying to build a house with a 'faulty' hammer can cause a failure and set you back both labor and resource wise.
3. Low quality systems should have consequences. Ex: low quality wormhole drive can fail or even discharge into hull
4. Instead of adding tiers make certain technologies require higher quality. Like: you can't make a particle collector from resources less than Q100 (may be not literally 'can't', but practically, like a Q70 collector won't be usable long term for one reason or another). Add a spaceship nuclear power source (fuel rods plus coolant?) that also requires high quality (same for facilities?) e t c
5. Make quality important for facilities (production speed? service efficiency? Loss of output?) and a way to automatically update facilities with higher quality

[Deantwo]

Adding tool tiers to the production chain is just adding more complexity to the spreadsheets.

Agree. There are enough tools as is.

I wasn't saying to just add more tools for the sake of having more tools. The idea would be more along the lines of changing the current tools to be more generic and giving them each a purpose. Then have more advanced versions of some tools increase production speeds or give access to more advanced processes or resources.

For example, producing vulcium mining tools improving mining speed for all mining jobs and allowing you to mine adamantite. Or something more broad like gravity lifting equipment to speed up production of heavy commodities.

Currently there is no improvements at all to your production of the first cities you make. Your ore mines will just stay the same through the entire game once you have computers. So having some advanced tools you can ship to far away mining colonies in order to improve their production would form the need for supply chains between solar systems.

I would still also love some new optional tool bonus types, such as some advanced tools that could increase the quality of the product output by a little bit. Which links in the production chains should get such bonuses I don't know though, I just think it would be a good idea for a new bonus type.

Suggestion to promote exploration and progress instead of tiers:
1. Low quality consumables should have consequences. Like hydrogen does for engines. Ex: air, water and food incur morale penalties. Low quality ammo jam guns. Low quality coal/coal plant causes pollution->decreased morale
2. Low quality tools should have consequences. Ex: Trying to build a house with a 'faulty' hammer can cause a failure and set you back both labor and resource wise.
3. Low quality systems should have consequences. Ex: low quality wormhole drive can fail or even discharge into hull
4. Instead of adding tiers make certain technologies require higher quality. Like: you can't make a particle collector from resources less than Q100 (may be not literally 'can't', but practically, like a Q70 collector won't be usable long term for one reason or another). Add a spaceship nuclear power source (fuel rods plus coolant?) that also requires high quality (same for facilities?) e t c
5. Make quality important for facilities (production speed? service efficiency? Loss of output?) and a way to automatically update facilities with higher quality

I know Haxus had plans for some of these things. But I guess he never got around to them.

The first issue I can think of is what you do with the poor players that start on a world with Q10 metal. They will already be hard hit by the fetch waste factor.

Besides, finding higher quality resources isn't all that exciting as a gameplay loop.

[andreykl]

Then have more advanced versions of some tools increase production speeds or give access to more advanced processes or resources.

I agree that Adamantine probably should require something advanced to mine it, not just hammers. Also radioactives probably should require EV suits.

The first issue I can think of is what you do with the poor players that start on a world with Q10 metal. They will already be hard hit by the fetch waste factor.

Arguably game shouldn't start you on a planet that has a basic resource that is so low.

Besides, finding higher quality resources isn't all that exciting as a gameplay loop.

True, it is nice to a certain point, but definitely not enough on it's own. But 'tiers' probably won't fix that. There should be a bit more features and resources that are rare around 'habitable' stars, be that plasma, fusion isotopes (as opposed to fissile/fission isotopes) ions, or some other reason to colonize.

Or game just shouldn't start you in a system that has a full spectrum of existing resources...

[Deantwo]

Besides, finding higher quality resources isn't all that exciting as a gameplay loop.

True, it is nice to a certain point, but definitely not enough on it's own. But 'tiers' probably won't fix that. There should be a bit more features and resources that are rare around 'habitable' stars, be that plasma, fusion isotopes (as opposed to fissile/fission isotopes) ions, or some other reason to colonize.

Or game just shouldn't start you in a system that has a full spectrum of existing resources...

As wrote in the opening post, I mainly listed all the resources in this way to visualize it for discussion. But I do believe it reflects the current "technology progression" in the game nicely though.

I didn't suggest anything with "tiers" here, aside from the idea of probably making each tier of resources being required to unlock the next. My main wish right now is mainly for the idea of some form of basically interstellar supply chains.

As for not starting on a world with low quality, but would just limit the suitable spawn locations a lot and make quality of basic resources matter even less. I don't have good answers for how quality would be good or better, but it is the system we seem to be stuck with.

[Ivan]

I honestly don't find this appealing at all, tools are good as they are imo. It would quite frankly annoy me if this were to be implemented.

So we already have higher quality hammers and then we'd have a Q255 Vulcium hammer be better than a Q255 Metal hammer on top of that. (I mean yeah it is like that already for knifes and armor, which makes sense for armor, not sure about knifes, yeah maybe they can be sharper or whatever). I know you didn't mean quality of the hammer would matter for the production processes, but just the material.

It would mean just getting all tools to maximise prodction would not be enough, there'd need to be vulcium hammers too.

Also does it really make sense that a vulcium hammer would speed up a process significantly as compared to a metal hammer? That it'd be more durable, yes. But that would matter mostly to the player, as production would get newly produced hammers all the time anyway if one breaks. For all we know it might already be the case for hammers of different quality, but we wouldn't know. Did any of you ever track how many hammers get consumed per hour? I know I didn't.

But honestly it would just add another layer. This seems like complexity just for the sake of complexity.

Also as far as technology goes, you have to get things in a certain sequence anyway. You can't get rocket engines before metal and you can't get rocket drive modules before you have rocket engines.
You basically already need goods and certain tools to unlock those tiers. It feels organic and right to me. Adding the requirement of the tool being made from another material, dunno. Maybe you'd need a magmium hammer to get vulcium, because the metal one would break. But a magmium tool for harvesting cryozine? Why would that perform better than a metal one? I can't really think of many areas where it would make sense other than durability, which is not really relevant for production due to infinite resources and likely only marginal effects.

If anything I'd just like the return of research requiring one item e.g. 1 radioactives for fuel rods. Just to have research and to give universities a fuction again. Because how does your civilisation know that radioactives can give you power if your researchers never studied it? just don't make it a requirement to do research for every tech level as it was at some point, that was just annoying, iirc if u have e.g. Q143 radioactives you'd only do research for Q143 rods and when you found Q195 Radioactives, you'd have to do the research again to be able to make Q195 rods. That was plain stupid. It is not because we find better quality uranium that we need to relearn how to enrich uranium.


Idk, I'd just prefer this to not be implemented. I'd rather not have to rewrite the new player guide :D

At AndreyKL: Quality having consequences is already a thing: lower Q ammo/lenses causes less damage if I'm not mistaken. Or at least I know lower Q weapons do less damage. Lower Q food gives less nutrition. (for the player dunno about civs, nrver bothered to monitor this, just like hammer consumption).
I wouldn't want it to extent to prodcution facilities. I mean lower resources qualiy already creates lower quality goods. Making it slower too just because the stone to build the structure is lower quality doesn't make sense imo. It are the humans inside the building doing the process. Only thing that 'maybe) could affect is building HP. But there is already a difference in hp based on material. Don't think Q plays role atm. I wouldn't mind, as it does make sense that stronger stone creates stronger buildings, but dunno if it is necessary. Then youd need to ferry Q255 stone to all colonies. Or make all buildings out of Q255 Adamantine

"4. Instead of adding tiers make certain technologies require higher quality. Like: you can't make a particle collector from resources less than Q100 (may be not literally 'can't', but practically, like a Q70 collector won't be usable "

This actually used to be the case. Shields used to require TL4, transporters required TL7, warp drive TL24. I wouldn't mind this coming back, but it felt a bit of an artificial boundary. Right now if it is a bit worse, it performs a bit worse (well for some things) Before if it was a bit worse, it could not be made at all: If your Antiflux was Q183 instead of Q184 (TL24) required for warpdrives, it was useless. Idk if that makes sense. But it could be made that lower Q warpdrive also influence warp factor as opposed to just the capacitor. Or that they use more energy, making it very hard to make a capacitor large enough to achieve warp 1 at lower qualities. It would however just inflate the size of ships required for warp 1 and have you wait a bit longer for it to be built. Not sure about this one.

Just posting my thoughts,. My vote is against new tools. Just in favor of one time research per tech and nothing else. Can be put in some nice visual research tree, or just the 'this tech requires that tech' that we had before. But formalised resource tiers and adding tools? No thanks. Seems like unnecessarily complicating things.

Anyway I'm tired and dunno if any of my writings make sense. Might be contradicting myself.

[Deantwo]

Also does it really make sense that a vulcium hammer would speed up a process significantly as compared to a metal hammer? That it'd be more durable, yes. But that would matter mostly to the player, as production would get newly produced hammers all the time anyway if one breaks. For all we know it might already be the case for hammers of different quality, but we wouldn't know. Did any of you ever track how many hammers get consumed per hour? I know I didn't.

That is why I was suggesting something more generic than just "vulcium hammer". More like "vulcium mining equipment" or something and have it only give bonuses to mining processes. Not just copies of the exact same metal tools. The mention of Minecraft was never to copy it completely and add pointless tools, it was just to give an idea about progression of advanced resources.

As for how the current optional tool bonuses and required tools work:

• Each optional tool increases the output or manufacturing speed by 10% (not including current exponential bonuses bug)
  
• When a building runs a procress that can use or need tools, it will fetch one of each of those tools. The tool is than stored in the building and a quality check is run on it every time it is used. Check being, roll a 256 dice and see if it is lower than the quality of the tool. If the quality check fails, the tool takes one damage to its durability.
  
• If a tool's durability reaches 0, it is destroyed and a new tool is fetched.
  

Aside from the quality check before durability damage, the quality of a tool currently does not matter at all. Higher quality tools (and items in general) have more durability though. And I might argue that tool usage numbers by industry is very low normally, unless you have really low quality tools.

But formalised resource tiers and adding tools? No thanks. Seems like unnecessarily complicating things.

Again, not really sure where people are getting the idea about wanting to formalize tiers. Unless you mean that because of the idea that some resources would require resources from previous tiers in order to harvest them.

The main goals of wanting new advanced tools and tool requirements, is just to create the need for some basic supply chains for some advanced tools or resources, and to actually give some feeling of progression for your cities and production.

Currently you never have to make shipments of any kind out to your faraway mining colonies. A solar system can easily be completely self-sufficient and can mine the hardest/rarest resources with no special preparations or setup. Meanwhile the production efficiency of your empire's captain or shipyards never change once you have computers, it doesn't matter if you have better tools or super advanced heatsinks, your mining rate is always going to be the same and manufacturing computers never get faster.

You are open to propose other ideas. Or maybe I am the only one to think some of these things are an issue that could be improved with some basic changes.

If anything I'd just like the return of research requiring one item e.g. 1 radioactives for fuel rods. Just to have research and to give universities a fuction again. Because how does your civilisation know that radioactives can give you power if your researchers never studied it?

Just posting my thoughts,. My vote is against new tools. Just in favor of one time research per tech and nothing else. Can be put in some nice visual research tree, or just the 'this tech requires that tech' that we had before.

Yeah, I do miss the research sample part of patents, it was a nice little requirement.
But that is more on topic for: (Idea thread) Basic Technology Research System for Hazeron Starship

[Deantwo]

Lower Q food gives less nutrition. (for the player dunno about civs, nrver bothered to monitor this, just like hammer consumption).

The cities total nutrition value is calculated and food is consumed depending on how much nutrition the food gives. So the quality of the food does factor in.

could affect is building HP. But there is already a difference in hp based on material. Don't think Q plays role atm. I wouldn't mind, as it does make sense that stronger stone creates stronger buildings, but dunno if it is necessary. Then youd need to ferry Q255 stone to all colonies. Or make all buildings out of Q255 Adamantine

This is already a thing. Buildings made from better materials have more armor I believe, and I think the quality of the materials used affect the building's health. But the health of a building almost never matters, so this is usually ignored.
I can't remember the exact specifics, since as I said it didn't affect much. And I believe Haxus rolled some if it back after, since having armor affected by quality was too much of a negative, or something like that.