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Production Facilities (bug free?)

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X3M
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They have always been the hardest for me to do.

There are several questions poking me for a decade now:
- Should a facility simply be able to produce a certain type?
Attributes, armor tiers or even weapon tiers...

- Should there be a limit on the options?
No more than 3, maybe 5, what about just 1.
Or endless once the types are set...

- What would define the value of such facility?
Looking at what types a facility can produce.
How many types it can produce.
How much it can produce.
How fast it can produce.
What if a facility is more complex?
What if a facility is super simple and limited...?

X3M
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What are the bugs?

Well.

I had a certain moment where it all boiled down to just 1 projectile that would be produced per round.
A Scarab by the Reaver.
Everyone knows that this little booger will be used 1 time. Then it dissappears. The cost per scarab in my proto-type game was around 100. And the Reaver would be able to buy 1 every battle.

Meanwhile.

I had Barracks having a value of 300 each. And they where able to produce 100 worth of infantry every round.

The differences.

In theory I could have the Barracks produce a Scarab as well. Although it would only last 1 round. And would need a pawn or piece instead of the players immagination.

The joke would be, the Reaver in return would be able to produce 1 soldier every round.

The result would be that we all agreed on a "this is it" principle. A design would not be able to produce anything else than indicated. This meant that the Barracks would now have a limit on the attribute types. Mainly Organic Units.
And the Reaver would now have a limit on the name... Scarab.

It felt unfair. And if I am going to have multiple factions in the future. The production of Scarabs would surely be part of the Reaver.

How to weave the rules in such way that the Barracks will not accidentally produce something else. That doesn't fit the species for example. Like "zerglings", just to name an example.

If I go with naming only. Every design will be limited to a list of things.
If I go with expansions. I cannot limit on the number of additions.

It is almost a reversed engineering now.
Where I say at a new design. This thing is produced by...
Still, a naming will take place.
Barracks, Light Factory, Heavy Factory, any Factory, any production facility. etc.
In case of a Scarab, it would only be produced now by the Reaver.

Maybe it has to be reverse engineered. Since in MtG this happens as well.
You need a mountain for something.
A snow covered mountain for something else.
The same goes with tech...
O no, the tech...

X3M
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Tech stuff is technically hard

It was simple when editing Starcraft maps etc.
A Barracks could build till value 100.
Add an Academy, and the Barracks could also build a value of 200.
The Academy would be a one time addition to all Barracks though. So it was 3 times as expensive.

I used 300 for a Barracks. And then 900 for the Academy.

But if I want to use something similar. We need to fix the "being produced by" text?
But how would we do that. When we don't know the variants of the Barracks. What if we don't know how much the additional value will be that a Barracks could produce from that point onwards?

Well, I had a semi solution back then.
It was called, multiple Barracks.
Instead of tech.

A Barracks could simply produce up to a value of 100.
If you wanted a grenadier being worth 150. You needed 2 Barracks in that spot.
If you wanted a rocket soldier being worth 300. Then you could use 3 Barracks. And with 3 Barracks, you could suddenly get 2 grenadiers or 3 riflemen.

In order to build something big. You would be needing a lot of facilities around a rally point.
"Weapon range" of the production facilities would help as well. Since you could spread out your facilities. And still have a shared location for deployment.

This way, I killed the usage of tech....
Then I re-invented tech...

A tech would be an additional production facility. But it would be a tech addition. Thus it could not produce. And the addition part would be cheaper than an equal production part.
This way, the Barracks of 300 and an Academy of 900.
Would result in the Academy not producing 300.
But adding 600 instead.
The Barracks would go from 100 to 700 production value.
The fun part was, you would need an Academy in "weapon range" to the Barracks. And you could have only 1 per Barracks as support.

With the Academy costing 900. A player would only have 4.
The Barracks costing 300. A player would have 12.
The production would be 1200. And the 4 Academies would add another 2400.

The total slots of structures would be reduced by 1 though, for the Academy.

While this all was properly fixed. It never took away that a Barracks could technically produce a Scarab. In fact, the Academy just 7 folded this.

X3M
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If you read all of that...

Thank you.

But as you can see. It is a big problem that I had for years.
We kinda like to see the game as a program.
And if a bug appears. We abuse the bug until we see a way to fix it.

The "Scarabs being produced by Barracks" bug, is one of many rule breaking aspects.
And the "this is it" rule never has been a true help.

We are still stuck on this one. And I would like to see a better fix. This in order to get the proper numbers for my production facilities in my "public" version.

Cheers,

X3M

larienna
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There is 3 tactical video

There is 3 tactical video games that I know that offered factories:

Advance wars: 1 unit per factory per turn. Multiple factories can be available. 2 types: Air and ground "factories".

Conflict/Super Conflict: 1 unit per 1-3 turn. 1 factory of each type: Land air and sea. In original conflict the unit selection changes according to the scenario.

Dai Senryaku: Produce many units per turn around capital and cities and airport near capital only.

Things to consider:

- How much reinforcement do you want? Do you want to have wave and waves of units, or you just want production to compensate partially the loses.

- Does the scenario starts with units on the board, or the board is empty? If the board is empty, you'll have to produce more than 1 unit per turn.

One thing I liked in conflict is that the unit selection changed from a scenario to another which changed the strategy. Dai Senryaku does that by changing country, therefore the selection of units associated to this country.

X3M
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The first games will be PvP

larienna wrote:
There is 3 tactical video games that I know that offered factories:

Advance wars: 1 unit per factory per turn. Multiple factories can be available. 2 types: Air and ground "factories".

Conflict/Super Conflict: 1 unit per 1-3 turn. 1 factory of each type: Land air and sea. In original conflict the unit selection changes according to the scenario.

Dai Senryaku: Produce many units per turn around capital and cities and airport near capital only.

Cool, I will check them out. I love Advance Wars. It is relying on resource income and factory position, rather than production speed.

larienna wrote:

Things to consider:

- How much reinforcement do you want? Do you want to have wave and waves of units, or you just want production to compensate partially the loses.

Production limit will be by resources and the number of factories. The early game will have a faster build up than combat casualities. The mid-game will show the number of units hovering around 50% of the maximum. The end-game will depend on if a player managed to snowball (mostly by being smarter) or better resource managment. No more resources is no more production.

larienna wrote:

- Does the scenario starts with units on the board, or the board is empty? If the board is empty, you'll have to produce more than 1 unit per turn.
Well, I think there will be a small tast force present in certain scenario's. But in PvP I think I go with a task force that will protect the harvesters.

larienna wrote:

One thing I liked in conflict is that the unit selection changed from a scenario to another which changed the strategy. Dai Senryaku does that by changing country, therefore the selection of units associated to this country.

Not sure what you mean here. But if you mean with scenario, like a different mission. Then I plan on something similar like in RTS games. New mission, new unit. Maybe doing a co-op. Where both players can choose which unit they want, from a bigger selection. And thus forcing the AI having the last choice.

larienna
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Each map had 6 land units and

Each map had 6 land units and 6 air units available to purchase. In some missions you could have harriers not available in other mission. You could get the M48 AA missile, or get stuck with only the M247 AA Gun defense. Since each missile had different reinforcements available, either some units on the map could not be rebuilt. Or either you had a slight different strategy from a mission to another since you cannot build anything you want. Some missions had a different flair, like being more air based.

Although, it seems more complicated to balance the game this way. The advantage is that it makes the chose of units less overwhelming. In Dai Senryaku 7, if you play USA, you have easily 30+ ground and 30+ air units.

X3M
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Seeing as how this is a board game

I kinda have to limit a lot.

Still, we did experience the 60 types for 6 players.
But that game took a month or 2 of our time.

I have 3 goals now:
1. In the future, a facility can do more in more time. Meaning, more options, still has a build speed limit.
2. There should be variants possible that are balanced. I have no other option than to play with health and build range. Since the speed should be constant for the first game. The balance is still discussable.
3. The main factor should fit the resource rate for 1 type. I think it will be 3 again. Just like the h/d ratio and thus the casuality speed of units.

With nr.3 in mind, there will be a build up. And as soon as a fight starts, one side would slowly gain the upper hand in the middle. Then a fight at the base takes place, where defences are harder to crack. Not sure how it plays out without support units. But I think I need to design in such a way that the key structures are taken out. Which are the HQ. Then the production facilities go down. If it is the factories, the player can then trap and hunt the last harvesters.

There are only 2 offensive squads yet so many defences... I think this is a bit imbalanced. But we will see. Denying resources is a good way to go too.

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