Exotic Resources aren't working great. I find it isn't a big problem to find enough of them, at which point I can ignore it. Rarely I run into a problem where a new technology causes an exotic material shortage; but I can't think of the last time I did anything like going to war over exotic materials.
I propose we get rid of the exotic material stockpile. To be clear, I'm talking about crystals, dark matter, and similar; this may not apply to astral threads and minor artifacts.
Each Exotic Material gets a Exotic Supply Factor. This is a value between 0 and 1 and indicates how well your empire is supplied with that material, compared to needs. 0 means you literally have none; 1 is impossible to reach (but you can get close).
Buildings and Weapons no longer require exotic materials to be built. Instead, each has an Exotic Supply Requirement (of the specific material).
Add up the Exotic Supply Requirements of your ships and buildings and starbases. Then add up how much of the Exotic you produce.
Set Exotic Supply Factor = [ Production / (Requirements + Production) ]^2
If Production = 1/10 requirements, this is 0.008
If Production = 1/4 requirements, this is 0.04
If Production = 1/2 Requirements, this is 0.11
If Production = Requirements, this is 0.25.
If Production = 2x Requirements, this is 0.44
If Production = 4x Requirements, this is 0.64
If Production = 10x Requirements, this is 0.83
If Production = 100x Requirements, this is 0.98
A Beam weapon that (say) uses Crystals would get +Crystal Supply Factor * 30% damage. A research building that uses Gases would get +Gas Supply Factor * 30% researcher productivity boost.
Your "Supply Factor" for each exotic resource is calculated each month, and applies to all of your ships and buildings that month.
Now empires will want to claim more of the exotic resources to boost their economy and ship capabilities. You can even have uneven distributions of the resources; have some areas with 10x the exotic resources to be fought over. You can have some weapons and technologies that have large exotic resource costs, only of use if you are flush.
My goal here is to make exotic resources feel more like oil and other real-world resources people fight over; security a stream of the resource is the key part, not a stockpile.
In the current game, exotic resources are only interesting when consumption and production are close to at par with each other. If consumption far outpaces production, the exotic resource becomes "don't bother using it"; if production outpaces consumption it becomes "don't think about it".
With this system, a large range of production : consumption ratios are interesting. If you have none of the resource, getting any is really useful - but even if you have 10x the amount you are consuming, getting 100x instead could be a significant boost to your economy and military might!
It also moves the strange and gamey "exotic resource ship boosts" into core gameplay. When you get a technology to allow exotic gasses to power your thrusters, it just means you have more demand on exotic gasses from those ships, and same for shields.
I propose we get rid of the exotic material stockpile. To be clear, I'm talking about crystals, dark matter, and similar; this may not apply to astral threads and minor artifacts.
Each Exotic Material gets a Exotic Supply Factor. This is a value between 0 and 1 and indicates how well your empire is supplied with that material, compared to needs. 0 means you literally have none; 1 is impossible to reach (but you can get close).
Buildings and Weapons no longer require exotic materials to be built. Instead, each has an Exotic Supply Requirement (of the specific material).
Add up the Exotic Supply Requirements of your ships and buildings and starbases. Then add up how much of the Exotic you produce.
Set Exotic Supply Factor = [ Production / (Requirements + Production) ]^2
If Production = 1/10 requirements, this is 0.008
If Production = 1/4 requirements, this is 0.04
If Production = 1/2 Requirements, this is 0.11
If Production = Requirements, this is 0.25.
If Production = 2x Requirements, this is 0.44
If Production = 4x Requirements, this is 0.64
If Production = 10x Requirements, this is 0.83
If Production = 100x Requirements, this is 0.98
A Beam weapon that (say) uses Crystals would get +Crystal Supply Factor * 30% damage. A research building that uses Gases would get +Gas Supply Factor * 30% researcher productivity boost.
Your "Supply Factor" for each exotic resource is calculated each month, and applies to all of your ships and buildings that month.
Now empires will want to claim more of the exotic resources to boost their economy and ship capabilities. You can even have uneven distributions of the resources; have some areas with 10x the exotic resources to be fought over. You can have some weapons and technologies that have large exotic resource costs, only of use if you are flush.
My goal here is to make exotic resources feel more like oil and other real-world resources people fight over; security a stream of the resource is the key part, not a stockpile.
In the current game, exotic resources are only interesting when consumption and production are close to at par with each other. If consumption far outpaces production, the exotic resource becomes "don't bother using it"; if production outpaces consumption it becomes "don't think about it".
With this system, a large range of production : consumption ratios are interesting. If you have none of the resource, getting any is really useful - but even if you have 10x the amount you are consuming, getting 100x instead could be a significant boost to your economy and military might!
It also moves the strange and gamey "exotic resource ship boosts" into core gameplay. When you get a technology to allow exotic gasses to power your thrusters, it just means you have more demand on exotic gasses from those ships, and same for shields.
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