Strategic Resources

aside from a possible full strategic resource change, I released a little mod which ensures there's more Elerium and Anti-Matter, and a bit less Durantium here: https://forums.galciv3.com/467186/page/1/#3576755

Turiel, will your mod work with Both of Vids Ship/Blueprint fix and his wartime mod? I am about to start a new game with all three. 

Your mod is abundant planets...I forgot...Need your resource mod to work with Rare/Rare habitability....  =)

Due to constructor spam for resources I have turned resources off for maps of Large and bigger. Need those governors man, ASAP.

I'd much prefer a stockpile model, tbh. Especially since, in a stockpile model, there's still nothing to stop you having a per-turn cost for things like the Durantium refinery. It'd be more flexible overall.

I also really, really, really want to be able to add my own resources, rather than having each one carved individually in stone in the Enums.

I'd vote for the stockpile model, too.

Actually, I'd even set it so that instead of using the accumulated resources to build the improvements you'd use the resources to feed those improvements. If the mining is at 1 durantium unit per 20 turns then make the durantium refinery consume 0.05 units/turn. That would keep it "1 durantium source per 1 refinery" but now there would be a separation of producing it and consuming it. If you run out the refinery shuts down and gives no bonuses until you have a supply again. Separating the supply from the consuming improvement would also allow you to run it for a while with an accumulated stockpile. This would open up all kinds of strategies and make possible new kinds of improvements and projects, diplomatic options, trade deals etc.

I vote for stockpiling as well.

However, this would require resources as a supply instead of just to build things, as Petri mentioned. Otherwise i could build my Durantium Refinery and then abandon the resource mining starbase because the Refinery has already been built.

I like this idea more though. If you destroy/seize a resource, you basically shut down it's ongoing production enhancement for the AI you nabbed it from.

Plus, combine that with xml-defined resources and imagine the possibilities for modders. Fuel as a resource, limiting the maximum number of engines you can support. Food as a resource, acting as an empire-wide population limiter. Factories which consumer two resources and produce a third, different one. An entire industrial economy, feeding on stockpiles of stuff and then converting it into other, more useful stuff. All this is possible in the engine, provided just the ability to define my own resource types, and the ability to make them into stockpiles...

This is a great idea. Combine it with the ability to make some better stuff later in the tech tree with it, and it could be awesome. But as always... balance will be hard

I agree with what Petri said. Ship components should never be refunded unless the ship is under construction and canceled. Buildings should have a flat cost to construct that can't be refunded unless canceled and then a continuing upkeep. I would also suggest that the resources be doled out/deducted on fixed turns instead of every x turns since the starbase was constructed or at a partial rate of x/turn. Say every 10 turns for example.

This way the player knows exactly when that next hit of goodies is coming and can plan their strategy around that accordingly. Maybe you're a bit short on cash and have a few spare durantium you could sell off. You've been using it to build some ships with prototype durantium drivers but it's turn 47 and you wont be able to spend the rest of your stockpile before you get that next tick and you're dangerously close to going bankrupt. You have a few durantium refineries but your current income rate is more than enough to power them and still provide extras for other use. You sell all of them off knowing that in just a few turns you'll get that next hit of goodies that you can use as needed. Any buildings requiring an upkeep would deduct that upkeep from the incoming tick and if the incoming amount isn't sufficient to cover the cost then your balance goes to 0 and any buildings which couldn't be supplied shut down for the next 10 turn chunk of time. If you get enough resources during that time to once again cover all the costs then the building would reactivate when the next tick occured.

This would offer another layer of strategy to the gameplay. Say your enemy has elerium defense shields on several of their planets making them far too costly to invade. You destroy their elerium mining starbase to shut down their incoming supplies. Their stockpile runs out and you now have a window of time to invade those planets while the buildings are shutdown before they can acquire new stockpiles and power up their buildings again.

There are some technical problems with adding "supply", however:

If supply is short, which consumer-objects get to have the supply and which do not?

What happens if you promise supply to another civ and your supply dries up? (you would have to limit trade to stock-on-hand)

I think having to constantly supply the special buildings is over complicating things. Your not necessarily consuming durantium in those refineries.  They are refineries that need some durantium to build. Perhaps they need durantium to shield some component. It's not a fuel perse

I do think a stockpile model probably makes more sense in Gal Civ 3.

In Civ 5, where the current system got its start (at least as far as a mainstream game that I am aware of)....units are relatively few so it makes sense. In Sorcerer King it is the same. I think this would actually have been a better model for Legendary Heroes for the same reason.

However, Gal Civ 3 has much higher number of units, and I think a stockpile system would make more sense for that style.

I very much like the idea of stockpiles, the same as Legendary Heroes had. It actually quite surprised me when I jumped into my first game and found out they used this particular system instead. The stockpile idea just makes more sense considering the "lore" of the game. If I mine Durantium and make ship armour with it, why would I get it back when the fleet is lost in the far reaches of deep space in hostile territory.

Lets not even mention that currently in GC3... all those resources are apparently infinite and never ever run out.

With a stockpile system you could design it as such that after say 20 units of a resource have been mined, it dries up. The mining station remains... and of course you can destroy it and start over... and you can have new resources spawn occasionally... and you could have maybe a special component or ship to move said starbase....

There really are quite a few interesting possibilities here.