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Another concept I have been considering for MC2, and would like community feedback for, is the idea of scaling back the need for a bunch of rovers for tasks like harvesting and construction.

In a strategy or competitive game, it does make sense for building construction to take a certain amount of time, which can be improved by building better rovers, etc. Also in a Pay to Play game, it makes sense because people can spend money to speed up construction times. But I am wondering how much the rovers actually add to My Colony?

What if for MC2, as long as you have the necessary resources, you can just build a structure instantly? Is there really a point to waiting on construction/upgrade/build times, and does it add something to the game?

Likewise, does mining have to be done by bots? I was thinking of a concept where, instead of Ore and Gold just laying around on the surface, each ground tile would have a certain amount under ground of each resource. You would then build a mine at a location, and depending on what the mine is capable of and what resources are under ground at that location, it would generate resources accordingly. As your tech advanced, you would be capable of discovering what resources are in what area.

Anyway, these are just thoughts I had. I was thinking MC2 could have different terrain features using things like different ground elevations and different types of biomes on each planet, instead of just using clumps of ore scattered around as the terrain feature. And different areas of the planet could have different concentrations of resources under the ground. And depending on where you build a mine, you would generate different ores at different rates. You could also upgrade your mining sites as your tech improves.

I am just thinking of ways to change construction, resource mining, and generation. The pathfinder is one of the most memory expensive operations in the game, and it might actually be possible to largely eliminate it, while at the same time improving the overall mechanic of the gameplay.

It's also possible to still have construction take up time, without actually having a rover sitting next to it.

Or it's just as possible to keep things largely as they are in MC1.

Hello Bast.

The announcement of MC2 development gets me so excited! I am very sure this will become a good succeeder of the MC Classic.

As you suggested, terrain elevations. 3D terrains might be a good feature to have in MC2 as we now have a 3D engine for it.
I'm very sure this will give some good challenges for construction planning, aside the better-looking maps.
Yet... We might not able to utilize all spaces effectively as before. Will we have something like support structures to conduct large constructions that will extend beyond the cliffs?
And, will we have sloped roads if the road is build across elevation differences?
Additionally, will some construction abilities unlocked by tech directly to remove limits (If construction by rovers are no more)? Such as oceanic constructions, cliff scaffoldings and more.

I had thought about that too @GeneralWadaling and here were my ideas. I think sloped roads are going to absolutely be necessary, but to me sloped buildings to not make any sense. In that case, I think the simple solution is to allow for a "backfill" construction option where you can just level out the terrain with crushed regolith or something, before building a structure.

New buildings would be unlocked by both tech and resources, just the same as in classic MC, minus the rover requirement.

In terms of rovers/instant, I prefer rovers. I think it may be because i played C&C generals growing up and that used dozers/workers for construction over the place it mechanism used in the tiberium and red alert games. It's just personal preference but there's more logic to it than things materialising out of thin air.

I'd prefer if you kept rovers, as they add a lot of flavor to My Colony, but make them more or less aesthetic. As in, you still build rovers, and the more you build, the faster building goes, but you don't have to actually wait for them to get anywhere. Waiting for your rovers to get over from the other side of the colony is pretty annoying, even on my medium maps with aluminum roads. It would make a nice gameplay improvement to not need them to show up, and possibly even a performance improvement if you just teleport them to the build site instead of doing pathfinding.
Also, fixing how rovers actually build would be a nice improvement, since currently, they seem to consume all materials at the same rate, so a building which requires 1000 of 10 resources finishes 10x quicker than a building which requires 10000 of one, even though they have the same total resource count. I'm very obvious in how the construction bar slows as it progresses instead of moving at the same rate.

For the time being, I will plan on just keeping rovers as they are instead of fiddling with it.

I would prefer having rovers at least for building purposes, it gives a sense of accomplishment which instant construction doesn't offer. The harvesters on the other hand could be replaced with a harvest rate, similar to that for production on regions

I would prefer having rovers at least for building purposes, it gives a sense of accomplishment which instant construction doesn't offer. The harvesters on the other hand could be replaced with a harvest rate, similar to that for production on regions

Combining the resource transfer idea from @KlingonDragon, and @bastecklein's thoughts on KlingonDragon's idea, we can still keep the rover construction, BUT the construction will be different:

Same as before, construction sites are established first.
Construction rovers will first head to storage for loading the materials required. (Note that they will only head for storages that has access of the needed resource.)
And then the resources are carried to the construction site, unload resources, filling the progress bar.
The process to deliver resources for construction is repeated until all constructions are done (filling 100% of progress bar).

If this mode is adopted, the builder rovers should have a higher resource capacity.

Perhaps instead of 20 or so different types of rovers, MC2 has one rover that you can just apply several upgrades to. The job of the rover is purely transportation, bringing raw materials from one place to another. In this way, it functions as both a construction bot and a resource gathering bot. When you build, it brings the materials from storage to the build site. When a mine produces, it leaves its materials on the ground and the rover must collect it and bring to storage. The rover could also bring the materials straight from a mine to a construction site, if you did not have the materials in storage, or did not have storage nearby. Alternately, if you are in a multiplayer game, there can be a shared storage area the rovers can collect from.