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I am considering a change to resources and construction costs and whatnot for MC2.

Perhaps instead of making MC2 a resource stockpile game like MC1, the only real "resource" you will actually stockpile in the game will be money. When you want to build a structure or unit or whatnot, all you need to do is make sure you have the correct amount of money.

On the other hand, the traditional resources such as Ore, Gold, Water, Food, etc, will all work in a similar way that Power and Bandwidth do in MC1.

Suppose that a Mine generates +3 ore based on it's location, and a refinery requires -2 ore to output +1 steel. In this situation, the colony is netting +1 ore and +1 steel. So the player needs to balance the resource input with the output for each settlement. Since only 2/3 Ore is being utilized, the remaining 1 ore can just stay in the ground until needed.

It could be tweaked, but this change would eliminate massive resource stockpiles and instead measure a colony on the amount of resources they are actively producing rather than what they have stockpiled (or gifted in the case of MC1).

Trading resources could happen still, but instead of giving another colony a bulk X amount of resources, you establish a trade deal that adds X resource to your capacity and subtracts the same X from theirs, in exchange for money or another resource.

Anyway, let me know what you think of a system like this? It would be a big departure from MC1, but could be made to "feel" the same as well. Would eliminate all of the resource hording related problems.

Or.. instead to send resources like MC1, the gifts will a "building" able to increase the resources.

For some resources this system should have sense, like food, water, ore. For other resources, not really.

if i need to build 2 chairs, i will use 3 woods units. but after the craft.. why i will need 3 wood units / min for to maintain the chairs?

For resources need it for become other resources (ore > steel), should be fine, but resources for build building / structure / casino, not really.


Maybe, instead to have resources like MC1, having resources in storage only, should have more sense. NO TORAGE = NO RESOURCES, In this case, every camp, will have reserved resources, and bots will need to take the resources for build stuff.

Both system can't live under the same roof?

For build (road, house, casino) a system like MC1, but instead to have a generic stockpile, the bots will need to reach a storage units for withdraw (or deposit) resources, like workforce in mc1, because you can't have a warehouse in the south pole, and build a night club in the north pole, and building instead to have a generic consume, will use utility system.

My thought was, for your chair example, 2 chairs costs 3 wood.

So you have a lumber mill that produces +2 wood
You have a chair factory that produces 2 chairs for 3 wood, or 1.5 wood per chair
You have a furniture store that generates $5 per chair

so the lumber mill makes its 2 wood
the factory is only able to make 1 chair
the furniture store creates $5

you build another lumber mill
the chair factory now creates 2 chairs
the same furniture store now creates $10

now suppose there is no furniture store

chair demand = 0
chair factory does nothing because no demand. jobs at this building close until there is demand
lumber mill now has no demand. lumber mill stops operating until there is demand

Ok, in this situation, we have a buildings chain:

A make 1
B consume 1, make 2
C consume 2, make 3

ecc ecc
And the utility system make sense, similar MC1 result, better and more efficient engine.

But, where i will find the resources for build A, B, and C?

Hmm, I am going to fiddle with both systems and see which feels better, my idea might not totally work in practice.

I am thinking of ways to reduce bandwidth from server to clients. Having to keep all resource levels in sync with all clients in real time could be expensive, so I was hoping that by going simply Money for construction and let the server think about the resources, might be a better solution.

Only money for constructions is.. very very very simplistic, almost monodimensional.

But.. a local storage (little storage, just for constructions), instead to a global storage?

Will be like if MC1, in region map, each city with personal storage resources. Not a global poll, where each player need to be synch...

If you wanna to reduce the data, you can make the possibility to build only 1 storage array for base (city in region mc1 map), each storage array will be independent. So.. if i play in cityA, and an other player in cityB, the system won't need to synch all data all the time.

But what about the issue of who gets which resources and who gets to spend what? If 4 players are working on 1 settlement, who gets to spend from the storage? What if player 1 has been saving up for 20 minutes to build a star port and then player 2 comes along and builds some stupid giant statue using those same resources up?

Or does each player have their own storage for each settlement? Or each player have their own global storage? Or some other combination? Instead of 1 storage pool as in MC1, are there going to be hundreds of storage pools? A planet with 100 cities and 40 players, how many different storage systems do we deal with?

This is why I think money makes sense. Each player has their money and that is theirs alone. You can build something in any settlement using your money. Now perhaps you cannot build a building in a specific settlement unless it has a certain resource capacity available already, so you still have to build up the resource production before you can construct.

Few resources (not 50).

uhm, global storage, but 2 storage type? Personal and "global", for every player. The admin can choice the max withdrawal?

Maybe each settlement could have its own pool of resources and the leader could enable an option that means any building that goes over x amount of mats would be voted on and requires a majority of all the members of the settlement, that way not one person could suck all the resources up and then its just one pool per town. Something to help with the stockpile issue could be making buildings need repair more and that repair would cost materials. I feel like if MC2 got rid of almost all mats then it would lose a lot of charm that MC1 has.