Living Breathing WARRING Universe?

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Should wars be "natural"?

Yes, wars should start and stop based on the living game
106
57%
Maybe; get the rest of the game working first
65
35%
No, only scripted wars as the plot demands
14
8%
 
Total votes: 185

Beermachine
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Post by Beermachine » Sat, 23. Sep 17, 00:43

RAVEN.myst wrote: My recall of this one is hazier, but wasn't it along the lines of [Londo in raspiest of loud voices] "in the days of the Republic, thousands of servants [or was it slaves?] would [etc.]"?
That's the one. Like with all jokes, it's Londo's delivery that makes it good.

Edited extra.
RAVEN.myst wrote:Yes, that official stance is discouraging to me, too... If this is the default desired behaviour, it could still make for a good application for a game-start configuration slider or even a simple binary toggle: races "protected" from each other, or not, up to the player.
Yes, a game start option would be the best of both worlds, making everyone happy. Can't see it happening though, as it would mean more coding / testing needed. Could also be some unforeseen complications. Games with truly dynamic simulation gameplay tend to have it as one of their core mechanics, rather than tacked on, to be exceptional.

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Post by Killjaeden » Sat, 23. Sep 17, 01:49

Beermachine wrote:Could also be some unforeseen complications. Games with truly dynamic simulation gameplay tend to have it as one of their core mechanics, rather than tacked on, to be exceptional.
I dont disagree. However - "truly dynamic" is pretty nebulous. It's certainly not wrong to say that a dynamic universe is pretty much one of the pillars of the X series from X2 onwards (not sure about earlier). Exactly how dynamic it is varies with dev ressources and tech, but their goal seems to be "as good as possible while 'safe' for gameplay stability", for X4 certainly. If they want to build ships and stations from ressources and economy, this is the foundation of a detailed dynamic simulation already - more than we ever had. And if the possibilities of all out wars are kept in mind when designing the dynamic universe mechanics, then adding a "war logic statemachine" (the one that makes AI decide to declare war and pool ships into fleets to send to attack, the one that makes peace/ceasefire decisions, ...) at a later point will not require a total overhaul of everything. It's just another layer on top of the already dynamic foundation that brings even more dynamic behaviour and therefore greater potential variety in gameplay.

ES do have to consider such war scenarios one way or another if they want to make the universe as dynamic as they said - because the player can do whatever he wants, and possible missions or random events might lead to war-like situations, where factions have to at least respond properly to bigger fleets of aggressors (by putting up a defense).

In X3 sometimes a Khaak invasion would happen in a sector and unless a NPC capital ship flew there by chance after several hours, the sector would remain forever lost. Zero reaction. I think TC improved this a bit, but response was extreeeemely slow and often inadequate to what was happening. In X4 this would be disastrous, if a single enemy capital could wreck entire swathes of space and it's traffic. It could have extreme impacts on economy around the area and possibly even globally.
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Post by RodentofDoom » Wed, 27. Sep 17, 12:37

economic resilience is needed

in previous versions of the X series, there have been wares/products with a sole racial/faction supplier

if this is matained in x4 and total war is a thing, there is a danger that the entire economic system WILL irreversably collapse

which will make for an very limiting game experience


i know the player can build any station, and produce any ware/product
but if there is no set timescale then the damage can be done before the player has a chance to react or counter it

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Post by Beermachine » Tue, 12. Dec 17, 01:14

Killjaeden wrote:
Beermachine wrote:Could also be some unforeseen complications. Games with truly dynamic simulation gameplay tend to have it as one of their core mechanics, rather than tacked on, to be exceptional.
I dont disagree. However - "truly dynamic" is pretty nebulous. It's certainly not wrong to say that a dynamic universe is pretty much one of the pillars of the X series from X2 onwards (not sure about earlier). Exactly how dynamic it is varies with dev ressources and tech, but their goal seems to be "as good as possible while 'safe' for gameplay stability", for X4 certainly. If they want to build ships and stations from ressources and economy, this is the foundation of a detailed dynamic simulation already - more than we ever had. And if the possibilities of all out wars are kept in mind when designing the dynamic universe mechanics, then adding a "war logic statemachine" (the one that makes AI decide to declare war and pool ships into fleets to send to attack, the one that makes peace/ceasefire decisions, ...) at a later point will not require a total overhaul of everything. It's just another layer on top of the already dynamic foundation that brings even more dynamic behaviour and therefore greater potential variety in gameplay.

ES do have to consider such war scenarios one way or another if they want to make the universe as dynamic as they said - because the player can do whatever he wants, and possible missions or random events might lead to war-like situations, where factions have to at least respond properly to bigger fleets of aggressors (by putting up a defense).

In X3 sometimes a Khaak invasion would happen in a sector and unless a NPC capital ship flew there by chance after several hours, the sector would remain forever lost. Zero reaction. I think TC improved this a bit, but response was extreeeemely slow and often inadequate to what was happening. In X4 this would be disastrous, if a single enemy capital could wreck entire swathes of space and it's traffic. It could have extreme impacts on economy around the area and possibly even globally.
Apologies for the late reply.

I don't disagree, truly dynamic is very nebulous :) In my particular usage, it's specific to this thread, namely dynamism in relation to a warring factional game world simulation (be it military or economic), and subsequently how that simulation evolves naturally due to those interactions.

In that context, while X games have a detailed simulation that is dynamic in the short term on the individual level, at the grand strategy level they are very static, especially when compared to any good strategy game from the last 20 years. In almost every one, starting a game with 7 factions of equal strength on the same map, run it in observer mode and then look at the map at the end game. Every time it will be unique, with different factions destroyed, vastly different sizes of occupied territory, army / fleet numbers and compositions, resource stockpiles, etc. Do the same for X games, and apart from the distribution of economic stations (which is also very predictable, with the same stations being de-spawned), 500 or 5000 hours in it's all pretty much the same. Very little evolution at all, with only temporary or minor changes (in the grand scheme of things), like one or two destroyed sectors out of hundreds mostly unchanged. Faction military fleet strengths are the same, overall numbers of traders, etc. They may fluctuate on the short term, but long-term, not at all. Even the players actions have minimal long-term effects (other than stations), with the all powerful GOD maintaining the games status quo. The economic simulation in relation to the price of goods is the only thing that could be considered dynamic, but again GOD's no resource cost spawning and resource black holes ruins that in the long run. That's what I mean by a static vs dynamic simulation model.

Now, this isn't a problem in games that aren't in the strategy genre, or where it's not a core gameplay mechanic. If (and it's a big if) Egosoft is planning on making the endgame of X4 a more strategic factional warfare based gameplay, then not including the core game design principles of nearly every good strategic factional warfare game ever made, is a strange design decision indeed. One of the core gameplay experiences is to adapt to an ever evolving, unpredictable simulation, reactively and proactively, where the player and the AI factions share the same basic rules / mechanics (with varying degrees of abstraction for factional AI). While X games have done this reasonably well on a small scale, it's completely different when applied to a grand strategy format. Take that dynamic simulation away and replace it with a more static, predictable model while also limiting the AI's ability to conquer and the depth of strategic gameplay is vastly diminished.

I agree that having a resource based system, rather than spawning for free, is the very foundation of a grand strategy games dynamic simulation. Still, it's the very basic bare minimum, and a LOT more needs to layered on top of this to make a good simulation with enjoyable, proactive and reactive strategic gameplay. Basic diplomacy is another bare minimum, but from what I gather (could be wrong) it won't be included at release.

Don't get me wrong, I loved X2 and all the X3's, just not for the dynamism of their universe on the grand strategy level, which I've always considered to be a missed opportunity, making the endgame very flat (for me). Also, it's not the 90's or 2000's anymore, and player expectations, especially in terms of emergent gameplay, mechanics, simulation dynamism, depth, etc have advanced considerably (especially if the storyline, marketing and graphical budget aren't astronomical). If one man independent development studios can release games with in-depth, dynamic game world simulations (there are many recent examples), then professional game studios should be able to do the same.

As a pure speculation, I fear that just like XR where Egosoft didn't understand the complicated design and gameplay requirements to make a "GTA in space", they don't understand the same for a strategy based endgame (grand or RTS). I hope to be proven wrong.

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Post by ezra-r » Tue, 12. Dec 17, 13:53

Beermachine wrote:
RAVEN.myst wrote: My recall of this one is hazier, but wasn't it along the lines of [Londo in raspiest of loud voices] "in the days of the Republic, thousands of servants [or was it slaves?] would [etc.]"?
That's the one. Like with all jokes, it's Londo's delivery that makes it good.

Edited extra.
RAVEN.myst wrote:Yes, that official stance is discouraging to me, too... If this is the default desired behaviour, it could still make for a good application for a game-start configuration slider or even a simple binary toggle: races "protected" from each other, or not, up to the player.
Yes, a game start option would be the best of both worlds, making everyone happy. Can't see it happening though, as it would mean more coding / testing needed. Could also be some unforeseen complications. Games with truly dynamic simulation gameplay tend to have it as one of their core mechanics, rather than tacked on, to be exceptional.
perhaps limited to certain permitted conflict zones?

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Post by Killjaeden » Tue, 12. Dec 17, 15:43

Beermachine wrote:As a pure speculation, I fear that just like XR where Egosoft didn't understand the complicated design and gameplay requirements to make a "GTA in space", they don't understand the same for a strategy based endgame (grand or RTS). I hope to be proven wrong.
I know what you mean to say (i think), but i don't agree that GTA is anything to be aspired for world building or dynamism. Their worlds are super flat and boring if you look past the graphical facade. GTA sandbox is fun because it allows you to wreck havoc and do stupid stunts and stuff. Their scripted missions are interesting. But that's about it.
perhaps limited to certain permitted conflict zones?
"Sir, play by the rules! No shooting until you are on the battleground. "
"Sir Hamill, we have been informed that Sir Solon refuses to come to the battleground"
"What? Sir Solon refuses to fight on the battleground? Harr harr! That means i am the victor"
I dont think this would work well...
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Post by Nanook » Tue, 12. Dec 17, 21:18

Killjaeden wrote:....
perhaps limited to certain permitted conflict zones?
"Sir, play by the rules! No shooting until you are on the battleground. "
"Sir Hamill, we have been informed that Sir Solon refuses to come to the battleground"
"What? Sir Solon refuses to fight on the battleground? Harr harr! That means i am the victor"
I dont think this would work well...
Yeah, it didn't really work that great in AP, either. The 'war sectors' got to be a bit boring and were just too rigid. I'd prefer to see a much more fluid situation where sectors actually change hands and become safe for the player to operate in. I didn't like the whole fixed 'collateral damage' paradigm in AP war sectors.
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Post by Beermachine » Wed, 13. Dec 17, 00:22

Killjaeden wrote:
Beermachine wrote:As a pure speculation, I fear that just like XR where Egosoft didn't understand the complicated design and gameplay requirements to make a "GTA in space", they don't understand the same for a strategy based endgame (grand or RTS). I hope to be proven wrong.
I know what you mean to say (i think), but i don't agree that GTA is anything to be aspired for world building or dynamism. Their worlds are super flat and boring if you look past the graphical facade. GTA sandbox is fun because it allows you to wreck havoc and do stupid stunts and stuff. Their scripted missions are interesting. But that's about it.
perhaps limited to certain permitted conflict zones?
"Sir, play by the rules! No shooting until you are on the battleground. "
"Sir Hamill, we have been informed that Sir Solon refuses to come to the battleground"
"What? Sir Solon refuses to fight on the battleground? Harr harr! That means i am the victor"
I dont think this would work well...
I was just referring to a quote from one of the videos that were released by Egosoft before XR's launch where one of the developers (I think) mentioned that XR was supposed to be a "GTA in space". That quote was one of main reasons why I was very wary of XR given that one of the GTA series main strengths was it's storyline driven gameplay (as well as high budget marketing, production values, gratuitous violence and fun brainless gameplay). Not exactly something that Egosoft has a proven track record of doing well. Not to mention that I'd much prefer previous X games being the inspiration rather than GTA (note - it was most likely a marketing throwaway line, but still.).

I've always considered the sandbox in X games to not be made of sand, but some shape-memory polymer. No matter what you do to it, it springs back into the same shape every time. This characteristic is shared with storyline driven sandboxes (GTA, Witcher, Fallout, etc), primarily to make sure the storyline doesn't break. In X games, given the storyline is almost an afterthought, and is not the reason why they are enjoyed by many, it's a major missed opportunity where a truly dynamic sandbox can in effect become a unique storyline by itself. Personally I find this far more entertaining than a mediocre, cliqued plot.

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Post by CorruptUser » Sat, 17. Feb 18, 02:29

I've been playing another game recently that has a war system that functions similar to how I imagine X4 could work; Mount and Blade Warband. Basically, there are 6 factions, not counting those friggen bandits, and each faction starts with 3-4 towns and maybe 10 castles. The factions will go to war with each other and capture castles and towns, but generally, if a faction gets too powerful the other factions gang up on it, so one faction will not conquer the entire map unless the player intervenes. The factions generally will also go to war to reclaim lost territory, specifically their starting towns and castles, so the map does change a bit but tries to maintain a balance. The player can help assist unscrupulous nobles in starting new wars or stopping them. The player can also start their own faction if they chose to, but that's much easier said than done.

So that's kind of what I'm thinking with X4, but in space with sectors instead of towns. The factions will try to conquer each other, but of course gang up on anyone too powerful, and do their best to recover lost territory so the map won't shift TOO much unless the player gets involved...
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Re: Living Breathing WARRING Universe?

Post by Karvat » Sat, 17. Feb 18, 12:08

CorruptUser wrote:So we've had the announcement that the various races will actively expand into new sectors based on the economy. Obviously there's only so much space in the X-Universe. Will the fight over the resources lead to wars breaking out? And not just pre-scripted wars like in previous games, but wars as the actual result from too much competition over certain markets, the rights to various sectors, that will vary based on different playthroughs?

So what I'm thinking is that any race could theoretically declare war on any of their neighbors, based on a number of factors. Boron will only go to war under the most extreme of conditions, but war can be declared on them. One faction within a race may declare war, while the others stay out or join in. The Split, however, are at war with other Split just as often as with other races. Teladi won't usually declare war... but will gladly push other races into war so it can sell supplies for profitsss. Each faction within each race would have a relationship status, perhaps invisible to players, that varies based on how much trade they do with one another, the relative strength of their navies, historical ties from the lore, the fight over resources, etc. If one faction gets too powerful or expands too much, the others will gang up on them, in order to prevent long playthroughs having entire races go extinct (unless the player is feeling particularly cruel!)

Factions can have "war demands" that the player hears about through rumors or announcements; Argon can go to war against the Split to outlaw slavery, or Teladi can go to war on the Boron to legalize spaceweed for more Profitsss, or the Paranid could go to war against the Argon in order to crack down on Space Fuel smuggling, or any host of reasons. The demands would factor in to the war, and would result in long-term effects when peace is negotiated, such as the production of space mines being banned in certain sectors. Likewise, if the player becomes strong enough, eventually demands of their own can be made on factions.

More importantly, we can have various missions regarding the war, if our reputation is sufficiently high enough, such as Teladi giving the player a mission to assassinate a Paranid dignitary and frame it on the Split, which causes those two factions to declare war. Or if you fail or get caught, rather than a fail mission, the Paranid declare war on the Teladi instead.
This would make the game much more immersive and realistic than a station interior could ever do
Last edited by Karvat on Mon, 19. Feb 18, 14:55, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Greenhorn » Sat, 17. Feb 18, 19:49

I didn't vote ,stuck between the top 2.But, I don't mind wars, stop and go.Besides this type of game begs for,life going on/economy shifts.The world goes around you.albine prelude battles repeats with same stuff, no real losses in time/con·se·quence,.Same war ships reappear when you come back too the same sector..i didnt like it.well maybe need war consequences/economy consequences ,I think having a war will shift the economies around. Thriving sectors will loose their GDP so to speak, when alliances change.So the economy may become more dynamic, driven by conflict,That may drive demand up for more basic goods and products, as things are lost and destroyed.Thats thoughts to considerok bye all,what you think. :) .
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Post by Falcrack » Sun, 18. Feb 18, 01:09

Wars can and should happen, but there should also be some self limiting features to prevent them from making the entire game completely imbalanced.

One way to do this would be a bit of code that makes it so that when a faction reaches a certain size, it simply stops trying to take new territory. It can defend, but it will not try offensive operations in other territory. Or, when a certain faction gets sufficiently small, the other AI factions simply stop picking on them. It would give them some breathing room to try to recuperate. The smaller faction would not, of course, be limited in trying to take back what they had lost.

This way, wars would be fought, but factions would remain. There may be some imbalance, but no faction is irreversibly destroyed. Maybe core sectors would be off limits for expansion, and these core sectors could contain enough of an economy that would allow any faction a fighting chance to rebuild.

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Post by Sandalpocalypse » Sun, 18. Feb 18, 12:57

RodentofDoom wrote:economic resilience is needed

in previous versions of the X series, there have been wares/products with a sole racial/faction supplier

if this is matained in x4 and total war is a thing, there is a danger that the entire economic system WILL irreversably collapse

which will make for an very limiting game experience


i know the player can build any station, and produce any ware/product
but if there is no set timescale then the damage can be done before the player has a chance to react or counter it
economic fragility was a big problem in XR, too. might be why they had to about initial plans for dynamic economy/dynamic spawnsin that.
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Post by Seanchaidh » Tue, 20. Feb 18, 02:02

One way to deal with economic fragility is to look to the planets; presumably a rocket full of raw construction materials could be launched from one of the more established planets like Argon Prime if scarcity of construction materials becomes too great.

Or, and I think this may be a much cooler solution, stations with lots of labor available but no advanced machinery (no specialized production modules) could have available to build some cheap, flexible, but also inefficient workshops that allow laborers to manually create some needed ware with little more than raw materials and sweat (still have to get the ore and the hydrogen or ice or whatever, and perform every step in the refining and production process on the way to the targeted result). So that way you can make reinforced metal plating and fusion reactors (and so on) slowly without the huge up-front cost of rebirth's construction shops and ship tech fabs, and then you can use those to make the factories you need.

If, say, housing could be repurposed fairly straightforwardly to cottage industry producing bespoke wares, and the AI knew when it was a good idea to do that and what to produce when doing so, then economic fragility wouldn't be such a problem. And the cool part is that this is essentially what humans would do in real life if facing a similar problem (and importing wasn't an option). When you lack capital, use labor to make capital. Then use the capital to make more capital.

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Post by Sandalpocalypse » Tue, 20. Feb 18, 10:42

yeah. i experimented with a 'tinker ship' mod concept in XR - it would basically do that, inefficiently creating goods with extreme shortages - but never got it working properly.

ideally, the economy would be tiered, with easily attainable basic tech and then more and more complicated tiers of more advanced technology that required enormous numbers of factories and/or foreign trade. Basic tech makes basic ships available, so even an economy in tatters could produce things; this also lets the player bootstrap their own empire and be getting practical use out of it even early on (other than Credits.) Advanced ships of a race might require your own tech; the MOST advanced ships, ideally, would require multiple races technology; alternatively, their could be advanced variants or advanced components that require other races technology. The idea with that last bit is to encourage foreign trade as it was notably lacking in XR.

Manufacturing racial tech should also be heavily reputation locked; you can trade it at decent rep - or pirate it - but to actually build it you'll have to earn it.
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Post by Killjaeden » Tue, 20. Feb 18, 20:12

Sandalpocalypse wrote: The idea with that last bit is to encourage foreign trade as it was notably lacking in XR.
the encouragement should due to making profit from it, instead of beeing hardlocked and forced to do it in order to achieve "highest tech". It makes no sense either. Why would some race be willing to be dependant on another race for their best equipment? This only works when they are bound forever by some pact or long term relation (like NATO, US and its serfs) - which is not really the case if we ask for "dynamic/ warring factions".
If the player is dependant on races at first that is totally understandable. But for endgame i dont really see the point. It's better to have a dynamic where, say borons are super stocked on paranid high tech jewelry or whatever and therefore pay higher prices than other races. Or Argons who buy high grade teladi sunflowers at premium prices for interior decoration. Or simply because race X has more demand in minerals, while race Y has more demand in food stuffs simply due to the current situation of the economy.
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Post by spankahontis » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 02:54

PowerPC603 wrote:I vote for both as well.

The GOD engine (which decides which station to be built at which location) may construct a new station somewhere as normal, but to remove it again when it's no longer needed, it shouldn't just disappear, it should be destroyed.

The game could be made in a way that a war can start near this station and the primary target is the destruction of that station, along with some other targets which have a lower priority to get attacked/destroyed.

There could be a BBS entry that lists the upcoming war (with a few versions of some story behind that specific war) and could also allow the player to join the fight, or just go there to grab the spoils of the war (loot resources and other stuff coming out of the explosions).

One story could be that this particular station has a manager that also has connections to a big underground drug network which has made a few million casualties and that he must be stopped and that he uses this station to hide his true operation.
Several other stories could be made up to justify a small war against a specific station or small group of stations.

And of course, there could be some scripted wars during the plot and sometimes also some random wars.


Always figured that this was what the Xenon were purposed to do.
Mine for resources, replicate, build more stations, build large fleets and send those fleets into places densely populated with stations.
Replace the God Engine's spawn/despawn with an actual build new station>>Too many Stations>>Send Xenon Fleet to largely populated region to cull.
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Post by Sandalpocalypse » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 21:24

Killjaeden wrote:
Sandalpocalypse wrote: The idea with that last bit is to encourage foreign trade as it was notably lacking in XR.
the encouragement should due to making profit from it, instead of beeing hardlocked and forced to do it in order to achieve "highest tech". It makes no sense either. Why would some race be willing to be dependant on another race for their best equipment? This only works when they are bound forever by some pact or long term relation (like NATO, US and its serfs) - which is not really the case if we ask for "dynamic/ warring factions".
If the player is dependant on races at first that is totally understandable. But for endgame i dont really see the point. It's better to have a dynamic where, say borons are super stocked on paranid high tech jewelry or whatever and therefore pay higher prices than other races. Or Argons who buy high grade teladi sunflowers at premium prices for interior decoration. Or simply because race X has more demand in minerals, while race Y has more demand in food stuffs simply due to the current situation of the economy.
the basic principle of trade is that region A does something better, and region B does something else better, and trade between them leverages those strengths and increases the wealth of both regions. This generally isn't the case in X games though, there is actually little to no reason for different regions to interact, because noone does anything better than anyone else. Additionally, raw resources of every type are readily and widely available.

So the idea i outlined is to encourage inter-region and inter-civilizational trade.

You could, for example, have a heavily armored variant of an Argon vessel that requires Teladianium. You arn't required to be 'dependent' on the races, as of course you could create your own teladianium factory, or pirate the material from a freighter. This would work best in conjunction with reputation requirements for 'restricted' materials.
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Post by Killjaeden » Thu, 22. Feb 18, 00:33

Sandalpocalypse wrote:You could, for example, have a heavily armored variant of an Argon vessel that requires Teladianium. You arn't required to be 'dependent' on the races, as of course you could create your own teladianium factory
No, why would Argon "super ship" require teladianium? If its such an important product, why do argons not have their own teladianium manufacturing. It makes no sense for a race to choose beeing dependant on another race for something crucial like armor for their "super ship variant", in a setting where they could potentially be at war with each other. They would create their own domestic factories for it -> in which case it would no longer be "special" to one race.
the basic principle of trade is that region A does something better, and region B does something else better
You said "better" -> ok why not, i dont see why ("more" would make much more sense). But "exclusively"? no. Exclusivity is arbitrary and bad for stability. The universe needs to work completely and dynamically BEFORE the player is left into it, and also needs keep fully working while the player operates in it. Setting up arbitrary limits, just so the player is forced to "trade" with multiple places is silly.
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Post by spankahontis » Sat, 24. Feb 18, 02:16

Killjaeden wrote: No, why would Argon "super ship" require teladianium? If its such an important product, why do argons not have their own teladianium manufacturing. It makes no sense for a race to choose beeing dependant on another race for something crucial like armor for their "super ship variant", in a setting where they could potentially be at war with each other. They would create their own domestic factories for it -> in which case it would no longer be "special" to one race.

At first the NPC Argon Factions for example shouldn't be able to build Teladianium, but should have the same ability as the Player to scan Factories and steal the blueprints to build one.

There could even be missions to help a Faction steal Blueprints, making the distribution of said product more widespread amongst the Races.
Ragna-Tech.. Forging a Better Tomorrow!

My most annoying Bugs list 6.0 Beta 4 + [All DLC]
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Nvidium Worshop Animation Enlarge Broken :(
Building Modules causes low frame rate :o
Massive Framerate drops freezing game! :doh:
Save Corrupted Fixed the Crash! :-D

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