Hi,
I have played NS2 for more than 350 hours and I have also spent countless hours on NS1.
I love this game but in my opinion the current resource system is not optimal because it heavily relies on map control.
Your team's res flow is indeed directly proportional to map control. Hence, the very first minutes of the game are of paramount importance and one can usually tell in less than 5 minutes which team is going to win just by looking at the map. To me it's a pity that the only possible strategy in this game is to dominate as much territory as possible. Don't read me wrong, I find it normal that map dominance gives your team the upper hand. However I find this excessive in NS2. Losing early engagements is unforgiving and comebacks are very rare because of this.
I have played a couple of RTS games in my life and in all of them you just need a main base to have an acceptable res flow:
-In Starcraft, you have enough res in your base to give your opponent a good fight even if your are dominated.
-In Age of Empires, there is enough room and resources in your base to get a good res flow (food, wood, gold, etc)
-In Company of Heroes, the 'manpower' resource flow is constant and doesn't depend on map control at all.
Of course, in the above-mentioned games, having map control yields bonus resources but it's less important than in NS2. Resource flow is never directly proportional to your map control.
Here I suggest an alternative resource flow model that is inspired by other RTS games and reduces the dependance on map control. I believe that this new system is very easy to implement.
Here is how it works:
Aliens and marines have a basic res flow equivalent to 3.2 extractors/harvesters of the current system. This res flow is guaranteed even if your team loses all its extractors/harvesters. However, building an extractor/harvesters increases your team's income by 12%.
The formula of the proposed system is as follows:
ResFlow = (3.2*RTResFlow) * 1.12^n
with 'n' the number of extractors/harvesters and 'RTResFlow' the resource flow provided by one resource tower in the current system.
(Current system is: ResFlow = RTResFlow * n )
I crunched the numbers and here is a chart comparing the current model and the proposed model.
![tdat.png]()
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6300/5ina.png
To compensate the early game relative increase in res flow, one has just to reduce the starting res (t.res down from 65 to something like 35-40 and p.res down from 20 to about 15).
As the resource towers are less important in the proposed model, I also suggest to reduce their cost from 10 to somewhere between 5 and 8 and to reduce their health/armor and building time accordingly.
As you can notice on the chart, the res flow of the proposed model is almost identical to the current system if your team has 6 or more extractors/harvesters. However it is higher if your team has 5 or less.
Now imagine a couple of scenarios:
Scenario1 : both teams control half the map. 5RT/5RT scenario.
In this scenario both teams quickly take control of 5RT each (this usually happens in less than 4 of 5 minutes in most of the games I have played). The reduced starting res perfectly compensate for the increased res flow in the very first minutes. Their res flow is now equivalent to 5.5RT of the current system. This is indeed slightly more than in the current system, yet it doesn't screw up the global res flow and there is no need to adjust the cost of all the upgrades and stuff.
Scenario 2: one team gets dominated. 8RT/2RT scenario.
Now imagine that after 5 of 10 minutes, one team gets dominated and is reduced to 2RTs (main base RT + adjacent RT or main base RT + secondary base RT). In this scenario and with the current system there is a 4 to 1 difference between the res flow of the two teams. This means that the dominating team gets 4 times more res than the dominated one. Needless to say that the dominated team has little chance to come back. This situation often leads to rage quits and/or surrenders. This is frustrating.
Yet, with the proposed system, there would be only a 2 to 1 difference in res flow. The dominating team would still get the equivalent of 8 current RTs. However, the dominated team would get the equivalent of 4 RTs of the current system. They would still have a chance to come back but if the dominating team is really better they would eventually win the game.
In conclusion, I really believe that this new resource model would change the game for the better by reducing the dependance on map control. Even though I have no experience in modding, I also believe that this is easy to implement and test.
PS: Sorry for the English but it is not my native language.
PPS: My first post!![:-)]( ":-)")
I have played NS2 for more than 350 hours and I have also spent countless hours on NS1.
I love this game but in my opinion the current resource system is not optimal because it heavily relies on map control.
Your team's res flow is indeed directly proportional to map control. Hence, the very first minutes of the game are of paramount importance and one can usually tell in less than 5 minutes which team is going to win just by looking at the map. To me it's a pity that the only possible strategy in this game is to dominate as much territory as possible. Don't read me wrong, I find it normal that map dominance gives your team the upper hand. However I find this excessive in NS2. Losing early engagements is unforgiving and comebacks are very rare because of this.
I have played a couple of RTS games in my life and in all of them you just need a main base to have an acceptable res flow:
-In Starcraft, you have enough res in your base to give your opponent a good fight even if your are dominated.
-In Age of Empires, there is enough room and resources in your base to get a good res flow (food, wood, gold, etc)
-In Company of Heroes, the 'manpower' resource flow is constant and doesn't depend on map control at all.
Of course, in the above-mentioned games, having map control yields bonus resources but it's less important than in NS2. Resource flow is never directly proportional to your map control.
Here I suggest an alternative resource flow model that is inspired by other RTS games and reduces the dependance on map control. I believe that this new system is very easy to implement.
Here is how it works:
Aliens and marines have a basic res flow equivalent to 3.2 extractors/harvesters of the current system. This res flow is guaranteed even if your team loses all its extractors/harvesters. However, building an extractor/harvesters increases your team's income by 12%.
The formula of the proposed system is as follows:
ResFlow = (3.2*RTResFlow) * 1.12^n
with 'n' the number of extractors/harvesters and 'RTResFlow' the resource flow provided by one resource tower in the current system.
(Current system is: ResFlow = RTResFlow * n )
I crunched the numbers and here is a chart comparing the current model and the proposed model.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6300/5ina.png
To compensate the early game relative increase in res flow, one has just to reduce the starting res (t.res down from 65 to something like 35-40 and p.res down from 20 to about 15).
As the resource towers are less important in the proposed model, I also suggest to reduce their cost from 10 to somewhere between 5 and 8 and to reduce their health/armor and building time accordingly.
As you can notice on the chart, the res flow of the proposed model is almost identical to the current system if your team has 6 or more extractors/harvesters. However it is higher if your team has 5 or less.
Now imagine a couple of scenarios:
Scenario1 : both teams control half the map. 5RT/5RT scenario.
In this scenario both teams quickly take control of 5RT each (this usually happens in less than 4 of 5 minutes in most of the games I have played). The reduced starting res perfectly compensate for the increased res flow in the very first minutes. Their res flow is now equivalent to 5.5RT of the current system. This is indeed slightly more than in the current system, yet it doesn't screw up the global res flow and there is no need to adjust the cost of all the upgrades and stuff.
Scenario 2: one team gets dominated. 8RT/2RT scenario.
Now imagine that after 5 of 10 minutes, one team gets dominated and is reduced to 2RTs (main base RT + adjacent RT or main base RT + secondary base RT). In this scenario and with the current system there is a 4 to 1 difference between the res flow of the two teams. This means that the dominating team gets 4 times more res than the dominated one. Needless to say that the dominated team has little chance to come back. This situation often leads to rage quits and/or surrenders. This is frustrating.
Yet, with the proposed system, there would be only a 2 to 1 difference in res flow. The dominating team would still get the equivalent of 8 current RTs. However, the dominated team would get the equivalent of 4 RTs of the current system. They would still have a chance to come back but if the dominating team is really better they would eventually win the game.
In conclusion, I really believe that this new resource model would change the game for the better by reducing the dependance on map control. Even though I have no experience in modding, I also believe that this is easy to implement and test.
PS: Sorry for the English but it is not my native language.
PPS: My first post!
