Making resources worth fighting for..

[Asp]

Resources (why we play?) Or at least one reason why.

Just some musing here.

In EVE Online there are resources, lots of them, and there are areas that contain those resources that you can personally control (as an alliance or corporation). Those resources can be used to build things for use or sale, as well as be sold outright. Huge organized wars are fought over those territories (systems) and the resources in them.
Clearly there is no "money" in PS2, so the idea that resources are for in game financial gain is non-existent.
So they're used to "build" things. As has been mentioned before we'll likely be building weapons and even vehicles out of the resources we collect. If that's the case, depending on how the mechanic works one empire having more resources than the others means they can "out manufacture" the other empire. Or, for example, you'll run out of prowlers before they run out of vanguards as long as the NC stay at the top of that resource collecting heap.
That said, PS1 had no real limits to the amounts of things you could create, and bases still got overrun in large assaults, despite what amounts to having unlimited resources, close by, on the part of the defenders.

So what benefit are they? Why do I make THAT the goal of going to fight [insert empire here]? They really only seem to make sense as an element we MUST fight over if not only do we truly benefit from conquering the majority of it, but it also hurts the other factions significantly if we do (not in some token way). Which leads us to threads like this:

Rich get Richer

Should one empire that ends up with a significant advantage in territory be able to "starve" the other empire(s) for resource(s), or a particular one they own the most of? You could have the NC intentionally holding majority resources required to build heavy tanks, which puts the onus on the other two empires to break that monopoly if they want to field lots of prowlers and mags.. Though, that's the kind of thing that would spark those specific missions commanders would develop, to help break those kinds of resource blockades.

Foothold bases make that kind of resource dominance less likely, and complete continent control should stay on the table, IMO.. Combine that with the idea of empire airships from the idealab forum; (maybe even make it so each empire has one or more giant seaborn carriers. They never interact with other empire carriers, and where they are on the planets surface indicates where is easiest for the players to assault/drop at that time, etc), and you've got a way you can be "locked" off a continent, but still be able to launch an assault to take it back.

In essence, it's great that the devs have borrowed the ideas of offline training and resources from other games.. In EVE (for example) resources tie together directly to the economy, as well as personal power (i.e. ships = weapons/vehciles in your pvp fight), and the economy also ties into your training. Basically there's a LOT you can do with the resources in that game, and a lot of reason for larger alliances to obtain as much of them as they can. The devs have adopted the idea of resources for PS2, but they have to make it their own. So how do resources become important to a first person shooter?

• "Resource starving" of other empires to gain advantage
• Allow empires to completely control a continent if they can overwhelm it
• Mission criteria based around resources. If an empire is low (or slowly collecting) a particular resource, bonus xp for missions designed to obtain it for that empire.
• Allow certain control nodes to be designated "supply line" (moving that designation after a specified period of time, so they don't become static targets), which allows the other empires to develop missions designed to interrupt some enemy resource collection (possiblly even transferring resource to the successful empire) as a way to combat the "rich get richer" concept; as well as fighting your way back from resource deficit.
• Use "Outfit resources" collected to pay for vehicles, "personal resources" to pay for skills/certs/equipment/arms.

Not the best ideas maybe, but the more important you make resources the more likely you are to need/want to fight for them.

The resource idea could be great, or it could become a rolling sideshow in a giant BF3 match.. There's a ways to go for the devs to pick up as many great ideas as they can, see what works and what doesn't. No matter how oddball or out there, what kinds of ways could the devs make PS2 resources necessary and worth attacking?




TL;DR - How can we make resources something worth fighting over in PS2?

[Hyncharas]

Not to play a broken record, but the Maglev concept could be very useful in territories when dealing with resource management.

If such vehicles couldn't be captured it might get interesting in other ways. Now most MMOs rely on the idea of you exploring a vast area that no outfit in the world could defend 24/7, thus giving you access to mine for resources. In Age of Empires III it was much more simplified. Instead of owning a territory of resources, you and other players fought for Waystations - places you could take control of by building a trading post (like towers) - thus those small locations were the most contested for strategic reasons. Then, periodically, a form of neutral transport dropped off resources along its fixed trading route, before moving onto another Waystation that might be held by the enemy. Through this players could designate whether they wanted one of three possible resource types, or XP to help upgrade their skills/abilities. With resources collected through other harvesting methods, you could also upgrade these transfer points to receive more of what was needed to build more manpower.

However, just because you couldn't capture these "trains", doesn't mean you couldn't board them to ferry troops or armoured vehicles to enemy territory to wreak havoc, or to help you overwhelm another Waystation to increase resource collection. You might even be able to halt the train at a Waystation your empire controls, but at the cost of losing resource drops of your own along that supply route, which would make it both risky and rewarding.

To be honest I believe we should have both; unmanned trains on land for capturable waystations, and the capturable "oil rigs" that are bases in themselves to stage attacks... I just wished I was getting paid in a full-time job for these ideas

[Hamma]

I think this will get a bit more traction out here rather than in the idea vault. Fire away

[moosepoop]

that can be implemented by outfit bases/ mothership which gives a constant bonus.

[Stardouser]

Here's what I want to know. Just how badly can you deny an empire resources? Never mind that the hex system will make it hard to do, if you focused only on those hexes that, say, give the enemy the ability to pull advanced aircraft, and you knock them down to only a few, how badly will that actually hurt their abilities?

[atomos]

That's exactly what I wanted to see, npc ANTs/lorries/trains which distribute NTU/resources because then you can have missions to attack and defend the trains. It has been mentioned that three of the resources will be empire specific for example the blue resource will give NC air, VS tanks and TR weaponry. If VS captures a base with the blue resource VS will gain tanks but won't be denying the other factions tanks.