Question about resource converters

justjake73 · #1 July 25th, 2001, 01:18 AM

Is there any purpose to having more than 1 resource converter? I can understand you might lose a planet to an invasion, but otherwise? Does an RC have a conVersion limit per turn?

Suicide Junkie · #2 July 25th, 2001, 04:07 AM

You can convert as many resources as you want each turn.
You can also go and make multiple orders for resource conVersions each turn.
All of the conVersions happen instantly, and the limit is your current resource storage.

Emergency backups is a good reason.
Lazy players may also build one in each system so they don't have to go looking around the galaxy for one when they need to convert resources

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tesco samoa · #3 July 25th, 2001, 02:07 PM

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This kinda' goes against my way of thinking. Shouldn't these have a limit? Even in futuristic terms, should a RC that takes up the same space as a Miner Fac be able to convert 500,000 'points' of organic and radioactive matter to minerals in the same time that the same Miner Fac produces 1000??? Seems a little skewed to me.....
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U could always change the values of the coVersions to say 10%, 30%, 50% and increase the cost of the converter by 2x. Or just increase the cost of the converter by adding a 0 on the end of the cost so it would be 60000 of each resource. That would def. make the convertor an expensive toy to build.

Puke · #4 July 25th, 2001, 02:08 PM

yes, and this discussion has been had. the general consensus was that yes they are silly, and even if they could convert resources at will, they are pretty darn special if they can convey all resources instantly from any part of your empire to one central point in a much shorter space of time than it would take your fastest warship to travel. and then convey them back to storage areas.

so, you can conclude that either A) the resource converter has some sort of whacked out homeworld-style matter transmission thingy built in that can instantly zap raw materials about the galaxy. or B) that SE4 is silly and has absoluetly no representation for supply chains or logistics.

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LazarusLong42 · #5 July 26th, 2001, 12:34 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
so, you can conclude that either A) the resource converter has some sort of whacked out homeworld-style matter transmission thingy built in that can instantly zap raw materials about the galaxy. or B) that SE4 is silly and has absoluetly no representation for supply chains or logistics.

I'll take 'B.' I've always thought it'd be nice to have supply chains, but then, I've never seen them in any 4X game. Either supplies are available everywhere immediately, or supplies are available only where they're created and you can't move them. <sigh>

LL

#6 July 26th, 2001, 01:21 AM

Supply chains! Logistics! Believe me, you do NOT want that micro-management nightmare! Years ago I played IIRC Sid Meiers Colonization, which was to colonize the Americas from Europe. It had several different resource raw goods types, several different finished goods types, population was specialized to work in different facilities, there were lots of facilities, and to move it all there were several standard ship designs. I gave up my first game after I declared the Revolution in 1776 for Historical reasons. Reaching that point took 4 months (over 1500 hours gameplay). I had the maximum of IIRC 40 cities, about 90 ships, about 30 working population and 20 military per city, and a turn took between 10-15 hours to setup. I gave up because the miserly King of England only sent a few of his military per turn to attack and I calculated that it would take him another two months of play time to end the war. But I scored a moral victory IMHO.

rdouglass · #7 July 26th, 2001, 01:55 AM

This kinda' goes against my way of thinking. Shouldn't these have a limit? Even in futuristic terms, should a RC that takes up the same space as a Miner Fac be able to convert 500,000 'points' of organic and radioactive matter to minerals in the same time that the same Miner Fac produces 1000??? Seems a little skewed to me.....

CW · #8 July 26th, 2001, 02:13 AM

I agree with LCC, and I like the current setup for the resource converter (even better make the "convert" button available anywhere, so I don't have to find the darn planet out of my 200!). The currently logistics requirement is nightmare-ish enough, takes me at least 25 minutes a turn to check up the build queues for my 200 planets, check the status and orders for my fleet of 20 transports, get them to move population, satellites, mines and troops to the right place at the right time, make sure my 150 combat ships are doing something, get the newly captured enemy ships to refiting yards, new/captured colony ships have somewhere to colonise AND with the right population etc etc... The current system is bearable I suppose, but anymore micro-management is not going to be fun!

Admiral Grover · #9 July 26th, 2001, 12:04 PM

[OT]Speaking of Logistics and Supply Chains, if anyone is interested in a semi-4x game that handles these quite impressively check out Conquest: Frontier Wars. I have currently only played the demo, but the system that is set up looks fairly impressive and well thought out.[/OT]

Now on topic, the resource converter is a little silly, especially with the resources being transfered instantaneously. But if you change this system, you would have to change the whole resource management system, and having planets use only the immediate resources available for construction. IMO this is a change that could not be done in a patch, but could possibly be in SEV. Would be very interesting to see.

Regards,

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Quikngruvn · #10 July 26th, 2001, 04:06 PM

quote:
Originally posted by LazarusLong42:
Originally posted by Puke:
so, you can conclude that either A) the resource converter has some sort of whacked out homeworld-style matter transmission thingy built in that can instantly zap raw materials about the galaxy. or B) that SE4 is silly and has absoluetly no representation for supply chains or logistics.

I'll take 'B.' I've always thought it'd be nice to have supply chains, but then, I've never seen them in any 4X game. Either supplies are available everywhere immediately, or supplies are available only where they're created and you can't move them. <sigh>

LL

Or, a component of the space port is a matter-to-energy converter/transporter: resources are converted to energy, the energy is beamed to other space ports at the speed of light, and reconverted to matter. And planets/space yards intrinsically have receive capabilities only. And Natural Merchants can do this without a separate facility....

Or is it too far-fetched? (Well, how far-fetched could it be, since twenty races can apparently communicate too each other without an apparent Universal Translator? Infinite Improbability strikes again!)

Quikngruvn

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[This message has been edited by Quikngruvn (edited 26 July 2001).]