Matrix Games Forums

During the last game my paratroopers took an oil refinery situated behind enemy lines. For the next turn I received loads of oil. How could the oil be sent? I don´t know.

I believe that it should be connected in some way (roads or ports) to any HQ to get the oil or raw.

Guys, this is not a minor issue [:-].

I agree with this. Same with ships at sea being able to use oil from a pool, or worse, having their oil used up by some air operation a hundred miles away. How would you get the oil from the fleet to the aircraft?
 

It´s not something that hasn´t been reported already. Fact is that Oil and Raw don´t require a connection to a HQ in order to be produced.

Personally i think its a minor issue. But if you want to have Vic make a patch for it, then go ahead and ask for it. It would make the time between turns longer, as the same kind of calculations that are made for supply would have to be made for Oil and Raw (or any of the other RegimeSlots used for a resource, there are ALOT of available RegimeSlots).

ORIGINAL: ernieschwitz

It´s not something that hasn´t been reported already. Fact is that Oil and Raw don´t require a connection to a HQ in order to be produced.

Personally i think its a minor issue. But if you want to have Vic make a patch for it, then go ahead and ask for it. It would make the time between turns longer, as the same kind of calculations that are made for supply would have to be made for Oil and Raw (or any of the other RegimeSlots used for a resource, there are ALOT of available RegimeSlots).

Ok. Instead of HQ cities. At least connected to cities. It´s not neccesary special calculations for this, you got it or not. Simple as that. I firmly believe it´s an important issue to any player who enjoys a bit of realism.

ATG is an amazing and serious game. Today I´ve felt dissapointed.

I like the way that oil/raw works in the game right now, but I think that using oil from source that paratroopers taken far behind enemy lines is somewhat unrealistic. Perhaps it would be enough to make sure resources are connected to some allied HQ?

I'm not sure about that however because encircled oil/raw defended by HQ with some forces is also cut off and resources produced there would normally be only available to defending HQ. This would make the game much more complicated cause oil supply would have to be tracked to every unit just like ernieschwitz wrote in the previous post...

The problem with this is that i want to spend time playing the game, not manually having to fill the gas tank for every ship, airplane, and tank i own.

Next you will be wanting to add refineries to process the oil, pipelines or trucks to transport it, and have to keep track of diesel and petrol and which units need which.  This does not appeal to me.

I agree that its not realistic, but then i don't want realism here.  War is something i would rather experience in a game and not in reality.

I agree with Jafele, and also think that the flying oil it's unrealistic. I think that oil/raw sources must have some kind of connection to a friendly city.

For an absolute realism then they have to be connected by rail (or road).

Kind regards,
Rander.

I´m talking about connection between cities (not HQs) and refineries. Nothing more. The rule remain the same (not neccesary doing it manually). Simplicity and realism are not enemies in this issue. I don´t want a extremely realistic war simulation, this is just a game for fun. However, there are basic things we shouldn´t accept: Oil cannot fly.

Ok im with you. That makes sense. If i own a resource hex in the middle of a mountain range that prevents the resources from being delivered to a HQ, should i need to build a road there to be able to collect those resources?

This will probably matter in the implementation.

ORIGINAL: Jafele

I´m talking about connection between cities (not HQs) and refineries. Nothing more. The rule remain the same (not neccesary doing it manually). Simplicity and realism are not enemies in this issue. I don´t want a extremely realistic war simulation, this is just a game for fun. However, there are basic things we shouldn´t accept: Oil cannot fly.

I think to better understand what you are asking for, you need to know how the game handles Oil and Raw at the moment.

To do this, you have to know about RegimeSlots. Basically these are variables that can be any number at all. You can have an event add, subtract, divide and multiply them with anything. And they are easy to use in coding events. Oil and Raw are RegimeSlots. Now RegimeSlots can be alot of other things too. For instance, if you want to make a timer for a specific nation, that counts down each round of play that is played, you can make that as well. Or you can use them as a boolean (true/false) to set any number of features for a specific regime.

When a location, like an Oil Well, produces oil, it does so by producing an item. This item can be set to be a RegimeSlot. So, an Oil Well, will produce oil, by adding the number (of items) produced by the location to the RegimeSlot.

This is NOT what happens when you produce supply. Supply is handled by the game engine, in a different matter. It is NOT a RegimeSlot.

So changing Oil and Raw to be Supply like is a bigger undertaking, that would need to update the game engine, and probably by adding to the supply function, which already can take minutes to calculate in scenarios like WaW for ATG.

You might argue that you could make the function that needed to be added to the game engine a little simpler than the supply issue. You could argue that you wanted to check if there was a "connection" between a resource production site and resource "recieving" site. But that too would be awkward. For one thing, what is a connection? Is flying good enough (over enemy territory or not)... Surely for some resources such as "diamonds" or "cash" (which i operate with in my upcoming Congo Scenario) this could be done. While for other resources such as Oil and Raw, this would be bad. Also is moving the Raw/Oil by sea going to be viable. How do you explain that supplies don´t get through, but Oil and Raw does?

Also there is the matter again that each resource is a RegimeSlot. What to do about all those RegimeSlots that are booleans, or counters, or something else? Clearly we would need something different, perhaps a RegimeResourceSlot for each country. And what then? What about all those scenarios that would need to be reprogrammed to update this new ResourceConnection check?

All in all, this is going to be alot of reprogramming for something that the game already supports, albeit a bit unrealisticly, at the moment.

I noticed that the random map generator frequently gives you resources that are not "connected" to any of your cities, either because they are on an island without a port, or stuck in the middle of nowhere with no rail access.  The benefit of the current set-up is that these quirks of the map are not decisive or crippling. 

Basicly we all agree that this rule is against the law of gravity: If tons of oil can fly, following this principle tanks could fly in the same way, why not? ATG should be wargame not a fantasy game. Perhaps in the future it must changed. Unfortunately there are technical problems [:(] to get an easy solution at the moment.

It may be theoretically possible, with some scripting, to implement resources realistically.

First, you need a new LocType called "Refinery"

Then, you make oil wells always produce an SFType called "Crude" which cannot move by itself

Finally, on every turn, you use a script to transform all "Crude" that is on a "Refinery" into oil.

For those who are seriously bothered by this issue, this may be a good project that will also get you familiar with some of ATG's inner guts and moddability.

I'd prefer to have oil resource sites unallocated initally and let the resource sites be fought over and the victor must add necessary logisitcal support to "realistically" get the resource back to a friendly city.

Or, have every starting position consist of a city, raw and oil resource in a small "mega" hex plopped randomly on the map. Then let the regimes fight it out.

ORIGINAL: ernieschwitz
I think to better understand what you are asking for, you need to know how the game handles Oil and Raw at the moment. [...]

Thanks for those technical details. After reading your post I will never rant about this kind of resource issues again.

ORIGINAL: EmTom

ORIGINAL: ernieschwitz
I think to better understand what you are asking for, you need to know how the game handles Oil and Raw at the moment. [...]

Thanks for those technical details. After reading your post I will never rant about this kind of resource issues again.

Well, i don´t mind the rant. I just want people to know what they are ranting about. I am not saying that the issue can´t be fixed, in some way or another. I am quite sure that Vic is up to the task. The question is really do we want him to do this, which could be relatively complicated, or something else. After all there is only so much one man can do...

Leave it the way it is. If you don't want gamey tactics don't use them. Not saying the simple act of dropping para on oil or raw is gamey, saying since you know the game works this way if you develop a tactic of doing it for your benefit due to the game mechanic THAT is gamey.

I have enough problems with oil needs I don't want more.

Leave it the way it is. It is a very minor and rare problem, and implementing oil connection to cities or HQs could slow down the game considerably to make it unplayable on large maps.

Henri

The old AT had the "hardcore logistics" option. Perhaps that can be added to ATG ? Or os it already there ?

What if an oil or raw site were to be out of supply from the owning regime then that oil or raw site does not produce its resource, would that work?