[WIP/REL] Realistic Resource Revamp v0.2.1

[uberknight72]

(EDITED: 5/29/14)

!Attention!
This mod is currently under a huge revision! Ill be actively communicating with the community throughout its development. All suggestions, ideas, criticisms very welcome! Become part of the development![:D]


v0.2.1 (stable) Experimental Build available for public testing! (v0.2.1 Changelog.txt in file's root folder)

v0.2.1 Changelog: (5/27/14)

-Due to a typo on my behalf, Concussion missiles required a LOT of dilithium crystals. I changed it to needing ten Common Minerals like it was supposed to.

v0.2.0 Changelog: (5/26/14)

- Changed names of most luxury resources into something more generalized

- increased amount of Rare minerals lava planets can have by 20%

- Decreased amount of Common Minerals lava planets can have by 30%

- Decreased amount of organics a marshy swamp planet can have by 10%

- Added new Manufactured Luxury Resource: Food Products, starts producing at one billion pop, 50% development level. Is a required resource for colony growth

Introduction:

Do you find the old resource system awkward, unimmersive, and ultimately unbalanced?

Well thanks to DW:U this is about change radically!
I plan on Completely rebuilding the current resource system from the ground up! Simplifying it without taking away any strategic and economic depth, but most importantly turning up the realism factor and just making more sense in general. Plus of course some new additions later on . (How do you get all those resources in pre-warp if your homeplanet is only supplying 5? And how are you getting this mystery gas caslon? AND WHAT ABOUT SMARTPHONE AND TWINKIES!?!?)

The New Strategic Resources:

Each group will potentially be found on every planet, only varying in abundance depending on type. Like volcanic planets will be mineral cows, and have higher percentages of radioactives and common minerals, but little to no organics. While Swampy Marsh planets will have the highest organic percentage of all planets, though are slightly lacking in radioactives and rare minerals compared to Continental, which is almost the same but higher in common and radioactives, though lower in organics. Barrens will be the only planet that can have a chance of having only one or two of the groups.

Renamed Luxury Resources
Thought it was strange the the Ekarus could be found on multiple swamp planets? Well I renamed most of the Luxury resources to have less specific names and represent something more generalized. But I didn't mess with resource chances or abundance so they should work like normal

New Manufactured Resource
Food Products will make an appearance after your population reaches one billion pop (a minimum development level of 50 is required, though you would have reached that long before your population gets to 1 billion) Food Products acts like a free luxury resource the second your population gets high enough, and the amount you will get will vary from planet to planet, with marsh having the highest possible output and Lava having the lowest, though all planets have near equal potential to produce a decent amount of food. These food products are required by developing colonies in order to grow and lots of it, at least until they can become self-sufficient and will start producing their own surplus. This will now make defending those trade routes to those new colonys from your core ones even more important!

These are the current percentages for each planet type as of the v0.2.1 Experimental Build.
(Note these are not chances of the group appearing, but the actual abundance.)


CONTENENTIAL:
Common Minerals 15-45%
Rare 2-15%
Organic Materials 10-50%
Radioactives 2-15%

MARSHY SWAMP:
Common Minerals 10-45%
Rare Minerals 2-15%
Organic Materials 30-70%
Radioactives 2-15%

OCEAN:
Common Minerals 10-40%
Rare Minerals 5-15%
Organic Materials 15-50
Radioactives 5-20%

DESERT:
Common Minerals 10-45
Rare Minerals 2-20
Organic Materials 5-30%
Radioactives 5-15%

ICE:
Common Minerals 10-35
Rare Minerals 2-15
Organic Materials 1-10%
Radioactives 5-15%

VOLCANIC:
Common Minerals 15-50
Rare Minerals 10-70
Organic Materials 1-10%
Radioactives 10-40%

BARREN:
Common Minerals 15-50%
Rare minerals 1-15%
Organic Materials 1-5%
Radioactives 1-10%

-The components and their resource requirements will as a result receive a total overhaul. Due to each planet now having every necessary resource to some extent, each component will be much more expensive. Like if it required five steel and two chromium before (which are considered common minerals) i'll add those two together and double the sum so it will then require twelve Common Minerals. Also due to the initial goal of this project (which was just to have pre-warp make a bit more sense) all starting components wont require any gases to build (since gases cant be on the same planet as minerals at one time due to design limitations, though each planet still has a supply of each gas for some reason. I can't figure out how to modify what resources each planet starts with. Ohh well, doesn't really hurt much.). Everything else gas requirements wont be changed.

But how do early ships fuel themselves if there isnt any gas available? (pretending you don't magically have every gas stockpiled on your planet for the time being)

Well Radioactives are a third, early game fuel. Due to the scarcity of radioactives, fueling your ships early pre-warp will be difficult until you upgrade your reactors to caslon (which the name will be changed later, considering caslon doesnt exist..)

FUTURE PLANS:

-more manufactured resources

-Semi-common Strategic Resources!

-new Luxuries


v0.2.1 RRR Expirimental Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/u2aiv ... l_Build.7z
Just unzip the file to your Customization Folder in your root Distant Worlds directory.
Make sure to create a new game.

Please note that though its considered "stable" it still needs a good deal of balancing and things are pretty tight in the beginning. Though im saving all balancing and tweaking for the big update. But if you do find an issue in this version that is glaringly severe enough pkease tell me and ill gladly hotfix it.

:Permissions:
Under no circumstances are you allowed to include this in a modpack or upload any modified version unless I have given you permission to do so. So just ask

[ASHBERY76]

I remember a simple mod where the guy just changed the resources names to realistic ones.The problem was it sure did make the game feel bland.

[uberknight72]

I know what mod you're talking about. I had it installed on my shadows. I thought it was a small yet welcome mod. In fact its where i got a lot of my inspiration for mine. Dont see how it made it bland, i guess realism isnt as exciting to others as it is for me.

But concerning tastes I am thinking about making my mod modular. So that if you like the old resource system but want the new luxuries and race specific resources you can just install them.

[Erik Rutins]

Looking forward to giving this a try as well, good luck.

[FireLion1983]

Please finish soon! LOL - can't wait!

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: uberknight72
But concerning tastes I am thinking about making my mod modular. So that if you like the old resource system but want the new luxuries and race specific resources you can just install them.

I think that would be a very good way to do it.

[Unforeseen]

How long do you think it'll take for this amount of work? Seems like it's exactly what i'm looking for. I've always been pretty bugged by how unimportant individual resources were, in no play through did i ever have to worry about finding a particular resource to build my ships except occasionally a new type of fuel but that was rare. Optional versions for lowend and highend availability would be nice, so that in a normal playthrough you can't find one single source of say...steel and be good for the rest of the game. You'd HAVE to go find another one or import from another race with overstock. <- that seems to be the way the game was designed in the first place, just wasn't properly balanced so that'd it actually work.

[Solarius Scorch]

It looks great at first glance. Can't wait to try it out.

[uberknight72]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

How long do you think it'll take for this amount of work?

Quite a bit, which is why im going to focus on getting one part functional at a time.. I have been making quite a bit of progress with it so far though, and I can say I now have my head wrapped around it pretty well, which was seriously my worst concern [:'(].

But the best news is that I haven't run into anymore game limits on what I can do so far, though I won't be able to test the new radioactive fuel until I get ALL the components converted. But atm I'm still converting the components to the new strategic resources. This is certainly the most time consuming part for me. I can say im about 1/6th the way done with them, but im sure ill pick up some speed once I get all my new ID's memorized. [:D]

But even after I get it done with it's still going to take HOURS of play-testing to get it balanced. The costs for the individual components are going to be pretty high at first. Im hoping that the first build resources will be very scarce so that I'll have an easier time figuring out what components or resources need to be tuned up or down down some.

Be expecting (hopefully) a functioning build later today consisting of just the new strategic resources.

Peace out!

[Osito]

I like this idea, but I don't like the reduction in the number of strategic resources. I think it's important to keep around 20 strategic resources to maintain the same pressure on distribution of resources.

So what I would ideally like to see is your own basic strategic resources with about 15 further 'advanced' strategic resources. The basic resources would be used to build all the starting components, and would continue to be needed for the more advanced components. But the other strategic resources would be needed to build the more advanced components. For example:

- dilithium crystals might be needed to manufacture Gerax hyperdrive and beyond
- Nekros stone might be needed to manufacture beam weapons beyond a certain point
- Tyderios might be needed to manufacture bombardment weapons
- and so on.

While some advanced strategic resources might be available on colonisable planets I would make the majority of them (1) available only on barren worlds, or gas giants; or (2) available as a manufactured resource.

There is only one problem with what I am suggesting. In a prewarp start, the starting planets will be provided with a large supply of the advanced strategic resources, and it would be better if a new prewarp empire had to go out and find these resources or develop the planet to the point of being able to manufacture them. I am not certain whether there is any way of avoiding this problem. I'm not sure how the game generation algorithm decides to allocate resources to starting planets. Maybe Elliot would be prepared to add a facility to allow us to change the starting resources (if there isn't already a way of doing it).

[FireLion1983]

I think that's why uberknight is going to increase the cost of the components, so that you can't build so much right away.

Also, I'd be glad to help with any beta'ing that needs to occur.

[uberknight72]

The reason why im lowering the resources is primarily for realism reasons so that all your resources are right there. But instead of hunting for individual resources, youll be hunting for those better quality planets with troves of these resources. In the end resources will be pretty scarce on most planets if i can get everything working. But like I mentioned im going to aim at making it modular so if you want a certain aspect of my mod but not the others youll be free to do so. But perhaps later i can make a separate mod just like that, where the original resources are untouched though ill make certain resources much rarer. But perhaps youll like to know i still left dilithium crystals as they are, and later i intend on reintroducing some of the classic strategic resources as rare, highend ones that will only go to the highend components. But only after i have this finished and have gotten the new system actually functional and playable.

And yes, components are about double their original cost now, and that might go up even higher if i dont think its difficult enough.

But thanks firelion, i certainly would welcome as much playtesting as possible.. that is after i get this functioning. Right now i have finished adding in the new resources and replacing all the old ones with them, as well as all the components resource requirements and race bonuses rewritten. Right now after all this and fixing a few errors they caused i finally have a playable build going. Im going to do a bit of personal playtesting for the rest of the night just so I know its not TOTALLY unbalanced then tomorrow i will upload the experimental build. :3

Peace out!

[hewwo]

great great great. Also, take a look at the energy tech tree rebalance mod thread. It would be nice if these two are somehow compatible

[Franky007]

I will surely try this mod and the energy tech tree rebalance mod
merged together if possible !

Note: the increased resource requirement will put a strain on the cargo capacity of freighter.

[uberknight72]

Getting a version done with these two mods merged together should certainly be a priority when both have reached a more complete state. [:D]

[FireLion1983]

I'm trying to begin some playtesting, but I can't download your files without a MediaFire Pro account

Anyway you could zip it up?

EDIT: Holy cow that was fast, lol

[uberknight72]

ORIGINAL: FireLion1983

I'm trying to begin some playtesting, but I can't download your files without a MediaFire Pro account

Anyway you could zip it up?

EDIT: Holy cow that was fast, lol

Still having trouble downloading it Firelion?
I logged out of my account and tried downloading it and it seems to be downloading fine

[FireLion1983]

ORIGINAL: uberknight72

I logged out of my account and tried downloading it and it seems to be downloading fine

Nope, right after I made that post it turned into a 7z - running it now.

Gasses are building quickly, but that's normal since they're relatively unused early. The advanced reactors are using some funky resources, such as the Loros Fruit and Wiconium

I'm letting the AI just play on 4x to see how it looks and nothing has hungup yet.

EDIT: Ha! My exploration ships just drove the price of Loros Fruit up to 600 in their desire for more fuel

[uberknight72]

O.o

OHHH silly me, I must have forgot to update the fuel IDs for the more advanced Reactors. The current loros fruit and wiconium IDs are what Caslon and Hydrogen used to be [:D]. lol

Thanks for the feedback

[FireLion1983]

Rare minerals are rare indeed, I sense a bottleneck building as I expand. Pretty cool that a rare resource is rare, I like it

I'm going to wait to play again until reactors are fixed.