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Leither Yiltron
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
1031
   |
Posted - 2014.12.10 00:17:00 -
[1] - Quote
Summary: Infrastructure bonus design has been a sticking point for PC since forever. Currently Cargo Hubs are the dominant infrastructure type in Molden Heath. I propose a general framework for understanding why this has happened. Then, using that framework, a new bonus system intended to resolve those problems is discussed. In the new system, infrastructure gives a bonus to a single OTHER district rather than to itself.
Introduction: PC changes and proposals are currently being discussed. A persistent problem in this space is infrastructure bonus design. Often when potential infrastructure bonuses are speculated over, the discussion immediately jumps to specific mechanics, numbers, etc. This tends to give us interesting insights, but they're difficult to leverage and adapt.
If you've never seen a doc formatted like this before, the next part is the table of contents. It is your license to skip what you already know and go to the good part.
- Section 1 covers some background on the history, mechanics, and current status of PC infrastructure bonuses.
- Section 2 defines a vocabulary for discussing those bonuses in a more general way by categorizing bonuses into three categories: military, logistical, and economic.
- Section 3 uses the defined vocabulary to discuss the potential underlying issues with PCGÇÖs current surface infrastructure design, propose an abstract design point for future PC iterations, and discuss the new designGÇÖs advantages and disadvantages. The chief recommendation is that no piece of infrastructure should fit well into more than one bonus category.
- Section 4 describes a specific infrastructure implementation utilizing the stated design goal and anticipating its vulnerabilities. The implementation hinges on the idea of "indirection" bonuses for infrastructure. These bonuses are applied to a target district which is NOT the district providing the bonus. S4 also provides an example of a theoretical situation under the proposed implementation.
Long term roadmap by Aeon Amadi
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Leither Yiltron
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
1031
|
Posted - 2014.12.10 00:18:00 -
[2] - Quote
Section 1 - Background
1.1 - Planetary Conquest mechanics
The current mechanics of Planetary Conquest (PC) in Dust are laid out between several documents. The first, comprehensive document which describes most of the current mechanics but is majorly outdated on its numerical descriptions as well as on several finer details is the evelopedia article published by CCP FoxFour when PC was originally released. A subsequent dev blog discusses the introduction of a few new mechanics, along with numbers adjustments to the old ones. Hotfix Alpha removed passive ISK and changed clone pack sizes again, which is discussed in this thread by CCP Rattati.
Here's a very short summary of those docs:
Districts are the core unit of land ownership. Each district has a piece of surface infrastructure on it that determines (part) of the map that will be played when battles occur on that district. Each of the three infrastructure buildings provides a distinct bonus as well. The owning corporation can change this infrastructure for a fee of 100m ISK.
Battles occur on a district when an attacking corporation moves clones that they own to the district they want to attack. These attacking clones can originate either from a district that the attacker owns, or otherwise from a "Clone pack" which can be purchased for a fee. Clones can also be transferred to friendly districts. By default districts hold up to 300 clones. Any excess clones that arrive on the district are destroyed. By default districts produce 80 clones per day.
Ownership of a district changes hands when all of the defender's clones are depleted.
It costs ISK to move clones from one district to another. The farther away the district receiving clones is, the more it costs. Clone moves suffer "attrition", which refers to a loss of clones from the original movement amount. The proportion of clones you lose is directly proportional to the distance as well. Ex: If two districts are 3 jumps away and an attack moves 150 clones to a defender's district, they will pay 2.5 million ISK and 23 clones.
Most relevantly to our discussion, here are the bonuses associated with each surface infrastructure:
Surface Research Lab (SRL) - A district with an SRL holds up to 300 clones, produces 80 per day, and reduces clone loss due to attrition for clone moves that originate from the district in question. Clones can be moved from SRL's farther and you will arrive with more.
Production Facility (PF) - A district with a PF holds up to 300 clones and produces 100 per day. The primary bonus is additional clone generation.
Cargo Hub (CH) - A district with a CH holds up to 450 clones and produces 80 per day. The primary bonus is additional clone capacity.
1.2 - History of surface infrastructure
When Planetary Conquest first launched in May 2013, all districts were pre-populated with surface infrastructure by CCP. The launch of Planetary Conquest presented all districts in an unowned state, meaning that the first corporation to attack a district would become the owner. The only way to obtain clones for this purpose was to purchase a clone pack, which at the time cost 80m ISK. Attrition costs were also higher than their current values.
This arguably slowed down the conversion of surface infrastructure for a few months. SRL's offered more utility at the time since attrition costs were eventually lowered in July of 2013 (the dev blog in 1.1). So did PF's, since the ability to sell clones from districts was removed in May 2014 (the thread by Rat in 1.1). Generally though, Cargo Hubs were acknowledged to give "the best" bonus of 150 extra clone capacity. Due to the underlying mechanics, 150 clones equates to having to lose 3 battles in rapid succession in order to lose a district as a defender, as opposed to 2 for the other infrastructure.
As the tides of PC and the game in general changed, corporations found more than enough liquid ISK to change their surface infrastructure nearly at will. About 193 of the 245 available districts are Cargo Hubs according to dotlan. 12 are SR Labs, and the remaining 40 are Production Facilities.
Assuming the designers intended to have diversity in SI representation, that obviously hasnGÇÖt been achieved.
Long term roadmap by Aeon Amadi
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Leither Yiltron
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
1031
|
Posted - 2014.12.10 00:19:00 -
[3] - Quote
Section 2 - Definitions
We sort SI effects into three distinct categories:
Military effects - These bonuses change the game mechanics associated with a single match by changing numerical values associated with gear performance, win conditions, and access to in-game assets that do not cost ISK.
Example 1: An effect that gives the defender additional clones to lose over the attacker. In this case the win condition has changed.
Example 2: An effect that gives an attacker access to war barge strikes which cost no ISK to launch.
Logistical effects - These bonuses numerically affect game mechanics associated with battle scheduling and land ownership. Essentially any PC-related mechanic that is accessed through the star map belongs here.
Example: An effect that allows clones moved off a particular district to suffer less attrition in the move. This numerically affects land ownership mechanics.
Economic effects - These bonuses directly generate ISK, gear, or other assets that can be directly turned into ISK/gear without fighting a battle.
Example: Passive ISK generation.
These categories are useful because they are represent the distinct game systems that surface infrastructure intersect when granting bonuses. They affect the outcome of battles, the nuts-and-bolts of PC logistics, or the assets of the corps and players involved.
Long term roadmap by Aeon Amadi
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Leither Yiltron
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
1031
|
Posted - 2014.12.10 00:21:00 -
[4] - Quote
Section 4 - A potential implementation
4.1 - the overview
In this section IGÇÖd like to discuss a potential implementation of PC infrastructure bonuses that applies Section 3GÇÖs design principle.
An always-on always-vulnerable attacker/defense system presents an obvious wrench in combining with an SI implementation that utilizes a strongly-diversified family of SIGÇÖs. In the current system any district can attack any other. In a world where some SIGÇÖs only have military advantages, some logistical, and some economic, why would anyone ever attack a military district?
No PC implementation without such an atk/def paradigm can really prevent itself from producing environments where comparatively small organizations hold large swathes of land. ThatGÇÖs definitely undesirable.
To resolve this dilemma, my suggested implementation introduces the idea of surface infrastructure broadcasting a single indirect bonus. The bonus is indirect because it is applied to a nearby target district, rather than the district that provides the bonus itself. Here are some ground rules. These could be expanded, some exceptions made, etc., but for this example weGÇÖll keep it simple:
An SI can only receive a single bonus from a single SI; multiple SIGÇÖs cannot target the same remote SI
An SI must be on the same planet as any SI to which it broadcasts its bonus
A district can self-target for a (potentially distinct but similar), significantly reduced bonus
This spreads out the bonus love a bit. Why would you attack that military district? To get rid of its bonuses targeting that economic district. Stack too many military districts in one place? You have no income, if people attack properly youGÇÖre losing assets hand over fist. Need to punch your opponent right in the gut? Well itGÇÖs risky, but target the clone producing logistics SIGÇÖs even though theyGÇÖre hardened.
Because each district does not provide the bonus it is potentially receiving, attackers have to make a choice between attacking the source of a bonus or the recipient.
The meta becomes chains or circles of bonuses. How many military districts deep is it worth going to protect an economic district? How many economic districts are you going to have to give up to put in the necessary logistical framework for attacks and clone production?
4.2 - an example
District 1 has a GÇ£Communications uplinkGÇ¥ surface infrastructure installed, which is targeted at District 2. This SI is military- in a battle on the targeted district, the defenders start with a somewhat damaged MCC, but in exchange all of the points belong to the defenders on the match start (this incorporates an idea from Pokey Dravon).
District 2 has an GÇ£Excavation scannerGÇ¥ surface infrastructure installed, which is targeted at District 1. This SI is economic; it prompts district 1 to generate GÇ£nanitesGÇ¥, which a corporation can then use to purchase prototype gear at a characteristic conversion rate, place into a corp armory, and eventually distribute to corp members.
Long term roadmap by Aeon Amadi
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The-Errorist
SVER True Blood
917
|
Posted - 2014.12.10 00:33:00 -
[5] - Quote
Seems like a couple steps in the right direction
MAG + Dust cb vet, an alt of Velvet Overkill & Agent Overkill. http://vimeo.com/93181621
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CCP Rattati
C C P
C C P Alliance
19917
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Posted - 2015.04.06 12:47:00 -
[6] - Quote
completely missed this on at the time. This was a good read and fits right into what we are discussing now.
"As well as stupid, Rattati is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim"
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