Im currently in the process of designing/making a space based TBS game. The idea is that the player sets out to conqure the galaxy, one star system at a time (of course, it's only a small part of the galaxy, it would be way to much to conqure the whole thing ;) ) Anyway, I am having a few problems deciding how to distribute the resources throught the captured system and would appreciate a few ideas. Currently, resources are split into 4 categories. Energy (mainly gathered from stars), money (from taxation), food (planets) and raw materials (planets, asteroids etc). Originally, I thought that each system would just keep a store for themselves, as most TBS games do. But, some systems will not be capable of generating certain resources (for example, if a system comprises of a star and a comet, where does the food come from?). So this method wouldnt be sustainable, as some systems would quickly die out. So instead I thought of having a global distribution system. All resources gathered are sent to the main store of the faction, and the player then sets up distribution channels (simply assigning a % of the whole to be sent to each system). Unfortunatly, this, to me, seems overly complex and drawn out. In other words, not much fun. Does anyone have any ideas here about this? Obviously, this is a major part of the game, and I want it to be as simple, but as powerful as possible! Thanks in advance :)

Perhaps you could give them something they can build that allows them to ship supplies to a system? For example, perhaps they have a system which has an surplus of food, and one which has a shortage (or none). In each sustem, they could build a "supply distribution centre" (or whatever you want to call it), and the resources could be automatically shipped for them. I envision it such that any system with a supply centre would distribute surplus resources to any other system which had a shortage automatically, but alternately you could have players set up the tranfer by hand, or perhaps require one-to-one supply centres (ie. each supply centre can only send/recieve from one other).

Alternately, you could allow them to build some unit that can ferry resources - if you go with this option, you should allow them to automate a path for the units, so they don't have to manually move it constantly.

Or, you could go with the system you've already proposed (global resources), and simply automate (or optionally, for those who might like to micro-manage it themselves) most of the process for the players.

Just a few possibilities for you to consider.

I am definatly leaning towards having a central resource store, which farms out resources to systems that need it (This mainly comes down to food and energy i suppose, as raw materials/money will be used as one offs when building improvments/armies etc.)

You suggested having a system which auto-manages the distribution of resources throught the system. But the issue I have with that is if there are not enough resources to distribute. Ill give an example.

There are 3 systems and one produces a lot of food, which goes into the central store. Another two produce no or little food. They system starts to farm out the food to the other systems but realises there is not enough food to feed both systems. Which one loses out?

Currently I am thinking its on a first come first serve basis, with the nearest systems getting first dabs on the resources. Out lying systems then have to wait and see whats left. I think the original 'The Settlers' had something similar, where you distributed gold to your soldiers dependant on their distance from the centre.

Of course, it would then be possible to set up a priority flag (allowing some level of micro management) which would allow systems to be given a priority for resources (so that outlying system, that has no food but masses of materials has a high priority, and as such, first dabs on the store).

As for your suggestiong for supply centres. Definatly a good idea, but I think that maybe more complicated that I am looking for (I'm mainly thinking about how people would keep track of what is being sent where etc.).

Thanks :)

I like your idea of assigning it based on distance, that's a nice simple solution to the problem. Being able to set priority flags and override this distance based setting is an excellent addition, and one that I'd definately recommend be used with such a system.

Master of orion two, used a very simple system to combat this problem. Essentially food was the only global resource, if a planet produced more food then it need the food was added to your food surplus and sold for cash. The player could build frieghters that would automatically distrubted surplus food to systems that had a insufficent food production. The only thing the player had to do was build freighters as needed.

You could assign frieghters to your supply centers which would determine that amount of goods that they can send and recive per turn, and then remove the remaing player interaction to setting prioity flags.

If you wanted to get really indepth you could allow for the creation of transport routes which frieghters would follow, picking up food from planets, and exchanging it for ore at your mining colonies and then bring it back to the depot. These routes might take several turns to complete and you could allows players to raid shipping routes to disrubt supply changes and plunder resources.

The Master of Orion system is quite a nice one, with a lot of scope to build on. But its still a tad to complicated for my needs. I don't want to bog the user down with small details such as planning distribution routes (planning trade routes with other factions is as far I want to go with that).

I'm pretty sure I want to go with the idea of distributing resources based on distance (its amazing how an idea can form is you talk it out with someone else!).

Thanks for the help guys :)