Doesn't that just introduce a different trivial-to-optimize ratio? That if you have n ships, you need F(n) factories?

No. Because you have different ratio of ship loses. During peace time you need more factories (upkeep for hordes of ships) during war time you need more mines (minerals to produce replacements). You would need to optimize it according to strategic goals and random events, invasions, ect, so it's a non trivial task. Plus upkeep can be supplemented by money (you just pay it) so you can go the route of increasing taxes, trade, etc instead of more factories.

With the previous system you ALWAYS needed an exact ratio of factories to mines regardless of anything else that happens in the game. Which was totally boring and trivial to compute.

Personally I would either go with a multiple vector resource and logistics system (Even if it is as simple as flagging production, stockpile, and staging areas and their supply lines at a very abstract level, but I'm very fond of logistical planning.), or just abstract the entire thing away to "Industrial Capacity", which you then direct towards different outputs, such as Military Hardware, Research, or "Consumer Goods".

In the Industrial Capacity model you would be acknowledging that you don't really care how it gets done, you just care about whether or not you want to invest any of your current IC here and now into producing more IC for you at some point down the road. These systems can be made more complex with various things factoring in, such as whether or not you develop "direct" IC on distant parts of your empire, or if you centralize everything, in which case it could automatically deploy 'indirect' IC and gain some bonuses based on outlying holdings. (That way you can't just pile on all your IC development in your capitol while expanding your empire and keep "max production" even if you're losing most of your land. Gaining outlying land/planets would give you a bonus to your IC even if it is all in one place, but losing it would then still knock down your IC as well.)

But also remember that you don't need 1:1 "just in time" usage. Hearts of Iron does things in an interesting way in that you need to think far ahead with regards to your resources, and issues with that depend on who you are playing as. Producing way more than you actually need right now is a good thing, as conflict can then radically change your empire's input of resources. You could be trading and buying up far more resources than you need for your industry at the time being, but doing so means you can keep your war machine rolling after much of your external supplies dry up during conflict. Build up stockpiles during peace time, and then burn them as "War Fuel" during conflict.

Then there is also the "Catan Trading" option when it comes to resources. Don't have a specific resource you need? Convert a large amount of another type into a small amount of the resource you desperately need. Combine that with the Strategic Stockpile and External Input concepts from above, and you have a far more interesting system than "One mine feeds one Factory that feeds Ten Ships".

Then that mechanic should not be in the game in the first place

its not about mechanics. its about simulating a world. you start with what the world should be like, then determine what level of depth of simulation you need for things to be believable. then you come up with a model for what you want to simulate, which then leads to "how it works", which some folks might call a "game mechanic". But some things you simulate aren't necessarily fun, such as crossing off a day of food in a table top rpg. Computers are there to do the mundane simulation for us, so we can get on with the cool stuff, and its all still seems realistic and believable.

Its natural to want to have mine production related to factory production. that's how things work in the real world, and how one might expect them to also work in a 4X. But just because you want to simulate some effect, doesn't mean you necessarily have to build a gameplay mechanic around it. simulation of things that include real choices with no dominant strategy add game play value. simulation of other things - such as "swords do damage points which reduce hit points" vs "any hit kills" add believably. after all, games would be kind of weird if one didn't simulate damage. but combat is the game play value there. damage modeling is just a book keeping chore for the computer to handle for us. resource gathering and distribution is a similar case to damage modeling. its modeling a lower level detail that adds believably to game play.

so where does that leave you? i'll assume you like the concept of mines and factories being related. so you start with a model like:

1. mine output is a function of available labor plus perhaps a few other variables such as how easy the stuff is to mine, tech level of mining equipment used, etc.

2. factory output is a function of available labor and mine output, plus any other appropriate variables.

so the player will need to build factories to produce stuff, and build mines to produce raw materials for factories.

but micro-managing building mines is "no fun".

so you have your "Ministry of Mines" to do it for you - you DO have a Ministry of Mines don't you? I mean, after all, you're the Galactic Emperor! <g>.

of course the Galactic Empire should have empire wide mineral reserves that roll over from turn to turn, and of course there should be a Ministry of Mines to attend to the details of dealing with such things which are beneath the Emperor, and of course the Emperor should be able to summon the Minister of Mines at any time and tell them to build a mine here or a factory there - cause they're the Emperor of The Galaxy!

this _is_ the kind of thing - the "aesthetic" - your shooting for, right?

Mine production has to be transported to factories (or sales point)

SO the distance/difficulty ( transport cost ) is part of the equation (possibly a seperate entity if its not abstracted)

Relation - a mine can send product to more than one destination

I hope this is not repeating someone else, because I skimmed through it quickly.

I would suggest adding depth by adding factors that affect production/consumption ratios, such as:

• Production lines having a percentage of products that come out bad and need to be disposed of (forgot the term that describes this)
• Conditions that affect production rations, such as earthquakes causing collapses in mines, storms preventing gathering of wood, and so on
• Transport pipeline that will have its own conditions as well, such as ships sinking, or damaged goods during transport

I have played games where such conidtions were described simply with text messages (e.g. in Tradewinds where the governor of a port city would dispose of your tobacco because he declared a new law against it), so it does not have to display the actual event happening (unless you would like to go that far )

conquestor3, on 08 Oct 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:
Can you stockpile resources?

In the current model, no.

Also I'm not so fond of this, it would require displaying these resources on interface, and it has more drastic consequences (you don't see the shortage coming if you are not careful, just one turn you get your production suddenly halved because you used up your reserves and your current mines capacity can meet only 50% of needs), also it is not within the mood of the game (you being the emperor and not dealing with logistics). A lot of drawbacks, for this particular game at least.

• Building mines and factories is logistics, unworthy of an emperor. Stockpiling introduces significant elasticity in building mines and factories, easing the burden of logistics micromanagement: it's a negative amount of boring activities. Typically, players would notice they are accumulating resources and build a factory of something useful: always a gratifying moment.
• Moreover, knowing the empire's stocks and flows of materials, through a suitable user interface, is part of an emperor's job. It's certainly more important, abstract and strategical than displaying the number of mines and factories.
• Resource stocks introduce a valuable strategic opportunity: deliberately delaying production. Obviously plausible reasons include waiting for technological improvements instead of wasting resources on inferior products, waiting to know what's needed before committing to the wrong type of spaceship etc., pretending to be weak (baiting attempts to steal resources).
• Explicit material stocks introduce the possibility of running out of them, but it shouldn't be sudden (if the players know what they are doing and user interface keeps them informed) or more troublesome than building too many factories relative to the amount of mines. It's strategy, and you need lots of it in a 4X game. With stocks, the player is going to make "good" decisions: do I want to invest in mines for the long term, or spend my stocks of materials on something urgent? Do I want factories to produce stuff now or mines to produce stuff in the long term? Can I find alternative sources of materials? And so on.

BTW, if you are interested in the broader perspective, it's a video of the version where I made the change:

Note how briefly I mentioned mines & factories among other things in the video compared to the length of this topic Sigh, that's the life of a designer, one spends weeks thinking about something and then it ends up as a small thing in the game.