Re: VBAM 2E Playtest Files (Was: Any Updates?)
Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 11:34 pm
Okay, I spent most of Friday evening and Saturday running some tests on a few different alternative concepts in regards to how infrastructure is handled. Specifically, I ended up revisiting the concept of Tech and Intel infrastructure creating tech and intel points, respectively, in a manner similar to how Productivity and Agriculture create resources for their owner. Here's the highlights reel:
- I still really like the limited infrastructure rule, but ended up dropping it from this playtest and going back to the original utilized infrastructure rules from 1E because I think that is a rabbit hole that I could easily get lost down unless some clear solutions appear later on (which they might).
- I set both Tech and Intel so that they would produce +1 resource per 2 Census at the colony (round down, minimum 1). I started with 6 Census just to give me a minor power starting income to play with and see what would happen. I started with 4 of each infrastructure at my homeworld, which gave me +12 tech points and +12 intel points each turn.
- Tech points could be used to increase empire tech levels (10 x Census), colony tech levels (set at a flat 50 TP, for a few reasons I'll explain later, prototypes (unit C$), and unit refits (unit C$). This gave me enough things to spend tech points on that I always had something to spend them on. I removed the automatic tech advance rule so you have to manually spend the points on everything. Over the course of 20 turns my test empire ended up increasing its empire tech level by 2 (to TL 2) and was on course to get its homeworld upgraded. I also added an option to prototyping so that you could expend 10 TP to purchase a +1 bonus to the prototyping roll. That gives another use for tech points.
- Prototyping also received a limit so that the maximum number of prototypes a colony can work on is equal to its utilized Tech value.
- Intel points came flooding in early. To counteract the rapid build up, I created several new intel missions that were a useful diversion to eat up the intel points and encourage players against hoarding. Two missions in particular stand out. The Espionage: Exploration mission provides a bonus to exploration rolls in a system, while Propaganda: Infrastructure provides a +1 bonus to a specific type of infrastructure that turn. There were several turns that I used Propaganda: Infrastructure to artificially increase my Productivity or Tech to crank up their outputs.
- I started prototyping a TL 1 supercarrier after I reached TL 1, and it has nearly finished prototyping as TL 2 is coming around. However, given the plethora of projects that tech points can be spent on now, it will probably be another 6-8 turns before I have enough tech points to upgrade my homeworld again. The dynamic under this system seems to be banking enough tech points to get an empire tech level increase, then waiting to save up enough in between other projects to start upgrading colonies to take advantage of the upgrade.
- I did set the colony tech level increase price at a flat 50 TP partially to see whether that would encourage me to increase the tech levels of larger colonies in preference to smaller ones. The plan backfired, however, because the high TP cost made it untenable to found any colonies because the cost to upgrade them would be too high and better spent on empire tech level increases. So 10 x Census is actually a much better option for colonies, too.
- Speaking of colonies, I ended up not founding any colonies because my homeworld was so much better than anything else that I found and it was more efficient to just spend my limited resources on building up infrastructure at my homeworld. In total after 2 years I had my home system improved to 8 Census from the original six and had purchased 2 Productivity, 1 Agriculture, and 1 Tech during that time.
- I did look again at how to get the limited infrastructure rule to work in practice. Leading in to something that I'll discuss after this list, removing Shipyards from infrastructure and turning them back into an installation would help in that it would pare down the list to Productivity, Agriculture, Tech, and Intel. Of those four, as darbycmd notes, Intel could probably get tossed away, too, though I want to play around with keeping it for awhile to see how that turns out. That makes it easier to restrict the amount of infrastructure in a system just because there is one fewer type to build up. Unfortunately, I am not sure it can be fairly balanced without going back to a 10 x Value cost system for infrastructure which unduly favors spamming colonies and makes it less efficient to build up larger ones, something I would like to avoid based on my experience with 1E where you build a colony to 3 Census / 3 Productivity to get the supply bonus and then never touch the colony again.