Elements of Game Play Economy

So you want to build a Space Empire?

Obviously we all know, that the first thing that we should do is "build buildings", but what does that even mean?

Mining is key to the whole economy, because the total amount of resources that get mined, are the total amount of resources in the game economy.

Quick example, if the whole universe tries to build cruiser fleets at the same time - uranium will get quite scarce!

Mining is life, no one can take your mines. They can grab or nab your overnight production, but never your natch! Mining is economy, or "eco".

Eco wins the long game

There is no way around it really, without interaction, whoever produces more, has more. The way around this "eco dominance", is introduced with "fleets".

Fleeting is not the opposite of Eco, it is the natural extension of Eco. Each successive level of buildings (or research) requires piling up more and more resources.

You can either wait around while those piles build up.... Or you build ships and take resources from people who are. Its not good or bad, this is the game.

Fleet composition

Its a natural and amazing thing to watch, small cargoes and light fighters against missle launcher build up - now here come the cruisers. Cruisers get built up against heavy lasers and finally gauss cannons, and suddenly its the cruisers feeling like glass cannons.

Battleship backbones are formed, to overcome gauss; fleet composition is somewhat of an art. And its not "free", its a constant uranium drain to move those ships around.

Here's a great old forum article talking about fleet composition that helped me a lot in "re-remebering" how this game works.

Fleets are in the game, and so are defenses. You can move your ships and resources around, but if you leave them laying around, someone might snatch them. This is the game.

Social considerations

I never took it quite so seriously that someone would attack me in a game. Its a game, after all, and while I don't like getting attacked, I do like a challenge. There are many ways around getting attacked, the best of which is probably "don't give them anything".

I recently bumped @arcange with my fleet, hoping for some uranium to feed my ships. He disappeared with the loot in the last minute, leaving me sad and without any fuel to run my fleet, having spent it all, my last 3600, on a desperate raid of our top HIVE witness.

Is it because I don't like @arcange? Of course not, he is a gentleman and a scholar - but he had some uranium piled up and I need it! Oh how I need it....

As no one should feel bad about beating an opponent in Splinterlands, or stealing scrap in that SCRAP game I forget the name of; here too we are just a bunch of players looking for resources in the midgame.

You might join an alliance, and surely your teamates will stop raiding you.... Probably.

Working together - What is the goal?

We can definitely work together to do things, big things even - but we need a goal. Likely, in this case it would be either:

1. Achieve the win condition "Gravitron 1" or
2. Stop another team from achieving the same.

Gravitron 1 research requires 300,000 energy, and as such the rapid construction of thousands of solar satellites is the only way to get there.

Solar satellites are pretty easy to crash, assuming you have some fleet. Will people work together to attempt to crash the first guy who tries?

Will this give enough cover for "the second guy" to swing into action unnoticed?

I don't know

I have never done this before, or seen any other version of this game try a win condition lile this. Its always been "build until you give up and abandon the game", universes die, as player count lessens over time.

Defense composition

Similarly lengthy treatises could be written on defense composition. Here are a few notes:

1. The best "defense" is no resources available.
2. Fodder helps, more numbers are better.
3. A few heavy lasers or deadly gauss cannons (protected by ample fodder) will show your opponent that "nothing is free".
4. You can call your friends or alliance mates to "hold", helping to defend.
5. Shield domes really pull their weight.
6. Crashed ships produce "debris", which are resources that can be harvested with a recycler ship.

Debris and Economy

Debris are a key axis in the resource economy. Fleets are money losers if they can't crash things, and it can sometimes be rare to find a stockpile of resources so big as to justify cracking a really well thought-out defense.

But with debris, we can recycle "ships" and satellites back into the game economy. In some way you could look at this as burning uranium (cost to move the fleets) to churn ships into resources again (only metal and silicon appear as debris).

Hopefully not our ships, but thats another story.

If these posts about meta-game are useful to anyone, spark thoughts or raise questions, let me know in the comments!

Freedom and Friendship