Miner/Collector Units

Now, this is an idea I just had: Collector Units. These could range from Society Centers to organisms to vehicles. They would basically just be things tasked to collect certain minerals/other things.

For example, you could build a quarry and set it's task. Search: Mineral: gold, Search: Mineral: coal. Or you could have the farmer, living in the wilderness. Collect: Foodstuff: Apple/whatever. Or there's the blimps idea that was had in the Gas Planets thread. You could task it with things along these lines: Search: Chemical: Helium. Or there could be hunters. They would get something like Search: Kill: Deer: Collect: Hide. You would obviously be able to assign Collectors en masse.


They would then be brought to the nearest SC for processing or storage. Food collected would, of course, go toward trade or feeding your own people. Anything else would either be used to help keep your own people going, or to be traded.

Once the player has a large number of SCs, he/she will be able to select specific SCs to "over-produce" certain products/materials so that there will be plenty for trade. This could have pretty bad backlash if not managed properly, however. Your nation/faction/species could become dependant on a certain product or material, and if something happens to make that one thing unavailable, the entire economy could buckle.

Collectors would be able to communicate- if one miner finds a huge pocket of gold, others will come to help him mine it all. If a hunter finds a herd of animals he's looking for, he'll alert his fellow hunters and they'll all come take care of the herd. If a hunter finds a place where there are tons of fruit trees, next time he returns to the SC he will tell a farmer to go farm the trees.

To track whether or not a specific SC is being useful, you can click on the SC to view all of the information on it's Collectors (I.E. the percent of the time the hunters kill their prey versus the amount of the time the prey escapes). You could also view the collective information of any of a specific type of Collector unit in your entire species.

Reds concept hadve something similar, telling some workers to transport goods between a source and nearest SC.

Still, this "Search" function is a good idea, telling people to go and find more sources of selected materials.

seems like a good idea.

koiboi59 wrote:

seems like a good idea.

Indeed it does. Good work, Zim.

I think that it would also be a good idea that once the player is handling a large number of SCs, they can assign each SC to over-collect a certain resource. That way, SCs could be specialized into food production SCs or iron production SCs or whatever the player is in need of.

Good idea. Our quest for destroying useless micro is going to get fulfilled soon!

US_of_Alaska wrote:

koiboi59 wrote:

seems like a good idea.

Indeed it does. Good work, Zim.

I think that it would also be a good idea that once the player is handling a large number of SCs, they can assign each SC to over-collect a certain resource. That way, SCs could be specialized into food production SCs or iron production SCs or whatever the player is in need of.

Good idea. I'll add it to the OP.

Great idea here. We could also include a communication matrix between collector units- if a deer hunter sees some apple trees, maybe he could alert a forager of their location when he returns to the SC. Also, if one hunter finds a herd, other hunters will follow.

Also, each collector needs to have an efficiency rating. Say a deer hunter gets kills 70% of the time.

~sciocont wrote:

Great idea here. We could also include a communication matrix between collector units- if a deer hunter sees some apple trees, maybe he could alert a forager of their location when he returns to the SC. Also, if one hunter finds a herd, other hunters will follow.

Also, each collector needs to have an efficiency rating. Say a deer hunter gets kills 70% of the time.

I'll add that to the OP as well- though I can't see keeping the efficiency rating for EVERY Collector. Sounds like computer instakill. Maybe just an average efficiancy for every SC?

Average efficiency for each type of collector unit is a better choice.

InvaderZim wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Great idea here. We could also include a communication matrix between collector units- if a deer hunter sees some apple trees, maybe he could alert a forager of their location when he returns to the SC. Also, if one hunter finds a herd, other hunters will follow.

Also, each collector needs to have an efficiency rating. Say a deer hunter gets kills 70% of the time.

I'll add that to the OP as well- though I can't see keeping the efficiency rating for EVERY Collector. Sounds like computer instakill. Maybe just an average efficiancy for every SC?

yeah, that sounds good.

InvaderZim wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Great idea here. We could also include a communication matrix between collector units- if a deer hunter sees some apple trees, maybe he could alert a forager of their location when he returns to the SC. Also, if one hunter finds a herd, other hunters will follow.

Also, each collector needs to have an efficiency rating. Say a deer hunter gets kills 70% of the time.

I'll add that to the OP as well- though I can't see keeping the efficiency rating for EVERY Collector. Sounds like computer instakill. Maybe just an average efficiancy for every SC?

CURSE MODERN COMPUTERS!!! so many limitations, i guess thats the only choice.

Commander Keen wrote:

Average efficiency for each type of collector unit is a better choice.

Would like to bring attention to how good this point is.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Average efficiency for each type of collector unit is a better choice.

Would like to bring attention to how good this point is.

Added to OP.

InvaderZim wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Average efficiency for each type of collector unit is a better choice.

Would like to bring attention to how good this point is.

Added to OP.

Let's keep this kind of goal throughout the game- Make things in-depth but simple to program.

~sciocont wrote:

InvaderZim wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Average efficiency for each type of collector unit is a better choice.

Would like to bring attention to how good this point is.

Added to OP.

Let's keep this kind of goal throughout the game- Make things in-depth but simple to program.

And somewhat simple to use.