Small Resource Update

Hello all,

We've still been busy with the resource rework, though most of it has been engine-related, and thus is pretty hard to visually demonstrate, though I am in the midst of making new graphics to accommodate the new features.

To start off with something fun, here is something I can show off: say hello to a new resource collector unit:

Note that the field they are collecting from isn't a pile of gold or pretty diamonds. One key feature of DORF will be the existence of scrap and junk piles from destroyed units and buildings (or sometimes already pre-placed on the map). These present a small resource bounty (though obviously metal wreckage is worth a fair bit more than concrete debris), as well as a slight terrain hazard, as they will slow down units that cross them, and must be cleared if you want to build in that location.

You've certainly scene the oil wells and oil rigs before, though they actually do have some mechanics behind them now instead of just being map props. Oil extractors can, of course, only be built on available wells. They will then begin pumping crude, however this is not your useable resource. In the above gif, you can see the isometric grid of cubic icons below the Oil Rig. The gray ones represent available space, while the black ones represent space used by crude. This will need to be extracted by a transport unit or a pipeline, and taken to a processing center to be turned into useable fuel, where the fuel can then be transported to factories to be used to build units. Conversion isn't instantaneous, so players will need to be be smart and figure out the best efficiency in terms of transport units and the placement of your processing centers and factories.

Similarly, solid wreckage and ore harvesters by miners will be taken to processing centers and converted into solid Materiel. In general, Materiel is your "general" resource that is used by almost anything, while Fuel is rarer and more commonly used on vehicles and special units.

Also, from this system, you can tell that resources in general will be allocated very differently from other RTS; there will not be a global resource "pool" that you can draw from, regardless of location, rather individual buildings have their own amount that they carry. So factories must be continuously supplied to maintain a proper war effort. To avoid this being tedious, transport units can be set to automatically transport resources from one building to another, and the player can construct pipelines and conveyers that do this automatically.

As a small visual example of the way resources are based in specific buildings, the large building in the upper right corner of the image has some UI elements below it. The green represents refined Fuel, and the Yellow is Materiel. One of the gray bars is unused space reserved for unrefined materials and scrap that can be brought to the structure to refine into useable Materiel, and the other is for crude oil, to be converted to Fuel.

More to come in the following weeks as we tweak and polish this system, and create more visual assets for it, such as a visual demonstration of the processing and conversion system and its associated units and structures. 

Thanks for sticking with us.