local market (unrestricted) and gestalts = OP?

[TheWhiteFlame]

gameplay wise the local market makes it a lot easier to balance all resources - but somehow makes them all the same and less significant (or building and planning out infrastructure).

but especially for gestalts that seems very odd and wrong. if you search the forum for "local market gestalt" you wil find a single other post about this from 2018... how do you feel about it?

gestalts already own everything in an empire and work together super coordinated. from whom would they even "buy" stuff in the local market? especially exterminators, devourers?! either they have the infrastructre or they dont. assume you have one measily alloy raffinery but 40k credists. then you can buy like 8k alloys in a second out of thin air. how do you do that? while that one bulding is hardly cranking out 8alloys /moth.

even for normal empires the local market should have some restrictions. assume a young empire without much of anything as somehow stockpiled a lot of credits but nothing else. who would they be able to turn that into sth else. especially when i literally "buy" more than the civ even is made of.

feels like there should be a harsher limit (that replenishes) depending on size. and for gestalts - maybe give them a building that can convert faster but ineffciently.

[coolman552]

some guy said they are turning x material into y material

[Colonizor48]

mabye buyinh is commanding there drones to try to find spare materials or give the order to repurpous resorces meant for local use for use across the whole empire

[Azor]

You didn't say why it is overpowered.

[Tiasmoon]

Its not just Gestalt. For many other Empire types internal trade makes no sense. It requires Pops to be able to obtain their own resources. In a Divine Empire you'd assume it all belongs to the God Emperor.

I assume it exists for everyone for balancing reasons.

[Cryten]

Note that the gestalts are not all knowing of all drones. It is a collective consciousness but drones have partial free will. They synchronise their knowledge and experience but are not just 1 all encompassing computer. Think of it as the zerg from the hive mind to their cerebrates to their overlords to their drones. Subdivisions on consciousness to divide the load of action.

Also the internal market is meant to be an abstraction in any empire. It represents the ability for a nation to exploit and transform its resources. Whether through trade, technology or biological purpose.

Still its okay for you to reject it but remember it is still a game. Balance must be maintained in order for the various types to function. Just like how maintaining atmospherics would be tough for aliens but in game is ignored for habitability of habitats and ring worlds and various others. Because the game needs to work and its not that important.

[-=EDF=- Kouta Seto]

Like i said in another one that has a similar problem : Gestalt Machine empires aint the 100% machine empire we know from like Matrix. They are more or less, ballancewise, in the direction Borg, where even the borg queen did NEVER havve 100% controll over ALL of her subordinates (as we saw in Voyagers double episode Unimatrix Zero). Plus: if she would have, then obviously the voyager would be longe gone, as we all know to well that the queen CAN hold grudges, as if she has her conciousness and her emotions not erased at all. Hell, she was scared as data pulled her into the warp plasma. Thats no Machine, its a living being that controlls others, nothing more (kinda like the Mothership from Homeworld).

Sooo, nope. Its a ballance reason, otherwise the Machine empires would be totaly OP as they would have NO POPS whatsoever and would outproduce and outperform every other non machine empire with ease.

[TheWhiteFlame]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Its not just Gestalt. For many other Empire types internal trade makes no sense. It requires Pops to be able to obtain their own resources. In a Divine Empire you'd assume it all belongs to the God Emperor.

I assume it exists for everyone for balancing reasons.

i agree with everything u say there. (tried to imply that for many normal empires its kinda wierd aswell).

Originally posted by Azor:

You didn't say why it is overpowered.

i'm a bit torn here. in some situations its really handy, but at the same time it often feels like i shouldn't be able to use it to that extent.

1) because it makes it a lot easier to ignore infrastructure and simply use the market a lot
2) you can bank up huge amounts (50k credits ondefault) and dont have to hassle with building lots (or any) foundries, refineries, advanced buildings ect... -> but you can still "buy" whatever you suddenly need in huge amounts. since you can buy every resource, you can decide on a split second, which is nice and very flexible but somewhat unrealsitic flexible.

3) ok at least it's somewhat limited, by the built in imflation of prices.

Originally posted by Cryten:

Note that the gestalts are not all knowing of all drones. It is a collective consciousness but drones have partial free will. They synchronise their knowledge and experience but are not just 1 all encompassing computer. Think of it as the zerg from the hive mind to their cerebrates to their overlords to their drones. Subdivisions on consciousness to divide the load of action.

Also the internal market is meant to be an abstraction in any empire. It represents the ability for a nation to exploit and transform its resources. Whether through trade, technology or biological purpose.

Still its okay for you to reject it but remember it is still a game. Balance must be maintained in order for the various types to function. Just like how maintaining atmospherics would be tough for aliens but in game is ignored for habitability of habitats and ring worlds and various others. Because the game needs to work and its not that important.

smart perspective. but that's exactly the point. a still younng/small empire with already two hands full of generator districts but no foundries - how will they turn resources into another?. or in other words: the market is the same from the beginning - but the "abilty to transform resources" really feels like should depend on infrastructre/size or at least something. its weird to trade more resources in a day than yourall your facilites can produce in years. an alternative could be to "overcharge" existing buildings with lots of cash - but at least then its limited buy the buildings.

suree its a game, devs can do whatever they want. but even for balance, think of the inverse argument - if a strategy game NEEDS a permanent option to transform resources in big amounts from the beginning that this could mean that maybe the economy-system is bad or too difficulty and the market is an easy way out - but at the same time makes planning good infrastructure not feel very important anymore - simply more is better, but you can trade whatever you need whenever, just grab a good average form everything and trade the rest.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Executioner:

suree its a game, devs can do whatever they want. but even for balance, think of the inverse argument - if a strategy game NEEDS a permanent option to transform resources in big amounts from the beginning that this could mean that maybe the economy-system is bad or too difficulty and the market is an easy way out - but at the same time makes planning good infrastructure not feel very important anymore - simply more is better, but you can trade whatever you need whenever, just grab a good average form everything and trade the rest.

Indeed.