Upgradable Factories and Resources

[Land-Strider]

Feature Request: Upgradable Factories and Resources

Problem:

Currently, for player faction to raise funds, it needs to either play wide (take and hold a lot of flags), steal a lot of vehicles, or grind missions.
The value of limited number of resources and factories the player faction can reasonably hold without incurring high war levels and heavy or frequent attacks force players to engage in other funds-accumulation activities. This is reasonable, but also it is the only option progress, usually.

Expected behavior:

Give the player faction (maybe also the enemy factions) the ability to invest in a Factory or Resource marker to increase its efficiency, so that limited number of held economy locations can still provide good source of income in the longer run, and individual flags are more worth holding against strong attacks instead of going through lose/retake routine against way easier fresh garrisons.

Implementation details:

• Add a parameter to enable Factories and Resources upgrades to increase their income efficiency.
• Implement the upgrade option to the commander menu.
• Tie the income multipliers of upgrades to another parameter for optional multiplier values: 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%.
• Set multiple upgrade levels via parameter option. Up to 5 upgrades should be reasonable, depending on the multiplier parameter above.
• Set total upgrade count limits via parameters, so that there is still a choice factor to upgrade select factories/resources only.
• Require increasing upgrade costs and maybe spawn fail-able upgrade missions, during which enemy attack waves try to prevent the upgrade vehicle from reaching its destination or the upgrade location is attacked with the purpose of taking it.
• Instead of an upgraded factory/resource being destroyed immediately upon worker loss, have it go down one level in such a situation.
• Keep the factory/resource levels intact upon flag side change.

[Land-Strider]

Implemented the core feature and a few additional aspects in commit 4bd12b3:

• 2 new parameters:

  • "Enable factory and resource upgrading" (PCF_EnableResourceUpgrade)
  • "The increment step for each upgrade cost" (PCF_ResourceUpgradeCost)

• Rebel commanders can now upgrade their factories and resources via the Commander Menu > Rebel HQ > Upgrade Assets button.

  • When the PCF_EnableResourceUpgrade parameter is on, all factories and resources on the map will show their upgrade levels next to their name. For example "Agios Dionysos Factory - L1"
  • All upgrades purchased will increment the cost of the next one globally by the amount set in PCF_ResourceUpgradeCost parameter. For example, When the PCF_ResourceUpgradeCost is set to 10.000, first upgrade will cost 10000 FIA money, thjen the next one will cost 20.000 FIA money. This increment is global for any rebel held factory or resource e.g. the price increase will affect the next upgrade purchased for any rebel held factory or resource marker or any level they have. This implementation aims to limit the viable upgrade purchases with an increasing cost/return balance to encourage upgrading only a few defensible markers.
  • For now AI factions don't utilize the upgrade levels in any way. However, when a rebel factory or resource with any upgrade level is lost to the AI factions, that marker will lose one upgrade level. When that marker is conquered by the other AI faction or reconquered by the rebel faction, there is no upgrade level loss again.
    For example, A level 3 rebel factory is lost to the invaders. That factory will go down to level 2 immediately. Later, when occupants take that factory from invaders, there is no level change. Even later when rebels retake that factory, there is no level change either. Rebels can now upgrade that factory to level 3 again.
  • Any factory or resource can be individually upgraded to level 3 at maximum.
  • A level increase in a factory or resource will increase its yield by 100%. A level 1 factory will give 50% money multiplier (25% base + 25% from 1 level), acting as 2 factories in effect. Same applies for the resources. A marker can yield a maximum of 400% of the base income it provides (100% base + 100% x 3 levels)
  • Atm marker destruction by the loss of 4 workers does not affect upgrade levels. It will pause the base income. However, the upgrade levels and income should later be tied to the marker destruction status. A destrcution event should decrease one upgrade level, and while the marker isn't rebuilt, there should ne no income provided by the upgrade levels.

• For now, the PCF_EnableResourceUpgrade is locked on save. There is an issue that can mess this functionality when:

  • The parameter is set to on and a rebel marker is upgraded, then a persistent save is made,
  • The parameter is set to off and later the upgrade rebel marker is lost then a persistent save is made,
  • The parameter is set to on again.
    This causes level discrepancies at the moment and breaks the upgrade counters from counting properly, despite the game is still being playable and the parameter could be turned off again for completely working base Antistasi economy gameplay.

The issue should be left open until more of the initial ideas are implemented or considered.