[IDEA] Resource bonuses should be propotional to consumption

[Freakazoid]

My idea is to make resource bonuses depend on the amount of consumption. The way the system works right now is if you have zero resources in refinery, and have even a slight shortage, your colonists will lose the bonus associated with that resource completely. So supposing you have a demand for 200 organics an hour, and you harvest only 199, with no organics stockpiled, you will lose the organic bonus completely. Basically your colonists will continue to consume resources (that's why your shortage is lower) and are only slightly unsatisfied, yet you don't receive any bonuses for it.

This is of course not the way it should work. If you fulfill your colonists' needs partially, you should get a partial bonus. It will just make sense that a population whose needs for resources is completely unfulfilled (-200 resources/hour), will do worse than a population whose needs are nearly fulfilled (-1 resource/hour). If, for example, you have a planet with 5000 people in it, and don't harvest organics at all, then all of your population will starve. If you harvest half of the organics needed, then only half of your population will be starving. If you harvest 99% of the organics needed, then you should be losing only a couple of people to starvation every hour.

I hope it makes sense...What do you guys think?

[Elemayo]

Yes!

[Freakazoid]

Yeah, I actually think it might solve a lot of complaints people have. It's very hard to balance the sliders the right way, on arctics for example, you can't harvest enough oil, unless you're harvesting organics, which make them grow too quickly. If there was a partial bonus, it wouldn't be a huge problem.

May be the bonus should range from 0% (completely unfulfilled) to 75% (nearly fulfilled), and you only get 100% if you have surplus. This way there still would be incentive to balance your resources manually for the full bonus.

Everything else in the game works that way. Pollution for example is proportional to the number of people in harvesting, you don't just get a set amount of pollution if you turn on harvesting, same goes for construction and weapon production. I think it would only make sense to do the same for consumption.

Oh, I guess I'll add a poll too