Greetings Comrades,

The time seems right to finally mention our plans for the resource system in Dawn of Victory. It may seem strange that such a vital aspect of the game hasn’t been discussed for so long, but we have been hard at work making sure our changes were viable and provided an interested dynamic to gameplay.

 
>Wilderness Class Replenishment Station

First of all, the three resource system found in Sins of a Solar Empire has been replaced. Credits, Metal and Crystal are now simply Manpower and Materiel.

Manpower represents your soldiers, sailors, and airmen; the people behind your warships and stations. Manpower is gained in a way very similar to Credits in Sins. Capturing planets, moons and asteroids will increase how fast your manpower is replenished and like in Sins, you can purchase upgrades to increase the amount of manpower you receive from each world.

 

Materiel is where things really start to change. Materiel represents the steady flow of ammunition, bandages, helmets, tanks, and all other provisions necessary to keep your fleet supplied. Students of history will know that having the best planes or soldiers means nothing if you can’t keep them fuelled or fed.

Materiel is gained by capturing depots spread across the map. Each gravity well can have between 0 and 3 depots, each providing a fixed rate of income. Once captured, these depots must be connected to your supply chain through the construction of Supply Bases. Each Supply Base can support any depot within the same gravity well, or any depot in a gravity well directly connected to it. Each depot in turn can be serviced by up to three Supply Bases for maximum efficiency. For a more detailed look, be sure to check out the image below.

These depots aren’t serviced magically of course, but rather by trade ships such as the Soviet Tu-402. Destroying these trade ships will severely hamper your opponent, making blockades extremely desirable. While some depots can be found orbiting colonisable planets, making them easily defensible, more often than not you’ll find them in debris fields, asteroid clusters and other areas that are harder to defend. Protecting your supply line while exploiting your enemies’ is the fastest path to victory.

Finally Comrades, the Dawn of Victory team will be hosting a Battlefield 3 server. We’re hoping it will be up in time for the BF3 open beta, but who knows. We’ll post more details here as soon as we have them.