Stylite Resource Management v1.1

About this model

The diagram outlines a complex resource management and progression system, likely designed for a game. It models several interconnected systems including food production, population growth, industrial outputs, and a narrative expedition mechanic. At the core, three primary resource generation areas: a farm, laboratory, and workshop, each producing distinct resources essential for the survival and progression within the game environment. These primary resources go through various gates indicating decision-making points or processes that determine their further use, conversion, or loss. For instance, food production is necessary to prevent starvation, an end condition that could terminate the game, whereas refined materials like marble flow through a converter mechanism, illustrating a process of transforming basic resources into more valuable assets or constructions such as districts and statues.

Additional layers of complexity are added through mechanisms that simulate research accumulation, district control, and expeditionary ventures, each with varying success conditions influenced by resource management and strategy. Registers calculate outputs based on resource inputs, representing efficiency or skill levels that directly impact game outcomes like district expansion or research breakthroughs. Expeditions and missions introduce variability and strategic planning elements, engaging players in balancing risk and reward based on current resources and achievements. Furthermore, the system simulates a dynamic environment where factors like food availability, population growth, and external challenges such as smog or statue loss can significantly impact progress and require adaptive strategies, suggesting a game where sustainability and expansion are key themes.

This public Machinations diagram, “Stylite Resource Management v1.1”, was shared in the Machinations Community by Balthazar Lindsay.

You can open the original diagram in the Machinations app, press Play to watch how resources move through it, and change its values to see how the system responds. Machinations is a visual tool for designing, simulating and balancing game economies and other systems, where resources flow through sources, pools, drains, converters and gates. In a diagram, a source creates resources, a pool stores them, a drain removes them, a converter changes one resource into another and a gate decides where they go next.