Basic Vs Advanced Radar

What's the problem of having advanced radar cost more and be better?
Doesn't mean that I only build advanced radars now, at least not when I'm trying to spend my ressources as best as possible, in other words when I not want to play bad.
Same with Laser Towers. If you think that tier 1 lasertowers are redundant because of T3 lasertowers, then why do I still build T1 lasertowers?

Maybe you haven't realized yet that you get more than 2x the HP, 4x the fire power for only 2.5 times the cost?

Mike

And? Still doesn't prevent me from building T1 lasertowers, especially if I just want to protect a mex where there might be some bots coming along. Putting T3 towers everywhere instead would be a waste of ressources. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't be balanced better.

If I know even vaguely where my opponent is, and I think that basic radar would give me the chance to see it, then I'll build a basic radar instead of an advanced radar, because I don't want to waste ressources into something that might be better in general, but that doesn't give me any bonus in that particular situation.

There are many situations where basic radar is sufficient, and where it is better to build it instead of the advanced version.

Here's the thing, if you put weaker defenses somewhere, that's where a good player is going to attack from. The only reason you wouldn't build an Advanced Laser Defense is because you don't have any Advanced Fabbers yet, once you have the capability and the economy to build even one you'll never look back because it's a better investment, you get more bang for you buck no matter how you look at it to be honest. Heck, it even takes LESS TIME to build an Advanced Laser Defense with an Advanced Fabber bot than it does to build a Basic Laser Defense with a Basic Bot Fabber.

The thing about teh streaming economy is that in most cases you aren't considering the raw cost of a unit, you're working with the drain rate a building has, and if you've already got Advanced Factories and Advanced Eco buildings you can afford the higher drain rates and you flat out get more out of the advanced version.

Mike

Only because you can afford higher drain rates, doesn't mean that it wouldn't still prevent you from building other things.
No matter whether streaming economy or not, makro is makro, and building even one T3 laser turret that never fires a shot is considered to be bad thing. Like building a nuke to kill one bot is wasteful. As is building a T3 tower when all you will ever be attacked with from that angle are a couple of bots, when a lower tier lasertower could've done the job. People need to cut spending where ever they can, because not doing so is considered bad in a competitive makro game. That's why there are multiple tiers, so you have options that aren't as wasteful as others. In the case of the radars: I don't need to be able to see farther, if I only need to see so far.

But tbh I think that in the special case of lasertowers, that every tier should be as cost efficient as the other ones. And I agree that it needs more balancing.

You could come with the counterargument:
"So you're basically saying that if you had the choice between being able to see as far with your eyes as you can now, and seeing less, then you'd be ok with seeing less?"
Then I would say:
"If I had to pay exceedingly more money to be able to use my eyes at maximum visibility, and the restricted visibility would be sufficient to fulfill the task that I've set myself up to, then yes, I'd be using the restricted visibility."

But most of the time you'll be opting to build an advanced satellite anyway. So you might ask the more interesting question: Where is the point of having radar at all?

nanolathe (and maybe KNight), I think you are being a bit overzealous in applying the "no redundant units" idea. You seem to have seen the word 'advancced' alongside some simple stat multipliers and concluded that there is a redundant unit situation. I agree with the idea that there should be no redundant units, I just don't think this situation necessarily has such redundancy.

So say you have two radar structures. They are identical except that one has more range and higher cost. Range and cost are basically the only important factors of a radar structure so it looks like we have redundancy. But I don't think we do. It boils down to the fact that radar does not stack.

In normal redundancy situations you often have a choice between building many units with low cost or less units which have a higher cost. For example a certain cost in either T1 or T2 generators will give better energy output so there is some redundancy. This efficiency relation then scales cleanly.

In the case of radar there is no reason to build many T1 radars on the same spot instead of constructing a T2 radar. There is quite a low bound on the amount of area which must be covered by radar. Radar coverage is not something which just scales up in expenditure in the way that energy economy or army composition does.

Now for an example. The advanced radar could have 10x the cost and 2x the radius of basic radar. If these radar structures were on a plane it would cost 2.5x more to cover this plane with advanced radar structure. On a sphere an advanced radar covers less than 4x the area of a single basic radar so it becomes even less efficient. These parameters give each radar tower a role; the basic radar is for mass coverage of reasonably safe territory and the advanced radar is for penetrating into dangerous territory. The aim is for the basic radar tower to be used as default while the advanced radar tower is the much more expensive option which is used to view somewhere which basic radar cannot reach.

By that logic the advanced radar should be directional, not omni directional.

I'm sorry but I just don't agree with your analysis due to the fact that we're not dealing with perfect scenarios here. We're talking about humans; humans are lazy and will take the easier path. It is easier to place one Advanced Radar that covers x4 the amount of area than four basic radars (which must be carefully placed so as to reduce overlap to a minimum.)

You've downplayed the power of having such power condensed into a single unit. It performs the same job as a Radar; forewarned knowledge beyond sight range. The advanced radar just does that job better. Add on top of that the ability to penetrate so far into the FoW that it's actually viable to use it as a pseudo-replacement for scouting, while maintaining complete security over your own base and you have what I call an 'upgrade'.

With the economy structured the way it is with T2 Mexes and PGens the increased cost for an advanced Radar is insignificant to the power it grants in relation to it's T1 counterpart. The only reason not to build one is because you can't. (Either you aren't at T2 yet, or the area would be suicidal to colonise.)

I do not accept that the economy in this instance is a viable balancing factor unless you take it to ludicrous extremes. Mathematically it should be possible to balance a unit just with cost, but in practice I find it nearly impossible to do so. The basic radar is so cheap that timesing the cost by ten isn't actually much of a distinction.

Nanolathe has this. The cost of radar, vs. what you get out of it, is no contest. Build the damn radar, it's practically a map hack.

However, the game is also at fault by having such limited stealth options. There are many units where stealth is critical to their success, such as with raiders, skirmishers, and bombers. Stealth lets them get close enough to attack, when otherwise they would be useless if intercepted.

Sure, with the rest of the game as it is the current advanced radar is just an upgrade. Taking into account laziness (ie, bad UI) and the economy it would be hard to balance radar with cost and range as parameters. In this I am mostly ignoring the current balance as well as the effect of suboptimal/lazy play.

Directional radar sounds good. It would accentuate these roles.

You can't compare the difference in radar to any other unit.

If you have an adv. and basic radar next to each other, the basic radar is completely useless. Now look at two different power generators, one may dwarf the other in terms of power generation, but the basic one still fills its role and pumps out energy at the same rate. Now look at an LLT and a big *** laser tower. The LLT still chips away with its small attack.

So with other basic units, they may not do much, but they carry on doing what they do and are still useful. With basic radar you might as well reclaim it.

There is such a thing where certain types of radar [long-range?] can be used for detection earlier but cannot track stealth planes [i.e be involved in shooting them down].

Isn't the point to stealth planes.......not showing up on radar to begin with?

Mike

Sorry Google, I know I come off as abrasively stubborn in this regard but once one unit type gets a free pass to be UpgradeUnit-2.0 then you have cracks. Other units begin to plead ignorance and say that "Hey, Radar just has T1/T2 mechanics where 2 is just downright better than 1, so why can't I?"

Give them an inch... and they'll have you whole arm off.

Every unit must justify its existence in its own terms and on its own merits. Advanced units have the additional onus that they must justify their existence without also leaning on the basic tier for function and certainly not simply act as a unit to supersede it.

This is my design axiom, my personal goal.
T2 radar steps on the toes of the basic version, superseding it in every conceivable way.
This. Must. Change...

one way or the other, it will change.

I don't see a reason why that should change. It's how this game is designed. You spend more to get better stuff.
How else would you justify the advanced satellite when comparing it to T1 and T2 radars? It's just better in every way, except that you have to pay a lot for it. So why are you comparing T1 and T2 radars with eachother, but not radars with satellites? Following your logic, the advanced satellite is just an upgrade to radars, so why doesn't that bother you? And how would you want to change that without removing any units/buildings? Because the aspect of having to pay increased amounts of ressources for it doesn't seem to be able to justify it, at least not in your opinion.

If you'd be consequential you'd remove T1 radar, T2 radar and normal satellites, because your argument is "When people have built an orbital, then they'll only build advanced satellites and nothing else anymore." (which is so not true btw)

Btw it would be really nice to know what the devs think about this topic, so we'd have a criterion on which we could discuss this much better. Are they ok with economic factors and quality being the only things that make those buildings/units different, or are there plans to change them according to what people like nano said?

I'd be willing to change my mind if that's the case. But at the moment I don't see the need to change how it works.

But I think telling us how radars and satellites might change, would also imply that they'd have to tell us everything else, too. So that we can understand the correlations.
Probably won't happen. Because I don't think that the devs have completely thought it through themselves, yet.

I would suggest giving the Advanced Radar a much lower range, a very hefty cost increase, a massive energy drain, and give it a large field of view that grows or diminishes depending on your energy reserves.

In retrospect, you could give the basic radar coverage a longer range, and it would be your go-to for radar status, specifically somewhere in between the basic and advanced we have now. It could also have a smaller field of radar coverage if your energy starts stalling.

• Basic Radar would be medium distance typical radar and see around most of your base. Cheap, efficient, and powerful.

• Advanced Radar would be short distance field of view and should be able to take the ground-based Orbital Radar's place as well. Even though this building does give a decent visual FoV similar to the Advanced Orbital Radar, it would be a much smaller visual area, and you would have to pick and choose when or where to build because of the large cost and energy requirement. It's as good as you can get for visual coverage and orbital scanning.

• Ground-based Orbital Radar could be removed since the Advanced Radar would have the cost of orbital, but not replace the basic radar.

• The Orbital Radars could have key differences where the basic Orbital Radar would take place of the original Advanced Radar we have now with a slightly larger area. It would basically replace the ground-based Advanced Radar with an massively increased cost, and should be able to warn of nuclear strikes being launched and where they're heading, incoming asteroids because of tracking any bodies in the sky, and possibly unit bombardment with unit cannons with UI pointers and data. The best of the best planet-side and deep space radar.
  
  Keep in mind, that the Basic Orbital Radar would be able to instantly replace the ground-based basic Radar, but have extreme energy costs that may not be efficient on small planets, but more than efficient on very large planets. It also has WMD detection, basically, so it's a fair trade I think.

• The Advanced Orbital Radar wouldn't be too different from now, costing an arm and a leg for the visual distance it can cover. It shouldn't be longer than the radar coverage distance of the proposed Basic Orbital Radar, but should have a longer Field of View distance than the ground-based Advanced Radar. Remember, the ground-based Advanced Radar is the structure that locates orbital. The Advanced Orbital Radar cannot do this.

• Building both Basic and Advanced Radar on the ground can do everything the orbital versions do with the single exception of the Basic Orbital's ability to UI alert WMDs. The Orbital Radars together can solidly replace their ground-based counterparts, have a more effective coverage on everything, but cost much MUCH more in terms of resources, and if the game isn't in the orbital phase, there's no need to burn that many resources.

Thoughts and/or opinions? Nanolathe wanted the radars to be different, fundamentally, and I think I achieved that at least ground and orbital level. When ground vs orbital it becomes Cost VS Efficiency VS WMD coverage. I'm sure you guys could at least take this and run with it. Use it in some way to create better and more efficient radars than the T1 and T2 radar we have currently.

Your radars are still all doing the same thing; pinpoint and accurate information on the enemies positions.

I'm working on an idea to flesh out a 'fuzzy radar'. The Advanced Radar would have significant range, but it wouldn't give absolute positional information. Rather I give a 'heat' rating to units; some with more heat than others depending on their function (perhaps tied to energy usage/production? not sure yet...). The radiated 'heat' from units would show up in the fog of war as a sort of blurry coloured amorphous blob when detected by an Advanced radar. It couldn't be used for automatic targeting by Catapults or Holkins but savvy players could force-fire their artillery on 'Hot Spots'.

Then, for counter intelligence you have heat generator units... and heat dampener units. These units would alter the heat-map and create artificial 'Hot Spots' or reduce the signature of legitimate Hot Spots.

Heat would build up and dissipate over time when units enter or exit an area, so the Radar will show trails and gathering positions of units but only gives the player a vague guess at the type, number and more importantly exact temporal position of mobile units. Bases would obviously be more prone to heat buildup and as such, be easy to identify through the FoW.

Pretty simple, but certainly different from the pinpoint accuracy of the current implementation.

Orbital, I'm working on a different idea again... but it's still embryonic. I don't feel like sharing it just yet.

I somehow like this very much.