"Energy Generator" is not good enough.

We do have solar energy collectors.

Could be fun to have distance from the sun matter, but might be a little annoying.

its better if we don't add too much realism to a game

you add to much and it starts loosing its Fun factor and gets annoying.

The design space for energy generators is fairly large and the 'best' energy generation system for PA is quite sensitive. As in quite similar game designs could require significantly different energy generation systems. This thread discusses possible particular designs for the energy generation system and I think these distinct ideas stem from fairly different ideas of how PA should play. It would be more useful to discuss the underlying ideas or at least discuss how different energy systems support or run counter to particular underlying ideas.

PA could "get away with" only having one energy generator. It is possible to make a working (balanced, fun etc...) game with just one type of energy generator. This would work best if PA is supposed to be a high level strategy type game instead of one about small decisions. A commander operating at a high level would simply say "I want more energy income" and his analysis mooks would then get to work planning the infrastructure which most efficiently increases his income. If the player is not meant to care about exactly how they optimize their energy then there may as well just be a single generator.

There are good points to other ideas as well. If PA is supposed to be a bit more low level then distinct energy generators could add an interesting choice. Just to name a few differentiating characteristics; generators can be position dependent (eg, sea, space, hills), they can have varied cost and payoff time and they can have varied safety. I quite like positional generators because they can force bases to be a bit more spread out which creates weak points.

I think it is silly to have generators vary in strength between planets. If each planet has some subset of viable generators then it just becomes a trivial memory game of matching the generator to the planet.

In short I think it is possible to make distinct generators which create interesting choices but it is not so clear to me that this should be done. There are only so many decisions you can ask a player to make before they are swamped. A game should determine what it wants players to do and then not do much else at the risk of losing the core gameplay in a bunch of static. The economy already has a large controlling decision "How much should I be spending on expanding my energincome?" which is probably enough to serve as a basis for many potential game designs.

At what point is too mush realism in a science fiction game?

I would think that it would be at the point a realistic mechanic makes something less fun.

So would having range from the sun making solar generators less effective make the energy generation mechanic less fun?

If so....then why is it a solar power generator?

they will implement the mode to start on different planets.

so 1 player starts on a planet close to the sun and the 2nd starts far away from the sun

you add stuff like these and everyone will start only spawning on planets with the higest advantage ( basically everyone on the same planet )

why sonar power generator ?

to have more orbital stuff in the game and some more ways for energy generation.

Well that depends on the planet diversity in a system, and what kinds of systems people like to play on doesn't it? I feel like you have jumped to a conclusion that such a mechanic would be bad.

And my comment about the solar generator, was more in regards to if the range and such or a star doesn't effect it, then why a solar generator then, say, a orbital fission generator?

More basically, solar panels don't work at night
This would make the energy storage more critical as without them the whole economy will slowdown at night.

What about tidal generators becoming more efficient when bringing a large moon into the planet's orbit?

yes I jumped to that conclusion bicous in MY opinion its bad.

for the name and model well ask the devs ? XD
they planning to change orbital stuff anyway soon.

btw what would be the point to send a generator to Orbit when it can work fine on the ground ?
maybe that's why they stayed with Orbital Solar generator ?
not if like it would make sense that our base gains energy on the ground magicaly from an Orbital station right ?

Resources teleporting around are done because having to manage the transport isn't that fun.

And besides, an orbital generator is relatively safe, and can use more exotic energy generation due to being away from a base that might be damaged.

When i was mentioning placement I was referring mainly to. placing geo thermal in lava or tidal generators in water spots. I wasn't saying have a Hydrocarbon marker on the planet or somthing of that sort. Just using the terrain features to build the unique power systems on those unique terrain features.

To be honest, since there is randomly generated planets with varying metal spot placement. I can see the concern that the randomly generated terrain features would also impact a "balanced" starting location. However, these are randomly generated planets and not custom made Mirror planets.

Whats your opinion on the topic if there is mirror planets for people to play off of?

What may be viewed as a focus on economy is really forcing players to make decisions that can effect the combat in the game. I personally get bored with building a blob of power generators in one spot that is protected by a shell of defenses. If the energy can be more effective if placed on unique land locations, I feel this opens up opportunities for attackers and defenders to deal with this risk of placing energy on high value parts of the world.

Hi everyone. I have been playing the alpha and Beta since June. Cold and rainy in Atlanta today so I decided to post...

First off, I'd like to say that Uber has been doing a great job developing this game and consistently adding new features and FUN. I'm sure most of this community is proud of their "go get 'em" attitude and enthusiasm towards tackling such an ambitious project. Add my support of the "release when ready" policy.

There are many good ideas in this thread. I believe that the existing energy structures are mostly in-line with solid gameplay at this point. PA is not inherently balanced for true competitive play. There's no starting area mirroring. Adding geographical energy "hotspots" would only add to that chance of getting a crappy start position. Spawns should be as equivalent as possible.

Tier 1 Energy plant and Energy Storage
possible addition:
Energy Amplifier: Adds +x production per local Energy Plant

Tier 2 Energy Plant
possible addition:
Energy Station: Cheaper version that only powers local structures

Tier 3 Solar Array
possible addition:
Reactor with massive power production

Where the resource collection decisions can be further developed is with the strategic value of planets. Gas Giants being the example of an "energy bonus" type. The difficulty is that if you already control a planet or two you can easily build enough energy production. So fighting over a planet because of energy isn't a high priority with the current unit list. I'd love to see a high tier unit list which requires that level of power though

And that's OK. Metal scarcity is enough in the resource management part of the game. Fighting on multiple layers of multiple planets is time consuming enough.

I'll tell you what.

The orbital generator really screws with me. It generates more power, MOVES, and is in the orbital layer.

Why would you ever go back when you can bundle these on the orbit of some god forsaken moon?

Right now the Solar Array cannot hop planets.

Also, Uber is completely reworking the Orbital Layer. Orbital Fabricators will have to build solar arrays and laser sats and radar and stuff. So those structures won't hop planets, but the fabricators will.

So the orbital layer will be a lot more like the ground layer.

Still bugs me that they can move.

Unless we can also have aircraft repair pad/energy generators like TA had.

But even then, it seems to take away from the static generators when you can clump 100's of the solar one into a single defensible point.

Glad to hear . Yes, there was bigger/smaller metal spots which had different yield rates. Also, the metal maps in TA was all covered with metal, so you could put metal extractors pretty much anywhere. This may be applicable in PA solar systems, where the metal planets will instead be very inefficient for energy production, because of a longer distance from the sun and lack of oceans e.tc.

I really like this idea, making a real purpose to the simulated day/night in PA. The second one is also really interesting. We must take advantage of the Solar system mapstyle in PA, because it really have a lot of promising factors within it. Since there only is one set of units available, balancing these factors for great multiplayer experiences won't be a big problem.

Fighting over resources is central to any RTS. The goal with generators shouldn't be about how many creative types of resource structures you can build. It should be about how you can encourage battles over resources.

For metal, intense conflict exists by default. Extractor points are limited and spread across the game map. How much metal you get is directly tied to how aggressively you can expand and protect your territory, while dealing damage to enemy territory. You don't need any special restrictions or stuff on top of this; metal already forms the central battle in PA.

For energy, the conflict is much more mild. Power can be built anywhere at any time, which means it can be kept safe and away from battle. Battles can be somewhat encouraged through special energy deposits (like hydrocarbon/geotherm spots in other games), but the simple fact that your opponent has NO obligation to place their energy anywhere within a million miles of battle. This is somewhat okay as energy is meant to control pacing, acting as a supply depot tax for any unit that needs it.

Who cares about how many types of energy structures you can make? That's really not important. You need to make energy a target first. For example, forcing energy closer to the front lines definitely makes it a target.

There is actually a quite direct impact of the energy economy on conflict, which is to encourage conflict by limiting the rate at which economy can be ramped up.

Suppose energy was incredibly cheap, fast, and easy to acquire. You can ramp your production up exactly as quickly as you can increase your metal income. Which, while it does mean you have to massively prioritize capturing mexes, it also means you can expand to mexes and then instantly convert your expanded metal income into increased production.

Under this design, being aggressive in the early game does not actually make sense. Any investment you make in troops to attack with is completely wasted because of the time it takes for your troops to reach the enemy. By the time your troops can actually do any damage, your enemy actually has MORE units than you because they didn't build those units earlier, like you did. If energy is cheaper, passive macro is much stronger because it leads to increased production much faster, and with less metal investment.

Of course, at the opposite end of the spectrum aggression also does not make sense because the enemy isn't expanding since that player cannot use the metal anyway. Requiring too much investment for energy infrastructure will discourage players from capping mexes they can't use. This means there are no targets to raid, and aggression again stops making sense in favor of passive construction.

Of course these are extremes. There is a wide range in the middle where players both expand, creating targets to attack, and also have an incentive to attack instead of exponentially ramping up their economy in their own little world.

I cant agree on that argument. It is not a certainty that only one planet will attract all the players. Reason to this is that planets will have additional factors than "the closer to the sun the better". For example, another factor that would rebalance this would be: "The closer to the sun the less metal".

Voila, it is no longer a certainty that closest is the best. Also, if all the players/teams is on one planet only, there will be less map control per player, and thus less resources per player, encouraging to to spread out.

In this type of game mechanic, a good tactics in a team based match when players share economies would be to spread out all the players in the team, where one is further away from the sun concentrating on metal income, and the other nearer concentrating on energy income.

Almost. Energy plays a huge role in pacing, but all aspects of base building play into that. Cheap lathes with expensive energy is not terribly different from the opposite, and it can be just as slow as placing the cost entirely on extractors. The distribution of cost mostly change what targets are worth shooting.