[Poll] A more diverse, TA inspired Energy System (Wind-Tidal-Solar-Geothermal-Nuclear).

Are you worried people will just not bother fighting? THAT'S WHY THEY'RE THERE!

No I am not.
I just think it'd be cool if we had more things to fight over on the map, and if buildings battened down the hatches, or had nuclear explosions. All the 'splosions! That and if energy buildings interacted with their environments a little more. Currently the farthest PA goes in that respect is giving Nuclear Fusion Generator boxes a set of armbands so they float.

Id like more interesting power generators just for the looks quite frankly, the balance of it can be left to the people who like having maths flame wars.

Post #83 and that's the first time maths and balance have been mentioned outside the OP lol.

I love this idea and would love to see it, and many other terrain/planet/day/night sensitive features. I would like to see every planet and terrain environment made as diverse as possible to encourage players to seek out areas they consider more valuable. Arguments like "But every player will just rush to the most valuable spot!" are a load of crap. If "every player" rushes to that planet for easy energy then I'll be glad that all the moons were uncontested while I expanded quickly. They can bloodlet each other all they like, but the players who appreciate there are resources more valuable than metal or energy will be the ones controlling the most easily defendable kinetic energy weapons in the solar system.

Even more important than adding complexity, which is not always bad, these changes also allow us to fully utilize the engine. If Uber adds the hooks to the blueprint files to change unit/structure behavior depending on the planet/biome/day/night modders will have a mountain of new features to work with and that's twice as exciting as solar panels turning off in the dark.


Now some points and counterpoints for the discussion so far...

First, WYSIWYG does not mean a unit or value must be completely static. What it means is that it must be predictable given the onscreen elements and any upgrades must be visually represented. Violating WYSIWYG would be adding ambiguous armor systems that magically make AA units 50% resistant to air damage, or giving a silently 70% reduction in tank accuracy when targeting Dox. If the tank gun always had a scatter area larger than the profile of a Dox and it happens to miss because of that we're still WYSIWYG.

Realistic use of Day night cycles for solar is entirely reasonable and is absolutely WYSIWYG. If the model foles up or somehow reacts to show it is in night mode that's even better. If Solar panels provide twice as much during the day and provide only a trickle of energy at night it would encourage players to build more energy storage. This is not a bad thing.

Second, the build menu doesn't need to be cluttered at all if inappropriate buildings are removed from the build list.

If a planet is too large to push, don't show Haleys in the build menu while on that planet.
If a small rock has no metal points, don't show metal extractors.
If a planet has no water, don't show Hydroelectric generators and don't show naval factories.
If a planet has no atmosphere, don't show wind generators, and if it were up to me don't show air factories either.

Third, not every unit needs to build every type of powerplant. HydroElectric for example could be reserved to naval only, and it could be made slightly more efficient than other power sources to help offset the challenges of a naval start.

This kind of UI trimming in points 2 and 3 would sharply reduce the overhead of having too many buildings to chose from.

Fourth, I'm not buying any argument that adding a new terrain features (geothermal) imbalances the game. Symmetrical "Tournament" planets will be added for perfectly balanced starts. These are coming in time.

Even without symmetrical starts (which I will never use) I personally consider random starts on procedurally generated worlds 100% fair and far more enjoyable. You had the same odds of getting a great start as a bad one and I'm 100% OK with that. Poker is also a fair game while your start conditions are entirely random and very heavily influence your chances of winning. Your enemy might be as screwed as you are, or he might be the one disadvantaged while you are good to go. I personally have never once had a start selection so bad that I said "Oh No! It will be impossible to win with these start conditions!" If you are overly worried about that I would advocate you play only on tournament maps once they are available.

Symmetry aside, you have to remember you are given a list of several start locations across several planets to chose from. The odds are very poor that you will be given exclusively bad locations to chose from. With 5 start locations across 3 planets why would you chose the moon if you know it's going to be a slower start with less resources??? Maybe because it will be easier to defend? Maybe because you are more likely to have the moon to yourself? Maybe because you don't want anyone else to be capable of annihilating you with it? These are all still valid reasons to chose a moon even if it has no geothermal, water, or wind. Resource density is not the only consideration when choosing a start location.

I think it's pretty obvious the planes don't rely on aerodynamics to fly.

Well even with the what you see stuff, you could have a combo power-plant that uses solar during the day, and wind owner at night.

Or lava power at night, or fossil fuels at night.

Retaining the solar bit so you know it's the same power plant each time, but for each of the biomes.

No balance changes necessary.

I completely *100%* disagree. It's more likely that the moon biomes have air than it is the flying units can operate without air.

They most definitely do use the atmosphere as a flight element because if they didn't they would be able to fly vertically up into the orbital layer and away to other planets. Powered flight without the use of an atmosphere is capable of this, but the planes in PA are not capable of this.

It's really simple... if you can fly without atmosphere then you have no upper limit to your altitude. Therefore the planes in game use atmosphere for aerodynamics and/or using jets that cycle atmosphere.



"But they're super advanced space robots!"... even super advanced space robots would understand that it wastes huge amounts of energy to fly without utilizing the atmosphere. They are super advanced, not super wasteful.

"Well, duh, but it's just a game."... everything in this game makes at least a cursory effort to acknowledge physics. We make some concessions, such as in the orbital layer and simplified trajectories, but we never say "**** physics!" At the end of the day it's either an airplane or a spaceship... orbital units are the later and there's a reason air units are not orbital units.

They can fly vertically, haven't you seen them take off from the ground?

Harriers and helicopters do that to. Vertical flight does not mean you're not using the atmosphere.

Anything that is capable of generating greater than 1 gravity of vertical thrust can accelerate vertically. The only reason helicopters can't fly away into space is because they loose lift as the atmosphere thins. Once they have less than 1 G vertical thrust they cannot climb in altitude.

If you have a vertical thrust system can thrust that does not rely on atmosphere (rockets) it does not have an operational ceiling and it can accelerate right away from the planet and out of orbit. Fuel becomes the only limitation on range.

The problem is moons, because if you can thrust away, you really can fly into space.

What if we went and asked the writer of the lore how planes fly?

If he answers honestly he'll say "We didn't think of that."

Agree solar is overly complex to put in - I think a day cycle lasts what like 20 or 30 seconds on most planets? The orbital solar mechanics are not fleshed out enough to support this. However I totally support a more nuanced and diversified economy. Geothermal sounds great and I don't give a heck about the canon, give me exploding high yield t2 energy reactors as that sounds quite interesting. Wind I could take it or leave it, but the solar sats def need some more work and a more diverse eco might help with that.

Glad you agree
I think with Solar the battery idea is a good fallback, but short days and nights actually suit the system more than long ones, as we don't have to pay as much attention to how much energy we store up for the night. Making sure you don't start tanking your Eco at dusk when you're relying only on Solar would be common sense.

People on moons would probably use daylight Solar booms to quickly rush T2 and get constant Nuclear power - or - stay in T1 and expand/raise an army.

Having an early-game "boom" option adds options for strategic diversity and fills out niche tactics (like T2 rushing) we already have.

This proposal is about introducing things which would work well with existing in-game elements and tactics, not about radically changing the course of the game.

This sounds really cool. I think anything that adds depth is good. It would also maybe make you think about which planets to take over. I like the idea of having to take over a planet because it's rich in resources. Right now each planet just has mineral spots so it's a little samey and boring.

Right-o I'm gonna finally give your wall of text a crack, @stonewood1612 ^^ even if I do agree with most of what you're saying!

I think a four-scale system would be easy for Atmosphere thickness (discounting Gas Giants here as there are no plans that I know of to have Land on them (the community weren't fans when it was suggested). So it'd be:
0 - Vacuum
1 - Thin
2 - Average
3 - Thick
I'm still on the fence with Atmospheric thickness affecting Land Solar's power generation as the system proposed in my OP is already a little more difficult to grasp than the current one, though it's good to talk about

Agree the UI should show planet properties. We did have this with Metal Spots for a period, so it will likely reappear.

I think as with Atmospheric variation, a 0-3 scale would be simplest and most visually clear for Wind variation.
0 - Vacuum
1 - Slow
2 - Average
3 - Fast
Having these clear distinctions as opposed to a sliding scale provides an instant WYSIWYG cue to a player who's quickly glancing at a planet's clouds.

I'm not a huge fan of info triggered under your cursor - if it isn't obvious in-game then why is it obvious to my cursor? I prefer things to be immediately clear so that I can respond, and not need to move my cursor somewhere to trigger information. If Height were to affect Wind generation it could be in the simple 1-3 way outlined above (which would work well with the three-tiered Desert biomes when they arrive).

I like the idea of Nuclear having some dangerous element. Intense glowing/light output or something similar before they explode would fit well, and look pretty cool in a battle.

Indicators are a slippery slope. I'd prefer it if Factories just stopped glowing if they ceased functioning (as Factories stop spraying green nanites). That's a clear, non-obstructive cue to a player. Again just hypothetically Not endorsing Damaged-Shutdown mechanics. Reduced efficiency could be an equal incentive to not leave your base half-destroyed. Equally, if those reactors are liable to explode, there's your incentive right there!

As far as Metal Planets go I'm sure the ORs will feature, but if so then we need to consider the situation in which all variables are ticked. In which case I don't think an energy bonus on a death star would be good for balance

How's my wall of text compare?

Actually I'll bet he'll be like:

"Erm well.. uh.. wait until future stories! All is to be revealed"