[Suggestion] 3 Power Settings, On, Off, and Conserve

Adjacency is something you get used to, but let's be honest: if it was never in the game, nobody would miss it.

sorry i didnt bother to read anything but the op.

Basically, conserve is not a choice here. It is the only option, and clearly the best one. Only someone retarded would use the other 2 states.

I don't think it's very healthy for vanilla gameplay either. By all means go and make your own mod with it, but i would challenge anyone who wants to simply remove the punishments for not managing their economy correctly. That's just lazy plain and simple.

Only things that need fixing are bugs with the way fabbers consume energy (when they are not using any metal), and set wrong build rate from one global build rate efficiency number (combat fabbers when there is no energy).

maybe because it was absolutely and gloriously fabulous? and that's why people do? :>

I'd settle for a slider, so when you go under 100% efficiency, you can prioritize between building normal buildings, building ecom, and building units.

I think especially for team shared games, anything more 'unit' focused like instant priority, is likely to cause problems. Although I'd consider perhaps whatever the commander is building should always have priority?

there was no point in not using it ... either you use it or you lost to a clear economic lead ... it was bad .. dislike all you want ...

But the windmills were dynamic, right?
And wasn't solar strenght at least map dependant?

I would want my Radars to be always on. Indeed that is the very purpose of this addition - reserving power for the Intel Buildings. Giving intel and energy building constructors a lot higher priority then factories, so that if you have energy shortage those two are still working at 100%.
In turn there is still value in totally turning stuff off. Like turning of some factories to get more power left for the other ones.

It was only forcing you to build storage&factories to get 150% out of the building. It was mostly just eating up Unit cap and micro time.
It was not a bad idea, but is was not a good idea for a macro focussed game either.

That is an intersting point of view.
This was orginally in TA. Wich had a much, much smaller scale (200 unit cap; did buildings count for that too?). Smaler scale also means lower times to total failure in a crisis situation. In PA you kinda have the "Russia bonus". You have much more land between you and the enemy. Weapons ranges are comparatively short.
Especially once they implement mega planets.

The windmills were tile dependant, solar panels were always kept at 20 E/s.

I think a "leet apm player" could quickly re-establish radar within 4 seconds of an energy raid, just because they can click the fabbers and factories and set them to off until power comes back while microing 2 groups of dox and drinking a coffee.

I am just suggesting this be done automatically, so I don't have to choose 2 of those 3. I think I deserve a coffee too.

Now, raiding power would still have an outcome, lowered production. Tbh, keeping radar on is actually strategically questionable, it is important to respond with units, but units have vision, and what the radar is eating the factories aren't spending metal (assuming you have metal and an energy hit means your floating it).

Radar is broken anyway, most average played on planets are 80% reveal from a vanilla t1 radar. That could use at least a 50-150 range decrease, possibly a metal cost increase given it's cheapness.

Why are you bringing this back to 'apm hate'?

Manage your economy. It's unbelievable that you would make mistakes in what you would consider the 'macro strategic layer', and then blame it on too much 'micro'.

Mistakes deserve to be punished.

I am saying, be it rts or turn based, that tools to provide equal reaction time between two opponents who notice something equally as fast, without hitting the keys like a professional secretary, would be nice.

It is a strategy you choose, to turn power off to a set of things in case of power failure. It shouldn't be limited to reaction time like trying to react to anamatronics queues in Five Nights at Freddy's. It should probably be allowed to decide what you would turn off in advance, be if when you build it or mid-game sometime, or when it happens, but not constantly toggle it off and on as stuff is attacked or not and also be expected to do numerous other click-tasks around the place.

Basically, yes, it is apm hate, it will be death of the casual if someone managing eco can't also manage units but someone strong in that area can heavily babysit both with 2 second hopping amongst 4 camera points giving clicks all over the place. It won't take a handful of 1v1s for a casual to get tired of having less hand-managed groups at once against an opponent, to decide that is his limit with the game and move on to something he is willing to adapt to. Usually it is with other games as well, CoD became stupid and people left after a lot of the frame data on reloads and cancel animations and other exploitable interruptable or quicker-access spaztastic stuff became too popular. If someone wants to snipe, and every sniper match is a joke of spaz reaction, they will likely decide that they rather not play fps at all.

So, we should also replace hotkeys with an automatic system that builds the right units for you. Because otherwise the person who is able to learn his hotkeys better has the advantage.

I'm 100% done with this automation fetish. Do what you will.

Well, there is the exact line in the whole thing:

How could hotkeys ever build the right units for you? By detecting enemy unit ratios and building hard counters? How about how they would scout them in the first place? Or how they would know the best path to send the units at them?

Those are "strategic" signature enough for the player alone to be able to do. Now, quickly placing the buildings should be easy as possible. However, what to build should be the deciding factor of the player, because only he would know "best". That is where gameplay comes into play.

So, no, it isn't about automation. Choosing to turn power off to the building is your choice when you click it at some point and time. It reacting on it's own to do so when ordered to prior by you, is just carrying out an order on a delay specified by a measurable event. Were it any more complicated, it wouldn't be doable by a 20 line script of code that everyone wants to ban in tournaments. How can 20 lines of text kick your *** so hard? Is the computer that much smarter at strategy?

Choosing to build something is your choice as well. Having to click every friggin time to set it to build certain units, is extra clicks, when it could start by default as a dox-loop if you specify it to or if it could assist existing factories.

Choosing what units to use and where to send them, all in 1 place or amongst 4 smaller groups in 4 separate locations, is your strategic decision. Making them do what they are supposed to do is smorkasbork bullshizz. They are supposed to simply do what they are supposed to do. Target priorities exist in the engine. Dox NEED priority to fire at other dox, tanks need priority to fire at other tanks, these two suck at firing at each other if the other exists as a target. In my NavalRedux mod, leviathan prioritizes mobile-naval and mobile, stingray prioritizes adv naval and structure, and the scout aa/surface missile prioritizes air when present so when attacking surface it will shift to air so air don't come in second and hit without defense.

Also, if it is literally possible for dox to dodge or tanks to kite, then they probably ought to as well if set on that behavior. A toggle for "dodge to evade threat" on or off, a toggle for "kite at max range to evade threat" on or off. Dodge for dox to give rapid move-left-right orders randomly, kite for long range units to stay out of danger range of unit and if the unit is longer ranged to just stay out of range period. Give them behavior toggle, problem solved. Toggle off if you want to do manually. Toggle on if you are sending in 5 groups of units and expect them to WIPE THEIR OWN ARSE!

It would even be nice, if the commander could detect hostile threat in-range, and if it were over 6 it would decide to uber-cannon. Just change "secondary fire" to a toggle with "on" or "off" would be a start to be honest, if on it would use it liberally, if off it would only use it on attack commands.

I am going to be blunt here, it is stuff I don't want to click 5 times to do in the first place, let alone do so quickly while I babysit units. I don't see how anyone and everyone, even the top tourney and ladder players, couldn't benefit all the same, from being able to issue an order that frees them up from a form of later babysitting.

Every thing you automate takes a decision away from the player. If the decision is between make another unit and give a move order, then I'm sure all players of PA would agree that the decision to make another unit should be automated (although Starcraft players may not agree). But where do you draw the line?

It's my opinion that economy management and micro-managing troops are important things for the player to stay on top of. In the case of something like unit micro, then by having it automated you effectively remove it. If all units behave according to the same AI scripting when they have an engagement, it comes down purely to numbers in every case.